Watching Fiona Gallagher (Emmy Rossum) hit rock bottom just makes me wonder just how much alcoholism is a family trait rather than a conscious choice. That can be argued. The fact is that Fiona, for a spell, turned into her father Frank Gallagher (William H. Macy).

Bad Drunk

In the last Shameless episode, Lip Gallagher (Jeremy Allen White) kicked Fiona out of the house in order to force her into sobriety. He told her best friend Veronica “V” Ball (Shanola Hampton) to leave her on the streets if she really loved Fiona. To be fair, V does own a bar, so she would only be enabling her. However, the pettiness in me made me think: really Lip? You’re mad at Fiona when she took care of you when your shitty parents refused to? Oh! you forgot when you were pissing on walls and messed up your chances of being the first Gallagher to finish college? 

But even Frank, yes FRANK!, confronted Fiona on her drinking problem. He called her a “bad drunk” because she gets violent when she is not sober.

AA

Then it hit me, Lip loves Fiona. When she crawled out of that abandoned house and walked into an Alcoholic Anonymous meeting, I realized that he knew that she had to hit rock bottom in order to lift herself back up. In the next Shameless, Season 9 Episode 13, the scene opens with Fiona introducing herself at an AA meeting.

Losing her apartment building and her job  really did a number on her. When she had nothing else left, she turned to the bottle. Who can blame her? I was still mad at her for messing up her life over a bad deal and a bad break up. All men are not the same honey.

Daddy Lip

Lip wanted to foster a little girl but Fiona’s drinking habit messed it up for him. Tbh, it is not his place to take in a little girl when he has a full house. Go get your own apartment first bro. Now, he may or may not have a baby on the way because his girlfriend is contemplating an abortion. His true focus should be on himself and making sure that his potential child has an emotionally present father. He thinks he’s so high and mighty because he doesn’t drink, but he smokes cigarettes by the pack and spends his idle time worried about everyone else’s problems except his own. You still have some working on yourself to do mister.

Lesbian Debbie

Debbie Gallagher (Emma Kenney) has grown up to be a real asshole. Here she is, trying to steal her brother’s girlfriend. Carl Gallagher (Ethan Cutkosky) is surprisingly doing well for a kid who used to kill cats and sell drugs. He wants to go to the best military school and his girlfriend that helped him with that process, now has the hots for his sister. In the next episode, we see Debbie going in for a kiss and that’s after Carl’s girl left him. Out of all the girls on the south side of Chicago, she chooses to be with someone her brother loves.

Will Debbie date her brother’s ex girlfriend? Will Fiona stay on the right track this time? And will Lip become a father soon?

Tune into Shameless on SHOWTIME airing Sundays at 9 p.m. EST to find out.