Wallace paces.

Inside, the doorbell rings, and Col(l)in goes to get it. Veronica, in the middle of copying the files, sneaks after him, and when Col(l)in opens the door to find Wallace, Veronica gives him hand signals conveying her need to have him stall. Wallace: "Would you like to help the hungry, starving children of...the world?" And suddenly Save The Children is no longer hiring. Col(l)in asks if Wallace is selling something, and Wallace goes with that idea, at least until Col(l)in says he'll buy some candy. All Wallace can offer is an opened box of something akin to Red Hots. Those poor children. Even they wouldn't touch that shit. Luckily, Veronica's finished up, and she bustles Wallace away while telling Col(l)in that his karma's golden. After that little escapade, I'm thinking hers might be a little less shiny.

In his hotel room, Duncan tells Veronica he's "cramming for that Latin quiz. Can't forget about the Kane legacy." Given that he's watching TV, it appears that the Kane legacy includes lots and lots of lying. Which certainly fits in with what we've seen of his family so far. There's a knock at the door as Veronica asks if he's eaten, and he tells her no, since he's tired of room service. He opens the door to find her with a paper bag, suggesting "dim sum and then some." Another more believable fantasy, I'd say. Duncan might disagree, but he's a fucking weirdo.

Veronica's already eating as Duncan is serving some food. Veronica says she got the "don't wait up" call from Keith for the second night in a row, so she took the opportunity to get out of the house herself. Duncan takes away her plate and suggests that they skip right to the "and then some." Veronica is intrigued, but has a question first. Duncan: "Yes to costumes, no to props. Does that cover it?" Hee. Duncan made me laugh! There's hope for him yet. Veronica asks why Duncan didn't tell her about his trips to the hospital, and Duncan pulls away to eat his food: "You want one egg roll or two?" Just as well, Veronica. You're not supposed to eat Donuts before dinner.

Veeery interesting scene. I think I'm starting to understand a dynamic of this relationship a little better. Veronica dumped Logan because of his temper and his violent tendencies -- his heat, basically. Now she's gone to a guy who's the other extreme -- he shuts down and goes cold when things get rough. She's putting up with the cold temporarily because she couldn't handle the hot, but I don't think it's going to last. But this scene made Duncan more interesting to me, especially given the whole Meg's computer storyline coming up. A thought occurred to me: qhat if Duncan has reason to believe that Meg was the intended target of the crash, not Veronica? It would explain why he was so weirdly insistent that Veronica not blame herself for Meg's condition (although I have to point out that if that's the case, Teddy Dunn handled those scenes badly, letting no emotional turmoil into his performance). It would also explain the daily visits -- perhaps he still fears for her life, especially if she wakes up. Duncan's freezing Veronica out is in keeping with what we've seen of his character so far, but this example is so extreme that I get the feeling Duncan is involved in a deeper game than it seems. (A Meg-is-pregnant theory has been advanced on the boards, but that seems highly unlikely to me for a number of reasons.) Also, Teddy Dunn did a nice job with that scene. It can't have been easy pretending that he didn't want to fish out Veronica's microphone with his tongue.