History Characters / ShamelessUSGallaghers

[[caption-width-right:350: "How can you tell if a guy you've been hanging out with likes you?"]]

** Season 7 has him breaking up with Caleb over him being bisexual.

* BatterUp!: Although Fiona, Lip and Carl have used the infamous Gallagher baseball bat on occasion, it seems to be Ian’s preferred weapon of choice when protecting himself and his siblings against attackers...and Frank.

* PutOnABus: Literally, at the end of Season 3 when he steals Lip's identity to join the Army. He comes back halfway through Season 4.

* ComedicSociopathy: Zig-zagged. His behavior can go from a CrowningMomentOfFunny to realistically depressing and serious, sometimes within the same episode.

* KnightTemplarBigBrother: Towards Liam. When he hears two kids in school laughing and making fun of Liam, calling Liam retarded, he beats them up to a pulp, despite them [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome being older than Carl!]]

* YourCheatingHeart: Slept with Frank's brother.

* PetTheDog: He has his moments. Notably when catching Ian and Mickey having sex, he passes no judgement on them despite their fear at what he might do with the information. He'll also occasionally use his schemes to benefit his children- always as a side effect to his own selfish desires, but still. But his biggest moment comes at the penultimate episode of season three where he takes responsibility for a heist he and Carl carried out, saving Carl from going to juvie. This shocks Lip so much that he comments "Hell just froze over."

** In Season 6, he (reluctantly) abandons his new-found hippie paradise and risks being killed by drug dealers he ripped off [[spoiler: to drive a heavily pregnant Debbie to the hospital.]]

* TheUnfavourite: With the exception of Debbie, Carl and Sammi, none of his children have the slightest respect or affection for him, and by Season 5, even they all had their [[BrokenPedestal pedestals broken]]. When he desperately needs a liver in Season 4, Carl and Sammi are the only ones who care about his impending death and try to help out, with everyone else content to let him die. Liam doesn't even appear to realize that Frank exists. When he's in a coma in-between Seasons 6 and 7, nobody bothers to search for him, and when Frank asks why, Carl outright tells him that everyone was hoping that he was dead.

* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: She was drawn to [[GentlemanThief Jimmy/Steve]] over [[FairCop Tony]] because of this. This is most evident when right after Tony pulls them over (in a stolen car) for speeding, Jimmy/Steve does some illegal plays and Fiona is noticeably turned on by his display of criminal acumen. Hell, Jimmy/Steve won her favor the second time by revealing that he was a car thief. This also plays a part in why it doesn't work out with Mike in Season 4.

* HardDrinkingPartyGirl: Despite being the most stable and sane Gallagher, when she gets to go out she usually parties hard. It's pretty harmless and normal until [[spoiler:her decision to keep Robbie's cocaine leads to Liam's hospitalization and the end of a stable career path, and after failing to find a new job, she ends up partying hard at Robbie's home, leading the family to search for her as they so often had to do with Frank.]]

* BewareTheNiceOnes: Debbie's a real sweetheart, but Season 3 proved that you "do not F with Debbie Gallagher!," as she puts it. [[spoiler: She nearly drowned a girl who was mean to her at the pool, glued shut the eyes of an abusive foster mother, and claimed Cousin Patrick molested her in order to discredit him and force him to let the Gallaghers stay in the house for low rent.]]
* BiTheWay: [[spoiler: As of Season Nine, and her relationship with Alex.]]

* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: [[AcceptableTargets As with many cases of this trope on the show....]] it's mostly played for laughs when Debbie [[spoiler: loses her virginity to an older boy she likes by sleeping with him while he is basically passed-out drunk - or, as he puts it the morning after, "statutory rapes herself." When she confides in Fiona and Lip about it later, both are more bemused by the story than anything, although some of Debbie's bitchy friends do seem genuinely outraged by what happened (albeit probably because they were looking for a reason to mock Debbie, more than anything else.)]]

* HeroWorshipper: She really idolizes her father and hopes for him to come back to normal. [[spoiler: Until Season 3’s "The American Dream" where she loses her shit at him big time.]] Of course, by the next episode, StatusQuoIsGod.
** Season 7 shows she's no longer a daddy's girl. Especially when [[spoiler:Frank attacks her trying to find where she stashed Monica's meth.]]

* KarmaHoudini: Of being TheBully, courtesy of Frank. [[spoiler:Averted in Season 5, where he gets caught, rejects legal advice, and demands to go to juvie.]]

--> '''Frank:''' There's no way you're that bat shit crazy!

* KnightTemplarParent: [[spoiler:Beats Carl up and then turns Ian in because Chuckie's incarceration. She even tattoos a swastika on Chuckie's forehead and tells him about sexually gratifying guards to earn his protection, the former actually working in getting him in with a group of white supremacists.]]

* MisplacedRetribution: Holds all Gallaghers responsible for [[spoiler: Chuckie's arrest, even though only Frank and Carl are involved. Her further retaliation is getting Ian arrested by the military for going AWOL, taking away someone they love just as "they" took away someone she loves.]]

