When Paul Abbott created the successful BBC version, which later became John Wells’ even more successful Showtime series, Shameless was intended to caricature the lives of a family, so removed from the morals, etiquette, dress-code and all other forms of acceptable social behavior, that we would giggle in holier-than-thou horror at their uproariously implausible antics.  As a die-hard fan, I have embraced the brilliantly weird struggle of being fully invested in the Gallaghers, on the one hand, hoping for the tiniest ray of light to find its way into the dark, dank hole of their existence, while simultaneously shunning that notion because their abject hopelessness is side-splittingly hilarious.  Now, many seasons into their fiction, we find ourselves drowning in a too real daily version of the most blatantly shameless, divisive, soul-stealing behavior, (possibly in our not-very-squeaky-clean history), which has so destabilized the equilibrium necessary to balance and focus our gaze at an optimistic future, that any clear-thinking individual is left muttering in despair.  Oh, and unless your thing is gallows humor, there is nothing funny going on here.  Rapists, bigots, traitors and con men/women of every ilk, (and as dastardly as any Stan Lee-penned cadre of DC villains), are openly sucking the oxygen out of every cubic inch of breathable air and, unless the suckers are alien invaders with a unique approach to the annihilation of humankind, the motivation is thought-free mayhem.  The rapid, chaotic plunge, haphazardly orchestrated by parade leader Trump, (the hair isn’t so different from one of those stupid drum major hats, right?), has given voice to demonic, Frank Gallagher-esque, shoulder devils, the cacophony of which is the hatred that will assure the success of the alien, (if that theory holds up…I’m just sayin’), invasion.

Shameful!