State of the Union (2019) s01e01 Episode Script
Marathon
[DOOR OPENS.]
- Hi.
- Oh, hi.
- I bought you a drink.
- Thanks.
- Thank you for coming.
- Oh, that's okay.
- Have you been here long? - No, no.
That's my fourth.
- It's not really my fourth.
- Right.
Phew.
- It is my second, though.
- You're entitled to two.
- Won't you want a pee break? - I hope so.
I'll make it last as long as I can.
It'll seem like you've been for a poo.
Oh, hell.
I'll announce right at the beginning that I can never poo in someone else's house.
I think I could say just about anything today and you'd laugh.
Within reason.
Let's not test that theory out.
There is a difficulty, though.
What constitutes reason? There's a talking point.
We've probably got enough talking points without delving into the history of western philosophy.
You're right.
Who was the reason philosopher? I want to say Kant.
I want to and I will, Kant.
There, I said it.
- Shall I check? - No, please don't.
- We've only got a few minutes.
- Are you sure it just t Yeah, I'm sure, but thank you.
Were the kids okay? Yeah, fine.
Did Christina remember she was staying late? I hope so.
- Dylan got another detention.
- Oh, hell.
What for this time? He was doing an impression of someone I've never heard of in Geography.
Idiot.
- Shall we talk about - I mean, literally never heard of them.
Some YouTuber or Grimy.
Who knows? And Otis was feeling a little better as I was leaving.
Surprise, surprise.
Are you trying to fill the time before we go? I suppose I am a bit.
- I'm nervous.
- I'm sorry.
If it wasn't for me, we wouldn't be here.
No.
Just no? Yes, just no, if it weren't for you, we wouldn't be here.
A sad fact.
You wouldn't take a tiny bit of the responsibility? No.
Why? Because Because it's a long and complicated road that's led us here, don't you think? I mean, that depends how you look at it.
There's the long and the complicated and then there's as the crow flies.
Talk me through the route your crow flies.
You slept with someone else and now here we are.
Except there's a bit more to it than that, isn't there? Which way do you go, then? - Crow or no crow? - Crow.
You stopped sleeping with me.
I started sleeping with someone else.
My God, that's such a short version, and quite crude, if you don't mind me saying.
See, my version's actually longer than yours.
My version explains why we're actually here.
Yours is just a short partial version of the long mess that came before.
- Yes, I made a mistake, but - Can we just clear something up? How many mistakes was it in total? - Well, one.
- One? Yes.
- Depending how you define it.
- Oh, okay.
Well, let's define it in the way that gives it the highest number, just so I know what we're dealing with.
The highest number would be in the hundreds.
Jesus Christ.
Because of all the tiny, tiny decisions - that led to the big mistake.
- Oh.
No, no, no.
I'm I'm not really interested in the tiny decisions.
We need to leave in five minutes.
So, one.
But when you said it depends on how you define it Well, you could define it as as one affair or you could define it as as four mistakes.
How? The first mistake repeated three times.
I'm I'm lost.
How many times did you sleep with this guy? Four.
- Not three? - No.
One mistake.
Three repetitions of the original mistake, the first time being the original sin, sort of thing, and the other three as as duplicates.
I mean, you can't write four times off as being accidental.
You'd be hard pushed to write one off as being accidental, to be honest.
I mean How would that work? Look, I had an affair.
Are you not consoled that it was it was only four times, not 40? No, not really.
I mean, once you get to four, you might as well get to 40.
I think if it had been 40, we would be having a different conversation.
Yes.
One with lots of 40s in it instead of fours.
You know what I mean.
40 would have meant it was going on for I'd like you to finish that sentence.
How long would it have taken you to get to 40? This is a ridiculous conversation.
No, I'm just looking for an approximate rate so we can calculate frequency as well as number.
Why? - Comparison.
- There is no comparison.
It's like comparing a 25-yard dash with a marathon.
- And we're the marathon? - Yes, of course we are.
Well, we're married.
We've got children.
We didn't know that was gonna happen when we started having sex.
We weren't pacing ourselves.
We didn't say, "Oh, we'd better not go too hard at it in case we run out of sex in 15 years.
" [CHUCKLES.]
Look.
Okay, these f these four times took place over a few weeks.
Our first four times took place over a few days.
