Diana: I think the time has come to re-evaluate our relationship, Max. I don't like the way this script of ours is turning out. It's turning into a seedy little drama. Middle-aged man leaves wife and family for young heartless woman, goes to pot. The Blue Angel with Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings. I - I don't like it...The simple fact is, Max, that you're a family man. You like a home and kids and that's beautiful. But I am incapable of any such commitment. All you'll get from me is another couple of months of intermittent sex and recriminate and ugly little scenes like the one we had last night. I'm sorry for all those things I said to you last night. You're not the worst fuck I ever had. Believe me, I've had worse. And you don't puff or snorkle and make death-like rattles. As a matter of fact, you're rather serene in the sack.
Max: Why is it that a woman always thinks that the most savage thing she can say to a man is to impugn his cocks-manship? You're not the boozer type, so I figure a year, maybe two before you crack up or jump out of your 14th floor office window
Diana: I don't want your pain, I don't want your menopausal decay and death! I don't need you, Max.
Max: You need me! You need me badly. Because I'm your last contact with human reality. I love you, and that painful, decaying love is the only thing between you and the shrieking nothingness you live the rest of the day.
Diana: Then don't leave me.
Max: It's too late, Diana. There's nothing left in you that I can live with. You're one of Howard's humanoids, and if I stay with you, I'll be destroyed. Like Howard Beale was destroyed. Like Laureen Hobbs was destroyed. Like everything that you and the institution of television touch is destroyed. You're television incarnate, Diana, indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death - all the same to you as bottles of beer, and the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You're madness, Diana, virulent madness, and everything you touch dies with you. But not me. Not as long as I can feel pleasure and pain and love. (He kisses her farewell.) And it's a happy ending. Wayward husband comes to his senses, returns to his wife with whom he's established a long and sustaining love. Heartless young woman left alone in her arctic desolation. Music up with a swell. Final commercial. And here are a few scenes from next week's show.
