Long Island Compromise

The Fletcher family fortune is at risk when its sole client, Haulers, is purchased by a private equity firm that decides to halt the company’s domestic production operations. None of Haulers’s competitors are interested in buying the Fletcher factory, leaving it frozen. The family’s financial situation is exacerbated by their minimal investments, which are hardly enough to cover the costs of the children’s lifestyles.

Once Jenny notices that something is wrong with the family fortune, she calls her mother’s attention to it. Since Arthur has disappeared on sabbatical, Ruth turns to Nathan, who has no immediate plan of action. Ruth worries that that her family will become poor. Nathan calls his childhood friend and bully, Mickey Mayer, to ask him for a disbursement of the money he invested in Mickey’s start-up fund. Mickey pressures him into holding back on a withdrawal, but Nathan insists that he needs the money to pay for his home renovation and his children’s bar mitzvah. Mickey promises to get back to him.

At home, Alyssa accuses Nathan of going to a CVS to get his blood pressure monitored. Nathan once bought five monitors after a doctor had assessed him for high blood pressure, a symptom of his anxiety. Nathan denies it and tries to contact Mickey again. Mickey fails to return any of his calls.

The next morning, Nathan finds a page of color swatches in the footwell of his car. Alyssa snatches it, throws it away, and pretends that it was nothing. While driving his family around, Nathan raises the possibility that the rain the previous night could have torn down a tree. One of Nathan’s sons, Ari, is deeply alarmed by this possibility. Instead of reassuring his son, Nathan confirms that the possibility is very real in their neighborhood. When Ari worries that a tree could kill anyone in his family, Nathan regrets his decision. He spends the rest of the drive trying to reassure Ari.

Nathan takes a train into New York City and texts Mickey again. Mickey had strong-armed Nathan into pulling his money out of J.P. Morgan to invest with him instead. Nathan has withheld this information from Alyssa. In New York, Nathan does not go to his law firm but to Film Forum, where he watches a noontime movie. He has been doing this for two weeks, following a string of events that resulted in him being placed on forced leave from the firm.

Six months earlier, Nathan had discovered that one of his junior coworkers, Dominic Romano, had been made a partner at the firm. Nathan had never been considered for promotion because of his role as a land use lawyer, which requires him to perform research rather than higher-profile tasks for the firm. When Phyllis encouraged Nathan to make something of his life, Nathan became eager to assert his value to Arthur and the other partners.

Nathan was tasked with working on a case for a home supply brand called Giant’s. Dominic promised to argue for Nathan’s promotion to senior associate if he could obtain a Certificate of Occupancy for Giant’s. Dominic later clarified that the senior associate role isn’t a common position at the firm, implying that it was being created to satisfy Nathan and Arthur.

By opening a new branch in Yellowton, Giant’s could plant a toehold in the Long Island area. The town was run, however, by a council of maritime workers. The council had decided to block the company’s petition to build a new branch, citing the existence of smaller shops selling similar items in the area. When three of the council elders died or were removed by imprisonment, their authority fell upon their children, leaving Yellowton in chaos. Dominic had taken the opportunity to court the children for their approval, promising to fund them through partnership. Over the next year, the branch was constructed, leaving Nathan to complete the final step of the firm’s work. Nathan involved himself in the various meetings and deals required to complete the task. He then visited the town hall to pick up the Certificate of Occupancy and was surprised to learn that it had been rejected.

Nathan is panicking in his car when he smells his dead grandmother’s scent and sees her in the backseat. Thinking that she’s a dybbuk, Nathan calls Beamer to ask if he remembers Phyllis explaining the concept of dybbuks at his bar mitzvah. He does not. Nathan seeks out one of the councilmen, Lewis Squib, to investigate the change in approval status. Lewis, who fails to remember Nathan from their past meetings, indicates that the Giant’s branch is in violation of Yellowton bylaws. Nathan tries to argue the technicalities that should allow them to open, but Lewis refuses, insulted by the insinuation that Nathan thinks he is better than Lewis because of his education. Nathan takes Lewis to lunch at a restaurant called the Hard Life Buffet, a knockoff of the Hard Rock Café, to change his mind.

