How could Shameless season 10 work without Emmy Rossum?

At the moment, the news has probably started to settle in for you: If there is a Shameless season 10, Emmy Rossum is not going to be a part of it. The actress has made the formal decision to depart and with that, everyone else has to figure out what they are going to do moving forward.

One thing that we should make clear here is this: For the time being, there hasn’t been any known conversation about ending the series. Nobody is speaking as though season 9 is the end and with that, we have to think that everyone is going to be looking towards another season. Work, after all, is already being done on the season 9 finale; if the series was ending, we do think that everyone would know at this point.

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Now, let’s turn towards the idea of a season 10. Could it really work? It’s going to be weird without Rossum’s Fiona, given that she was one of the few sources of stability that we really got for the Gallagher family. She was a source of stability in what is in many ways a family immersed in complete chaos. She also did occasionally get in trouble herself, so it’s not like she is perfect — even if she has evolved more than other characters.

We do think that there’s a precedent of shows struggling without some of their leads — yet, there are also many other shows that have figured it out. Grey’s Anatomy remains strong without Patrick Dempsey, ER went on without George Clooney, and even Suits this summer has shown to work really well even without Patrick J. Adams and Meghan Markle on board the show. There are ways to still tell a good story without discounting the impact of a performer like Rossum.

If there is one reason for optimism regarding season 10, it’s that losing Fiona could force some of the other Gallaghers to really wake up and realize that their future is now. They don’t have her direct support anymore. We do hope that the character is still out there making her life better; who knows? Maybe she even serves as an inspiration for some of these characters, at least however much some of these characters can be inspired.

Do you think that a Shameless season 10 will be successful without Emmy Rossum in the cast? Let us know below!

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