Cameron Monaghan Continues To Be Shameless!
Will His Gay, Television Romance Be Rekindled?
By now, every member of the LGBTQ community should be watching Showtime’s groundbreaking television series, Shameless. From the start of the series, we were introduced to the dysfunctional, white trash Gallagher family living in one of Chicago’s crime ridden, southside neighborhoods while trying to navigate their complicated lives with zany schemes. Being from Chicago myself, I was immediately addicted to the series after the simple logline. To my surprise, I’d be introduced one of my favorite television characters and my favorite gay character across the board. Within its first season, Shameless provided us with one of the most complex gay characters in silver screen history with Ian Gallagher (Cameron Monaghan). Ian begins Shameless as a closeted introvert sleeping with his much older, married, Muslim boss and would eventually blossom into a reckless stripper eventually turned paramedic suffering from bipolar depression. Throughout the span of a decade, his character had gone through an incredible story arc, including dating a transgender man and his series long relationship with his former high school bully, Mickey Milkovich (Noel Fisher). Although Monaghan, who currently stars as Batman’s arch nemesis, The Joker, on Gotham, claimed he was quitting Shameless just a few months ago. However, that statement didn’t seem to last.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Monaghan has retracted his leave of Shameless and will be returning for the tenth (and likely final) season. Monaghan’s character (originally) ended his bizarre story line by winding up in prison, sharing a cell with his on-again-off-again boyfriend, Mickey. The news of Monaghan’s original leave came after the series main character, Emmy Rossum, was quitting to pursue other projects. Although Monaghan wants to continue to spread his wings creatively, he is looking forward to returning to the series and giving his character Ian a great ending. He tells:
“I’ve renewed [my contract] a number of times and it got to a point where I wanted to step away for creative reasons as well as business, which many other actors had done on the show years earlier. I took some time away and talked to showrunner John Wells about possible things we could do with the character in the future and we go to a place both creatively and financially where I felt comfortable coming back. Much of that had to do with what we are going to do with the story. I’m excited to go back and do that.”
However, Fisher’s Mickey may not be returning after all – and Monaghan is up for his character taking focus on himself rather than a will-they-won’t-they relationship:
“Now that we’ve torn [Ian] down … [and] instead of just looking for a relationship or resolving relationship conflict [it would be interesting] to instead [to see him] be working on himself. It’s interesting that Ian worked his way up, got his life on track and completely wrecked it. … Seeing him learn to lead the family and take care of himself and be on the straight and narrow … would be an interesting arc for him. I’d like to see something outside of just him searching and being single and hooking up with people.”
Regardless, Shameless is one of my all time favorite shows – and one I can empathize with more than most. Monaghan’s character has touched closely to my heart, I feel like I know him at this point – because I’ve befriended him while living in Chicago. I’ll be rooting for his return and will only hope to see an even happier ending for my two favorite gay characters on television. Are you excited for the return of Monaghan to Shameless?!
Earlier I mentioned Ian and Mickey’s – what we thought – happy ending, since both characters were leaving the series. You must check it out below, it’s a tear jerker, for sure!