Hm? But where does that get us? How long is it going to take us to get to four times from here? - Where's here, though? - Here, now, when we're not having sex at all.
If you wanna stick with the running analogy Which I'm not committed to.
Right now we are Usain Bolt with an injury.
A groin strain, if you like.
We're both Usain Bolt? Not just you? Our sexual relationship is Usain Bolt with a groin strain.
Yes, we're stalled.
But once we're up and running, we'll hit four in no time.
We've got less than five minutes.
We should sort out an agenda that doesn't involve Olympic runners.
My agenda is why did you sleep with someone else? To answer that question I suspect we have to answer a lot of others.
Really? Oh God.
Oh Oh, they're out.
You can see the house from here? Yeah, it's that one there with the green door.
Those two, they've just been given a right counseling.
TOM: They look shell-shocked.
- They're completely fucked.
- As in exhausted or as in there's no future in the relationship? - Both.
Look at them.
- Is that really what we want? To totally fuck our relationship? I mean, it's not like there's nothing of it left.
- No, of course not.
- I mean, we've got two kids, - for one thing.
- Exactly.
- And - Crosswords.
- Yes.
- And - Game of Thrones.
- When it's on.
I guess what I'm saying is, I just didn't I didn't think we had the kind of marriage that needed poking around in.
Poking around in? I suppose it's a medical metaphor.
It's quite a good one.
If they opened you up and found you riddled with cancer, would you want them to sew you up again? You know I don't like talking about cancer.
Can't it be Ebola? You'd rather have Ebola than cancer? It's harder to catch Ebola when you live in Kentish Town.
Yes but the point of the metaphor is that you've got it, not that you haven't, so if we'd managed to avoid all marital disease, we wouldn't be sitting here now.
Fair enough.
Okay cancer.
So, do you want them to sew you up and pack you off? - How far has it gone? - That's why they're poking around.
They can't tell without a bit of poke.
This is why I never go to the doctor's.
Which takes us back to where we started.
You see, you don't wanna talk to anyone about our marriage.
If it dies, you'd rather just find out about it because it collapses on the spot.
Yes, exactly.
Look, you're a gerontologist.
You know all about good deaths.
I mean, keeling over suddenly, that's gotta be one of them.
Right? But that's a heart attack.
Marriages don't die suddenly.
They've always been They've been sick for a while before they kick the bucket.
Mm, right.
Look, I think what I'm saying, medically speaking, is that either we leave it and it kills us or we get it looked at.
- Okay? - Yes.
I mean, I can't say I'm looking forward to it, but - I don't want to run away from this.
- No, of course not.
I mean, however badly it goes, it's just an hour, right? I was talking about the marriage, not the counseling.
Oh.
- Ha.
- Mhm.
All right.
Oh, before we go, is it a man or a woman? - You never said.
- I did.
- It's a woman.
- Oh, a woman? Christ Almighty.
You would have said exactly the same thing, wouldn't you, - if I'd said it was a man.
- Well, yes.
But bad in a different way.
I mean, if it was a man, I wouldn't be able to talk about anything intimate, obviously.
- Obviously.
- But if it's a woman, oh, man, I'm gonna get slaughtered.
Slaughtered? Why won't she slaughter me? Feminism.
I know that you had the affair but it'll turn out to be my fault.
There'll be mitigating circumstances.
Not just my the the bloody sex stuff, but she'll find out that you make all the money and do most of the cooking and whatever, even though you work and I don't and and you do all the boring arranging stuff.
I think she'll just write you a blank cheque.
She'll be like, "Go on, Louise, fill your boots, girl.
"You can have ten affairs if you want 'em.
" I don't think marital counselors tell clients to have ten affairs, and I I really don't want ten.
The one I had was very stressful.
She's gonna write it off, that's for sure.
I won't let her.
I'll tell her exactly how bad I've been.
I don't think we need all the details, do you? Not like that.
I mean, how awful I was.
How unfair and sneaky and morally reprehensible.
Cool.
Let's walk up this road for a minute and try and sort it out.
What are we sorting out? Well, whether a man or a woman is best.
It's a woman, sitting there, waiting for us.
There's nothing to sort out.
Well, I mean, not necessarily.
We could forget about this and try and find a man.
Who, as you point out, would be bad in a different way.
I've changed my mind about that.
Oh, come on, Tom.
