Jeremy Allen White Characters Cannot Catch a Break

Before there was The Bear, there was a Showtime drama called Shameless that ran for 11 goddamn seasons and that, at the time, I genuinely thought would be the beginning and end of Jeremy Allen White’s career. Not because he’s not a phenomenal actor — he is — but because he was so indelibly, irreversibly Lip Gallagher that I couldn’t imagine him in any other role. And the thing is, after four seasons of The Bear? I still haven’t had to imagine him in any other role.

That’s not snark, not an insult, not even a backhanded compliment. What I’m saying is: Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto is Lip Gallagher’s spiritual cousin. And for all that those two characters have given us — 15 combined seasons of pure, chaotic emotional carnage — I am still left wondering: WHY CAN’T SOMEONE JUST GIVE THIS GUY A GODDAMN WIN ALREADY? LET THE MAN SUCCEED, FOR F—K’S SAKE.

If I have to endure one more season of watching an emotionally constipated Jeremy Allen White character spiral just short of his true potential, I’m going to defenestrate my f—king television. I will toss it out the goddamn window like it insulted my wife.

For those who didn’t ride the emotional rollercoaster of all eleven seasons of Shameless — which was, at the time, the only show on television that understood what it means to be sh*t poor in America — here’s a quick recap: Lip Gallagher is the golden child of the deeply dysfunctional Gallagher clan. He’s an alcoholic and a habitual screw-up, but he’s also a goddamn genius who aced the SATs without breaking a sweat. He’s so freakin’ smart that he turned down MIT for a full ride at the University of Chicago.

Lip Gallagher could have done anything. He could’ve crushed college, made a fortune, and if not rescued his entire family, at least saved himself and disrupted his own cycle of poverty. There are very few TV characters I have ever rooted for as hard as I rooted for that floppy-haired disaster of a man.

He had a wide-open door and all he had to do was walk through it — and instead, over and over again, Lip Gallagher launched himself headfirst into the goddamn door frame. He couldn’t stay off the booze. He couldn’t make it to class. He couldn’t not sleep with his f**king married professor. He gets expelled, then another professor gives him a second chance, and what does he do? Blows that too. The man is a one-man demolition derby of potential.

Spoilers for Shameless, but eventually, Lip gets sober. He becomes a mechanic. He knocks up a hairdresser, they get married, they have a kid, and he … never quite makes it. He can’t afford a house. He can’t start his own shop. He finds a kind of hard-earned contentment, sure, but he never fulfills his potential. He’s basically Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting, except when Ben Affleck gives him the “you gotta go” speech, Lip shrugs and says, “Nah. I’m good. I’ll just stay here and keep mopping these floors.”

And THAT is why I am unwell after the fourth season finale of The Bear. Spoilers, again, but here we go: Carmy, the golden boy of his own wildly dysfunctional family, has a real shot at greatness. He could be a world-famous chef. And yet — AND YET — he gets dragged back into the family drama, into his own spiral of self-doubt and guilt and repression, and for the love of all that is holy, he sabotages himself again. He can’t commit. He’s got mommy issues. He’s got imposter syndrome, survivor’s guilt, and whatever the hell else Christopher Storer wants to toss in there like it’s a sad-boy stew.

The man can’t get the good review. He can’t get the Michelin star. He can’t get the girl. And now, it looks like he might not even keep his damn restaurant because he’s about to sign it over to Syd and Natalie and Richie, like some sort of traumatized culinary ghost who just wants to fade into the alley and smoke.

And I swear to God. Like, full “10 plagues, blood, frogs, hail, and boils upon your house” swear to God: if he walks away from that restaurant and becomes the chef equivalent of a small-town mechanic just chasing some vague notion of peace and balance, I will sit down and write a very stern, very unhinged letter to Christopher Storer. And in that letter I will inform him, in great detail, that I will personally hunt him down and rip out each individual hair follicle from his head until he gives us not just closure for a Jeremy Allen White character, but a happy, satisfying ending. One where the man finds joy. One where he finds purpose. One where he finally — FINALLY — fulfills his motherf**king potential.

For GOD’S sake, just give me this.

P.S., thanks for that Eddie Vedder cover of “Save It for Later.”