Penny and Aggie/Recap/Conversion

"It'd be my own little dangerous secret. She always wanted me to do something dangerous."

This three-strip interlude, originally planned as a bonus story in a print collection of the comic, takes place shortly after Second Looks and Pod People. It opens with Aggie telling Duane she's done with Charlotte as a friend, but that she's made a new friend in Lisa, whom she encourages him to ask out. Duane, however, is still bitter and brooding over Penny having dumped him. While playing his favourite word game of describing her with adjectives beginning with "a" (but derogatory ones now), and wondering what can give his life purpose now, he surprises himself by thinking of the phrase Allāhu Akbar. This leads him, after some deliberation, to re-embrace his family's Muslim faith, as an acknowledgement that he doesn't know everything. However, given the present political climate, he resolves to practice it in secret.

Tropes

 * Chekhov's Gun: Wonder why Duane was seen in Whispers and Silence prostrating himself and claiming to be looking for a contact lens? Now you know.
 * Living a Double Life
 * Whole-Episode Flashback