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The British classic Coupling has this...masterclass...in how to construct a joke.


General

  • There are several episodes in which a primary joke runs the entire time (or at least is repeatedly mentioned) only to come to an hilarious (and sometimes expected, but never enough to ruin the joke) climax. Other examples of this would be the episodes ending in "I am Giselle!" and "Ohhh... Jeffrey!"
  • Jeff's basically a walking CMOF. His ability to blurt out the most incredible craziness and shock his [very] open friends is simply amazing. His reveal with Steve at the Sperm clinic was gut busting, not to mention his explanation of suffering 'lower whiplash'. Or the scene immediately following the captain subtext scene where his subconscious spoke only in one- or two-word exclamations like "Cleft. Gusset. Bicycle saddle", only to keep doing it after the 'auto-translate' was disabled. Or unintentionally stripping totally nude while dancing in front of all his colleagues and his mother! Or:
    Steve: You're choking the chicken.
    Patrick: You're strangling the python.
    Jeff: You're shaking the caravan, Jeffrey. (cue stares) Sorry, it got away from me a bit there. Family holidays, eh? God they went on a bit, didn't they?
    • In a similar vein, when he gets a bit caught out in acting out his embarrassing moments from childhood, "Jeffery, Jeffery, you're vibrating the light fittings!" But really any of his moments of Digging Himself Deeper could probably count.
    • In particular, the Bucket of Ears ramble (former Trope Namer for Digging Yourself Deeper, no less). Completely brilliant lunacy.
    • This happens so much that there's a moment where Jeff isn't present, but James, thinking that Susan is familiar to him, comments that "For some reason I'm seeing you in a nurse's uniform." Steve replies "Thank you Jeff, that will be all!" When the others stare at him, he says "He's not here, is he? Oh God, I've internalized him..."
    • When Jeff and Julia are bonding over how terrible they both are at talking to people they like, Jeff (calling back to a conversation with Steve and Patrick) blurts out, "I'm full of sperm!" (Wow, it's no wonder the show only lasted one season after Richard Coyle left, is it?)

Series 1

  • "Flushed":
    • During Susan's first date with Steve, her Rhetorical Question Blunder when she's trying to get rid of Jeff. "What do I have to do? Beg? Show you a breast?". Everyone else then joins Jeff in agreeing to this, with Steve adding, "I am technically on a date with you, I don't want to be a breast behind everyone else!"
    Susan: You know what? I am going to do this! I'm going to do this to show you how low, pathetic, and desperate you've all become!
    Jeff: Result!
    Susan: But I want you to remember, I intend this breast satirically.
    Patrick: Now there's a sentence that can't come up too often.
    • When Susan then asks which breast they want, Jeff and Steve both don't care, but Patrick insists on the right one.
    Susan: What's wrong with the left one?
    Patrick: Oh don't be like that, there has to be a second place.
    Susan: Well I wasn't aware you'd assessed them individually.
    Patrick: You were asleep! I was bored!
  • "Size Matters"
    • When Steve calls up Susan, he pauses immediately after they greet each other, and it gets out of control. As he explains to the boys later:
    Steve: Now first, it was just a normal pause. A collect-your-thoughts pause.
    Jeff: That’s perfectly acceptable.
    Steve: Yeah, but then, then I thought about the pause.
    Jeff: Ahh!
    Steve: And now, the pause is too long to ignore!
    Jeff: Yeah, the pause is like a whole third person in the conversation!
    Steve: Exactly!
    Jeff: Only not saying much.
    Steve: Right.
    Jeff: Like Patrick!
    • When he finally resumes the conversation and claims there may have been a fault on the line, Susan points out that she could hear him breathing.
    Steve: Look! …I was just wondering, would you like to meet up sometime? Or alternatively I could never phone you again and emigrate?
    Susan: How about tomorrow night?
    Steve: Great!
    Susan: I suggest New Zealand!
    • Jeff's foreplay tips:
    Jeff: Whoever you normally fantasize about during sex, start calling them 'Susan.' With you, it's always Mariella Frostrup, right? Well, call her 'Susan Frostrup'! That way, when you're in bed with Susan, you won't shout the wrong name when you have your eyes shut!
    Susan: Or you could call her 'God.'
    Jeff: Well, yeah, I mean, that'd work. (Oh, Crap! reaction)
    Susan: So is it absolutely necessary to think about somebody else?
