State of the Union (2019) s02e05 Episode Script
Led Zeppelin's Accountant
[THEME MUSIC PLAYING.]
SCOTT: Thanks, Jay.
- ELLEN: Hey.
- JAY: hey.
[ELLEN SIGHS.]
Couldn't throw us out, could he? Well, that might have been one of the options they were thinking about.
They can't throw couples out of counseling.
We see Steve and Cindy because we have problems.
If you can't deal, you're in the wrong job.
But now, because of you, it's their marriage that has the problems.
Here he comes.
- Hey, Steve.
- Hey.
[CHUCKLES SOFTLY.]
Hi.
I know you guys probably want to get to the zone, but, um, I just wanted to let you know that, um, from now on, Cindy will be handling the sessions.
[SARCASTICALLY.]
I'm sorry to hear that.
Oh, I want to stress that it wasn't just last week's session that pushed us over the edge.
Uh Tension has been building up for a while.
It must be very hard on a marriage, the job you guys do.
[CHUCKLES.]
Listening to people's problems must make you reflect on your own.
That is exactly right, Ellen.
Although to, uh, well, to tell you the truth, we haven't been actively married for some time.
Can you be passively married? [CHUCKLES.]
We're not divorced.
We've been living apart for two years.
You don't think you should own up to that? You don't think you should tell couple seeking guidance that you two have literally no idea about how to make a marriage work? Matter of fact, you're in a worse place than your clients? Scott, that's not fair.
Yes, Steve and Cindy are separated, but look how they've managed the separation.
He called her a sanctimonious bitch and walked out during our session.
That's not the Steve I know.
- Oh, thank you.
- You don't know Steve at all.
You thought Steve was still married to Cindy.
And I still am.
Come on.
Even we're more married than you are.
Not if you go on like this, we're not.
- Cindy hates me.
- I'd imagine they both hate you.
No, no, nobody hates anyone.
C-Cindy is very engaged with you guys.
She will do good work.
And, uh Well, if you have any feedback on the last session we did with the four of us, we would love to hear it.
There's no "we" anymore.
You don't live with her, you don't work with her.
[CHUCKLES.]
We hope to work together again with other couples sometime in the future.
But not with us.
I should leave you two to, uh, well, get into the zone.
Um, I'll be checking in with Cindy about how you're doing.
Thanks, Steve.
They want to work with other couples, but not us.
I'm sure it's not like that.
So why do they want to work with other couples? Maybe you pushed it too far last week.
I just asked them to take the test we'd done.
You can't ask couples you don't know to score how much they want to be married out of ten.
That's bound to cause issues.
Exactly what they do to us.
They don't know us, and we have to raid our marriage the whole time.
Now we know they aren't together.
It clearly wasn't a mutual decision.
Well, they got found out.
That serves them right.
But why is their discomfort so funny to you? You could see they were in pain.
It's funny to see the tables turn, right? [CHUCKLES.]
I mean, when they started going for each other.
Come on, you need a heart of stone not to laugh.
It just seemed unkind.
[SCOFFS.]
Now, we're stuck with her.
Why does it matter? Cindy's nice.
If you like that sort of thing.
Am I really so difficult? It might not be you.
It might be me, - or the way the four of us combined in the room.
- Yeah.
- But, yes.
- Yes, I'm difficult? Yes.
Because I have certain traditional views, even though I vote Democrat? No.
Come on, we both know that's what it is.
No.
You're difficult in many more ways than that.
"Many more ways.
" So you just conceded that my social conservatism is one of them.
It's what you do with it.
What do I do with my social conservatism? You have to express it frequently, and in ways you think are humorous.
Of course.
It's the jokes.
[IMITATES GUNSHOT.]
You must never make jokes about or to woke-flakes.
Just let it all out.
It's been building up for a while.
Let's go.
There's nothing in.
That's the thing.
You think I'm full of all this rage and bile, but I'm not.
I just see things I think are funny, and I try to express my amusement.
And what makes it funnier for me is that it annoys people.
But doesn't the need to annoy people come from a place of anger.
You started with the places now? I don't have any places.
No place of anger, no place of love, no place of forgiveness.
None of them.
Nobody born in the 1950s has places.
Maybe not everything is funny.
Of course it is.
Everything you people do is funny.
You're gonna pick me up on "you people", aren't you? Yes.
I don't know what else to call you.
Oh, it might be helpful to think of us as suffragettes.
