I think you've done it again. The evidence is certainly stacking up. It would probably be more annoying now if it turned out Danny wasn't abused as a child, not because I actually want him to have gone through that, but because so much points to it; and the shows tag line is 'everytning is connected' after all.
Yeah, I'm kind of thinking along the same lines. Danny's behavior can't really be explained away by an "oh, he's just really emotional" line at this point. There's a lot more going on with him it seems.
Like you, Top41, I wondered at the time about the interaction between them and didn't really connect it to this thread. It was rather creepy that when Danny asked if he was too old for the paedophile the man didn't say yes.
It was definitely weird that the guy didn't say yes, and the way he looked at Danny kinda suggested that he was looking at him in a sexual way. He didn't look at Stella the same way he looked at Danny. Danny's question in itself was weird, though--he was kind of challenging the guy to look at him in that way. Which, you know, doesn't seem to be a normal reaction to me.
Maybe he knew why Danny was so hostile - though he wasn't so bad that the man's comment of "Does he have to be here?" was justified - which leads onto your comment on how the man focused on Danny during the scene. In the book I'm reading it mentions how children are often abused by several people because abusers can pick out the vulnerable ones that could easily be abused or have already been abused. It's like that man sensed that to Danny this was personal.
And if he was fixated on Danny, that could be why. If the guy has a long history of abusing children then he might be able to pick up on reactions like Danny's that could be related to abuse. Danny, for all his bravado, exudes vulnerability in spades. I don't think anyone watching "The Dove Commission" just thought he was being a prejudiced jerk for no reason. No, it was more like, "what happened to him to make him react this way?"
In "ReCycling," both Stella and Danny are obviously disgusted by the guy, but Danny is the only one who makes it personal and who purposefully draws the guy's attention with a tough-guy confrontational attitude that's almost daring the moslester to look at Danny in a sexual way--again, the direct reference to asking if he's "too old for him," the hip-badge thing--don't they usually take their badges off their hips to flash them? There was no reason to be subtle about it in an ordinary diner. All in all, it's a strange way to behave in that situation.