Christian Isaiah took over the role of Liam Gallagher last season on Shameless , a role that had previously been played by Brenden and Brandon Sims since Season 3. Liam is the youngest member of the dysfunctional family, aside from Debbie’s daughter, Franny.
Warning: The rest of this article contains spoilers from tonight’s episode.
While Christian’s character has had a few big moments during Season 9 – with one of the more notable being the lemonade stand he managed to raise money with to help contribute to his portion of the bills – he hasn’t been in this season as much as some of his other co-stars have.
Tonight’s episode of Shameless beautifully addresses the lack of Liam in the previous episodes. Fiona (Emmy Rossum) is the first to notice Liam is missing when she heads upstairs to tell him she is going to go with Frank to the hospital. When she is unable to find Liam, she just shrugs it off and heads to the E.R. with their father.
Fiona, however, does make an effort to text Liam several times before calling Debbie (Emma Kenney) to ask if she’s heard from their youngest brother. While playfully enjoying time at a guns and ammo store with Kelly, Debbie tries several times to get a hold of Liam, only to be just as unsuccessful as Fiona.
The episode pans to a very brief scene featuring Liam and his friend sitting on the couch enjoying snacks and television. As Liam’s phone continues to go off, his friend asks if he’s going to answer them, in case they are worried. Liam shrugs it off and decides not to answer, as it took them days to even notice he was missing in the first place.
While the Gallagher clan may have not noticed Liam was missing, fans of the Showtime series certainly did. Many took to Twitter criticizing Showtime and the writers of Shameless for giving Christian Isaiah such little air time.
WHERE IS LIAM??? I HAVEN’T SEEN HIM IN 2 EPISODES #Shameless
— Kat McCord? #FreeKesha (@KatMcCordX) February 25, 2019
Some fans even grew concerned as to whether Liam was even still alive.
Liam has been gone for like 3 episodes is he DEAD??????? #Shameless
— CC (@Colt_Cammie) March 3, 2019
Those who have already watched tonight’s episode of Shameless quickly found humor in the writer’s decision to address the fact that Liam has been missing in the past few episodes.
Oh wait…. lol so they’re addressing it? Liam is actually missing? #Shameless
— CC (@Colt_Cammie) March 3, 2019
Some fans, however, took issue with the writers’ decision to take away from Liam’s character to focus on the exit of Fiona.
Fortunately, Liam seemed to be doing pretty well for himself in tonight’s episode of Shameless .
The Season 9 finale of Shameless airs next week on Showtime.