It’s James Bond theme night at the Jockey and before the evening kicks off, Frank is away with one of his famous fantasies – dreaming of all the Chatsworth girls cavorting like a Bond movie opening sequence. He’s in 007th heaven, until Lillian shows up and brings him to a rude awakening!

Funniest line of the night came when examining Carl’s little black book, in which he’s been scoring all his local… erm… scores. With annotations “B” for blowjob, “W” for handjob, etc.

“What’s ‘UTS’”? asks one.
“Up The Sh*tter” says another.

Classic Shameless, especially with them all sat round in James Bond costume – special mention to Lillian resplendent in a full-body gold skinsuit and Mimi with a badly-fitting joke-shop bald head and grey suit, pretending to be Ernst Blofeld. Also classic was how the hilarity was balanced by the poignant loss of Karen’s baby. The baby she didn’t really know she had, having been only three weeks late. Jamie has to hide his devastation, as Karen makes it obvious she doesn’t want kids, while Mimi and the rest of the Maguire clan hold a full-blown funeral for the embryo, who they’ve named Gerard after the patron saint of unborn children. You have to be in the right mood to laugh at this stuff but when you are, it really hits the spot. Once the reality starts to hit home, Karen’s suddenly not so sure she wants her life to remain a kid-free zone.

The ongoing series of practical jokes between Stan and Tom culminates in Stan receiving a shout to go to a warehouse where he finds Tom hanged. It’s a joke of course – Tom is wearing a harness – but Stan is gutted. Or is he? No, it’s all a scam to get some time off, and possibly loads of compo, by claiming he’s suffering from PTSD. He’s even roped Yvonne’s kids in to bang on about how he can’t stop breaking down in tears. Paid performances, naturally.

Mickey, who continues to sail close enough to the wind to make me wonder how long it will be before Paddy and the rest cotton on to his big secret, was forced to make a move on “Mayday” at the Bond party. In his case fortune favours the brave (or the press-ganged) as Mayday turns out to be in drag. Later Mickey introduces her to the family (as Grace Jones!) but sadly the weirdness of the embryo’s funeral is too much for Grace and he beats a hasty, but graceful, retreat.

The family Gallagher head off to Liverpool in Norma’s camper van, where Liam has entered a “competition.” The nature of the competition becomes clear eventually – he’s to be the face of child abuse in the UK. On learning this Frank goes off on one, providing the organisers with some even better pictures of “abuse.”

This series continues to simmer nicely, rather than boiling, but there’s a few high spots in every episode, the new faces are fitting in really well, and the writers are still finding enough new material to keep things feeling fresh. Long may it continue.