    Jeff: Well, everybody does. That's why there are so many celebrity marriages.
    Sally: I'm sorry?
    Jeff: Eh? Well, you know, if - if you fantasize about someone else during sex, and so does your partner, and, you know, those two people that you're fantasizing about happen to meet while you're still doing it, they're bound to sense something, aren't they? Because they're connecting on, like, a virtual plane. So can you imagine what it was like when Posh first met Beckham? They were the epicenter of a non-stop, nationwide virtual shag! Ehh! I mean, it's no wonder she got pregnant!
    Susan: When the van comes for you, Jeff, go quietly.
    • His other tip, which the girls noticeably seem to agree with:
    Jeff: When exactly do you take your socks off? My advice is to get them off right after your shoes and before your trousers... that's the sock gap. Miss it and suddenly you're a naked man in socks. No self-respecting woman with let a naked man in socks do the squelchy with her.
    Patrick: That's your foreplay tip? Socks?
    Jeff: Many men have fallen through the sock gap Patrick. Under the sexual arena of earthly delight, there lurks a deadly pit of... socks.
    • Soon after this, Susan starts wondering whether her own celebrity crush, Angus Deayton, could pull off "naked-in-socks", Sally telling her, "Susan, you’ve got to get past this Angus thing." This comes back at the end of the episode, cutting away from Steve and Susan to the BBC, with Mariella Frostrup and Angus Deayton having an awkward Meet Cute.
  • "Sex, Death and Nudity":
    • The giggle loop. You try not to laugh, think about how awful it would be for you to laugh, try harder not to laugh, and eventually either time runs out or you bust a gut.
    • After Jane fails to convince Steve to come to the funeral for emotional support, she storms out of his flat yelling, "What the hell do you take me for, Steve? I'm not trying to lure you back into bed with my dead aunt!" Steve notices his neighbour watching them and comments, "That could so easily be misinterpeted."
      • The following night, Susan convinces Steve to change his mind about the funeral, before revealing in the middle of his phone call to Jane that she intends on coming with them. When she later calls Steve out on supposedly failing to recognise Jane's agenda with inviting him, she storms out of the flat, angrily yelling, "Anyone can have a dead aunt!" Steve then notices the same neighbour from before, and doesn't bother trying to explain.
      • The pay-off comes when Steve is leaving his house to go to the funeral, and the neighbour is out there again. When Steve confirms that he's going to a funeral, the neighbour asks if it's the funeral of an aunt. When Steve says that it is, the neighbour wishes him luck and gives him the thumbs-up.
    • What happens when you put three geeks together in dark suits? The re-enact the opening credits of Reservoir Dogs in slow-motion, of course.
    • Muriel, Jane's Cool Old Lady aunt, only had a handful of lines in "Sex, Death and Nudity," but most were hilarious.
    Jane: Isn't that [eating before a funeral] a little unusual?
    Muriel: I'm hungry now. Anyway, I never liked the bitch.
    • and later... rather smugly...
    Muriel: (Turns to coffin) Sausage roll, Margaret? (Beat) Oh, no, you're dead.
    • Jane accidentally turns Steve on by claiming to be attracted to Susan, giving him an erection, forcing him to stand in place by the refreshment table until it goes away.
    Jane: Oh, Steve! How much longer?
    Steve: About the usual amount.
    Jane: How much longer in minutes Steve?
    Steve: Oh, um...not very.
    Jane: Sounds familiar!

  • "Inferno":
    • Steve explains to the boys about how he left a porn video in his VCR and that Susan took it out to record something. When Jeff figures out that the video was Inferno, Patrick doesn't see the problem with it.
    Patrick: What? As long as she hasn't watched it. You can't tell anything from a title like Inferno.
    Steve: Patrick, um, Inferno isn't the full title.
    Patrick: Well, how bad can it be?
    [Answer Cut to Susan telling the girls the same story]
    Sally: "Lesbian Spank Inferno"?!
    • Jane visits her therapist Jill and talks about her insecurities over Steve and Susan's relationship, saying it's gone further in a matter of months than her relationship with Steve did in "five" (actually four) years.
    Jilll: We agreed two months ago to end your therapy as it was going nowhere, remember?
    Jane: I thought that was an exercise to help me cope with rejection!
    Jill: No, that was rejection.
