The love-hate relationship that defines dealings between Carl Icahn and Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (NYSE:LGF) has undergone another of its periodic metamorphoses. And the cause, as usual, is Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.

How else to explain Icahn's loading up on debt issued by MGM -- debt otherwise trading around 60 cents on the dollar? Why else intervene in the Lions' march into a prepackaged bankruptcy and undermine, potentially, the exit planned for MGM under new leadership supplied by Spyglass Entertainment Holdings LLC?

Because, simply, Icahn wants to snag MGM for Lions Gate. That's why the activist investor is suddenly talking to MGM's other creditors about the wonderful synergy (and, remember, there's no other kind) that could be theirs were the two studios to combine.

Lions Gate, for its part, has always been of the mind that an MGM merger would make it complete. Hence the 10-day truce the mini-major studio arranged with its largest and veto-wielding investor -- Icahn, again, with 33.5% of Lions Gate's equity -- to consider an MGM bid in July. The truce itself marked a reversal in that, a month earlier, Icahn likened Lions Gate's interest in MGM to a mortgage-behind couple who feel unaccountably at home negotiating for "a big, overpriced mansion."

That Icahn would revert to the "overpriced mansion" metaphor as his operating position became apparent a day after the 10-day truce ended. That's when he resumed his hostile campaign for Lions Gate. The rhetoric returned as well, with Icahn re-committing himself to rid Lions Gate of spendthrift management and feather-nesting directors.

Then, last week, watchers of the feud got hit with another about-face -- Icahn's believing in a MGM-Lions Gate combo again. Here, possibly, are three rationalizations for this irrational behavior: