What Charlie loves about Nicole
Charlie's opening letter: a montage of the small, specific things he admires in Nicole, from jar-opening to giving up a film career for his theater.
Nicole Barber
An actress leaving her husband and New York to start over in Los Angeles with their son. Played by Scarlett Johansson.
18 moments · 42 min
What Nicole loves about Charlie
Nicole's answering letter: how Charlie eats, dresses, cries at movies, loses at Monopoly and builds a family out of whoever is around.
Nicole walks out of mediation
The mediator wants each of them to read their list aloud; Nicole refuses, Charlie wants to, and she ends the session with one blunt line.
Nora's pitch: an act of hope
Nora introduces herself to a tearful Nicole, shares her own story and reframes the divorce as choosing something better for herself.
Nicole tells Nora how she met Charlie
Engaged in LA and feeling half dead, Nicole saw a strange play in a New York apartment and the actor playing to her turned out to be the director.
Nicole's monologue: I got smaller
Nicole explains how she shrank inside the marriage, why the pilot felt like her own piece of earth, and the phone-number test that ended it.
The pie was just a pie
Stunned, Charlie asks Nicole why she used lawyers and why Cassie had a pie; she tells him she wants an entirely different kind of life.
Watch me conflate: the phone fight
Charlie calls about Henry's claim they're staying in LA; Nicole reveals she hacked his email and knows about Mary Ann, then stamps her foot in rage.
Lunch order, smelling the toast, and a deal versus a discussion
Charlie can't pick a sandwich so Nicole orders for him; Nora gushes about his play, then traps him on why a promise counts only when he wants it.
Nicole cuts Charlie's hair
Charlie comes over to fix a stuck gate during a blackout; Nicole notices he's getting shaggy and, like old times, cuts his hair while Henry sleeps.
Court: Jay and Nora fight over the genius grant
Jay recasts the marriage as Charlie's gift to Nicole; Nora counters that his genius was built during the marriage and half the MacArthur is hers.
Court gets ugly: affairs, hacking and the car seat
The lawyers trade the affair, the email hacking, Nicole's drinking and the unbuckled car seat before the judge keeps the status quo and orders an evaluator.
The fight, part one: you don't remember promising
Alone in Charlie's apartment they try to talk; it collapses into the Geffen residency, what was promised, and whether Nicole was ever happy in Brooklyn.
The fight, part two: your father, my mother
The lawyers' smears turn personal: who put whom through hell, what Henry really wants, and each accusing the other of becoming their own parent.
The fight, part three: I hope you're dead
The argument turns savage: the affair, who hated whom, who gave up what, until Charlie punches the wall, says the unforgivable and collapses in apology.
Nora on mothers, fathers and the Virgin Mary
Prepping Nicole for the evaluator, Nora explains why imperfect dads are forgiven and mothers are held to the impossible standard of Mary.
Nicole, Sandra and Cassie sing You Could Drive a Person Crazy
A Sondheim trio from Company, performed as a giddy family number after the custody battle is mostly over.
Henry reads Nicole's letter and Charlie finishes it
Henry sounds out the list Nicole wrote for mediation; Charlie takes over reading and reaches the lines she never let him hear.