    • In the middle of an extremely awkward dinner party, the girls confront Steve about the porn video, Susan forcing him to try to explain the complex plot of Lesbian Spank Inferno and back up his claim that It's Not Porn, It's Art. As it happens, the film involves a group of lesbian filmmakers holding a film festival, which ends with the women all spanking each other (which starts as a self-suggested punishment for the loser of the festival, only for the rest of them to join in). When Jill, not buying it, asks how he can possibly enjoy a movie like that, Steve replies, "Because it's got naked women in it!", followed by a massive rant detailing how the entire history of human achievement was all in order for men to get a better look at women's bottoms.
    "Frankly girls, I'm not sure how offended you really ought to be."
  • "The Girl With Two Breasts":
    • The boys have been watching a woman in the corner of the bar for some time, Steve and Patrick encouraging Jeff to talk to her. Jeff resists this, saying he's "way past the nudity buffer!"
    Steve: When you say things like 'nudity buffer', do you actually expect people to understand what you're talking about?
    Jeff: Right, when you first see an attractive woman, you've got a nudity buffer of maybe five minutes before you've fully mapped out what she looks like naked.
    Patrick: A whole five?
    Jeff: Well, you've got to assess her nipple type. That takes time.
    Patrick: Good point.
    Jeff: If you don't get in there and talk to her during the first five minutes, it's too late. Because then she'll be naked in your head, and you'll forget rule one of playing it cool.
    Steve: Which is?
    Jeff: Only smile at her face.
    • He then goes on to explain the potential consequences of this.
    Jeff: Did I ever tell you about the little redhead in my office?
    Patrick: Never mind about the little redhead...
    Jeff: Been there two years but I missed the buffer. That redhead has been naked in my head for two years now, performing deviant sex acts that would make the world's top porn stars go white and steady themselves on the furniture. I lose the ability to speak the moment she comes into the room. Every time she passes me in a corridor, I walk sideways into the wall. She thinks I'm a mute with a balance problem.
    • When Jeff finally goes over and tries to start a conversation with her, what starts with him making an innocuous if obvious comment about the book she's reading ends with him talking about collecting women's ears in a bucket. The kicker is that she's from Israel and didn't understand a word of this - but when Jeff expresses ecstatic relief about this result and explains why to her interpreter Alice, Alice repeats the "bucket of ears" part and freaks her out anyway.
    • Jeff returns to the boys.
    Jeff: She's leaving the country. She doesn't speak English. I insulted her friend's breasts. And she thinks I collect women's ears in a bucket.
    Steve: Well, you've had worse.
    • The next day, when Steve and Jeff tell Susan about the above conversation, Jeff tries to claim that he doesn't always say things like that. Steve responds by bringing up the time he met Audrey Watkins at his flat-warming party:
    Jeff: I was drunk!
    Steve: The worst chat-up line in the history of sex! "You're so gorgeous you should be embalmed."
    Jeff: I stressed that I didn't mean immediately.
    Steve: She left by toilet window!
    Jeff: Well at least she didn't move house! That was a big step forward for me!
    • Susan encourages him to try again with the Israeli woman. Since Alice isn't with her today, the resulting miscommunication ends in hilarious disaster, as revealed when the episode rewinds and switches the language, with the Israeli woman speaking English and Jeff talking in made-up Italian-ish. As it happens, what Jeff thought was her name, "Shadayim", is her word for "breasts". This, along with the fact that the woman thinks Jeff is interested in Alice, leads to the episode's punchline when he meets Alice the next day and says "Sorry... I was expecting Shadayim." Alice is rather flat chested compared to her friend and punches him out.
      • During said conversation, when Jeff thinks her name is Shadayim, at one point, he shouts across to Steve, "Steve, shadayim!" complete with two thumbs up. Steve responds back, "Shadayim!".
  • "The Cupboard of Patrick's Love" has another classic Jeff tangent: During a discussion about nudity on television, he reveals that the connotation between television and nudity after seeing a certain scene in The Wicker Man (1973) when he was a child led to him becoming aroused whenever it was switched on ("Even if it was just the news or Doctor Who") and that one afternoon he "lost control" in front of his whole family and "completely wrote off the television".
    Steve: Sorry... so you're telling us that, as a young child and despite the obvious electrical dangers, you sexually assaulted the television set? During Songs of Praise?
    Patrick: Is... is that what happened to your hair?
