Joe Pitt, a Mormon, Republican clerk in the same judge's office where Louis holds a clerical job, is offered a position in Washington, D.C., by his mentor, the McCarthyist lawyer and power broker Roy Cohn. Joe hesitates to accept out of concern for his agoraphobic, valium-addicted wife Harper, who refuses to move. Harper suspects that Joe does not love her in the same way she loves him, which is confirmed when Joe confesses his homosexuality. Harper retreats into drug-fueled escapist fantasies, including a dream where she crosses paths with Prior even though the two of them have never met in the real world. Torn by pressure from Roy and a burgeoning infatuation with Louis, Joe drunkenly comes out to his conservative mother Hannah, who reacts badly. Concerned for her son, she sells her house in Salt Lake City and travels to New York to help repair his marriage. Meanwhile, a drug-addled Harper has fled their apartment after a confrontation with Joe, wandering the streets of Brooklyn believing she is in Antarctica as Joe and Louis tentatively begin an affair.