Joe kind of wears her down, you know, with his sense of humor, trying to get her to lower her guard sooner than she had planned to.

There's been so much Sturm und Drang between Brenda and Nate, I think we wanted to-at least for a little while anyway-have something more playful between her and Joe.

Brenda has set up these rules of celibacy. For once in her life, she's going to take as much time as she thinks is healthy to get to know someone before she sleeps with him.

What's interesting is someone in a twelve-step program who continues to be a major screw-up. I think that is really interesting. I don't think it's interesting to watch somebody go through a twelve-step program and graduate. And become a poster child for normalcy. If we do that to any of the characters we don't have a character anymore and if we do that to too many of the characters, we won't have a show anymore.

As we say in the room, now you're waiting for these character to step in shit, waiting for their fatal flaw to sort of manifest itself in a new way.

You wonder: how long are we gonna play this hand? It does feel like they're a normal couple and they're kind of cute, you know, in the way that a bunny is cute. Before long, we have to kill or maim the bunny. Or it's not 'Six Feet Under.'