With the premiere of the ninth season on September 9, 2018, Shameless became the longest-running original scripted series in Showtime's history.[2][3] In January 2019, the series was renewed for a tenth season, which premiered on November 10, 2019.[4][5][6] In January 2020, the series was renewed for its eleventh and final season, which was scheduled to premiere in mid-2020, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic; it instead premiered on December 6, 2020.[7] On December 14, 2020, Showtime announced that they were airing a clip show series during Season 11, Shameless: Hall of Shame, containing new scenes juxtaposed with clips from the show to summarize the characters' journeys during the prior 10 seasons.[8] The series finale aired on April 11, 2021.
Premise
The series depicts the poor, dysfunctional family of Frank Gallagher, a neglectful single father of six: Fiona, Phillip, Ian, Debbie, Carl, and Liam. He spends his days drunk, high, or in search of misadventures, while his children learn to take care of themselves. The show's producers sought to distinguish this production from previous American working-class shows by highlighting how Frank's alcohol and drug addiction affect his family.
William H. Macy as Frank Gallagher, the patriarch of the Gallagher family and father to Sammi, Fiona, Lip, Carl, Debbie, and Liam, and uncle to Ian, whom he raises as his son. He is an alcoholic and chronically unemployed, instead making money through various scams. He is a narcissist and cares only about his next drink or drugs, often endangering or abandoning his children to fulfill his own needs.
Emmy Rossum as Fiona Gallagher, the feisty, street-smart eldest Gallagher sibling, who raises the children on her own due to Frank and Monica's neglect, and eventually becomes their legal guardian. She struggles with addiction, impulsive behavior and self-destructive tendencies. (seasons 1–9)
Justin Chatwin as Steve Wilton / Jimmy Lishman, a car thief who is the love interest of Fiona for the first three seasons. (seasons 1–3; special guest season 4; recurring season 5)
Ethan Cutkosky as Carl Gallagher, the third Gallagher brother, who has a tendency for trouble making as a child, and goes to juvenile prison as a teenager, but grows up to be a policeman after witnessing a murder and wanting to help the poor.
Shanola Hampton as Veronica "V" Fisher, Fiona’s best friend and neighbor, who lives with her husband Kevin and, later, their twin daughters. She and Kevin often help out the Gallaghers, being their only real adult role models.
Steve Howey as Kevin "Kev" Ball, Veronica’s husband and the owner of the series' main and local bar The Alibi.
Emma Kenney as Debbie Gallagher, the strong-willed youngest Gallagher daughter, who becomes a mother at age 15. She later comes out as a lesbian and dates Sandy Milkovich, the cousin to Mandy and Mickey. She displays extreme abandonment issues due to her parents' treatment which causes her to be clingy and erratic with her romantic relationships. As an adult, she becomes a free-lance welder.
Jeremy Allen White as Philip "Lip" Gallagher, the eldest Gallagher son, who is highly intelligent but struggles with alcohol addiction. He has a child with Tami in season 10 named Fred. He also takes on the childcare duties that his parents neglect.
Cameron Monaghan as Ian Gallagher, the strong-hearted, persistent, and goofy brother/cousin of the Gallaghers, who is the result of an affair between Monica and Frank’s brother. He is gay and engages in an on-and-off relationship with Mickey, whom he marries in season 10. Like his mother Monica, he struggles with bipolar disorder.
Noel Fisher as Mickey Milkovich, a violent and erratic member of the Milkovich family, who are neighbors of the Gallaghers. He is Ian’s main love interest and later husband who eventually becomes estranged from his family due to their homophobic and white supremacist attitudes. He has a son with his ex-wife Svetlana, whom he was forced to marry by his homophobic father. (seasons 3–5, 10–11; recurring seasons 1–2, 7; special guest seasons 6 and 9)
Joan Cusack as Sheila Jackson, mother to Karen and love interest to Frank for the first 5 seasons. She is a sex addict seeking dominance over men and suffers from agoraphobia which prevents her leaving the house in the earlier seasons. She leaves Chicago in an RV at the end of season 5. (seasons 1–5)
Laura Slade Wiggins as Karen Jackson, Sheila’s rebellious and destructive daughter and an early love interest for Lip. (seasons 1–2; recurring season 3)
Zach McGowan as Jody Silverman, Karen's husband and adoptive father to her son, who later becomes a love interest to Sheila before reuniting with Karen again and moving away. (season 3; recurring season 2)
Emma Greenwell as Mandy Milkovich, the sister of Mickey, love interest of Lip and best friend of Ian whom she pretends to date in season one to hide the fact he is gay. She eventually leaves to escape her physically abusive husband. (seasons 3–4; recurring season 2; special guest seasons 5–6) (Jane Levy played Mandy for six episodes of season 1)
Emily Bergl as Sammi Slott, the needy and manipulative elder half-sister of the Gallaghers, who is revealed in season 4 to be a product of a teen romance of Frank's. She is the mother to Chuck. (season 5; recurring season 4)
Isidora Goreshter as Svetlana Yevgenivna, a Russian émigré who is Mickey's wife and the mother of his child. She later divorces him and engages in a throuple with Kevin and Veronica while working at their bar. (seasons 7–8; guest season 3; recurring seasons 4–6)
