After savoring the entire final season, I have criticisms, but the one thing they did right throughout the entirety of the show was tell Ian and Mickey’s story.
Cameron Monaghan plays Ian Gallagher (left) and Noel Fisher plays Mickey Milkovich (right) on Showtime’s Shameless, which recently completed an 11-season run.
SPOILER ALERT - Shameless, Brokeback Mountain
Ending a mammoth TV series is tedious. They can’t all be Seinfeld. Dexter, a dramatic series with longer episodes, crashed and burned, forcing even the most diehard fans to cringe, curse, and hate-watch their way through its final two seasons. I say this as someone who lovingly dusts off each blood-spattered box of the entire series on my DVD shelf, before selecting and re-watching season four, again.
Similarly, I’ve heard “jumped the shark” about Showtime’s Shameless more than once, but to me, the whole series built on such outrageous situations, it simply stayed faithful to its chaotic environment and UK source material. This show’s South Side of Chicago operates on a sort of magical realism, where we’re supposed to believe a family of petty criminals and their fictive kin and ne’re-do-well friends get away with it or suffer conveniently mild repercussions for a season.
The consensus might be that Shameless could have said goodbye with Emmy Rossum’s exit at the end of season 9, but such an abrupt ending would have left too many unresolved Gallagher plots. When you have such a large ensemble of characters, closing all the arcs is even more complicated; it’s certainly not as easy as sending all four of your main characters to the same jail cell. I mean, poor Debbie’s line turned into more of a messy, bad parent, bisexual scribble, and I’m left wanting more for Lip. After savoring the entire final season, I have criticisms, but the one thing they did right throughout the entirety of the show was tell Ian and Mickey’s story.
Gallavich! Over the course of ten years, we watched two angry, misguided, sexually oppressed South Side boys fall in love and become somewhat well-rounded men, who get married and learn to care for each other. It’s the only piece of the Gallagher story that got less chaotic from start to finish. The finale superficially wraps up many what-ifs with Frank’s death monologue, but I was most taken with the directorial choice to show us what actually becomes of Ian and Mickey. Their love story deserved the visual send off, and I definitely happy cried.
The first Ian and Mickey interaction we get in season one sets the tone for their individual characters, as well as their main conflict. Mickey, the filthy, neighborhood sadist who operates purely on Id impulses, seeks to pulverize a timid, unsteady Ian for supposedly putting the moves on his sister, Mandy. The bully and the bullied. As a lesbian, I had already aligned myself with Ian being a queer character, so the part where Mickey and his equally deviant brothers chase Ian into a storage closet (literally, a closet) was visceral for me.
The first season builds on their foil relation with Mickey searching the streets for Ian, suggesting there will be a hate crime crescendo. Instead, Ian comes out to Mandy, hoping she’ll call Mickey off. Though it doesn’t quite work out that way, it’s saying out loud that he’s gay that emboldens Ian to stand up to his bully.
In a confrontational moment, where we think Mickey is about to bash Ian’s face in with a tire iron, they share an aggressive sexual encounter and begin secretly hooking up. Plus, we find out that big bad Mickey is a power bottom. So much to unpack!
I think of the entire Gallavich rapport as the Southie version of “Brokeback Mountain” with a much happier ending. In “Brokeback Mountain,” Ennis Del Mar was raised to believe that showing any softness was gay. His father even tells him about a fellow named Earl who was beaten to death with a tire iron for being with men. Mickey grew up with the same guidelines under the watchful eye of his white supremacist, hyper-homophobic, convict father.
In both worlds, being gay gets you killed. In one of their earlier scenes, Mickey rejects Ian by turning and saying, “kiss me and I’ll cut your fucking tongue out.” There are many times Mickey reduces them immediately after they’ve been intimate together.
So, the struggle for the tire iron in that heated confrontation between Ian and Mickey begins to show us again that it is a handy tool used by hyper-homophobic men to beat queers to death. However, when the tire iron is thrown aside and Mickey chooses love, all the power is taken out of it as a weapon of hate.
In a particularly terrifying scene from season three, after discovering Mickey and Ian’s more-than-friends relationship, Mickey’s father holds him at gunpoint in front of Ian, while he forces him to have sex with a prostitute that will fuck the gay out of him. For me, none of the other violent scenes in the whole series (and there are plenty), are as disturbing as this one. It’s a type of rape I don’t have a word for.
The thing that holds Brokeback’s Ennis and Jack back from having a real good life together is Ennis’ fear of being a known homosexual, and the horror of being beaten to death with a tire iron because of it, like Earl and eventually, Jack. So, the struggle for the tire iron in that heated confrontation between Ian and Mickey begins to show us again that it is a handy tool used by hyper-homophobic men to beat queers to death. However, when the tire iron is thrown aside and Mickey chooses love, all the power is taken out of it as a weapon of hate. Ultimately, the season ends in a step back with Mickey going to jail because he would rather do time than admit he’s gay. He isn’t free like Ian.
