State of the Union (2019) s01e10 Episode Script
Another Drink
1 [INDISTINCT.]
We haven't arrived together once in the last ten weeks.
It's an omen.
Can I get a pint of Pride and a glass of white wine, please? An omen or a symbol? Aren't omens bad? Don't they just predict change? Well, there you are.
We arrive at the pub together for our last session.
- Why is it our last session? - Well, I moved back in.
We've had sex twice in the last eight days.
Sorted.
When we started seeing Kenyon, you hadn't even moved out, so you moving in just takes us back to where we started.
- And the sex is - Don't start on the sex.
Just leave it alone.
Don't knock it.
It's my only accomplishment of the year.
Look, all I was going to say is that - Thanks.
- it should be there.
We're young, we're married, we should be having sex.
And we are.
We started seeing Kenyon because we'd stopped.
And now we've started again.
So there we are.
Tick, move on.
Cheers.
So what happened to your feelings of humiliation? Gone.
We had sex.
And what your hurt and anger about my affair? Oh, I've buried that deep.
Yeah, that won't manifest itself until much later as some sort of physical ailment.
Heart attack or cancer.
And you think that's healthy? Do I think heart disease or cancer are healthy? No.
No, I don't.
But the burying which will result in cancer, do you think that's healthy? Yes, I do, in the short term.
What about the other things we talked about in the sessions? Like what? Tom, in the last few weeks we've both aired more grievances than, I don't know Maybe looking at some sort of peace process that would've hurt, Middle East, Northern Ireland.
I was trying to avoid the clichés.
The thing about peace processes is, it's usually one big grievance.
We have a thousand.
So I don't know what the right analogy would be.
Well, ours comes down to one really.
- Go on.
- We're married.
Everything else is an offshoot.
We wouldn't argue about my sister if we weren't married.
You'd say, "How's your sister?" If I knew you had one.
If indeed I even knew you.
God, I'm presuming we'd still be friends.
- Do you think we would? - In the right circumstances.
- Talk me through them.
- Don't be so rude.
- Why is that rude? - Well, or sarcastic, then.
Hold on you suggested that we'd only be friends given the right circumstances.
Why is it sarcastic for me to ask what those circumstances might be? It's as if you can't imagine what they might be.
Well, I just presumed that we would be friends in any circumstances.
You weren't presuming that at all.
You were just trying to make me feel bad.
You're right.
You're right.
And that's depressing.
- Which bit? - You knew I was winding you up when I said I can't imagine us not being friends.
Which, in other words, means I was suggesting the exact opposite was true.
Yes, that is depressing.
But do husbands and wives need to be friends? - I would have thought so, yes.
- Right.
Let's just say that on the night we met we hadn't ended up in bed together, we'd just had an interesting and agreeable conversation and then gone our separate ways.
What then? - What then what? - Would you have followed up? Yes, of course.
- Why of course? - I wanted to have sex with you.
- Sex is off the table.
- Why? Because in the parallel universe I'm describing - we're not attracted to each other.
- Oh.
I wouldn't have spoken to you in the first place.
Oh, my God.
You were that shallow? No, hold on.
It was a party.
We were in our 20s.
You walk into the room, you have a little glance around and you think, "Ooh, where will I start?" And you were where I started.
God.
All right, okay.
What about this? We had a mutual friend who asked us over for dinner and we got on.
And then the friend asked us to dinner again.
We got on again and the third time it happened we exchanged numbers and agreed to go for a drink.
- So sex is back on the table? - No.
- OK, I'm not following this.
- I'm talking about friendship.
Could we have been friends if we hadn't done any of the other stuff? - Yeah, I can't see it.
- Thanks.
Well, no.
I mean, look, I didn't have any friends like you.
I still don't have any friends like you.
When we met you had no idea why anyone would shout Judas at Bob Dylan.
Now I even know the shouter's name.
- No, you don't.
- I do.
Keith Butler.
Wow.
Don't get side-tracked.
I'm just saying, I didn't know anyone who had a GCSE in Biology, let alone someone who was gonna devote their life to the health of old people.
You hardly knew anyone who cleaned their teeth.
- I always did.