What are you talking about? Wouldn't you people have found that just as funny? "Votes for women?" I'm not "you people.
" Oh, if I'm "you people", you're "you people" by definition.
I'm in the middle between those people and you people.
And, no, of course I wouldn't have found it funny.
You'd have laughed.
Ridiculous.
What are they going to come up with next? Gay marriage? They're gonna let men marry men? [CHUCKLING MOCKINGLY.]
We were together when that was made legal.
Did I laugh? Not when it was made legal, no.
By the time it was made legal, even you had caught up.
But you would have laughed in 1975.
1975? Well, yeah.
1975 is a very different time.
You see? - [CHUCKLES.]
There's no way.
- Why not? 1975? You got everybody trying to shoot Gerald Ford.
You got that Thriller in Manila.
Born to Run comes out.
Defeat in Vietnam.
Was that the year that we saw Zeppelin twice? Four nights, I think it was.
The Garden, and The Spectrum in Philly.
None of that would have prevented you from talking about gay marriage of course.
You try raise the subject when you're dangling off the last helicopter out of Saigon.
You'd get your hand stamped on.
You were watching The Fall of Saigon on TV.
If you were aware of it at all, you probably found out about it from a History Channel documentary.
Listen, '75, I was in high school.
Six of us went to Philly.
In Tommy Cantello's dad's pick-up.
We were all wasted, including Tommy who was driving.
He had to stop to puke.
So you tell me.
When was the right time for the gay marriage debate? I'm not talking about you as a teenager in 1975.
I'm talking about you as a grown-up.
The age you are now.
I'm asking you to take your 62-year-old self back to 1975, and you stay 62.
Maybe this is too late, but you didn't order anything.
Oh, thanks.
This all sounds pretty freaky.
The 62-year-old Scott back in 1975.
It's very Christopher Nolan.
I'm struggling in so many different directions.
You, Scott, were born in 1913.
- So he's dead, right? - [SIGHS.]
Now that opens a few escape hatches for her.
I'm not trying to kill you off.
I'm trying to get you to think about your attitudes.
Okay.
So, born in 1913.
I fought in Normandy.
I was part of the greatest generation.
Am I rich? Oh, sure.
I can't imagine you not being rich.
No, I wasn't rich in 1975, I could tell you.
Or, like, 1930-something, if you're born in 1913.
Yeah, listen, thanks for the tea and the input, Jay.
Maybe someone else needs your wisdom now.
Oh, sure.
Sorry.
You don't need to give yourself a whole backstory.
I think I do.
That would probably be the 1975 62-year-old me.
Yeah, I kind of like that.
It all fits.
Plus, I could still have gone to see Zeppelin at The Spectrum.
How many people born in 1913 saw that tour, do you think? Um, Zeppelin probably had an accountant born around then.
I was Led Zeppelin's accountant.
Fine.
You were Led Zeppelin's accountant.
I'll bet I had good seats.
But you also had the views of a dinosaur about gays and women.
I risked my life to fight fascism, which is more than you did.
Or anyone else that's been to jail and doesn't want me to confuse my pronouns.
All I'm saying is you think you're reasonable and moderate, but that's what every old fart thinks, and they're always wrong.
Plus in real life, you didn't fight against fascism.
You weren't part of the greatest generation.
You got fucked up at some rock and roll shows, and then joined a golf club, and then laughed at pronouns.
You have no excuse.
- CINDY: Hi.
- Hey, Cindy.
Did Steve talk to you? Yeah, yeah.
It's all It's fine with us.
- CINDY: Steve and I - Yeah, we heard.
Oh, well, yeah.
[CHUCKLES NERVOUSLY.]
There's that.
Um, but I wanted to see you before the session because I want to tell you that we'd like to make it up to you for last week.
Oh, that's okay.
These things happen.
We run intimacy weekends up in Wharton State Forest.
And we would like for you two to come as our guests free of charge.
Wow.
And Steve's okay with that? Oh, sure, yeah.
No hard feelings.
And there'll be other couples there.
- Oh, so we'll be diluted.
- [CHUCKLES SOFTLY.]
What's an intimacy weekend? CINDY: Oh, we talk about techniques about how you can give and take more as a couple.
[SCOFFS.]
Seriously? Yes.
Everyone who has come to see us, every single person, has reported an intensifying of everything, from orgasms, to Well, that is very kind of you, but That sounds incredible.
Thank you.
[CINDY CHUCKLES.]
Shall we? - [CHUCKLES SOFTLY.]
