Shameless - Season 9 Review

Season rating - 8-great Highlight episode - Found MVP: Emmy Rossum

This season's narrative was all over the place. I enjoyed most episodes on a base level but feel it suffered from last season's stagnant development of characters. The story's for Ian and Fiona (and the latter's permanent exit) lead them down a more interesting path and actually saw some long-term consequences for the show. Kev and V were great comedic relief as always, but their more serious moments - particularly when interacting with say Fiona or Lip - were when they excelled and I hope to see more of that.

Carl's arc reached a pretty good end but the whole Kelly love triangle with Debbie was pretty bad. Debbie pulled herself back down into the ranks of worst character, but she redeemed herself a bit in the finale. Lip - the most consistent character - had a semi-interesting arc and holds promise for the future. As a whole, the finale worked because of its series-long foundations, and so Fiona's exit and goodbyes - particularly to Frank - worked.