Richard Flood as Ford Kellogg, an Irish carpenter and love interest to Fiona. (season 9; recurring season 8)
Christian Isaiah as Liam Gallagher, the mixed-race youngest Gallagher child whose true parentage is ambiguous. As the youngest child, his care is a key priority for his older siblings throughout the series. (seasons 9–11; recurring season 8)
Kate Miner as Tami Tamietti, a hairdresser from a middle-class background who is Lip’s love interest and later mother to his child. (seasons 10–11; recurring season 9)
Shameless was adapted from a long-running, award-winning British television comedy drama of the same name.[9]HBO began developing an American version of Shameless after striking a deal with John Wells in January 2009.[10] By April of that year, development had moved to Showtime. John Wells Productions taped a pilot episode for the cable network in December 2009.[11][12] The show's creator Paul Abbott said, "It's not My Name Is Earl or Roseanne. It's got a much graver level of poverty attached to it. It's not blue collar, it's no collar."[12]ShowrunnerJohn Wells fought efforts to place the show in the South or in a trailer park. "We have a comedic tradition of making fun of the people in those worlds," he said. "The reality is that these people aren't 'the other'—they're people who live four blocks down from you and two blocks over."[12]
William H. Macy stars in the lead role as Frank Gallagher, joined by Emmy Rossum as Fiona and Justin Chatwin as Steve, former co-stars from Dragonball Evolution.[13][14] Paul Abbott, whose semi-autobiographical telescript was the basis for the UK pilot, is credited as an executive producer on the U.S. version.[12]
In April 2010, Showtime green-lit the series with a 12-episode order.[15]
Before William H. Macy took the role, Woody Harrelson was originally considered to play the character Frank Gallagher in the 2010 remake.[16]
The Sheila Jackson character (a romantic interest for Frank), was first portrayed by Allison Janney in a pilot; however, in late August 2010, the role was recast and Joan Cusack ended up playing Sheila for the aired episodes.[17] Production began in mid-September.[17]
A preview of the pilot aired on December 12, 2010, after the Season 5 finale of Dexter. The first season officially began airing on Showtime on Sunday, January 9, 2011.[18]
The series is set in Chicago's Back of the Yards neighborhood on the South Side.[19][20][21] The house that the Gallaghers call home is an actual house in an actual Chicago neighborhood and has been visited by fans.[22]
Most episodes begin with one of the main characters breaking the fourth wall to berate the viewer about missing previous episodes. Then the show cuts to a recap montage of plot points relevant to the current episode, followed by the opening title sequence.
Filming
The series is mostly filmed at a Los Angeles studio, with some scenes filmed in Chicago.[23] Despite most of the filming being done in California, most of the houses and other notable locations can actually be found in the Southside of Chicago, Illinois.[24] Initial shooting of the second season began on July 5, 2011[25] and premiered January 8, 2012.[26] The series was renewed for a third season on February 1, 2012,[27] and initial shooting began June 27, 2012.[28] The third season premiered on January 13, 2013, and two weeks later on January 29, Shameless was renewed for a fourth season.[29] It premiered January 12, 2014. On February 18, 2014, the series was renewed for a fifth season.[30] Production on the first episode of the fifth season began on July 3, 2014 with the first episode table read,[31] with initial shooting for the season beginning on July 8, 2014.[32][33] The series was renewed for a sixth season on January 12, 2015.[34]Shameless was renewed for a 12-episode seventh season on January 12, 2016.[35] Season 7 premiered on October 2, 2016.
In December 2016 it was reported that Emmy Rossum, after multiple seasons of being paid significantly less than her co-star William H. Macy, requested that she be paid equally and compensated in future seasons to make up for the previous salary discrepancies. The equal pay negotiations, which were vocally supported by her co-star Macy,[36] briefly delayed work on an eighth season of the series while she and Warner Bros. Television negotiated. The dispute came to an end on December 14, when Rossum confirmed through Twitter that she would continue to work on the series, with production of an eighth season to begin in May 2017.[37] On December 19, 2016, Showtime officially announced that Shameless had been renewed for an eighth season.[38] Just days after the eighth season premiere, it was announced that the show had been renewed for a ninth, which would bring the show past the 100-episode mark.[39][40]
In August 2018, Rossum announced her departure from Shameless after nine seasons playing Fiona Gallagher.[41] In October 2018, Cameron Monaghan also announced his departure from the series after playing Ian Gallagher for nine seasons; however, it was later announced Monaghan was expected to return for the tenth season.[42]
On January 13, 2020, it was announced that the series had been renewed for its eleventh and final season, which had been scheduled to air in summer 2020 but was then delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that Macy, White, Cutkosky, Hampton, Howey, Kenney, Monaghan, Fisher, Miner, and Isaiah would all return for the series' final season.[43] Production on the final season commenced on September 8, 2020.[44] Production for the final season ended on March 12, 2021.
