‘Shameless’ season 6, episode 2 reaction: On the latest pregnancy surprise

Who knew that “Shameless” was going to drop two major pregnancy shockers in just the span of a few short episodes, starting off with the end of season 5? We spent of course much of the premiere and the buildup to it thinking mostly about a potential Debbie pregnancy that the idea of Fiona being expecting never came to mind.

Clearly, this was what the producers of the show intended.

So why have this story happen now? As executive producer Nancy Pimental says in a postmortem to TVLine, the answer is as simple as coming up with something that feels authentic for a character like Emmy Rossum’s, who would probably be getting pregnant if this was real life:

“First of all, we wanted to show real life … We just wanted to show the authenticity of a 24-year-old who has a lot of sex. She’s probably going to get pregnant if she’s not [using protection].”

As for the dichotomy between this pregnancy and what Debbie is going through, it seems easy to say that the two stories are going to be told in very different manners:

“[We wanted to] explore a completely different storyline from Debbie’s, where she is so positive this is what she wants to do, and Fiona is so positive that she doesn’t want the baby.”

Will any of this last? That is the beauty of this show; things are always unpredictable, which is why we’re not even so willing to say just yet that Sean is the father of Fiona’s child. This is only episode 2 of a long season, and that means that there are plenty of opportunities still to see some twists play out.

If you want to see a promo for the next episode right away, head over to the link here. Also, you can sign up to get some other TV news on everything we cover at CarterMatt, sent right over to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: Showtime.)