- That's not funny.
It really is.
[MUSIC PLAYING.]
SCOTT: Thanks, Jay.
- ELLEN: Hey.
- JAY: hey.
[ELLEN SIGHS.]
Couldn't throw us out, could he? Well, that might have been one of the options they were thinking about.
They can't throw couples out of counseling.
We see Steve and Cindy because we have problems.
If you can't deal, you're in the wrong job.
But now, because of you, it's their marriage that has the problems.
Here he comes.
- Hey, Steve.
- Hey.
[CHUCKLES SOFTLY.]
Hi.
I know you guys probably want to get to the zone, but, um, I just wanted to let you know that, um, from now on, Cindy will be handling the sessions.
[SARCASTICALLY.]
I'm sorry to hear that.
Oh, I want to stress that it wasn't just last week's session that pushed us over the edge.
Uh Tension has been building up for a while.
It must be very hard on a marriage, the job you guys do.
[CHUCKLES.]
Listening to people's problems must make you reflect on your own.
That is exactly right, Ellen.
Although to, uh, well, to tell you the truth, we haven't been actively married for some time.
Can you be passively married? [CHUCKLES.]
We're not divorced.
We've been living apart for two years.
You don't think you should own up to that? You don't think you should tell couple seeking guidance that you two have literally no idea about how to make a marriage work? Matter of fact, you're in a worse place than your clients? Scott, that's not fair.
Yes, Steve and Cindy are separated, but look how they've managed the separation.
He called her a sanctimonious bitch and walked out during our session.
That's not the Steve I know.
- Oh, thank you.
- You don't know Steve at all.
You thought Steve was still married to Cindy.
And I still am.
Come on.
Even we're more married than you are.
Not if you go on like this, we're not.
- Cindy hates me.
- I'd imagine they both hate you.
No, no, nobody hates anyone.
C-Cindy is very engaged with you guys.
She will do good work.
And, uh Well, if you have any feedback on the last session we did with the four of us, we would love to hear it.
There's no "we" anymore.
You don't live with her, you don't work with her.
[CHUCKLES.]
We hope to work together again with other couples sometime in the future.
But not with us.
I should leave you two to, uh, well, get into the zone.
Um, I'll be checking in with Cindy about how you're doing.
Thanks, Steve.
They want to work with other couples, but not us.
I'm sure it's not like that.
So why do they want to work with other couples? Maybe you pushed it too far last week.
I just asked them to take the test we'd done.
You can't ask couples you don't know to score how much they want to be married out of ten.
That's bound to cause issues.
Exactly what they do to us.
They don't know us, and we have to raid our marriage the whole time.
Now we know they aren't together.
It clearly wasn't a mutual decision.
Well, they got found out.
That serves them right.
But why is their discomfort so funny to you? You could see they were in pain.
It's funny to see the tables turn, right? [CHUCKLES.]
I mean, when they started going for each other.
Come on, you need a heart of stone not to laugh.
It just seemed unkind.
[SCOFFS.]
Now, we're stuck with her.
Why does it matter? Cindy's nice.
If you like that sort of thing.
Am I really so difficult? It might not be you.
It might be me, - or the way the four of us combined in the room.
- Yeah.
- But, yes.
- Yes, I'm difficult? Yes.
Because I have certain traditional views, even though I vote Democrat? No.
Come on, we both know that's what it is.
No.
You're difficult in many more ways than that.
"Many more ways.
" So you just conceded that my social conservatism is one of them.
It's what you do with it.
What do I do with my social conservatism? You have to express it frequently, and in ways you think are humorous.
Of course.
It's the jokes.
[IMITATES GUNSHOT.]
You must never make jokes about or to woke-flakes.
Just let it all out.
It's been building up for a while.
Let's go.
There's nothing in.
That's the thing.
You think I'm full of all this rage and bile, but I'm not.
I just see things I think are funny, and I try to express my amusement.
And what makes it funnier for me is that it annoys people.
But doesn't the need to annoy people come from a place of anger.
You started with the places now? I don't have any places.
No place of anger, no place of love, no place of forgiveness.
None of them.
Nobody born in the 1950s has places.
Maybe not everything is funny.
Of course it is.
Everything you people do is funny.
You're gonna pick me up on "you people", aren't you? Yes.
I don't know what else to call you.
Oh, it might be helpful to think of us as suffragettes.
What are you talking about? Wouldn't you people have found that just as funny? "Votes for women?" I'm not "you people.
