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Is Lip Gallagher Really Headed To Rehab on ‘Shameless’?

By Danielle McGaw
Published on: 13:09 PST, Apr 5, 2016

Lip Gallagher of the hit Showtime series, Shameless, has always been a bit of a drinker, even before he was legally allowed to. It almost seems like it was expected of him. But in this season of Shameless, Lip really tested the boundaries. He’s had a rough year and his inability to deal with his problems has led to increased drinking.

The end of Season 6 of Shameless saw Lip Gallagher facing the fact that he might actually have a drinking problem.

In the preview for the season finale of Shameless, fans saw Lip waking up in the drunk tank with a hazy memory of how he got there.

The scary thing is that only a couple episodes ago on Shameless, Lip was waking up in the hospital because he drank so much that he blacked out and one of the sorority girls called an ambulance. He was told that he had alcohol poisoning.

Does any of this sound kind of familiar? It should. Although it was not a normal situation for Lip, it is exactly the kind of thing that viewers of Shameless have come to expect of Frank Gallagher, Lip’s father.

For Lip Gallagher, his casual drinking fun throughout the years has turned into an out of the control manner of dealing with things. After his very public break-up with married girlfriend, Helene, things really started to go downhill for Lip on this last season of Shameless. He got kicked out of his dorm room and had to find another place to live. He started having trouble with his boss, who had also become one of his closest friends – and coincidentally, a drinking ally. And then he lost another job and another place to live. This hasn’t been a great year on Shameless for Lip Gallagher.

As bad as all of that sounds, Lip wasn’t really concerned about it. His professor and boss, who had fired him at the end of the previous episode, bailed him out of jail and informed him that there was a spot for him at a rehab center. Lip turned him down, though, with the excuse that his sister was getting married and he wanted to be there for her. After all, family is everything to the characters on Shameless.

It wasn’t until his little sister, Debbie Gallagher, sat down with him to express her concern for him that it really hit home for Lip.

“I don’t want you to end up like Frank,” Debbie said.

At the end of the season finale of Shameless, viewers see Lip with his professor, pulling up to the rehab center. His professor is telling him to work the program and give it a chance. Lip gets out of the vehicle and his prof drives off. Lip is left standing in the cold, looking upon the building that could save his life.

The big question is – will he enter and give rehab a shot or will he find an excuse not to go in? We won’t find out until the next season of Shameless in early 2017.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Jeremy Allen White, who plays Lip Gallagher on Shameless, said, “I think that being at the wedding and talking with Debbie really solidified his decision to go and get some help. Lip’s struggle really for the whole series has been just to not end up like Frank.”

Jeremy Allen White goes on to say in his EW interview that relationships have always been a problem for Lip on Shameless and that the breakdown of his relationship with Helene was really the start of his downward spiral.

Many of his Shameless fans are hoping that he will go in and take care of the alcohol problem that reminds them of Frank.

But then again, would it really be Shameless if Lip went in, got his act together, and never had a problem again? Probably not!

In the recap of the last Shameless episode for the season, Vulture echoes the sentiment saying about Lip and the potential of him actually going to rehab, “Maybe it’s because I’ve known addicts, but I’m too afraid to hope that he did.”

[Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]

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