Still do.
- I know.
But where are you going with Keith Butler and gerontology? They're what's so great about sex.
Really? You can't think of another reason? No, hold on, forget about Keith Butler and the old people.
I'm talking about sexual attraction.
Sometimes you want to have sex with somebody who's not particularly in your actual category.
Especially so in your case, I would imagine.
Otherwise you'd only be having sex with slightly malodorous men with a bad pot habit who only see daylight during festival season.
What about Kim? Or a slightly malodorous woman with a bad pot habit who only sees daylight during festival season.
A lot of people think she's very sexy.
If your idea of sexy is owning a lot of old records.
Which I do.
Anyway, the point is, we wouldn't have been friends.
We just wouldn't.
But we had sex and then we found this cornucopia of things we had in common that we would have never unearthed otherwise.
For example? - Crosswords.
- That's one.
- Kids.
- You can't put kids on the list.
- Why not? - They weren't a shared interest - before we had them.
- I know, but we both wanted them.
If we had both wanted dogs and we'd ended up with a couple of Shih Tzus, you would have allowed those.
All right.
Kids and crosswords.
And I love the way you think.
Don't know anyone who thinks like you.
About what? The world.
Scien sciences.
Things like that.
[BOTH SNIGGER.]
- That is nonsense.
- Yes, I'm afraid it is.
- You don't care how I think.
- I really don't, no.
So, what, we're not friends? Is that the upshoot? We're married.
It's different.
We We've built a life together in spite of everything.
Shared language, family and some sort of understanding.
Complete intimate knowledge of everything to do with the other person.
What would you call all of that? Well I think I know what Kenyon would call all of that.
I know.
And I mean, it sort of is, isn't it? I think it might be.
Huh.
So why is that such an unsatisfactory answer? - I know what you mean.
- Do you? I think I may even know why.
Go on.
Promise you won't be cross with me.
- No.
- Well It is love but without feeling, if you know what I mean.
- Yes! - Oh, thank God.
Exactly.
Love without the feeling.
That's it.
You don't have to be that enthusiastic.
Why are the kids always saying, "Love you.
Love you, Mum.
Love you, Dad"? I never said that to my parents.
Well, there's a reason for that, but they say it all the time.
And I mean, I do think that they love us, but it's deep down, it's not on the surface where cheap sentiment lives.
So when they say it, it's cheap sentiment? Yeah, it means nothing.
Do you think that's why we don't say, "I love you" to each other? I do.
I do.
Yes.
I mean, we don't use the expression glibly.
We save it for when it counts.
Plus we love without feeling.
I mean, perhaps we could practice saying it anyway.
I mean between us it would never feel glib.
It would just be a simple, factual recognition of the state that exists between us.
I think that's a good idea.
- Let's put it on the list.
- Do we have a list? - Let's start a list.
- Let's start a list.
This might be good to do with Kenyon.
Absolutely it would.
You know how when you're in AA, you have to go to AA meetings when you've given up drinking? Yeah, of course.
They have to be alcoholics forever.
I mean, "Hi, my name is Tom.
I've been sober for ten years.
" I'm not an alcoholic, by the way.
That's for discussion another time but, I think we might be a little bit like that.
- Like what? - Sort of, "Our names are Tom and Louise "and we are in a permanent marital crisis "even though we live together and have sex.
" - I'm not seeing Kenyon forever.
- No, I'm not saying that.
I'm just saying that we should acknowledge that we have a flawed marriage.
We live on a fault line and the house might collapse at any moment.
And, I mean, are we okay with that? When we started this whole thing, you wanted to rebuild the architecture of our entire marriage.
Yes, I remember that.
But you don't think that's possible? No, I wouldn't have thought so.
No.
Otherwise it wouldn't be our marriage anymore.
But it might be somewhere that we may want to live.
Oh, look, he's still with us.
TOM: Oh, well, look at that.
That's made me feel suddenly hopeful about everything.
Would you like another drink? - Are you serious? - Let's get drunk.
- What about Kenyon? - I'll call her and tell her there's been a child emergency.
Go on, you get the drinks in.
I'll call her.
Well Well, I don't know what to say.
