Paddy went cold turkey last night – barricaded into his bedroom by his sons who were given strict instructions not to open the door except once a day for food and water, and to shoot him (with rubber bullets) if he tried to escape. Those instructions were tested on Micky in amusing Shameless style but from then on it was the long dark night of the soul for Paddy. A night that revealed something of what made him the man he is.

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Not that you’d ever feel sympathy for Paddy Maguire, but at least the regular beatings he received at the hands of his Daddy explain why he’s such a violent and disturbed character. I don’t know how much research the writers did on the subject of cold turkey and its attendant hallucinations, but the result was compelling TV, even if you had to watch from behind your hands.

There wasn’t a lot of light to balance the dark in this week’s slice of Chatsworth life. Joe woke up and immediately started his mind games on Mandy, occasionally via a morsel of blackmail with Karen. Mandy made it clear to all concerned, including Jamie, that she’d make her own mind up, and that mind was eventually to finish with Joe. From the trailers for next week’s show it seems unlikely that Joe’s a man to take no for an answer.

I hope you were up for third helpings of dark, because in other news Liam skipped school to travel with Danny to Liverpool. Ian and Debbie weren’t best pleased with him, but despite his promises to cease and desist all truanting activities, he was off again the next day. He had the best of motives though – to find Danny’s father. Unfortunately, Danny’s father also turns out to be a psycho headcase, and his violence is responsible for Danny’s deafness. His auntie turns up and offers to whisk him back to Spain, leaving Ian the house as compensation for his trouble. All sounds very nice, until Danny runs off back to Liverpool for some fatherly resolution involving a fire iron. Suddenly Ian’s good Samaritan act has led him to become an accessory to murder (possibly) and things are looking decidedly bleak.