This was your idea in the first place.
Tom? Tom! Tom!
- Hi.
- Oh, hi.
- I bought you a drink.
- Thanks.
- Thank you for coming.
- Oh, that's okay.
- Have you been here long? - No, no.
That's my fourth.
- It's not really my fourth.
- Right.
Phew.
- It is my second, though.
- You're entitled to two.
- Won't you want a pee break? - I hope so.
I'll make it last as long as I can.
It'll seem like you've been for a poo.
Oh, hell.
I'll announce right at the beginning that I can never poo in someone else's house.
I think I could say just about anything today and you'd laugh.
Within reason.
Let's not test that theory out.
There is a difficulty, though.
What constitutes reason? There's a talking point.
We've probably got enough talking points without delving into the history of western philosophy.
You're right.
Who was the reason philosopher? I want to say Kant.
I want to and I will, Kant.
There, I said it.
- Shall I check? - No, please don't.
- We've only got a few minutes.
- Are you sure it just t Yeah, I'm sure, but thank you.
Were the kids okay? Yeah, fine.
Did Christina remember she was staying late? I hope so.
- Dylan got another detention.
- Oh, hell.
What for this time? He was doing an impression of someone I've never heard of in Geography.
Idiot.
- Shall we talk about - I mean, literally never heard of them.
Some YouTuber or Grimy.
Who knows? And Otis was feeling a little better as I was leaving.
Surprise, surprise.
Are you trying to fill the time before we go? I suppose I am a bit.
- I'm nervous.
- I'm sorry.
If it wasn't for me, we wouldn't be here.
No.
Just no? Yes, just no, if it weren't for you, we wouldn't be here.
A sad fact.
You wouldn't take a tiny bit of the responsibility? No.
Why? Because Because it's a long and complicated road that's led us here, don't you think? I mean, that depends how you look at it.
There's the long and the complicated and then there's as the crow flies.
Talk me through the route your crow flies.
You slept with someone else and now here we are.
Except there's a bit more to it than that, isn't there? Which way do you go, then? - Crow or no crow? - Crow.
You stopped sleeping with me.
I started sleeping with someone else.
My God, that's such a short version, and quite crude, if you don't mind me saying.
See, my version's actually longer than yours.
My version explains why we're actually here.
Yours is just a short partial version of the long mess that came before.
- Yes, I made a mistake, but - Can we just clear something up? How many mistakes was it in total? - Well, one.
- One? Yes.
- Depending how you define it.
- Oh, okay.
Well, let's define it in the way that gives it the highest number, just so I know what we're dealing with.
The highest number would be in the hundreds.
Jesus Christ.
Because of all the tiny, tiny decisions - that led to the big mistake.
- Oh.
No, no, no.
I'm I'm not really interested in the tiny decisions.
We need to leave in five minutes.
So, one.
But when you said it depends on how you define it Well, you could define it as as one affair or you could define it as as four mistakes.
How? The first mistake repeated three times.
I'm I'm lost.
How many times did you sleep with this guy? Four.
- Not three? - No.
One mistake.
Three repetitions of the original mistake, the first time being the original sin, sort of thing, and the other three as as duplicates.
I mean, you can't write four times off as being accidental.
You'd be hard pushed to write one off as being accidental, to be honest.
I mean How would that work? Look, I had an affair.
Are you not consoled that it was it was only four times, not 40? No, not really.
I mean, once you get to four, you might as well get to 40.
I think if it had been 40, we would be having a different conversation.
Yes.
One with lots of 40s in it instead of fours.
You know what I mean.
40 would have meant it was going on for I'd like you to finish that sentence.
How long would it have taken you to get to 40? This is a ridiculous conversation.
No, I'm just looking for an approximate rate so we can calculate frequency as well as number.
Why? - Comparison.
- There is no comparison.
It's like comparing a 25-yard dash with a marathon.
- And we're the marathon? - Yes, of course we are.
Well, we're married.
We've got children.
We didn't know that was gonna happen when we started having sex.
We weren't pacing ourselves.
We didn't say, "Oh, we'd better not go too hard at it in case we run out of sex in 15 years.
" [CHUCKLES.]
Look.
Okay, these f these four times took place over a few weeks.
Our first four times took place over a few days.
Hm? But where does that get us? How long is it going to take us to get to four times from here? - Where's here, though? - Here, now, when we're not having sex at all.
