State of the Union (2019–…): Season 2, Episode 5 - Led Zeppelin's Accountant - full transcript

- Hey.
- Hey.

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.

Hi.

I know you guys probably
want to get to the zone,



but I just wanted
to let you know that,

from now on, Cindy will be
handling the sessions.

'm sorry to hear that.

I want to stress that it
wasn't just last week's session

that pushed us over the edge.

Tension has been building up
for a while.

It must be very hard on
a marriage, the job you guys do.

Listening to people's problems
must make you reflect on your own.

That is exactly right, Ellen.

Although, to tell you the truth,

we haven't been actively
married for some time.

- Can you be passively married?
- 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.

- 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.

Cindy is very engaged
with you guys.

She will do good work. And...

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.

We hope to work together again
with other couples

sometime in the future.

But not with us.

I should leave you two
to, well, get into the zone.

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 rate 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?

I mean, when they started
going for each other.

Come on, you need
a heart of stone not to laugh.

It just seemed unkind.

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.

- 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.

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?

I don't know what else
to call you.

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".

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?

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?

- 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?

I think it was.

The Garden,
and The Spectrum in Philly.

None of that would have prevented
you from talking about gay marriage.

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.

- 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?

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?

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.

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?

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.

- Hi.
- Hey, Cindy.

Did Steve talk to you?

Yeah, yeah.
It's fine with us.

- Steve and I...
- Yeah, we heard.

Oh, well, yeah.
There's that.

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.

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.

And Steve's okay with that?

Sure, yeah. No hard feelings.

- And there'll be other couples there.
- So we'll be diluted.

What's an intimacy weekend?

We talk about techniques

about how you can give and take
more as a couple.

- 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.

Shall we?

- That's not funny.
- It really is.