TV Show Review

TV Review: SHAMELESS: Season 4, Episode 10: Liver, I Hardly Know Her

Emmy Rossum Shameless Liver I Hardly Know Her

Showtime’s Shameless Liver, I Hardly Know Her TV Show Review. Shameless: Season 4, Episode 10: Liver, I Hardly Know Her began with a ruined life being drowned, suffocated, and bludgeoned to death by everything at hand. Fiona Gallagher (Emmy Rossum)’s sorrow odyssey was a completely different scenario than what the viewer may have been expecting when Fiona went over to Robbie Pratt (Nick Gehlfuss)’s apartment at the end of The Legend of Bonnie and Carl. Fiona bottoming out the way she did in Liver, I Hardly Know Her was ironic yet fitting considering how she became a felon in the first place. I was under the impression that Fiona had learned her lesson, especially considering her ordeal during Iron City but one variable was missing from my assumption equation: Fiona is a Gallagher.

One thing is clear though: there is no where for her to go but up from here. The question is: Will Fiona be able to talk her way out of her probation violation?

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If the viewer believed that Mandy Milkovich (Emma Greenwell) had low self-esteem before this episode, it was confirmed by the person she was making lunch for in Liver, I Hardly Know Her. It may have been the GTFOOH moment of the season. Mandy’s call sign  (à la Top Gun) should be changed from ‘Shankovich’ to ‘Punching Bag.’ The fact that she has low self-esteem is understandable because of the life and family she has had to endure (Battered Woman Syndrome mixed with a large dose “This is what I deserve”) but at the same time it made her pronouncement at the beginning of the episode hollow. The fact that she will hit Ian Gallagher (Cameron Monaghan) but not her abuser showed just how Lizzie Samuels-warped her mind really was.

The situation also brought up a glaring hole in Mandy’s life: a big brother that will stand up for her. I was really impressed with Mickey Milkovich (Noel Fisher)’s Snake Plissken-like attitude to other people’s suffering. Mickey was ready to use an AR-15 in retaliation for someone robbing him yet the person that beat his sister he did nothing to. Indignation is not action. Like George R.R. Martin wrote: “Words are wind.” Mickey is a narcissist out of necessity but his world view has to widen. Rome is burning all around him yet all he sees are his own desires and goals.

The machinations of Sheila Jackson (Joan Cusack) and Frank Gallagher (William H. Macy)’s illegitimate marriage ceremony (Frank is still married to his first wife) were amusing to watch, especially the shoe scene, but nothing more than that.

The surprise at the end of the episode was not really ‘out of left field,’ though it was an example of narrative stultification when it comes to medical protocols. Does proximity and a dire need really get you moved to the top of certain lists when people have been on those lists for years and you have only recently been added to them? In the Showtime universe (remember the lunacy of the last three seasons of Dexter) it does. If this was feasibly how a person could ‘jump the line,’ people on transplant lists would simply stab themselves in their failing organ and go to hospital.

This was a silly way to tie-up a plot-line, preceded by an even sillier ceremony.

Leave your thoughts on this review and this episode of Shameless below in the comments section. For more Shameless reviews, photos, videos, and information, visit our Shameless Page, subscribe to us by Email, “follow” us on Twitter, Tumblr, or “like” us on Facebook.

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Rollo Tomasi

Rollo Tomasi is a Connecticut-based film critic, TV show critic, news, and editorial writer. He will have a MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University in 2025. Rollo has written over 700 film, TV show, short film, Blu-ray, and 4K-Ultra reviews. His reviews are published in IMDb's External Reviews and in Google News. Previously you could find his work at Empire Movies, Blogcritics, and AltFilmGuide. Now you can find his work at FilmBook.
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