Downstairs, they've got Steve's shirt off and Veronica's giving him a haircut, of course. The kids are all hanging around, too, interested in the heroic stranger. There's so much going on at the Gallagher house -- and so much to be ashamed of -- that once you're in, you're in. He was their buddy the second Fiona let him in the door. They go down the line introducing everybody, Debbie and the crazy one, and they talk about Veronica's many jobs. If Fiona is a casual dater, jobwise, Veronica's more of a serial monogamist. She did housekeeping at the Cook County hospital, where she got her nursing smarts we'll learn about later, but got fired for selling medical supplies on eBay.

Debbie's just remarking on Steve's big watch -- "Panerai... What'd that set you back, about six bills?" Welcome to Debbie. Keep an eye on that watch. The boys come down, clearly still uncomfortable, and I am sort of glad we didn't have to see how the gay thing went down. Lip, for being such a thug, is pretty fierce about his brother. It was crude and short-lived and Ian said nothing, I'm sure. Ian sits on the stairs, out of sight, in a sort of détente with Lip across the way; that's when Kevin comes in, Veronica's live-in boyfriend next door, a bartender. There is much to recommend him, but there is also a wicked hard-to-swallow thing about his idiom of use. Which is to say, his last name may well be Federline.

Which would be merely sort of heartbreaking, except for how Veronica is black. So either he's a douchebag, or this show is.

"Yo!" says Kevin. And when he gets startled by the half-naked hottie in his girlfriend's lap, they tell him Steve decked that bouncer, Jimmy Clifton -- also black/no relation -- he goes, "Respect!" Things like that, on the reg, which I don't know what to do with. Sometimes with a Showtime show you just have to shrug. (Or, I guess, "respect." I do not. Either of those things, I do not.)