    • After learning that Patrick still keeps sex tapes from every woman he's slept with, Susan stops by to make sure the tape is in safe hands. Patrick assures her that the tape is staying in the cupboard. Cue Steve yelling in the the next room and running into the hall.
    Steve: Bloody hell! She's never done that with me! (Belatedly notices Susan there.)
    Susan: Who's never done what with you, darling?
    Steve: ...Jenny Agutter.
    Patrick: Walkabout! We're watching Walkabout.
    Susan: Oh, you're upset that Jenny Agutter's never gone on an Aboriginal walkabout with you?
    Steve: ...I admit I was surprised at the strength of my response.
    • Susan storms into the living room to find Jeff also watching the sex tape. When she finds out that they've only been watching it for five minutes, she points out the truly disgusting part of this: "THAT'S NOT ME!" And it's not until she actually tells them to look at the woman's face that they believe her.
    • Following on from this, Steve and Susan's indignation at realising Patrick taped over her, despite both having been equally angry about him keeping the tape in the first place.
    Susan: It's bad enough you kept the tape, Patrick, but now you've erased it, too!
    Patrick: That doesn't make sense.
    Susan: Well, I'm angry. Making sense gets in the way.
    • Patrick then remembers that this was a quickie, and that he only taped over the foreplay at the beginning ("There was foreplay?"), so there'll still be plenty of him and Susan. She insists on watching the rest, to show the boys what her bottom actually looks like. Cue a recording of The Wicker Man instead. Susan angrily goes to put the tape back in the cupboard, where she finds Sally hiding. Sally claims that she just wanted to see what they were like in case she ever decided to appear in one (and it turns out she also didn't notice it wasn't Susan). Moments later, Jane shows up in hopes of seducing Patrick.
    Susan: We're watching porn videos about me. I'm being played by Britt Ekland!
    Jane: Videos? Is it the tape of you and Patrick? Have I missed much?
    Susan: What is it with you lot? Why do you all have this desperate desire to see me naked?
    Steve: Oh Susan, no one wants to see you naked! (Beat) Okay, that came out wrong.

Series 2

  • "The Man With Two Legs":
    • Jeff tells Steve and Patrick that he's crushing on a woman he keeps seeing on a train. It eventually becomes clear that he can only describe her leg.
    Jeff: She gets on the train with a whole bunch of people and I never see her face. And then she sits diagonally in front of me. I can only see her leg.
    Steve: You have fallen in love with just a leg?
    Jeff: It's a great leg. You haven't seen this leg.
    Patrick Left or right?
    Steve: (staring at him) What?!
    Patrick: It's a leg! What else is there to ask? (Steve concedes the point)
    Jeff: Left.
    Patrick: Nice.
    Jeff: And brunette.
    Steve: Brunette?
    Jeff: I saw the back of her head once.
    • When the woman, Chrissie, does sit facing him one day, Jeff attempts to chat up her up, naturally digging himself into a hole regarding the leg infatuation. The best he can come up with to get out of it is by lying that he has a wooden leg. Surprisingly, this goes horribly right for him, with Chrissie being attracted to his supposed bravery about his disability, and by the third date Jeff has a serious dilemma.
    Steve: So, she's gorgeous and you're definitely in... what's wrong this time?
    Jeff: This is the worst one ever! I can't even talk about it!
    Steve: Jeff, Jeff. I know about the Giggle Loop, the Sock Gap, the Nudity Buffer and what you said to Audrey Watkins. Believe me there is nothing you can possibly say that will surprise me. So what's the trouble?
    Jeff: I've got too many legs!
    • Sally is dating Liam, and she tells the others he's a surgeon, which backfires when Jane recognises him as her butcher. Cue a hilarious One Dialogue, Two Conversations in which he gives Steve and Patrick the impression he's been performing unethical cosmetic surgery on Sally: "Well, you know how it goes. Just a few good cuts and you have the woman of your dreams."
    • Once it becomes clear that Chrissie is ready to take the relationship to the next level, the best way Jeff or Steve can think of to get him out of it is to have Liam cut his leg off.
    Jeff: I've got the keys to the gates of paradise...but I've got too many legs!
  • "Her Best Friend's Bottom":
    • Patrick's story about unwittingly dating twins for a month. Not only were they not pretending to be the same person - "I kept wondering when she ate, when she slept! Why she kept changing her name!" - they weren't even identical twins!
