The "Shameless" Gallagher Family: Waiting for Resolution

By Jeffrey Preis

A pill popping Mother and Father drive around town with their infant on the ground of the backseat; an enraged Father beats a teenage boy up for believing he impregnated his daughter when, in fact, said Father drunkenly impregnated his daughter; another pregnant teenage girl finds out her Mother is having sexual relations with her former Fiancé; and a Brazilian is trapped in a crate on a barge to bypass customs into the country.

For the Gallagher Family, this is any ordinary day. These are just some of the storylines from Sunday’s episode of Showtime’s Shameless.

Most, if not all, of the Gallagher ways are unorthodox, they always remain a tight-knit family unit through each episode, as evidenced in this weeks show with the reappearance of Monica, their Mother. They are a real family and similar to any working class family trying to keep their heads above water, but do so in their own bizarre way. They rely on the chaos and spontaneity of their deadbeat Dad, but they aren’t prepared once Monica reenters the picture.

As Shameless approaches the end of its second season, the character building has subsided and the outrageous storyline has played out in full force. With a cast of eleven actors—and more than eleven different conflicts—the show never ceases to flirt with the line between reality and unbelievable lives.

Monica—Frank’s ex-wife and Mother of the six children—returns in this episode after years of abandonment from her children. Off of her medicine for her Bi-polar disorder and ready to re-enter the lives of her children as abruptly as she left them, Monica moves back in with Frank jumping immediately into their former lifestyle of drugs and alcohol. The younger children can’t understand while the older three siblings have such distaste for their Mother—Monica acts like a good Mother at first, interacting with her Children, making their lunches, and trying very hard to reconnect. She assures everyone that she’s fine and capable of maintaining order—as far as order can be maintained in the Gallagher house.

Fiona, the eldest and responsible for the other five children (and her Dad, Frank), believes with her Mom back in the picture, the possibility of college and work is actually attainable. As Frank tells Fiona, “you only get one mother,” so she lets her guard down at the sight of her younger siblings enjoying their parents together (never soberly) which causes the house to crumble in a matter of days. Monica stole the money from their secret stash of cash—the “squirrel fund”—and spent it on a busted car, gifts for the younger kids, and a plethora of drugs and alcohol.

With only one episode left and so much occurring, I find myself questioning not what will happen, but who’s storyline will play out. The season could have easily ended with Frank appearing on Monica’s door, letting her know his Mother died (how the episode before this week ended). Instead, it kept going and everyone’s conflict seems unresolved.

Throughout the second season of Shameless, it’s become more apparent than ever how this dysfunctional working class family actually wants to have something concrete in their lives—they want a foundation of stability and cling to any hope of it, even if it is their outrageous Mother who left them years before.

In all twenty episodes to date, there has never been a dull moment in this series. This episode didn’t fail to deliver either. Like the Gallagher family, I too depend on the craziness and unpredictability of all eleven characters. Showtime allows a glimpse into a working class family that survives in the most criminal of ways—something a comedy/drama hasn’t done before.

I’m left to believe that Monica will be around for the next couple of episodes (and potentially into the beginning of season 3), since the Gallagher’s now have her to turn to for lunacy. It was definitely a nice change of pace—something different from the usual who’s trying to kill Frank, or which member of the family is dodging the police this week. With Monica off her medication and on a bender with no end in site, the season finale should be filled with drama that can more-than-likely be pointed to their deadbeat Mother—which might be a nice change for you and me, but much to the Gallagher’s dismay.  

"The Descendents" Embodies the Ordinary and the Imperfect Faces of Everyday

By Jeffrey Preis

There are few movies that take place in Hawaii that don’t take advantage of the Eden at hand, playing up the idea of a paradise, problem free lifestyle. During a voice-over at the beginning of the film, Matt King (George Clooney) questions why his friends think that because he lives in Hawaii he’s “immune to life.”

TheDescendants does a beautiful job of showing the imperfections in every family; the tumultuous problems that occur in a lifetime happen to Matt King all at once as he tells his wife goodbye, parenting two children with problems of their own, finding out about his wife’s love affair, and selling off his extended family’s land that dates back to the earliest white settlers and Hawaiian royalty.

It is apparent that Matt has been distant from his wife and children. He’s a successful real-estate attorney who focuses more on his work and only realizes once his daughter, Alexandra (Shailene Woodley), tells him— and after his wife is in a coma—that his wife had an affair with a local real-estate broker (Matthew Lillard).

