Shameless: 10 Truly Shameless Stunts By Frank

Shameless anti-hero Frank Gallagher was a prodigy who channeled his brilliance into destructive outlets, due in part to the rigid self-centeredness that he adopted as his chosen survival mechanism in the underserved South Side of Chicago.

While his equally-underprivileged children often made admirable life choices and were capable of acting altruistically, Frank was usually unwilling to apply his intellect to anything other than absurd and oftentimes repulsive bids for self-advancement. Although a viewer would find this behavior unacceptable in a person they had close contact with, they generally find it thoroughly enjoyable in a fictional setting.

Running A Fraudulent Homeless Shelter

The ultimate motive for any action that Frank took was self-benefit, be it in the form of alcohol, money, or a place to sleep. In a season 7 arc, Frank rallied a group of local unhoused people and claimed a vacant home for them and himself. While this is admirable in theory, Frank’s scheme of forcing his housemates to panhandle and pocketing a hefty share of their earnings desecrates any admirability that the operation would have otherwise held.

This scheme failed as a long-term lifestyle, but Frank was aware of the fallibility of his plans and often aimed for immediate if short-lasting payoffs as a result.

Robbing A Casino Bus With Monica

When Monica returned to the Gallagher family in season 7, she was insistent on apologizing to her children for her absence and general failings as a parent in the form of inheritance money. As she and Frank were virtually destitute, Monica convinced him to aid her in garnering cash by whatever criminal activity they could manage to see through.

One of these stunts involved hijacking a casino bus full of senior citizens, with Monica taking the wheel while Frank collected the passengers’ money by gunpoint. This was a rare instance of Frank committing a crime to benefit someone other than himself, and such regard for others is somewhat respectable even if he had to be convinced to do so.

Pretending To Be The Deceased Husband Of A Woman With Dementia

When Fiona purchased the laundromat across the street from her restaurant, she had to maintain a decent relationship with Etta, the senior citizen whom she bought it from and who lived in an apartment above the facility. Frank threatened this balance when he convinced the woman that he was her late husband so that he could live in the apartment and avoid time in the streets.

While the scheme failed when Etta had a lucid period and remembered that her husband had passed away, Frank’s ingenuity served him well for that brief period in a move that is equally impressive and detestable.

Revealing Sean’s Heroin Addiction To Sabotage Fiona’s Wedding

Frank was never an effective or reliable patriarch for the Gallagher family, giving Fiona’s fiancée Sean room to assume the role when he became an accepted member of the family. Frank was deeply envious of Sean’s newfound position and committed himself to removing him as the Gallagher’s new paternal figure, even attempting to pay a would-be assassin to do so.

While this plan fell through, Frank ultimately succeeded in casting Sean out of the family by telling Fiona about his struggles with heroin moments before their wedding. This proved to be a self-sacrificial ploy – as the Gallaghers were so angered by him that they threw him off of a bridge – but Frank did succeed in revealing one of the biggest secrets the Shameless characters kept and ensuring Sean’s downfall.

Pretending To Detest School Segregation To Get Liam Into Private School

When Liam’s public school was closed down due to the opening of a local private school, Frank launched a smear campaign against the perpetrating institution by screaming about the injustice of income inequality at children and parents as they exited the building.

His points about the education quality of underprivileged children being diminished by such expensive and exclusive schools were certainly valid and noble, but he lost his credibility when he agreed to send Liam to the school on a full-ride scholarship as part of a deal to quell his disorderly conduct.

Moving Into A Deceased Teenager’s Bedroom While Having An Affair With The Mother

If there were any limits to Frank’s devious selfishness, they were hardly apparent during Shameless‘s 11-season run. In one episode, the sporadically-houseless Frank secured a place to stay by soothing the father of a recently-deceased teenager and staying in the son’s room. To solidify the blasphemy of the situation, he had a brief affair with the man’s wife during the time that he stayed at the couple’s home.

Frank’s brilliant strategic mind was not bound by a conscience, making for both horrific interpersonal relationships and excellent television despite Shameless not being watched enough.

Barricading A Section Of The House So He Couldn’t Be Removed

Frank nearly permanently severed the relationship he had with his children when he soured Fiona’s wedding day, with the Gallaghers throwing him off of a bridge and sending him into a coma.

When they refused to allow him to return to the family home – viewing Frank as a horrible father – a desperate Frank built walls around a specific section of the house and accessed the area through a window so that he could have a reliable place to stay despite the animosity and disapproval of his children. Frank’s self-concern often took him to egregious but wildly entertaining lengths, with this being one of the  most absurd examples.

Claiming Aunt Ginger Was Still Alive To Collect Her Social Security Money

An early episode of Shameless demonstrated the lengths that Frank would go to in order to serve his own interests when he revealed that he had been claiming the social security checks of the children’s Aunt Ginger, who they learned was long-deceased.

This horrid scheme prepared the show’s viewers for the terrible-if-brilliant antics that he had no aversion to as long as they immediately benefitted him. Shameless established its reputation as a daring and provocative comedy-drama by depicting the least-flattering aspects of human nature, and Frank’s relentless selfishness made him a perfect vehicle for doing so.

Pretending Carl Had Cancer In Order To Get Him Into Summer Camp

Even when Frank was protecting or serving his family members, he generally used strategies just as immoral and horrifying as those he used when scheming for his own comfort and security. A season 3 storyline involved Frank, inspired by a terminally-ill child receiving Super Bowl tickets, passing Carl off as a cancer patient in order to gain his admittance to summer camp when the family could not normally afford to do so.

While Frank’s rare display of compassion for one of his children here is perversely comforting, it involved a degree of recklessness and deceit that surely outweighed the purity of his intentions, and it was among Shameless‘s most questionable parenting decisions.

Replacing Cocaine With Baby Laxatives

When assisting with a cocaine delivery in season 6, Frank and his partner consumed a fair amount of the product en route and replaced it with baby laxatives, with the hope that the consumer wouldn’t notice the fraud that they had committed.

While the customer’s health certainly benefitted from the lessened cocaine quantity, this stunt qualifies as business malpractice and would not be considered ethical in any circumstance. Throughout Shameless‘s run, it appeared at times that Frank was incapable of carrying out any activity without corruption or manipulation.