When Tom gives Shiv an encased scorpion in a red jewellery box we know this is going to be a great episode. What sort of present is this? Is it an insult or a joke? Who finds it funny? Tom does. Shiv looks pained. Tom has found a perfect image to represent how he thinks of his wife. Toxic, poisonous, scaly, dangerous.

Later, in a block buster scene, they really go for each other. She calls him a snake. A good retaliation. He says she shouldn't have children. She calls him a conservative hick. She accuses him of stealing her father. She tells him his wine smells of wet dog.

We are all narcissistic to some degree. But here it is poetically rendered. She says he only married her because he wanted to fuck her phone book. Even as they try and get close they are pushed apart.

They try and have a real conversation. They try to get beyond "projections." But all they really do is articulate each others vulnerabilities.

Still every couple will relate to this episode. Parties throw up so much material. She wants him to stay up forty five minutes more. He wants to go to bed. He wants everyone to leave. Both are terrified of losing their jobs and status. But neither can provide solace to the other.

There is a strange love in their insults. They don't shout or hit each other. But they know each others scar tissue and shadow areas. If marriage is "mutual confrontation until death" (Guggenbuhl Craig), then they may have a talent. The gods of marriage are Zeus and Hera, and when they argue the heavens rumble ! I feel there is so much condensed in this argument. They know each other. But whether they will combust or transform is all in play. Riveting stuff.

In couples therapy all of these snake-scorpion dynamics are at work. Under the surface each argument is often a microcosm of the psychodynamics between the couple.