Shameless 'Pilgrims Intended' Analysis

At the beginning of last semester, I started watching Shameless. Shameless, created by Paul Abbott and developed by John Wells, stars William Macy and Emmy Rossum. The series is successfully able to interpolate its audience and is successfully able to relate to people. The series focuses on many issues within the Gallagher family and messages can easily be perceived through interpolation, cultural analysis, queer analysis, rhetoric and Stuart Hall’s Encoding and Decoding essay. The “Just as the Pilgrims Intended” episode brings out a lot of these theories. The goal of this analysis is ultimately to inform readers that the media they are witnesses to everyday appear symbolically in their everyday lives. Although a lot of the situations the Gallagher’s …show more content…
This is the episode I will primarily focus on in my analysis. Monica suffers from bipolar disorder as well as drug and alcohol abuse, so it is no surprise when she returns home a train-wreck. Frank’s deceased mother left money behind for all of her children, except for Frank. Frank attempts to improve Monica’s mood by trying to get her to help him collect some of this money. Together the two of them spent the entire “squirrel fund.” The “squirrel fund” was money that had been saved all summer in order to survive through the winter. This money was going to be used for necessities. Fiona’s ex-boyfriend Steve returned home married to a Brazilian drug lord’s daughter but does not let this stop him from attempting to win Fiona back. While this is happening, he is also allowing Lip to live with him. Karen is pregnant with what is most likely Lip’s child, is seconds from going into labor while cooking with both her mother and her unofficial ex-husband Jody. Jody happens to be sleeping with her mother. Carl killed an American bald eagle, which Kevin is attempting to prepare as the families Thanksgiving dinner for later