‘Shameless’ Season 9 Spoilers: Carl & Kassidi Are The Modern Day Frank & Monica

Shameless Season 9 is set to debut in late 2018 and after Sunday night’s Season 8 finale, fans can’t stop talking about Carl Gallagher’s volatile relationship with his new wife, Kassidi. Carl and Kassidi, both still teenagers, met and got married throughout the course of Season 8, but fans soon realized that Kassidi is completely unbalanced and out of touch with reality.

According to a Jan. 28 report by TVLine, Shameless executive producer Nancy Pimental opened up about why the show chose to have Carl’s character go on a roller coaster of emotion when it comes to Kassidi. In fact, when asked if Carl and Kassidi were the “modern-day Frank and Monica,” Nancy responded with a definite yes.

“Yeah, one hundred percent. Somebody else just asked me about that. They were like, ‘Why would you do that to Carl?’ I’m like, ‘Because it’s Monica and Frank, and it’s all Carl knows! That’s his role model of love.'”

Throughout Shameless Season 8, viewers watched as Kassidi become more and more unhinged. She fell in love with Carl, manipulated him into marrying her, and then emotionally tortured him about not leaving her to return to military school – the one bright spot in his life. In the finale, Kassidi went as far as to chain Carl to his bed so that he couldn’t leave her to catch the bus to school the next day. However, when Carl woke up unchained with Kassidi by his side, he quickly made his escape and left for school just in time to miss Kassidi arriving at the bus station to try and stop him from leaving.

It seems that Carl’s distorted view of what love and marriage should be has left a huge impact on his life. As Shameless fans know, Carl’s mother, Monica, was bipolar and often off of her medications. She ran out on their family while the children were still young, leaving Carl’s oldest sister, Fiona, to raise her five siblings as their alcoholic and drug addict father, Frank, came in and out of their lives. Monica returned a few times over the course of the show, and in the Season 7 finale died, leaving the Gallagher children confused about how to feel since they didn’t really have a relationship with their mother.

Now it seems that Frank and Monica 2.0 have arrived with the unhealthy romance of Carl and Kassidi. Shameless Season 9 will likely see the undoing of the couple, and fans can’t wait to find out how Kassidi will react to Carl leaving her behind to return to school.

Shameless Season 9 will premiere in late 2018.