* AmbiguousDisorder: Between his quietness and not being particularly bright, some in universe have speculated that he's got something going on.

* ButtMonkey: Especially in Seasons 5 and 6, which are not kind to poor Chuckie at all. He gets manipulated by Carl into being a drug mule, arrested and sentenced to a year in juvie without ever fully comprehending what had happened, has a swastika tattooed on his forehead by his own mother, becomes a Neo Nazi in juvie without fully understanding what that means either, [[spoiler: and by the time he is released his mother is in jail for attempted murder and the rest of the Gallaghers have little to no interest in taking care of him, which results in him briefly living on the streets during a Chicago winter! Then he gets attacked by a cougar.]] To his credit, he's still just as cheerful and carefree as he has always been.

* PromotionToParent: It seemed at first that since Monica ran off she became this, but it's later shown that ever since an early age she's been taking care of the others, she's been doing Frank and Monica's work since [[UpToEleven ''she was a toddler'']].
** [[spoiler:Gets more and more deconstructed as the series goes on. Earlier seasons don't shy away from the stress Fiona has placed on her, but she keeps her head above water, and bravely and selflessly secures guardianship of the other children without much hesitation in Season 3. Season 4 sees her already getting overwhelmed and getting frustrated that nothing is ever about her, an by Season 7, she asserts that she's "done mothering everyone" -- a far cry from her conversation with the judge while securing guardianship, where she accepts that she'll have to take care of them for most of her life.]]

* TransparentCloset: While he didn't go flaunting it early on (because in his neighbourhood, homophobia is quite common apparently), by Season 4, it's pretty obvious to everyone in the Gallagher house that he and Mickey were in some sort of relationship.
* TheUnfavorite: To Frank, for a multitude of reasons. He looks like Monica, who Frank has a troubled relationship with. He isn't really Frank's son. And most damningly he is both A) not a HeroWorshipper of Frank like Debbie and Carl and B) still young enough to be vulnerable to Frank's crap. Notably he is the only kid that Frank physically abuses.

* BreakTheCutie: In Season 4. Well, to be realistic, the show's been breaking Fiona since day one (remember that scene where she congratulates herself for a good day's work before breaking to tears?), but in Season 4 it's takenUpToEleven.

* CallingTheOldManOut: Does this numerous times to both Frank and Monica, but special mention should go to her speech to Monica at the end of Season 1, when Monica tries to take Liam away. It's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykUTh9cVuJs ''awesome'']].

* BrilliantButLazy: Incredibly smart, but his poor parental role-models and drug and alcohol use have meant he is often not motivated to fully take advantage of his skills. Once he starts going to college in Season 4, he quickly finds the workload to be a massive shock compared to high-school, which he coasted through without a great deal of effort.

** LoveMakesYouStupid: So blindsided by her feelings and influenced by her equally young and sexually active friends that she fails to see or understand why Matty (who is 20) would turn down a sexual relationship with a girl who is barely 13. Like most teenagers with their first crush, she also TookALevelInDumbass and loses a lot of what made her WiseBeyondHerYears.

* MinorLivingAlone: There are other people in the house sometimes, but after [[spoiler: Sammi leaves and Carl goes to juvie]], Debbie and Liam are the only permanent residents of the Gallagher house.

* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: She was drawn to [[GentlemanThief Jimmy/Steve]] over [[FairCop Tony]] because of this. This is most evident when right after Tony pulls them over (in a stolen car) for speeding, Jimmy/Steve does some illegal plays and Fiona is noticeably turned on by his display of criminal acumen. Hell, Jimmy/Steve won her favor the second time by revealing that he was a car thief.

* BigSisterInstinct: Don't touch any of her siblings. In Episode 2 of Season 1, after Frank head butts Ian, he warns him that if he ever hits one of "her kids" again, she'll end him.
* BreakTheCutie: In Season 4. Well, to be realistic, the show's been breaking Fiona since day one (remember that scene where she congratulates herself for a good day work before breaking to tears?), but in Season 4 it's made UpToEleven.

* CallingTheOldManOut: While she did this numerous times, special mention should go to her speech to Monica at the end of Season 1, when Monica tries to take Liam away. It's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykUTh9cVuJs ''awesome'']].

-->'''Fiona''': (to Robbie) You call me when I'm with Mike, text me when I'm with Mike… why don't we just, cut off the middle man which is me and, you can fuck your brother.

* GoodBadGirl: Like all the Gallaghers, she is successful sexually, accruing a wide variety of partners. When teased about sleeping with near a hundred guys, she responds that it's only 95. She's also a responsible guardian to five kids (plus whomever the Gallaghers are sheltering on a week by week basis).

-->'''Frank''': My daughter and… her girlfriend.

