Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
Fiona is settling into a sales job and a relationship with her boss, Mike. Frank’s liver failure brings him back to the Gallaghers’ door and forces him to stop drinking while he waits for a transplant. He searches for a donor and finds his eldest daughter, Sammi, who has a son, Chuckie. Sammi is angry when she learns Frank is her father, but she later tries to build a relationship with him; she cannot donate a liver, and his condition continues to worsen. Mickey is distressed by Ian’s disappearance from the Army.
Fiona begins an affair with Robbie, Mike’s brother, and the relationship ends after Mike discovers it. Robbie gives Fiona cocaine for her birthday; she takes some at a party, and Liam gets into the remaining drugs and is found unconscious. Fiona is arrested as the family rushes Liam to hospital. She refuses to name Robbie, then violates house arrest and receives a 90-day sentence, leaving Lip to take charge of the younger children. Ian returns from being AWOL with striking changes in his behavior, and Mickey and the family worry that he may have bipolar disorder like Monica.
Fiona is released early because of prison overcrowding and, with help from her parole officer, finds work as a waitress. Frank receives a last-minute liver transplant, but resumes drinking afterward and brings Sammi and Chuckie into the household. Sheila marries Frank while trying to adopt her online boyfriend’s children, but the adoption falls through. Mickey comes out publicly at the Alibi and works out parenting with Svetlana. In the closing scene, Jimmy is revealed alive in a car outside the Gallagher home, though he does not go inside.