Coupling

1Flushed

2Size Matters

When Susan calls Steve, he instantly looses all his command of conversation, yet they agree to meet and she offers to cook, according to Sally an offer of free sex plus catering. Steve's report to the mates is treated to Jeff's dubious 'foreplay tips', such as avoiding at all cost to be even a moment, while undressing, naked except for socks, and one the mentioned girls overhear entering the bar: using the girlfriend's first name to call the celebrity one usually thinks of during sex. Jane is absurdly confident her own bisexuality makes her eligible for pure gay hunk Howard and switches all labels and concepts potentially implying any homophobia. Sally haughtily turns down going out with Patrick by assuring him she won't have sex with him ever, till Susan explains his nickname "donkey" refers not to his mental abilities but to his intimate endowment, which cancels all Sally's prejudices, even if he is politically about her complete opposite. Steve and Susan's evening goes trough, burdened by misunderstandings and...

3Sex, Death & Nudity

Jane's aunt dies, and everyone's going to the funeral ... but whose date is whose? The event has Sally worrying that her anti-aging beauty regime may never be enough. This episode also features Jeff's infamous (and illustrated) theory of the "giggle loop."

4Inferno

While tidying up Steve's flat, Susan finds a hot tape we'll just call "Inferno" ... but that's not the FULL title. At a dinner party featuring all the friends, plus Jane's ambiguous guest, he is called upon to give a detailed review of the film and, by extension, a defense of the whole male heterosexual psyche. Jane also takes this evening as her opportunity to proclaim her variety of "open" vegetarianism.

5The Girl with Two Breasts

The boys are in a bar, as always talking about girls and sex, this time focusing on their obsession with female breasts and the fantasy the left and right ones would somehow be two separate entities, doubling their fascination, or be doubled: enough to contemplate a SciFi plot. When desperate single Jeff spots a nice-looking girl, Steve and Patrick encourage him to make a move after she shows sole interest, but first have to learn and wave his theory of the nude zone: a male (at least in his case) cannot remain in female presence for more then a few minutes before his mind has constructed a fully nude image of the girl, which renders him too horny-mad to retain command of any decent faculty, hence disables any flirting. Indeed it takes only a few sentences for Jeff, without a word from the girl, to expose his particular brand of innocent-insane obsession and give the unprovoked impression he collects women's ears! To his immense relieve, the girl's friend who then arrives explains she's Israeli and doesn't understand a single word of English, unprecedented luck in Jeff's love-frustrated experience, but it doesn't take him long to sort of repeat the self-embarrassing process, now with translation into Hebrew, as well as unintentionally insulting the less foxy interpreter as such...

6The Cupboard of Patrick's Love

1The Man with Two Legs

Jeff becomes obsessed with a woman whose leg he has admired from afar on the train. Faced with a chance to meet her, and the need to explain his delight at finding she has a second leg, he comes up with the lie that he is an amputee. Yet once she takes an interest, how is he ever to follow up? Then again, Sally is dating a surgeon, so ...

2My Dinner in Hell

Susan's sexually frank parents are coming to dinner, and Steve's worried. Seeing a nature TV show with Susan that talks about the need for the male of the species to continue to "enjoy" himself doesn't exactly help. Patrick and Jeff become obsessed with, shall we say, publicity rights. Meanwhile, Jane has discovered a talent for identifying people's ideal celebrity friend just by looking at them, and she has a surefire technique for meeting and befriending those celebrities. TV news presenter Mariella Frostrup stars as herself ... though her cellphone seems to be having an identity crisis.

3Her Best Friend's Bottom

It's time for Susan and Steve to redecorate the flat, but that's going to mean Steve achieving the biologically impossible: a man having an opinion about fabric. His dilemma is made no easier when, dropping by Susan's apartment unannounced, he gets a view of Sally that opens his eyes to the beauty that is Australia. Patrick is having car trouble, or so he says. And Jeff's old buddy "Captain Subtext" is there to explain it all.

4The Melty Man Cometh

Patrick and Sally each discuss with their friends the bedroom disaster of the previous episode, in which Patrick encountered a problem entirely new to him. Jeff takes this opportunity to explain to Patrick the ways of "The Melty Man," who comes "to do his evil work inside your terrified pants." Emboldened by a talk with her girlfriends, Sally visits Patrick's apartment determined to prove that what happened is no reflection on her -- and Patrick wants to do the same for himself.

