If Monica represents maternal abandonment, Debbie Gallagher (Emma Kenney) represents the flip side: a young woman desperate not to repeat her mother’s mistakes, yet utterly unprepared for the reality of motherhood. Debbie gives birth to her daughter, Franny, as a teenager after intentionally getting pregnant—naively believing that a baby would give her unconditional love. By 2021’s final season, Franny is a preschooler, and Debbie is a single mother navigating sex work, dating, and custody battles.

The final season of Shameless aired from December 2020 to April 2021. By then, the world was a year into the COVID-19 pandemic. Mothers had borne the brunt of school closures, job losses, and childcare crises. The term “she-cession” entered the lexicon. Meanwhile, platforms like OnlyFans normalized sex work as a legitimate side hustle, and the #FreeTheNipple movement continued to challenge sexual hypocrisy.