The Legal Seafood supper: Orin introduces Joelle to JOI; the failure to communicate

pivotal · ~Nov 2001 (pre-Subsidized)

• When: ~Nov 2001, Chestnut Hill / Brookline Legal Seafood
• What: At the introductory supper Orin was so tense in JOI's presence "that there wasn't room for any other real emotion at the table," filling silences with faster blather until both Joelle and Jim were embarrassed. JOI later told Joelle he "simply didn't know how to speak with either of his undamaged sons without their mother's presence and mediation"; Orin "could not be made to shut up," Hal was "completely shut down." Afterward Orin wept in the cab that he had no idea whether his father was "proud, or jealously threatened" that Orin had quit tennis for punting. (Per scene 062, Joelle was "Orin Incandenza's only lover for twenty-six months and his father's optical beloved for twenty-one.")