    • A chain of three — the "Captain Subtext" scene leads to Steve's rant on the mysterious nature of cushions, which leads to Susan's one line defusing of the whole thing;
    Steve: I'll show you. [flips the cushion over in his hands, and holds it up to Susan] What... is this?
    Susan: It's a cushion.
    Steve: Right. Yes. It's a cushion. Thank you for that, very informative. [holds the cushion up to Jeff] You got any of these?
    Jeff: [shakes head] No.
    Steve: 'Course you haven't! [snaps fingers and points to junior sales assistant] You. You married? Living with anyone?
    Junior shop assistant: No.
    Steve: Got any of these?
    Junior shop assistant: No.
    Steve: 'Course not! [snaps his fingers again and points to Susan] You- you bring these things into our homes. They, they, [throws cushion onto a sofa] they sit on our chairs! They watch our televisions! Now, [stammers] I just need to know - on behalf of all men, everywhere, I just... need to ask... please... what are they for!? [Susan looks bewildered] I mean look at them! [grabs two cushions from another sofa] Look at the chubby little bastards [drops the cushions again] just sitting around everywhere, I mean, what are they?! Pets for chairs!? [Susan looks even more bewildered; Steve confronts the senior shop assistant] Come on! You sell them!
    Junior shop assistant: Well...
    Senior shop assistant: [gives Steve a Disapproving Look] You sit on them.
    Steve: Ah! [laughs mockingly] Ah, see, that's where you're wrong. Nobody sits on them. Okay - watch this. [walks over to the first sofa and grabs the cushion] Here's the cushion - I'm putting it on the sofa. [does so] Now - watch me. I'm sitting down... and what do I do on my final approach? [as he sits down, he...] I - OOH! MOVE THE CUSHION! D'you see!? It- it's not involved! It's not part of the whole sitting process, it just... lies there! It's... it's fat litter! It's a sofa parasite!
    Jane: [holding up a frilly hot pink cushion] It's... [pats the cushion] you know... padding!
    Steve: Padding! [stands up and walks around behind the sofa] Oh, now, that's interesting! See- I-I-I like padding. You know, if I was, say, er... an American football player, y'know, all those big bastards running at me, I'd say, you know, "Give me some of that padding and be quick about it!" You know, if my job involved... bouncing down jagged rocks, [the senior sales assistant is visibly sick of Steve's rant; the junior is just confused] I would say... [puffs his cheeks] "In view of those jagged rocks down there, I'll have some of that padding, thank you very much." [pointing to each of the three women in turn] But Susan, Sally, Jane, this... is a sofa! It is designed by clever scientists in such a way so as to shield the unprotected user from the risk of... skin abrasions, serious head trauma, and of course!... [suddenly drops to the floor, then pokes his head over the back] Daleks! [Jane and Jeff can't help laughing; Susan looks ever angrier] You looked! [points between Susan, Sally, and Jane again] Trust me, girls! Trust me on this one! You do not need [holds up cushion again] padding to tackle upholstery! [marches over to Susan] So please, once and for all, tell me: why on Earth you would want me to sit on one of these?!
    Susan: [her own anger boiling over] Because, if you pressed it firmly against your bottom it might stop you talking!
    Steve: [Beat] I saw Sally naked.
  • "The Melty Man Cometh", Patrick's interactions with "The Melty Man", the mental, Darth Vader-esq, Anthropomorphic Personification of The Loins Sleep Tonight, moments before he's about to consumate his relationship with Sally. He is encountering "problems", until it's revealed it's all due to his repressed, genuine feelings for her...
    Patrick: What? I care for her? That's what all this is about? It's just because I like her?
    The Melty Man: You didn't know that?
    Patrick: No!
    The Melty Man: Oh ... bugger.
  • "Jane and the Truth Snake": After being sacked from her job as a traffic reporter for convincing drivers to take a moment of meditation while driving Jane gets an idea that she will become a children's show host. She then develops the character of Jake the Truth Snake who is willing to tell the truth about everyone, including Jane. Leading to her having an argument with her own right hand.
  • "Dressed":
    • Jane is invited over to a guy's apartment and thinks it will just be the two of them, so she wears a trenchcoat with nothing underneath, and when it turns out all his friends are there, Jane has to make excuses to keep her coat on, attempts to call Steve for help ("Steve, I've gone to a dinner party and I'm accidently naked!"), she desperately tries to get a little girl to steal a dress for her by giving her the coat which fails miserably and hilariously, then Jane finally gives up and casually walks in front of the guy and his friends while completely naked, puts on another coat and leaves, her complete lack of embarrassment and the guy's reactions is what really sells it.
