‘Catastrophe’: Chris and Fran’s Raunchy Reunion is The Perverted Proclamation of Love They Deserved

One of Catastrophe‘s biggest strengths has always been finding that balance between sweetly loving and totally perverted, and there is perhaps no greater example of this than Fran and Chris’s reconciliation in the fourth and final season of the Amazon show.

With Fran (Ashley Jensen) engaging in back alley sex sessions and Chris (Mark Bonnar) parading around his beautiful, and young, new girlfriend, it seemed as though the exes had finally moved on — except for all that lingering sadness.

“We just saw their pain,” Sharon Horgan told Decider when we sat down with her and fellow creator, writer and star of the series, Rob Delaney, to discuss this pivotal moment in Episode 5.

“Everyone’s crazy about them, especially us, and we could just see them floundering,” Delaney said. “They’d been such a good cautionary tale for Rob and Sharon.”

“There have been hints along the way that there were regrets, and sometimes regrets aren’t enough, you have to lie in the bed you’ve made, kind of thing,” Horgan said of the ups and many downs of couple’s relationship on the show.

And so Horgan and Delaney knew what they had to do before the show ended forever. They had to get Chris and Fran back together. “You can see the pain in her face when he’s introducing this new girl, their individual loneliness, it just felt right,” Horgan said. “It just would’ve been wrong to not bring them back together because they have had such a journey.”

Delaney added, “What I’m happy about is that it wasn’t like a cute little baby that they were rediscovering their love over but their teenage son who’s a child actor and could’ve been the worst person. But he’s kinda lovely and we see them loving him, so to me that’s one of my favorite things that we did, let the love of a teenager bring two people together again.”

Oh, and the way they did it is the most brilliant part of all. When Chris drops off their son at Fran’s house, the two of them realize they’re both newly single at the moment. And he takes this opportunity to get honest, like, really honest with his former wife and lays it all out on the table.

“When I saw you at the party, you looked so beautiful,” Chris tells Fran as she stands in the doorway. “And then when I made you laugh, it made me want to be your husband again so fucking badly that I had no choice but to beat the shit out of my dick when I got home. I thought I’d have to go to the hospital. I practically yanked it off,” which just might be this century’s greatest profession of love yet.

“And how is it now, is it better?” she asks him curiously and quietly.

“It’s still pretty messed up,” he admits.

And this gets him an invitation back into the home and her life.

“When he says, ‘It’s still pretty messed up’, he really means it, so you know he did beat the shit out of it,” Horgan laughed, while explaining the memorable line.

And you know what? It was worth it for everyone.

Where to stream Catastrophe