All good things must come to an end and that includes Fiona Gallagher’s time on Shameless. Emmy Rossum (who played Fiona for 9 seasons) left the series in 2018 to pursue other career moves. But what happened to Fiona by the end of the season?
Throughout her time in Chicago’s South Side, she’s constantly put her family above herself and, in the end, she made a decision to prioritize herself for once. Fiona was the mother figure to all of her siblings, especially since Frank (William H. Macy) and their mother couldn’t be bothered to raise them. So when Fiona’s former business partner who used Fiona to his advantage sees her again, working in a gas station, he decides to do the right thing.
Offering her $100,000, she takes the money and is staring at a way out for once. Throughout the episode, we see that Fiona isn’t going to make the same mistakes. (She even talks to her friend Vee, played by Shanola Hampton, about how she’s not going reinvest it). And it all leads to Fiona deciding to leave Chicago for good.
When she stops a gentrifier from calling the cops on two Black children just trying to sell lemonade by punching him in the face, a lawyer tells her to get out of town and go live her life. So she does. It comes after Lip (Jeremy Allen White) helped Fiona get sober and pick her life back up after she hits bottom with both her addiction and relationships. Her leaving for herself in the end though makes a lot of sense for her.
It isn’t without heartfelt moments between her and Ian (Cameron Monaghan who also left the show that season) and a final back-and forth between Fiona and Frank.
Fiona and Frank end on the same note
Fiona ends up leaving before her own going away party, thrown by her siblings. On the way out, she sees Frank who refuses to acknowledge what she did for her family in any kind of meaningful way and it really is a perfect send-off for Fiona. She’s finally going to do something for herself and is taking the money that she earned and using it to have a new life. Instead of throwing it back into the Gallagher family home, she’s making sure that she can find her own happiness.
Her time ending with Frank not even recognizing that she raised the family perfectly encapsulates their entire dynamic. Fiona was always the one to call him out and so of course he refused to acknowledge just how much she did to help the family in the end.
We don’t know where Fiona went or what happened to her but at least she seemed happier in the end.
(featured image: Showtime)
