the A.D.A.'s Ninth Step: the mismatched socks

The scene's thesis about where sincerity actually registers. The A.D.A. is a fluent, articulate man who delivers his whole confession in polished high-recovery language — and none of the polished speech reaches Pat. What reaches her is an involuntary detail: mismatched socks, revealed by the "defecatory forward lean," evidence of a man dressing in the dark of his own unraveling. "The mismatched socks spoke to Pat's heart more than anything else." The claim is exact and it's the register-war in miniature: performed sincerity, however genuine its content, communicates less than the accidental, unperformable tell. The speech is where he means to be sincere; the socks are where he can't help being sincere, and the second is the one that lands. (Cf. Gately's involuntary "candle-fumes" tears — sincerity betraying itself past the reach of self-presentation.)