" Oh, if I'm "you people", you're "you people" by definition.
I'm in the middle between those people and you people.
And, no, of course I wouldn't have found it funny.
You'd have laughed.
Ridiculous.
What are they going to come up with next? Gay marriage? They're gonna let men marry men? [CHUCKLING MOCKINGLY.]
We were together when that was made legal.
Did I laugh? Not when it was made legal, no.
By the time it was made legal, even you had caught up.
But you would have laughed in 1975.
1975? Well, yeah.
1975 is a very different time.
You see? - [CHUCKLES.]
There's no way.
- Why not? 1975? You got everybody trying to shoot Gerald Ford.
You got that Thriller in Manila.
Born to Run comes out.
Defeat in Vietnam.
Was that the year that we saw Zeppelin twice? Four nights, I think it was.
The Garden, and The Spectrum in Philly.
None of that would have prevented you from talking about gay marriage of course.
You try raise the subject when you're dangling off the last helicopter out of Saigon.
You'd get your hand stamped on.
You were watching The Fall of Saigon on TV.
If you were aware of it at all, you probably found out about it from a History Channel documentary.
Listen, '75, I was in high school.
Six of us went to Philly.
In Tommy Cantello's dad's pick-up.
We were all wasted, including Tommy who was driving.
He had to stop to puke.
So you tell me.
When was the right time for the gay marriage debate? I'm not talking about you as a teenager in 1975.
I'm talking about you as a grown-up.
The age you are now.
I'm asking you to take your 62-year-old self back to 1975, and you stay 62.
Maybe this is too late, but you didn't order anything.
Oh, thanks.
This all sounds pretty freaky.
The 62-year-old Scott back in 1975.
It's very Christopher Nolan.
I'm struggling in so many different directions.
You, Scott, were born in 1913.
- So he's dead, right? - [SIGHS.]
Now that opens a few escape hatches for her.
I'm not trying to kill you off.
I'm trying to get you to think about your attitudes.
Okay.
So, born in 1913.
I fought in Normandy.
I was part of the greatest generation.
Am I rich? Oh, sure.
I can't imagine you not being rich.
No, I wasn't rich in 1975, I could tell you.
Or, like, 1930-something, if you're born in 1913.
Yeah, listen, thanks for the tea and the input, Jay.
Maybe someone else needs your wisdom now.
Oh, sure.
Sorry.
You don't need to give yourself a whole backstory.
I think I do.
That would probably be the 1975 62-year-old me.
Yeah, I kind of like that.
It all fits.
Plus, I could still have gone to see Zeppelin at The Spectrum.
How many people born in 1913 saw that tour, do you think? Um, Zeppelin probably had an accountant born around then.
I was Led Zeppelin's accountant.
Fine.
You were Led Zeppelin's accountant.
I'll bet I had good seats.
But you also had the views of a dinosaur about gays and women.
I risked my life to fight fascism, which is more than you did.
Or anyone else that's been to jail and doesn't want me to confuse my pronouns.
All I'm saying is you think you're reasonable and moderate, but that's what every old fart thinks, and they're always wrong.
Plus in real life, you didn't fight against fascism.
You weren't part of the greatest generation.
You got fucked up at some rock and roll shows, and then joined a golf club, and then laughed at pronouns.
You have no excuse.
- CINDY: Hi.
- Hey, Cindy.
Did Steve talk to you? Yeah, yeah.
It's all It's fine with us.
- CINDY: Steve and I - Yeah, we heard.
Oh, well, yeah.
[CHUCKLES NERVOUSLY.]
There's that.
Um, but I wanted to see you before the session because I want to tell you that we'd like to make it up to you for last week.
Oh, that's okay.
These things happen.
We run intimacy weekends up in Wharton State Forest.
And we would like for you two to come as our guests free of charge.
Wow.
And Steve's okay with that? Oh, sure, yeah.
No hard feelings.
And there'll be other couples there.
- Oh, so we'll be diluted.
- [CHUCKLES SOFTLY.]
What's an intimacy weekend? CINDY: Oh, we talk about techniques about how you can give and take more as a couple.
[SCOFFS.]
Seriously? Yes.
Everyone who has come to see us, every single person, has reported an intensifying of everything, from orgasms, to Well, that is very kind of you, but That sounds incredible.
Thank you.
[CINDY CHUCKLES.]
Shall we? - [CHUCKLES SOFTLY.]
- That's not funny.
It really is.
[MUSIC PLAYING.]