Over the course of the next few seasons, we see them love each other in secret. Much like Ennis and Jack, they get their kicks where they can, but there’s a lot more uncomfortable, toxic-masculinity-fueled, aggressive sex. Ian pines for a real relationship with Mickey; he wants a real good life, like the one Jack talks about in “Brokeback Mountain.” Instead, Mickey marries the aforementioned prostitute with the intention of continuing to string Ian along, and we’re all heartbroken, but understanding, when Ian has to cut him off. Ian becomes lost and struggles with his mental health, but never his sexuality. Hello, Gay Jesus!
Ian stays free and begins being cold to Mickey, even though he can’t quite quit him. In a memorable Alibi scene, Ian tells Mickey he can’t be with him because he’s not free. In true gay cowboy fashion, Mickey whispers to Ian, “what you and I have, makes me free.”
The hushed statement comes too little, too late and falls short of what Ian truly wants with Mickey. Somewhere along the line, Mickey ends up back in jail. Again, he’s tethered to the life he knows, unwilling to be loved and love Ian openly. We continue to see snippets of Mickey’s vulnerability, but it’s not until the border crossing scene in season seven that we get to know how much Mickey hurts. The vulnerability of this scene is punctuated by Mickey wearing a dress and earrings, a disguise he chose to elude capture. It’s also the point that signals to us, or so we thought, the end of their tumultuous relationship.
At least for me, it felt like a proper exit for Noel Fisher, even if it wasn’t what we wanted. Lucky for us, the writers weren’t done with Gallavich. In season nine, we’re given the Mickey’s return and the blessing of a jailhouse engagement, complete with some delightful ‘honeymoon’s over’ moments, which leaned into the idea that love is the same for everyone; too much time in close quarters makes you realize all of your partner’s annoying idiosyncratic behaviors. I’m sure those are fresh feelings for anyone who might have spent the last year in captivity with a slurper, or a heavy-heeled walker, or a tooth grinding, finger tapping nightmare person. Regardless, season seven and nine turned the tables on their love scenes as well. They felt tender, almost normal, and exposed the very nerves of both characters. We were no longer holding our breath for stolen moments like we did for Ennis and Jack’s fishing trips.
Alas, the finale of season 10 gave us the gay South Side wedding we had yearned for, but there was still work to do. Mickey was free, but he was also still driven by his old habits. Even though the pair made it official, Mickey planned to stay the course of his criminal impulses. It’s Ian that protests and rises to the occasion of truly being Mickey’s better half and keeping him free, with maybe the exception of the super believable ambulance theft scenario. Anyway, we slowly see the two release themselves of the binds of their fucked up, feral childhoods and begin to take care of each other the best way they know how.
I was originally going to write about the wonderful things Schitt’s Creek gave the LGBTQIA+ community. I still might, because seeing gay people on TV, existing in a normal relationship without a bunch of trauma is rare.
Season 11 was a tall order for the writers, but they continued to give us a couple who could compromise and become better, for their individual character development and as a unit. In my opinion, they did a brilliant job pushing Mickey. Before Mickey could be completely free, he had to reckon with and resolve his tense relationship with his father. They gave us that, and more tenderness with Ian, an agreement to be monogamous, and eventually, Gallavich got a real good life together on the West Side. It was everything we didn’t get for Ennis and Jack, and right before the final ensemble scene of the grand finale, we get to see Mickey as Ian’s partner, not just a partner in crime.
I was originally going to write about the wonderful things Schitt’s Creek gave the LGBTQIA+ community. I still might, because seeing gay people on TV, existing in a normal relationship without a bunch of trauma is rare. Being out and free can be seen as one of the few luxuries Dan Levy’s character retains in that show, and in contrast to Shameless, it certainly is a luxury.
I wrote about Shameless over Schitt’s Creek this time, specifically to share during LGBTQIA+ Pride Month, because Ian and Mickey’s message is as important when approaching barriers of class, culture, and individual upbringing affecting someone’s ability to be out. So, I agree that Shameless gave us a lot of wtf moments we weren’t buying and didn’t want, like Kermit and Tommy’s random hook up in the Alibi men’s room; but the loveliest plot it consistently watered was showing the world a couple of emotionally stunted dudes learn about their own sense of pride, self-care, and to how to unapologetically love one another. It’s far from a fairytale love story, but damn if it ain’t one that needed the visibility.
Charleston born, thriving in Georgia. Lauren Wiggins is a USC graduate with a love of film and literature. Left human services to love people. Left advertising to pursue happiness. Will work for laughs.