If you wanna stick with the running analogy Which I'm not committed to.
Right now we are Usain Bolt with an injury.
A groin strain, if you like.
We're both Usain Bolt? Not just you? Our sexual relationship is Usain Bolt with a groin strain.
Yes, we're stalled.
But once we're up and running, we'll hit four in no time.
We've got less than five minutes.
We should sort out an agenda that doesn't involve Olympic runners.
My agenda is why did you sleep with someone else? To answer that question I suspect we have to answer a lot of others.
Really? Oh God.
Oh Oh, they're out.
You can see the house from here? Yeah, it's that one there with the green door.
Those two, they've just been given a right counseling.
TOM: They look shell-shocked.
- They're completely fucked.
- As in exhausted or as in there's no future in the relationship? - Both.
Look at them.
- Is that really what we want? To totally fuck our relationship? I mean, it's not like there's nothing of it left.
- No, of course not.
- I mean, we've got two kids, - for one thing.
- Exactly.
- And - Crosswords.
- Yes.
- And - Game of Thrones.
- When it's on.
I guess what I'm saying is, I just didn't I didn't think we had the kind of marriage that needed poking around in.
Poking around in? I suppose it's a medical metaphor.
It's quite a good one.
If they opened you up and found you riddled with cancer, would you want them to sew you up again? You know I don't like talking about cancer.
Can't it be Ebola? You'd rather have Ebola than cancer? It's harder to catch Ebola when you live in Kentish Town.
Yes but the point of the metaphor is that you've got it, not that you haven't, so if we'd managed to avoid all marital disease, we wouldn't be sitting here now.
Fair enough.
Okay cancer.
So, do you want them to sew you up and pack you off? - How far has it gone? - That's why they're poking around.
They can't tell without a bit of poke.
This is why I never go to the doctor's.
Which takes us back to where we started.
You see, you don't wanna talk to anyone about our marriage.
If it dies, you'd rather just find out about it because it collapses on the spot.
Yes, exactly.
Look, you're a gerontologist.
You know all about good deaths.
I mean, keeling over suddenly, that's gotta be one of them.
Right? But that's a heart attack.
Marriages don't die suddenly.
They've always been They've been sick for a while before they kick the bucket.
Mm, right.
Look, I think what I'm saying, medically speaking, is that either we leave it and it kills us or we get it looked at.
- Okay? - Yes.
I mean, I can't say I'm looking forward to it, but - I don't want to run away from this.
- No, of course not.
I mean, however badly it goes, it's just an hour, right? I was talking about the marriage, not the counseling.
Oh.
- Ha.
- Mhm.
All right.
Oh, before we go, is it a man or a woman? - You never said.
- I did.
- It's a woman.
- Oh, a woman? Christ Almighty.
You would have said exactly the same thing, wouldn't you, - if I'd said it was a man.
- Well, yes.
But bad in a different way.
I mean, if it was a man, I wouldn't be able to talk about anything intimate, obviously.
- Obviously.
- But if it's a woman, oh, man, I'm gonna get slaughtered.
Slaughtered? Why won't she slaughter me? Feminism.
I know that you had the affair but it'll turn out to be my fault.
There'll be mitigating circumstances.
Not just my the the bloody sex stuff, but she'll find out that you make all the money and do most of the cooking and whatever, even though you work and I don't and and you do all the boring arranging stuff.
I think she'll just write you a blank cheque.
She'll be like, "Go on, Louise, fill your boots, girl.
"You can have ten affairs if you want 'em.
" I don't think marital counselors tell clients to have ten affairs, and I I really don't want ten.
The one I had was very stressful.
She's gonna write it off, that's for sure.
I won't let her.
I'll tell her exactly how bad I've been.
I don't think we need all the details, do you? Not like that.
I mean, how awful I was.
How unfair and sneaky and morally reprehensible.
Cool.
Let's walk up this road for a minute and try and sort it out.
What are we sorting out? Well, whether a man or a woman is best.
It's a woman, sitting there, waiting for us.
There's nothing to sort out.
Well, I mean, not necessarily.
We could forget about this and try and find a man.
Who, as you point out, would be bad in a different way.
I've changed my mind about that.
Oh, come on, Tom.
This was your idea in the first place.
Tom? Tom! Tom!