Actually, I do know what to say.
I love you.
Same again please.
We haven't arrived together once in the last ten weeks.
It's an omen.
Can I get a pint of Pride and a glass of white wine, please? An omen or a symbol? Aren't omens bad? Don't they just predict change? Well, there you are.
We arrive at the pub together for our last session.
- Why is it our last session? - Well, I moved back in.
We've had sex twice in the last eight days.
Sorted.
When we started seeing Kenyon, you hadn't even moved out, so you moving in just takes us back to where we started.
- And the sex is - Don't start on the sex.
Just leave it alone.
Don't knock it.
It's my only accomplishment of the year.
Look, all I was going to say is that - Thanks.
- it should be there.
We're young, we're married, we should be having sex.
And we are.
We started seeing Kenyon because we'd stopped.
And now we've started again.
So there we are.
Tick, move on.
Cheers.
So what happened to your feelings of humiliation? Gone.
We had sex.
And what your hurt and anger about my affair? Oh, I've buried that deep.
Yeah, that won't manifest itself until much later as some sort of physical ailment.
Heart attack or cancer.
And you think that's healthy? Do I think heart disease or cancer are healthy? No.
No, I don't.
But the burying which will result in cancer, do you think that's healthy? Yes, I do, in the short term.
What about the other things we talked about in the sessions? Like what? Tom, in the last few weeks we've both aired more grievances than, I don't know Maybe looking at some sort of peace process that would've hurt, Middle East, Northern Ireland.
I was trying to avoid the clichés.
The thing about peace processes is, it's usually one big grievance.
We have a thousand.
So I don't know what the right analogy would be.
Well, ours comes down to one really.
- Go on.
- We're married.
Everything else is an offshoot.
We wouldn't argue about my sister if we weren't married.
You'd say, "How's your sister?" If I knew you had one.
If indeed I even knew you.
God, I'm presuming we'd still be friends.
- Do you think we would? - In the right circumstances.
- Talk me through them.
- Don't be so rude.
- Why is that rude? - Well, or sarcastic, then.
Hold on you suggested that we'd only be friends given the right circumstances.
Why is it sarcastic for me to ask what those circumstances might be? It's as if you can't imagine what they might be.
Well, I just presumed that we would be friends in any circumstances.
You weren't presuming that at all.
You were just trying to make me feel bad.
You're right.
You're right.
And that's depressing.
- Which bit? - You knew I was winding you up when I said I can't imagine us not being friends.
Which, in other words, means I was suggesting the exact opposite was true.
Yes, that is depressing.
But do husbands and wives need to be friends? - I would have thought so, yes.
- Right.
Let's just say that on the night we met we hadn't ended up in bed together, we'd just had an interesting and agreeable conversation and then gone our separate ways.
What then? - What then what? - Would you have followed up? Yes, of course.
- Why of course? - I wanted to have sex with you.
- Sex is off the table.
- Why? Because in the parallel universe I'm describing - we're not attracted to each other.
- Oh.
I wouldn't have spoken to you in the first place.
Oh, my God.
You were that shallow? No, hold on.
It was a party.
We were in our 20s.
You walk into the room, you have a little glance around and you think, "Ooh, where will I start?" And you were where I started.
God.
All right, okay.
What about this? We had a mutual friend who asked us over for dinner and we got on.
And then the friend asked us to dinner again.
We got on again and the third time it happened we exchanged numbers and agreed to go for a drink.
- So sex is back on the table? - No.
- OK, I'm not following this.
- I'm talking about friendship.
Could we have been friends if we hadn't done any of the other stuff? - Yeah, I can't see it.
- Thanks.
Well, no.
I mean, look, I didn't have any friends like you.
I still don't have any friends like you.
When we met you had no idea why anyone would shout Judas at Bob Dylan.
Now I even know the shouter's name.
- No, you don't.
- I do.
Keith Butler.
Wow.
Don't get side-tracked.
I'm just saying, I didn't know anyone who had a GCSE in Biology, let alone someone who was gonna devote their life to the health of old people.
You hardly knew anyone who cleaned their teeth.
- I always did.
Still do.
- I know.