In promotion for the second-season premiere, the entire cast sang their own version of a Christmas carol, entitled "Shameless: Christmas Carol".[46][47][48]
Broadcast
Shameless premiered on January 9, 2011 in the United States, becoming Showtime's highest-rated series debut on record across the network's target demographic. The first episode of the series generated 982,000 unique viewers and was Showtime's largest audience for a series premiere since Dead Like Me in 2003.
The fourth episode, "Casey Casden", airing January 30, posted 1.45 million total viewers. Shameless was the cable channel's best-performing first-year drama. Defying the usual downward trend following a premiere, the series built on its initial audience, becoming number one in its time slot among adults aged 18 through 49. Subsequent episodes' audiences fluctuated between a million and 1.14 million viewers. The March 27, 2021 season finale, "Father Frank, Full of Grace," drew an audience of 1.157 million.
The third season's premiere episode, "El Gran Cañon" (airing January 13, 2013), drew 2 million viewers, becoming the show's highest rated episode to date. It then maintained average ratings of just below a million viewers throughout the remainder of its episodes.
Reception
Critical reception
Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter said that "Shameless is excellent, compelling television from the first moment. As long as it stays true to the roots of the original, it's going to be essential viewing". The show's first season score on Metacritic is a 66 of 100, which is a generally favorable review. The second season score on Metacritic is a 76 of 100, indicating increasingly favorable reviews.[49] Tom O'Neill of the Los Angeles Times reported on the Emmy buzz about Shameless, especially with respect to the performance of Emmy Rossum. He said "she didn't have much Emmy buzz after Shameless debuted in January, but that changed after she gave powerhouse turns in such episodes as 'But at Last Came a Knock'".[50]BuddyTV ranked Shameless #8 on its list of 2011's best new TV shows.[51] Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the first season a 'fresh' rating of 70% based on 37 reviews, with the critical consensus "Shameless is a dark, urban dramedy that overcomes its leaps of logic thanks to fantastic casting, intriguing ambiance, and shock value." Seasons 2–8 each have an above 90% rating as of 2021, with the exception of season 7, which has an 88% rating. Seasons 9, 10, and 11 have the lowest ratings with 73%, 20%, and 70% respectively as of February 2022.[52]
Ratings
The first episode of the series, "Pilot", was watched by 982,000 viewers, making it the network's biggest turnout for a series premiere since Dead Like Me in 2003.[53] The episode airing January 30, "Casey Casden", received 1.45 million total viewers, making Shameless the best performing first-year drama on Showtime.[54]
Bringing Shameless to America – A look at the process of reworking and repurposing a successful UK television series for an American premium cable audience.
Bringing the Fun to Dysfunctional – Go behind-the-scenes of the show with key members of the cast and crew in this much-too-brief making-the-series featurette.
A Shameless Discussion About Sex – Rossum and co-stars Steve Howey, Justin Chatwin and Shanola Hampton have a candid chat about the sex in Shameless.
Audio Commentaries – Two commentaries are available:
"Pilot" and "Frank Gallagher: Loving Husband, Devoted Father"
Deleted Scenes
Season 2 Sneak Peek – A look into season 2 of Shameless
The Complicated Life of Fiona Gallagher (featurette) – Fiona returns with a whole new host of problems, and Rossum talks about her character and the future of the Gallagher clan.
The Art of Acting Drunk (featurette) – William H. Macy takes a hard look at Frank and his future.
Behind the Scenes: Writing the Shameless Version (featurette) – A second-season roundtable chat.
A Shameless Actor Discussion – 5 Interviews between various cast members.
A Shameless Look at Season 3 – A behind-the-scenes sneak peek of the third season of Shameless.
Where the Streets Have No Shame (featurette) – Go behind the scenes with the Shameless cast and crew as they prep a number of sets and streets for the third season shoot.
The Many Sides of Sheila (featurette) – Joan Cusack's character Sheila steps center stage as the actress, writer Mike O'Malley and other key members of the team discuss her development and evolution.
An Officer and a Gallagher (featurette) – The same treatment is given to Cameron Monaghan's Ian.
A Lip Off the Old Block (featurette) – Followed by Jeremy Allen White's Phillip.
Being Milkovich (featurette) – More character dissections with Noel Fisher and Emma Greenwell.
A Messy Triangle (featurette) – Lip, Karen and Mandy's... relationship.
^Rossum, Emmy (July 3, 2011). "@emmyrossum on Twitter". Twitter. Archived from the original on March 11, 2016. Retrieved July 18, 2011. Crazy week getting ready for season two. Tuesday july 5 is day 1 of shooting. Read thru Thursday was great. We have a lot of fun in store!