    • Steve explains to the bartender the "Understanding" he has with Susan.
    Bartender: Have you actually told her that you're gonna marry her?
    Steve: In my own way...
    Bartender: Your own way?
    Steve: She accidentally overheard me saying it on the phone, when I thought I was talking to my ex-girlfriend.
    Bartender: No offense, and, of course, it's none of my business, but that could be the worst proposal in human history.
    Sally: Steve, you're gonna have to be my husband. Patrick prefers blondes!
    Bartender: (laughing) I love this bar!
  • "Naked":
    • The scene where Julia tells the girls about an encounter she had in the stationary cupboard with Jeff. We see a flashback that leads to a very awkward kiss, with Jeff rather cruelly criticising her breath, her teeth, etc. Julia then clarifies that it was an Imagine Spot, explaining why she didn't kiss him. Cut back to the cupboard where the kiss plays out again, making it clear this is Jeff's own Imagine Spot of what he thought would happen, which we just know will be more extreme. And it doesn't disappoint:
    Patrick: That's what you thought would happen if you kissed her?
    Steve: You think if you kiss a woman, your mother will emasculate you with a miniature guillotine?
    Jeff: I know. Mothers, eh?
    • When Jeff finishes the actual story, which involves him awkwardly deciding to stay in the stationary cupboard for no reason, Steve and Patrick are both strangely impressed with the result.
    Steve: Well, by your standards. You didn't accidentally tell her you're an axe murderer.
    Patrick: Or that you've got a wooden leg.
    Steve: Or that you collect women's ears in a bucket.
    Patrick: You old devil!
    Jeff: What are you talking about? She thinks I'm a cupboard loiterer!
    Steve: Oh come on Jeff! At least you're a biped who doesn't kill people! That's a big step forward!
    • Julia blindfolds Jeff and leads him into what was supposed to be a surprise birthday party. Jeff, getting the wrong idea entirely, starts doing a striptease in front of his colleagues, friends, and parents...which is followed by his first sexual encounter in the series.

Series 3

  • "Split" has another classic Jeff moment:
    Jeff: Jenny Turbot....the worst phone call I ever made. It was my final year at school and there she was — Jenny Turbot. It was like she came to life, like, from one of my magazines, as if all the candles and chanting had finally worked. I'd never seen a woman that gorgeous fully dressed. Clothes looked wrong on her somehow. As if she'd developed a fault. I fell completely in love with her. Totally. I knew she was the one. Everyone else called her the school bike, said she would put out for absolutely anyone...but it wasn't just that. And I got her number, right? It took me ages but I got it. I remember it was on a little scrap of paper. The Turbot's actual phone number! That little scrap of paper gave me the best time of my life. A month of complete sexual bliss. In the end, I had to phone her before it fell apart. She knew who I was! She remembered me. No one ever remembered me, but the Turbot, she remembered. And we were just chatting away, and it was easy, and I just asked her out, I just did it. An actual date.
    Patrick: So what went wrong?
    Jeff: Well, her ex suddenly turns up again doesn't he? Barry. Barry the Bastard. Before you know it they're shagging away like maniacs. I kept asking her out, obviously. I pleaded. But she was too busy with all the endless shagging. So, in the end, I just had to hang up.
    Steve: She was having sex with the guy while you were still on the phone?
    Jeff: Actually, I think the phone was involved.
    Steve: Oh dear God.
    Jeff: That was as close as I got to Jenny Turbot: I was a sex aid for her and Barry the Bastard. I counted it as half a point.
  • "The Freckle, the Key and the Couple Who Weren't" has Jeff running into the bar, having just bought a large amount of laxatives. After giving his friends an explanation for how he swallowed something of Julia's (the keys to her handcuffs), Steve alerts him to the fact that he's still wearing a gimp mask:
    Jeff: I suppose, thinking about it, this is why they were so helpful at the chemist's. And crying. And didn't charge me.
  • "The Girl With One Heart" has Steve's monumental Bathroom-as-Fortress-of-Solitude explanatory effort.
