Coupling

Sally is terrified that she might be pregnant, so she takes a pregnancy test and asks the other girls to do the same so that she knows what a negative result looks like. In her fluster she gets the tests muddled up. One of the girls is pregnant, but which one?

Susan has invited everyone over for dinner, which as we know is just asking for trouble. Steve is particularly worried because Susan has recently redecorated the bathroom, and removed the lock, thus robbing him of his Fortress of Solitude. Sally's worry is that Patrick is bringing his new girlfriend: she's frightened that she will overcompensate her feelings of hostility towards her new rival by being embarrassingly nice. Patrick dimly perceives there might be a problem, so has told Jennifer that Sally is a lesbian...

Steve is troubled by a blemish on his bottom, which Susan hasn't noticed. James remembers where he knows Susan from. Jeff and Julia try spicing up their love life, but he loses the key to the handcuffs. Then Julia's chunky ex-boyfriend calls round, and he has to pretend that they're not a couple.

Sally is surprised to say the least when Patrick arrives at her flat at three in the morning to get rid of a spider for her. It turns out that he dreamt her distress call. What can this mean? Does Patrick subconsciously want to protect Sally? More shockingly, does Patrick have a subconscious? Encouraged by their friends, Sally and Patrick independently tell the story of how they first met...

Steve and Susan's relationship is drifting into a new phase. They are beginning to get on each other's nerves. A bizarre set of misunderstandings brings on a crisis.

As Jeff's 30th birthday approaches, his new boss Julia Davis questions the girls about whether one should kiss a junior work colleague, while Jeff admits to the lads that he had a close encounter of the Nat (Nose Avoidance Tilt) kind in a stationery cupboard at work.

Patrick has boasted to his business associate, Ivan, amongst other things that he has a wife, and when Ivan comes to the bar, Patrick presses Sally and then Susan into pretending to be his wife. Things turn awkward when Steve proposes to Susan while she is pretending to be faithfully married to Patrick. Meanwhile, Jane is invited on a dinner date by Bill, a man she chatted up in a pub, but makes an unfortunate choice of clothing for the evening.

It's one year since Steve and Susan's first date, and he is dreading questions about their future. And then a wedding invitation drops through their front door. Patrick meets an ex who appears to fail to recognize him.

Patrick has a cupboard of video tapes of his former girlfriends, not to mention Britt Ekland in The Wicker Man. Jeff is excited, but Steve is appalled, when he realizes that Susan must be amongst them. Susan is also horrified when she realizes this in the company of the other girls. Later on, she arrives at Patrick's, and is outraged at what she finds going on there.

Jeff and co. can't take their eyes of a beautiful stranger in their local bar. And the girl can't take her eyes off Jeff. Jeff goes over to talk to her, only to discover that she doesn't speak a word of English, which to Jeff of course is quite a relief. Her interpreter, Alice, tells Jeff she's Israeli, then whisks her away. The next day the girl is back and Jeff attempts to chat her up. With neither speaking a word of the other's language, it is an utter disaster.

Steve is plunged into total panic when he suspects that Susan has found one of his porn videos. To fill the embarrassing silence, he tells her he loves her, but Susan is well-aware that he was merely panicking. Susan invites all the friends over for a dinner party. Jane brings her therapist, Jill, who everyone assumes is there as Jane's date. In front of everyone, Susan insists that Steve justify his passion for the offending porn film, Lesbian Spank Inferno.

Jeff explains to the guys about 'The Giggle Loop': the danger that the more you try to suppress laughter in important silences, the harder you want to laugh. Jane's aunt has died, and she wants Steve to come to the funeral, pretending to be her boyfriend still. Susan invites herself, and so Patrick must come as her 'boyfriend', and all six end up going.