BWW Recap: Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em on SHAMELESS

SHAMELESS took a bit of a dark turn tonight as Carl comes face to face with his reality. Now homeless and spread out all over the city, the Gallaghers are struggling more than ever to keep it together.

When Gawker picks up the Helene scandal, Lip makes one last ditch effort to get Amanda to help, but her revenge keeps her satisfied. WIth the threats she has received from feminist groups, she has to leave campus anyway. At the disciplinary hearing, the committee questions Lip on his affair with Helene and he professes that it was consensual and genuine love. Conversely, Helene tells them she made a mistake and is seeking sexual addiction counseling. Lip, heartbroken, begs her for another chance and she threatens him against ever seeing her or her family again.

Ian is dancing in unfamiliar territory as Caleb and he begin to date. Caleb goes to nice restaurants and orders fancy food and only wants to take things slowly. Caleb takes Ian on a ride along with the firemen and Ian is able to jump in and medically treat a broken arm with his military training. Is Ian finally glimpsing what he could become?

When Frank and Debbie find out that Erika is inexplicably entering remission, Frank encourages Debbie to give in to an affair with Erika instead of Tyler. Erika suggests Debbie have a gender reveal party at her house to announce the sex of her baby. Frank decides to crash in the crawl space under the old Gallagher house and finds Chuckie living there. Chuckie's grandmother, Sammy's mother (Sherilyn Fenn) shows up to rescue him and she and Frank immediately rekindle their romance right on the front lawn.

Fiona is still in mourning about losing the house and decides to break into the empty place and retrieve some memories. While there, she runs into the new owner and the inspector who are less than pleased at the condition of the house. They decide to rescind their offer. With the opportunity to buy the house back from the bank, Fiona has to contact Gus to get him sign over his rights to any ownership to the house. After he gives her the runaround for a few days, he finally shows up at the diner and basically tells her to go to hell and pours coffee all over the documents. She does go through with the abortion (eh, what do I know?) and nearly collapses in Sean's arms in devastation over losing the house.

Kev decides to embrace is old customers after all the hipsters abandon him. Now that they are not allowed in, the hipsters desperately want back in. A clever ploy by Kev and V. They put the most dangerous person they know as the bouncer for the door: the little girl refugee from Myanmar.

Carl spoils Nick with fancy hotel rooms and a new car to help get over the loss of his bike. Nick tells Carl he dreams of leaving "the life" and buying a farm in the middle of nowhere with no people around. As they're driving, Nick sees a young boy on his stolen bike. He drops Carl and Debbie off and takes off after him. When Carl finally catches up, Nick has brutally murdered the little boy with a hammer. Traumatized, Carl heads to Sean's who has no choice but to let him in. Carl digs up a bag of money and gives it to Fiona begging her to buy their house back.

Pretty much any time someone speaks about their dreams of the future and happy life, you can tell something very bad is going to happen, right? But I did NOT see that coming. That was a hell of a way to wrap up that story line and a big kudos to Carl (Ethan Cutkosky) for pulling off the best performance of his tenure on SHAMELESS. A big kick in the face that he's still a little boy playing in a dangerous world, it was hard to watch.

As for Fiona, sorry, I'm still with Gus on this one. I love Fiona and the Gallaghers, but Gus owes her nothing. And isn't Sean turning out to be boyfriend of the year? I wasn't all that keen on him in the beginning, but he's so good for her. I'm dreading the inevitable day when she screws it all up.

Photo Credit: SHOWTIME

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