After hearing this news, Matt leaves his house and clumsily slips on his boat shoes and begins running, rather goofily, down the street. At first it’s unclear where he’s going, if anywhere, perhaps just running from the problems that keep amounting in his life. This scene, which I understand is not atypical of director Alexander Payne, holds some natural truth to it that we’ve all faced—the need to get out.

As the self-proclaimed “backup parent, the understudy,” Matt King must step up as the Father he never was to his 17 and 10 year old daughters when his wife goes into an irreversible coma. After finding out about his wife’s affair, he wants to confront the man to let him know of his wife’s imminent death. Matt’s also is faced with the challenge of selling his family’s 25,000 acre property on Kauai, constantly facing pressure from his comically pushy cousins.

Payne directs scenes—such as Matt fleeing from his house—flawlessly. He makes it almost too recognizable, something most people can relate with directly. The film is about a broken family and the path they take to heal while constantly having to take two steps. Payne focuses on the imperfections in life and maintains this until the final scene in the movie.

It would not be fair to mention the directing without the acting. Together, the movie works wonderfully and each actor did an awesome job of portraying the struggles their characters face. Clooney makes it easy to see the years of disconnect and the obvious fear of Matt examining himself. He maintains a calm but with obvious signs of struggling—something only a seasoned actor might know how to convey. Woodley plays Alexandra whose contemptuous behavior and obvious rejection for parenting are matched by many 17-year-old girls. Every role, no matter how small, fit in perfectly and adds to the intentional slower pace of the movie.

Together, Payne, Clooney, and Woodley score almost perfectly in this difficult theme of bereavement under unique circumstances. Payne focuses on the good and the bad within us, the love and hate, and the emotions that only surface under certain—usually tragic—conditions. The Descendents embodies the ordinary—Matt King—and the imperfect faces of everyday.  

Once Upon a Time: A Step Ahead of Disney

By Brittney Hubbard

Nobody likes when the bad guy wins.  Yet the sweet and misplaced fairytale characters of Storybrooke, Main in ABC’s new fairytale drama Once Upon a Time continue to suffer the omniscient reign of the Evil Queen (alternately known as Regina and played by Lana Parilla).  This has been my main problem with the past few episodes of this show.  But at last, the writers have made a slight shift from the back stories of the characters.  The plot thickens and some characters beliefs are tested: watch to see who finds their faith and whose is set adrift. 

This week’s theme: the power of a broken heart.

Something at one point or another we can all relate to.

The drama begins in the first scene where Prince Charming (alternatively known as David and played by Josh Dallas) and Red Riding Hood (alternatively known as Ruby and played by Meghan Ory) were searching for Snow White (alternatively known as Mary Margaret and played by Ginnifer Goodwin) being chased by the King’s men.  Red assuredly tells Charming to go on after Snow and she’d handle the group hunting them.  Little did he know what she planned to do when she looked up at the moon and took off her cloak? 

We finally see Snow, and I almost wrote the scene off as a typical Disney script.  To my surprise, we see that Rumplestilskin made quite the powerful potion.  It was a potion that Snow drank to make her forget her true love.  But Rumple teaches us that all magic comes with a price, and all medicine comes with a side effect.  Snows potion left her bitter and hateful towards everyone.  Snow was in her cottage humming “With a Smile and a Song” when she reached out to a blue bird and abruptly whacked the bird with a broom! The snarling Snow even managed to tick off the most agreeable of dwarves-- Happy.  The dwarves stage an intervention, which quickly backfired.  That’s when Snow decided to kill the source of her problems- the evil queen.  We see Snow go from trying to kill the vermin in the cottage to taking out the Evil Queen.  Seeing Snow White as such a blood thirsty ravenous killer was hard for my predispositions to swallow and got me questioning who the evil one is now? 

Once Upon a Time is fascinating in that it takes a fairy tale world we thought we knew and makes it more than we ever dreamed. 

Back in Storybrooke, Maine we have a crime on our hands- the murder of David’s wife, Kathryn (alternatively known as Abigail played by Anastasia Griffith).  David and Mary Margaret are both suspects.  Once the evidence points to Mary Margaret, David questions the truth of her alimony.  Combine that with the scene in the fairy tale world where Snow tells Charming she will always find him as they drag him away.  My heart can’t take any more pain for this couple.  Just how many times will life’s forces cause them to forget each other, be separated, and once again have to find one another? 

At the close of this episode there are many answers still to be revealed.  Is Kathryn really dead?  Will all the lost couples ever reunite again? Will good ever trump evil?  But as I reflect on this episode I repeat the words of the Evil Queen (Lana Parilla) in this week’s episode “Having your heart broken can make you do unspeakable things.” 

And I challenge us to think, do you still have faith in the power of love or Once Upon a Time?