Outside the restaurant, Nathan takes a prescribed beta-blocker to quell an oncoming panic attack. Lewis indicates that one of the other councilmen has a personal hatred for big businesses like Giant’s coming into Yellowton. Lewis, on the other hand, hates this councilman, implying that he would be willing to approve Nathan’s request in exchange for a bribe. Nathan is hesitant to accept the deal and goes to the bathroom to contemplate his choices. Emboldened by the beta-blocker, Nathan returns to negotiate the bribe with Lewis. He suggests establishing a charity that Lewis can operate with discretion. Nathan feels very proud of himself in the aftermath of the deal. He soon learns that Lewis has recorded their conversation and sent a copy of the tape to Dominic.

Nathan wants to wait until he can secure his finances to tell Alyssa about his suspension from work. He is sensitive to the fact that her parents struggled financially, which makes her anxious in precarious situations. Withholding the truth makes him anxious that he is breaking their marriage vows, however.

Mickey texts Nathan to meet him for lunch the following day. On his way home, Nathan imagines himself having to financially support his mother. He arrives early and finds Alyssa consulting a renovation contractor behind his back.

Nathan meets Mickey for lunch, during which Mickey announces that they are celebrating his investment of $100 million. Mickey has chosen the restaurant because it is the only place where he can get kangaroo fillet to complement his special triathlon training diet. Mickey shares a number of off-kilter nutrition tips before allowing Nathan to broach the subject of money. Nathan reiterates his need for a disbursement, so Mickey outlines the meticulous verification process that he might see before the payout arrives.

Several weeks pass without any payment. Nathan tries to contact Mickey while the house renovation proceeds at full speed. Just when Nathan thinks it is all right to tell Alyssa the truth, Alyssa laments over the discovery of a crack in the house’s foundations.

One evening, Ruth calls Nathan to walk with her. She discusses the possibility of selling their brownstone in Greenwich Village before pitching the idea of selling the factory. Nathan points out that they have a standing agreement to hand the factory over to Ike, which a sale could violate. Ruth suggests selling it to Ike, though she knows that he cannot offer the amount they would need to survive. Nathan is hesitant over the factory’s obsolescence. Ruth insists that a sale is necessary.

Ruth recalls how Nathan had helped Phyllis restore the Middle Rock lighthouse back when Alyssa was trying to have a baby. Nathan realizes that Ruth is insinuating that they should have the factory landmarked and argues that it would make the factory impossible to sell. He nevertheless starts research on factory sales, meeting with real estate agents who assess that the sale might be problematic. Ike and Max join Nathan in touring one agent, Nessman, around the factory. Nessman confirms that the factory is a liability and that the Fletchers should cut their losses.

Once again, Nathan considers telling Alyssa the truth, but then she laments over the discovery of asbestos running through the house. Nathan uses this as an excuse to temporarily move his family over to Phyllis’s house. He pretends that he is on vacation so that he can stay around his family over the next few weeks. Ari becomes anxious about the poison in their house, so Nathan tries to reassure him that they’re safe. When he tries to compare the asbestos discovery to the practice of bringing canaries into coal mines, it exacerbates Ari’s worries.

Nathan has frequent dreams of Phyllis, making him wonder if a dybbuk has been visiting him in his dreams. While picking up his kids from the synagogue, Nathan reminisces about the time he learned about the Shema, a Hebrew prayer that protects one from all kinds of danger. On his way home with Bernard once, Bernard had kicked his Trapper Keeper onto the path of an oncoming truck. Nathan instinctively prayed the Shema, and Bernard was spared. Filled with the obligation to protect his relatives, Nathan began to pray the Shema for every member of his extended family every night over several years.

After the boys’ lesson, Nathan speaks to Rabbi Weintraub about the existence of dybbuks. The rabbi clarifies that a dybbuk must possess a physical body rather than take someone else’s form in a dream. When Nathan admits that he is anxious about the changes happening in his family, the rabbi explains the concept of the “plastic hour,” in which people go through great suffering in order to change for the better.

Nathan gets a call from Mickey’s number but is surprised to hear Mickey’s wife, Penny, on the other line. Nathan learns that Mickey has been hospitalized after entering a coma caused by overtraining. Nathan furthermore learns that Mickey has been practicing illegally ever since he was fired from Goldman Sachs and that his professional license had been revoked. Penny finally reveals that Nathan is Mickey’s only client and that he has been lying about the status of his fund. Nathan asks his father’s investigator, Gal Plotkin, to help him recover the investment money. He is nevertheless certain that without the money, he cannot support his family’s lifestyle and his addiction to insurance. Gal soon uncovers the extent of Mickey’s fraudulent practices at Goldman Sachs, as well as his use of the money that Nathan had given him to satisfy business and lifestyle expenses. He spells out that Nathan’s money is gone.