Being on good terms with your ex can be tricky at the best of times, let alone if you share children and have to attend the wedding of your daughter together. For The Split’s Hannah, that’s exactly what she has to deal with in a two-episode special, The Split: Barcelona. The joy of seeing your daughter get married is slightly overshadowed by having to see your ex-husband again, a couple of years after the divorce. But there’s one particular scene from the new episodes that really stayed with me, and it involves an earring.

At the end of season three, Hannah (Nicola Walker) and her husband, Nathan (Stephen Mangan), were in the midst of what they hoped would be a ‘good divorce’. The new special picks up the story two years later: Hannah and her family are in Catalonia for a wedding, where a sunny weekend of absolute mayhem is about to take place.

In a particular scene, Hannah points out Nathan’s new hoop earring and makes a joke about it, which is deeply relatable for anyone on relatively good terms with their ex. Hannah poking fun at Nathan’s new jewellery signifies the relationship between the two has changed in the sense that the niceties aren’t there anymore and the gloves are off. But not in a malicious or mean way – it was more of an unbothered and unfiltered way of being around each other.

When you’re in a relationship, you may go along with or pander to your partner a little on some of the choices they make, particularly if they’re related to physical appearances. A white lie about a haircut or a new outfit may become a common feature of a relationship or marriage, but once that relationship has broken down, there’s little to no need for these little white lies.

Nathan takes Hannah’s chiding of his new earring on the chin and goes along with the joke, knowing that she isn’t being cruel. It’s just a new form of knowing and affection between two people who once shared a life and now do not. This particular scene is such a brilliant depiction of love and relationships – especially post-divorce – and how that affects two people who once shared a life together. And more importantly, how they interact and behave around each other in this new phase of their relationship.

But the earring (or lack thereof) makes another appearance in a later scene too. In one of the final scenes of The Split: Barcelona, Hannah and Nathan are standing on the beach together talking when Hannah notices that Nathan’s earring is gone. She asks him about it softly and he simply tells her she was right, that he’s definitely not an earring kind of man.

It’s such a beautiful full-circle moment in both the series and their relationship, and it perfectly encapsulates what a ‘good divorce’ looks like for Hannah and Nathan. They clearly have a lot of love and compassion for each other but they can also rip into each other for interesting style choices, like sporting a hoop earring at your daughter’s wedding…

Images: BBC