Shameless: The Complete Third Season

This raucous and edgy Showtime-aired series is an acquired taste, with notes of sweet, sour, tragic, and comedic as it follows the fighting-Irish Gallagher family and their ragtag neighborhood friends and relatives. “Patriarch” suggests a certain responsibility that Frank Gallagher (William H. Macy) absolutely does not have: drunk, selfish, and frequently AWOL (in the first episode here he wakes up in Mexico with no cash and no passport), Frank lets his six children fend for themselves in matters of love and survival—tasks for which the Gallaghers are dysfunctionally equipped. The narrative arcs here are like extended soap operas—filled with sex, drugs, violence, profanity, child endangerment, and moral corruption as the colorful characters find themselves in situations that are alternately moving, outrageous, or wickedly funny. Three seasons in, the Gallaghers show no signs of redemption or reform. Compiling all 12 episodes from 2013, extras include behind-the-scenes featurettes and deleted scenes. Recommended. (T. Fry)