The second season of Shameless, an American comedy-drama television series based on the British series of the same name by Paul Abbott, premiered on January 8, 2012, at Sunday 9:00 p.m. EST on the Showtime television network. Executive producers are John Wells, Paul Abbott and Andrew Stearn, with producer Michael Hissrich. The season concluded after 12 episodes on April 1, 2012. The show's season premiere brought in 1.58 million viewers, which was higher than the season 1 premiere. The episode airing March 4, "Parenthood", received 1.6 million total viewers, its highest rated show of the season. The season finale scored 1.45 million viewers.