Friend of Gabe. Man of intellect.

S5E8 - Abe goes out to dinner with Gabe, Arthur and Henry. The group sits and talks for a long time without ordering. Tovar, the waiter, attempts to get their order many times, but Henry violently repudiates his food descriptions as pretentious. Maudlin from his recent sixty-fourth birthday, and the growing realization that Esther is the prodigy in Midge’s bloodline and not Ethan, Abe remains silent for most of the evening. Eventually, Gabe calls him out for it, prompting him to voice his struggle. This leads Henry to reflect on the growing rate of change in society and Arthur to tell a story about a moment of dissociation from his and his wife’s things. Finally, Abe shares an epiphany about how wrong he has been all his life about the roles of men and women, and how he has failed to properly support and appreciate his daughter. After a moment of stunned silence, Henry finally concedes that they ought to order something.

ARTHUR: There's a hostile mood at this table tonight.
– S5E8

ARTHUR: We were born in the eighteen-hundreds. A different century. Before phones, before radio. My parents' house had no electricity till I was seven. One can't keep up.
– S5E8

ARTHUR: You know, I had a moment the other day. I-I live in this big old apartment on Amsterdam. Bought it decades ago, everyone thought I was crazy, all that money, now I look like a genius. And my wife and I - she-she's passed - we-we spent countless hours outfitting it, decorating it. We took such pride, everything in the right place. And one day, not that long ago, I stood in the living room and looked around, and all I saw… was stuff. Just stuff. It was the strangest feeling. As if I'd never seen any of it before. And so much of it was tied to the memory of my wife. We were together forty years, but it didn't matter. All I could picture was my children picking through it all, choosing what to keep, what to sell, what to… throw in the trash heap. My life. My wife. In piles. It was a warm day, but I suddenly felt very cold.
– S5E8

8. The Princess and the Plea

• Kenneth Tigar also appears in the Palladinos’ subsequent series, Étoile.

• List of Characters