Karen apologizes to Lip, and he takes her hand. They are quiet. And the night is quiet, and absolutely shameless:

Ian: "She is kind of a slut."
Lip: "Yeah, but so am I."

Fiona waits for the train to take her to O'Hare; Steve waits for her there. The couples are kissing, and the security guys can't help but notice his bruises.

Lip's reading in his bedroom when Frank arrives on the front lawn, screaming his name: "I'm a shit. No, I am!" he shouts, as though anybody was there to disagree. He's making even less sense than usual; his words are spreading apart, into scripture and astronomy, Led Zeppelin lyrics, his own victimhood. There's something true behind his words, but the emergent structure is so desperate and useless that it just sounds like gibberish. "We're both victims!" he screams again and again, but whom he means, and victims of what, it's hard to say. It's sad. Lip finally opens his window and Frank sighs, in relief.

And Phillip Gallagher pisses on his father, in the snow. Frank jumps back, startled, and then shrugs. Fair enough.

They called him "Father Frank" when he was young; he was first in his class at Catechism. The metaphor's not lost on him. He steps back into it. It's warmer than rain, and heavier than snow. And when Lip is done, and closes the window again, Frank walks away, shameless and stinking, into the steaming night. But they are both smiling.

If we're both victims, then neither of us are victims. If we're both sluts, then there's no such thing. In a world of dirty girls and boys, there is absolutely no room for shame. They will tell you this isn't true -- you will spend your whole life being told this is a lie -- because their empire rests on its denial, on your self-loathing and fear. Because the grownups around here have everything figured out. But it's the only truth that matters:

The absence of shame is grace. Your natural state is shamelessness. If we're both dirty to the same degree, then we are both clean.

Steve finds a girl, whirls her around in his arms, but it's not Fiona. She's still standing on the platform when the train rumbles by. Finally, Steve heads onto the Concourse, and Fiona heads to Jasmine's office. She walks the whole way. It's warm inside.

Sometimes we are baptized, and sometimes we drown. Those are the choices.