* NotSoDifferent: Being a Gallagher, she makes some bad decisions that are reminiscent of Frank's, the biggest being her multiple probation violations in ''Liver, I Hardly Knew Her.'' Fortunately, she's just different enough to still make her the far more responsible parental figure.

* {{Jerkass}}: To people who aren't close to him in particular, but in truth he really is a…

-->'''Lip''': (to Ian, after the latter asks he he has any ecstasy) "You know that I've always preferred carcinogens over stimulants."

* TheAlcoholic: Any money Frank can get his hands on inevitably go towards alcohol or other... substances, and spends most of his time either drunk, hungover or both. Even learning in Season 3 that his alcoholism is literally killing him doesn't stop him, and it takes being physically unable to ingest any alcohol (because he coughs up blood when he does!) He swaps alcohol for vast quantities of pot, Oxycontin, heroin and crack. Once he [[spoiler: gets a new liver at the end of Season 4, he begins drinking again, although his aforementioned drug use seems to have helped him to succeed in significantly cutting down on his booze intake for the long-term.]]

* AssShove: His relationship with Sheila leads to him being on the receiving end of this a lot. It works to his advantage when he wakes up in Mexico after a drunken bender and becomes a drug mule just to get back to the United States. His capacity for, er, storing foreign objects results in him being able to smuggle more drugs than any mule before him, earning him the nickname "El Gran Canon."

* ButtMonkey: While he never suffers the way he should, Frank often deludes himself into thinking his life is a series of lucky breaks when it's clear to everybody how much of a pathetic wastrel he really is. He's been pegged against his will, smuggled to Canada, locked in prison, thrown out the street, beaten up by practically everybody he knows, thrown out the street, sleeps wherever he can, is hated by everybody, frequently fails in his scams, is never taken seriously, [[RuleOfThree thrown out the street]]....People may want him dead (and with good reason) but hardly anybody envies his life.

* DirtyCoward: Whenever the going gets tough, Frank is the first one out of the door. The best example is when Monica [[spoiler: attempted suicide]] you see Jimmy, Kevin, Veronica and Fiona leap into action as Frank shuffles out the backdoor.
* DrugsAreBad: Thank to his "extensive experience," he is barely functional.
** And he becomes even worse when he's drunk, or wanting to get high.

* IgnoredEpiphany: His NearDeathExperience in Season 4 should've taught him a lesson not only on not drinking anymore (since he ''physically'' can't), but on taking responsibilities seriously… however, he chooses to ignore this, runs away from the hospital and starts drinking whisky by his own on the outskirts of town.

* KavorkaMan: For someone who's an unrepentant alcoholic and stoner, he gets a lot of action.
* KickTheDog: A lot, when you think he does something bad he does something even worse that is borderline sociopathic.

* NearDeathExperience: Spends most of Season 4 ‘’literally’’ dying.

* BirdsOfAFeather: With Bonnie; they meet in detention and discover they have ''a lot'' in common.

* TheSociopath: He ''did'' try to kill Patrick at one point… lampshaded by Fiona, of course.
-->'''Carl''': Option four was kill Patrick… why waste an option?

* TheCutie: Pretty much a given from the start. However, the additional scenes and focus on Liam during the fourth season amps his cuteness factor up a few notches.
* HarmfulToMinors: He rather sees a lot of the daily life of the Gallagher clan... [[spoiler: and this comes to a head in Season 4 when he accidentally snorts coke, causing him to go the hospital and Fiona to get arrested, causing her own downward spiral.]]

* TheScrappy: Many fans believe that Sammi was unnecessary to the plot, and was only there to be the CreatorsPet, and create more drama than was necessary.

* DisappearedDad: It’s unclear who his father is, with Sammi being his only present parent.
* FatIdiot: He, er, isn't very bright. More than a few characters have openly speculated that he is retarded.

* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: In Season 5, his mother tattoos a swastika onto his forehead to help him survive an impending stint in juvie. He winds up being taken in by the resident Neo-Nazi gang there and by Season 6, [[spoiler: he appears to fully (if [[ObliviouslyEvil obliviously]]) follow their doctrine, and even does a presentation at school about Literature/MeinKampf in which he describes Hitler as a [[CriticalResearchFailure "great American hero."]]]]

[[spoiler: Debbie's]] baby daughter, [[spoiler: who was born in the third-to-last episode of Season 6.]]

* BiTheWay: [ [spoiler: As of Season Nine, and her relationship with Alex.] ]

* BiTheWay: [ [As of Season Nine, and her relationship with Alex.] ]

* BiTheWay: As of Season Nine.

* Sadist: Carl is seems to love causing pain towards others and was cold and ruthless towards his bullied victims.

* Sadist: Carl seems to love causing pain towards others and was cold and ruthless towards his bullying victims.

* BerserkButton : Much like the rest of the Gallagherd he really doesn't like his father and is usually the first one to attack him whenever he screws up.

* Sadist: In the the first seasons he seemed to love causing pain towards others and was cold and ruthless towards his bullying victims.