5Jane and the Truth Snake

After getting herself fired from her radio job as a traffic reporter, Jane invents a sock puppet named Jake the Snake in preparation to launch a career in children's TV. Jake's honesty, though, could cost Jane her friends. Back at the bar, Patrick has an ingenious plan to dump his girlfriend for rejecting any hope of a threesome, a plan which backfires when she arrives in mid-phone call with the news she's changed her mind.

6Gotcha

7Dressed

When Patrick needs a "pretend wife" to show off to his colleague Ivan, Sally agrees to take the job, only to be abruptly fired in favor of Susan. As Steve struggles to reclaim his someday-will be-almost-possible fianc?e, Jane faces her own crisis when her choice of fashions for a party leave her feeling just a little underdressed for the occasion.

8Naked

Jeff meets co-worker Julia and is interesting in going out with her as she is with him. Jeff explains his ineptitude to Steve and Patrick at asking women out. Elsewhere, Julia explains her ineptitude at being asked out to Susan, Jane, and Sally. Neither the guys nor the girls are aware of who the love interest is.

9The End of the Line

1Split

Now Steve and Susan have broken up, he has nightmares, willing to give up a lot and beg to get her back. The boys try to comfort him and contemplate weird paths of thought about phoning, sex and lust. Susan won't even admit it to herself but she is just as miserable. Sally nearly convinced Susan to call him, but that doesn't work out. Steve got Jeff to call in his place to see if Susan called him, but the idiot doesn't use his cellphone. In times of despair, each group turns to its temple: the boys to a strip-club, where Jeff remembers pole-dancer Jenny Turbot as a former schoolmate, for drinks and fun; the girls to a beauty parlor, to bag on man- and realize life is even worse without them. Back home drunk after midnight, Steve calls Susan.

2Faithless

Jeffs tells his mates he fears that he has caused irreparable disaster just by saying 'Hi' to office colleague Wilma Lettings. Her desk gave her the best view on his posterior during a photocopying disaster. This leads to a date with her, although her boyfriend is in Australia and Julia forbids co-workers to know about them. Jane explains 'how well' she addressed the religious program presenter James, whose sexy presence makes her substitute 'penis' for 'car'. She went to his Bible group, posing as a fellow Christian, only in her ruthlessly atheist, rude, promiscuous and violent way. Jeff's dangerous date is coached by cellphone with two female 'feelings translators', but Julia grabs his.

3Unconditional Sex

The boys believed Jeff was safe by telling Wilma he's faithful to his girlfriend, but as the girls predict she forces him either to say she's not attractive or to accept meaningless sex. Jane pops in during an endless demonstration that a driver's license is no guarantee against turning parallel parking into a lethal hazard for cars (especially Patrick's) and pedestrians. She mindlessly 'cues' Jeff to the question 'what kind of girlfriend is both current and ex?' (He escapes answering why he didn't tell her about their date by answering 'a dead one'). Meanwhile Steve brought Susan's wrath on himself by failing to cue the required response, and Sally hands her a frightening tool: she has worked for the agency 'Man test', which still sends out sirens to prove they can be seduced into infidelity. Wilma promises to respect Jeff's fidelity but insists to give him a lift and use his bathroom, but a sassy surprise expects both of them and the friends who turn up as relieve cavalry.

4Remember This

5The Freckle, the Key and the Couple Who Weren't

6The Girl with One Heart

7Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps

1Nine and a Half Minutes

2Night Lines

The friends become entangled in a seemingly endless phone call as pregnant Susan looks for assurance of sexiness, Sally looks for the meaning of her new relationship with Patrick, and Jane looks for a way to hide now that she's in the wrong ex's apartment.

3Bed Time

In reality and fantasy, Sally and Patrick match wits as he seeks to spend the night at home and she looks to entice him to stay over ... again. Oliver accompanies Jane to Sally's dinner party, which features an unexpected musical entertainment.

4Circus of the Epidurals

5The Naked Living Room

6Nine and a Half Months