    Steve: We are men! Throughout history, we have always needed, in times of difficulty, to retreat to our caves. It so happens that in this modern age, our caves are fully plumbed. The toilet is, for us, the last bastion, the final refuge, the last few square feet of man-space left to us! Somewhere to sit, something to read, something to do, and who gives a damn about the smell? Because that, for us, is happiness. We are men. We are different. We have only one word for soap. We do not own candles. We have never seen anything of any value in a craft shop. We do not own magazines full of photographs of celebrities with all their clothes on. When we have conversations, we actually take it in turns to talk. We have not yet reached that level of earth-shattering boredom and inhuman despair where we would have a haircut recreationally. We do not know how to get excited about really really boring things, like ornaments, bath oil, the countryside, vases, small churches. I mean, we do not even know what, WHAT in the name of God's arse is the purpose of potpourri. Looks like breakfast, smells like your auntie. Why do we need that? So please, in this strange and frightening world, allow us one last place to call our own. This toilet, this blessed pot, this... fortress of solitude. You girls, you may go to the bathroom in groups of two or more. Yet we do not pass comment. We do not make judgment. That is your choice. But we men will always walk the toilet mile... alone.
  • "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps":
    • The episode begins with Sally walking into the bar and asking the girls, "Are you two absolutely certain you're not pregnant?" Susan remarks that they really should work out a new form of greeting.
    • The flashback to Steve and Susan's experience at a fertility clinic, in which Steve tries to explain what was taking him so long to produce a sample only to be interrupted by Jeff chiming in to reveal that Steve called him to bring in a better selection of porn - specifically, lesbian-only - and giving an explanation about "lower whiplash" resulting from the other kind.
    Steve: Obviously, Jeff's more than averagely acquainted with some of these issues.
    Susan: Steve, Jeff is more than averagely here!
    • Upon learning that Jeff also brought in Steve's favourite pillow, Susan goes on to summarize her exasperation about this situation:
    Susan: You've asked trained medical professionals for a porn menu. You've sent out for lesbians, and a comfort pillow. And if that wasn't strange and alarming enough, Jeff! Why didn't you just ask Patrick along while you were at it?
    [Long Beat as the boys don't answer. Susan turns to the door and closes it, to find Patrick hiding behind it.]
    • The final scene has Jane running into the bar with a negative pregnancy test. "I'm not pregnant! It's a miracle! I have shagged and shagged and shagged, and all the little bastards missed!"

Series 4

  • "9 1/2 Minutes",
    Steve: Jeff, calm down. Jeff, just listen, okay. Three things. One, you should not be using your mobile phone on a plane. Two, the name of the island is pronounced Lesbos. [Beat] Yeah, well that was fairly optimistic of you, wasn't it. Three, the behaviour of breast implants at altitude isn't a subject I can claim great knowledge on. [beat] Yeah, I'm fairly sure you can't raise it with a complete stranger. [beat] No, whatever danger you think she's in. [beat] No Jeff, not even with the people in "shrapnel range"! Okay, look, I'm going to hang up now. [beat] Because I don't want to endanger a planeload of innocent passengers by prolonging a conversation about the hazards of breast inflation.
    • Jane has been matched with someone on a dating service and is supposed to meet them in the bar, and she jumps to the wrong conclusion when she sees her gynaecologist there. She tells Steve and Susan about this, only to then meet her actual date Oliver, who runs a sci-fi bookshop. Jane introduces him to them without getting the chance to set the record straight. Steve, following on from an earlier conversation with Susan involving pregnancy and Alien, asks Oliver his opinion on the John Hurt chestburster scene. Oliver tells them that scene is what got him into his business in the first place. All of which is made funnier by the episode's structure, because the audience also still thinks Oliver is the gynaecologist.
  • "Nightline":
    • The episode revolves around a five-way late night phone call, which starts between Susan and Sally before being interrupted by Steve and Patrick in their respective bedrooms, and then Jane. Initially Steve assumes she's in his apartment ("Jane, could you stop doing this? Could you stop just wandering through my front door? Because this is not, repeat not, an American sitcom!") and explains that Jane keeps spare keys from everyone she's slept with. Cue The Reveal that she's on the extension in Patrick's apartment instead, and Sally demanding access to Patrick's video cupboard while Patrick rather pathetically tries to deny that they ever slept together: "And when I didn't sleep with her, you and I weren't even together!"