But where are you going with Keith Butler and gerontology? They're what's so great about sex.
Really? You can't think of another reason? No, hold on, forget about Keith Butler and the old people.
I'm talking about sexual attraction.
Sometimes you want to have sex with somebody who's not particularly in your actual category.
Especially so in your case, I would imagine.
Otherwise you'd only be having sex with slightly malodorous men with a bad pot habit who only see daylight during festival season.
What about Kim? Or a slightly malodorous woman with a bad pot habit who only sees daylight during festival season.
A lot of people think she's very sexy.
If your idea of sexy is owning a lot of old records.
Which I do.
Anyway, the point is, we wouldn't have been friends.
We just wouldn't.
But we had sex and then we found this cornucopia of things we had in common that we would have never unearthed otherwise.
For example? - Crosswords.
- That's one.
- Kids.
- You can't put kids on the list.
- Why not? - They weren't a shared interest - before we had them.
- I know, but we both wanted them.
If we had both wanted dogs and we'd ended up with a couple of Shih Tzus, you would have allowed those.
All right.
Kids and crosswords.
And I love the way you think.
Don't know anyone who thinks like you.
About what? The world.
Scien sciences.
Things like that.
[BOTH SNIGGER.]
- That is nonsense.
- Yes, I'm afraid it is.
- You don't care how I think.
- I really don't, no.
So, what, we're not friends? Is that the upshoot? We're married.
It's different.
We We've built a life together in spite of everything.
Shared language, family and some sort of understanding.
Complete intimate knowledge of everything to do with the other person.
What would you call all of that? Well I think I know what Kenyon would call all of that.
I know.
And I mean, it sort of is, isn't it? I think it might be.
Huh.
So why is that such an unsatisfactory answer? - I know what you mean.
- Do you? I think I may even know why.
Go on.
Promise you won't be cross with me.
- No.
- Well It is love but without feeling, if you know what I mean.
- Yes! - Oh, thank God.
Exactly.
Love without the feeling.
That's it.
You don't have to be that enthusiastic.
Why are the kids always saying, "Love you.
Love you, Mum.
Love you, Dad"? I never said that to my parents.
Well, there's a reason for that, but they say it all the time.
And I mean, I do think that they love us, but it's deep down, it's not on the surface where cheap sentiment lives.
So when they say it, it's cheap sentiment? Yeah, it means nothing.
Do you think that's why we don't say, "I love you" to each other? I do.
I do.
Yes.
I mean, we don't use the expression glibly.
We save it for when it counts.
Plus we love without feeling.
I mean, perhaps we could practice saying it anyway.
I mean between us it would never feel glib.
It would just be a simple, factual recognition of the state that exists between us.
I think that's a good idea.
- Let's put it on the list.
- Do we have a list? - Let's start a list.
- Let's start a list.
This might be good to do with Kenyon.
Absolutely it would.
You know how when you're in AA, you have to go to AA meetings when you've given up drinking? Yeah, of course.
They have to be alcoholics forever.
I mean, "Hi, my name is Tom.
I've been sober for ten years.
" I'm not an alcoholic, by the way.
That's for discussion another time but, I think we might be a little bit like that.
- Like what? - Sort of, "Our names are Tom and Louise "and we are in a permanent marital crisis "even though we live together and have sex.
" - I'm not seeing Kenyon forever.
- No, I'm not saying that.
I'm just saying that we should acknowledge that we have a flawed marriage.
We live on a fault line and the house might collapse at any moment.
And, I mean, are we okay with that? When we started this whole thing, you wanted to rebuild the architecture of our entire marriage.
Yes, I remember that.
But you don't think that's possible? No, I wouldn't have thought so.
No.
Otherwise it wouldn't be our marriage anymore.
But it might be somewhere that we may want to live.
Oh, look, he's still with us.
TOM: Oh, well, look at that.
That's made me feel suddenly hopeful about everything.
Would you like another drink? - Are you serious? - Let's get drunk.
- What about Kenyon? - I'll call her and tell her there's been a child emergency.
Go on, you get the drinks in.
I'll call her.
Well Well, I don't know what to say.
Actually, I do know what to say.
I love you.
Same again please.