    • In the middle of this, Susan gets a separate call from Oliver impersonating his ex-girlfriend Tamsin, fishing for information on whether she's dating anyone. Susan mentions to "Tamsin" that she's pregnant, to Oliver's shock, with him asking "Is it mine?" in Tamsin's voice. Cue a prolonged argument (most of which Susan doesn't listen to) which ends with "Tamsin" berating Oliver for being so pathetic as to be "on the phone in the middle of the night to a complete stranger pretending to be me". It's at this point that Susan recognises Oliver from the previous episode, and she chooses to get rid of him by connecting him with Jane.
  • "Bed Time" has Susan finding out that Jane and Sally have a song making fun of her complete with wigs and a dance routine, "Susan The Happy Trotting Elf". Which Sally later performs, after misunderstanding a suggestion from Susan.
  • "Circus of the Epidurals": Everybody ends up at Susan's ante-natal class, which ends up being led by Jill, the therapist from "Inferno". All of the call backs to that episode were hilarious (even the extras in the background were laughing).
    Jill: I understand that Jennifer is happy for friends and relatives of the couple to come along to this preliminary session, and obviously I'm happy too. As long as it doesn't develop into some kind of... [sees Steve and recognizes him] Lesbian Spank Inferno.
    Susan: I thought you were a therapist.
    Jill: I moved on from therapy after your friend Jane. [...] I knew then to get out of therapy and never find myself in the same room as that woman and her pathetic delusions again.
    [Jane enters, with a pillow on her stomach, pretending to be pregnant]
    Jill: [to Jane] Well, you seem healthy. So much for Voodoo.
    • Oliver runs into his ex-girlfriend at the ante-natal class and makes a spiteful attempt at making fun of her for turning up alone.
    Oliver: Where is he then? What's the problem? Shy, is he? Afraid? Ashamed? Really, really ugly?
    Tamsin: [angrily] Dead!
    Oliver: Dead in fact. He's dead. That's where Tamsin's boyfriend is. Dead. That's the whole story. Move along now, nothing to see here. She probably wants to deal with it on her own.
    Tamsin: Oh, for God's sake!
    Oliver: [to others in class] Okay, everyone, we're not doing the laughing now. That's a no on the laughing. Laughing is cancelled because of the whole death aspect.
    Tamsin: Oliver, he's not really dead. I just wanted you to make a prat of yourself.
    Oliver: Okay, he's not dead now, and I'm just making a prat of myself.
    Steve: Well, maybe you want to try and not do that.
    Oliver: Sorry. Can't stop. On a roll.
    • Sally suddenly remembers Jill leaving with someone at the dinner party four years ago. Cue Patrick walking into the class, to the vocal surprise of Sally, Susan, Steve, Jill, Tamsin, and one other woman.
    Patrick: Blimey, so this is where you all end up.
    Sally: Patrick, have you slept with all these women?
    Patrick: Well, I've only just got here, I haven't checked.
    Sally: But you slept with her? [Tamsin]
    Patrick: Yeah, but ages before I started going out with you. About five years ago.
    Oliver: [to Tamsin] So, when you were going out with me?
    Susan: When Patrick was going out with me?
    Other woman: When Patrick was going out with me?
    Other woman's partner: Hang on, that's when you were going out with me!
  • In "The Naked Living Room", Patrick's Bad Liar moment after he accidentally tells Steve he slept with Jane (after denying it three episodes earlier).
    Steve: Patrick, I know you. You can't keep a lie like this going!
    Patrick: Course I can. Damnit!
    Steve: Look, when did this happen?
    Patrick: What, the lying or the sleeping with Jane? Damnit!!
  • In the finale, "9 1/2 Months" Patrick's attempts to keep Sally from watching his sex tape with Jane. First he tells her that he locked his video cupboard and that he removed the tape. It takes her a second to deduce that he locked the tape outside the cupboard. Then she finds it in the video player where he was going to tape over it — but forgot to press record. After they watch the tape and establish that Jane herself taped over the sex part so she could give him some pointers about his "technique", Sally demands to look in the cupboard in case there's a second tape, Patrick replying, "I never make more than one sex tape of a woman. I'm not a pervert!" He then tells her that as soon he heard her coming he locked the cupboard and threw the key out the window. She points out that since the cupboard is always kept locked, he actually unlocked it.
    Patrick: Look Sally I'm trying to think on my feet here!
    Sally: I know! It's like watching a whale knit!


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