My name is Jessica. I am 28, happily married to my husband for 8 years now. I have two elementary-aged kids and a cat. My hobbies include knitting, spinning, cross-stitching, and blogging. I've been watching Sex and the City since I was basically a zygote-- or 18. I would catch the show on TBS and pretty much immediately started collecting the seasons and watching them over and over.
I started writing out these SatC recaps on my personal journal a few months ago, and got such a positive reaction from them and was encouraged to start a blog dedicated entirely to the snark. So, here we are!
I started these recaps from inspiration from one of my favorite writers/bloggers Jenny Trout. She is a true master (mistress?) and her recaps of 50 Shades of Gray and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are so fucking amazing. You should absolutely check them out.
Welcome back!
So, now without further ado. The pilot episode:
I always felt that the early episodes were just too on the nose to the books. They don't really fit with the rest of the show, especially when the show splits from the book plots, finally, in the middle of the first season. I am glad the show found it's own way after plodding through the book plots, but it feels weird that they would spend so many episodes shitting on models, and mothers, and other women when the show was always meant to be a way to communicate issues with relationships with and without men. You know, pro-women, pro-choice, etc. The first episode is gritty, it is rough, and has that dark and cruddy New York feel. There is something to love about the scummy dirt, even the camera work is sort of gritty and the indoor shots are sort of blurry. They look cheap. I do kind of love it, even if it is a little contrived.
Welcome to the Age of Un-innocence, No one has Breakfast and Tiffany's and No one has Affairs to Remember. Carrie has recently connected with a one-off friend, the English Journalist, who has found herself ghosted by a New York man, and she is wondering WHY? Why did he take me apartment hunting and offer to introduce me to his parents if he was just going to never call me again?!
I am still wondering that, hon.
Carrie tries to explain, in the narration, how it all happened, or rather THAT it has happened. There are thousands upon thousands of great, single women living on the island of Manhattan. We are great! She insists: we pay taxes, we travel, we spend an exorbitant amount of money on shoes, but we are alone. Single. Without no Mans. And Why? Why are there so many great unmarried women, and no great unmarried men?
Why are men just so fucking awful?
Carrie introduces herself as a freelance writer for the fictitious weekly paper: the New York Star. She talks about her work writing about sex and relationships, and her great sources: her friends. I think 90% of these people we never see again. It's the absolute worst part about the early episodes, the interviews. (there are some gems in there, comedy gold, but not in the first episode)
And there we find our answer. All the single men on the island of Manhattan have decided that thirty-something women are too complicated and only want to get married so they can have the babies. The ironic part is NONE of the foursome (save Charlotte) want to get married or have kids. In fact, each of the foursome is toxic in their own way, but I'll get to that.
One of the friends she interviews is Miranda. Miranda is a character that I love, but honestly, she kind of comes across as a total asshole. I mean, she really hates men. And I get that, I really do, especially after the last few years on social media, men are really starting to get really irritating. When I first watched the show though, I was 17 or 18 and I didn't get her ire. But now, OMG, I GET IT MIRANDA. I HATE MEN TOO.
And there's Charlotte. I have a very soft spot for her. She is so sweet, and lovely. and naive. The very first thing she says on the show is that in order to find a mate, you have to follow the rules. Poor dear. How did that book even get popular? WTF were women in the late nineties thinking? Jokes on her though. In this episode, she follows the rules flawlessly, has a flawless date with a very sexy rich man. At the end of the date, as he sees her off in her cab, he slides back in the cab with her so that he can go to a club to pick up a woman (Sam) because Charlotte doesn't sleep with men on the first date. >< whoops.
I feel like in the first episode, Carrie is so much stronger than she ever will be in the seasons to come. She decides, with Sam and Miranda, to start fucking "like a man", without feeling or remorse. Course, Samantha was already doing this, and we all love her for it. It is interesting though, because in the first few minutes of the show, she decries men and their thoughtless "toxic" behavior, and then goes on to do, well, pretty much those same behaviors. Maybe it was intentional.
The first time we see the foursome together, it doesn't really feel like they are even friends. Narrator Carrie says that they'd rather not spend Miranda's birthday together. I can see why they wouldn't want to spend it in that particular restaurant, but in the later seasons they are inseparable.
So, Carrie makes her pact, in the name of research to fuck like a man and in the next scene, she's having a drink over lunch with her best gay friend Stanford. She sees a man across the room, he's someone she shouldn't have dated but did anyway throughout her early love-life. This is like, foreshadowing, or something, I am not sure if the show writers always intended Carrie to be on-again off-again with Big, but it really sets Carrie up as being kind of prone to mistakes in love. This man is a Mistake, but regardless, she decides to have an afternoon romp.
In the name of research.
After she lets him make her come, she leaves. Which is rude. I don't think that is fucking like a man, I think that is fucking like a selfish asshole. But what do I know? Being a jerk doesn't have anything to do with one's sex. But I digress. As she's walking away from Mistake's apartment feeling powerful and like nothing or no one could get in her way. So, naturally, she is bumped into by a man who knocks her purse out of her hand and it's contents are strewn all over the busy sidewalk.
(This show is notorious for these things the director calls "cream pies"-- as soon as anyone feels like they own the world, they are about to be embarrassed utterly)
Big is there, he picks up a string of condoms off the ground and hands them to her, he's at least attempting to help. Narrator Carrie talks about him as if she is destined to see him again. I think the show writers forgot how GINORMOUS New York is. She sizes him up as she's cleaning up her purse contents off the sidewalk. She starts to walk away and he stands there, watching her. He waves good-bye in that cute Mr. Big way as she stumbles down the sidewalk, clumsily adjusting her dress. No way of finding him again, but no worries, she'll find him again.
This is kind of a great scene in itself-- you are introduced to Carrie and her problem with Mr. Big. She is a clumsy, scrappy, curly haired disaster walking, and he is sharp, and clean, and seemingly perfect. She always, from the first, felt less than him: unworthy. He is so together, and she is such a mess.
---
The next scene is at a coffee house. Carrie is having an afternoon coffee with Skipper, a twenty-something guy who is legitimately nice but is unlucky in love. He is a nice guy-- only, he really IS a nice guy, not a NICE GUY (tm) [GOD THAT HADN'T EVEN BEEN INVENTED YET!!]. Carrie decides that she should set him up with Miranda. Skipper tells her not to tell Miranda that he's nice. Narrator Carrie admits that the relationship would be doomed. "Miranda would think that he was mocking her with his sweet nature and decide he was an asshole. The way she decided all men were assholes."
It is this part of the show where I am convinced that the foursome weren't really friends in the first episode. They are all way too casual. Carrie should absolutely be able to characterize Skipper to Miranda, as a mutual friend. And on the phone with Charlotte in the next scene, she neglects to mention that the amazing date Charlotte is going to go on will not go as she hopes because he's notorious for being a toxic bachelor.
In the next scene, she's at a bar, Chaos. There is a waitress with a lampshade on her head. :DDD
I love how crowded the show makes New York in the first season. This bar, for example, is jammed full of people, and it is frenzied. There are a hundred conversations going on at once, and the room is hazy with cigarette smoke.
At the bar, Skipper and Miranda are on their "date." Miranda is bitching about all the models in the room, and sounding like a total asshole. I hate the way the early episodes shit on models and beautiful people. The show moves on to shitting on mothers, which is just as annoying, tbh. Can't we all get along? It kills me because the foursome ARE beautiful people, even if they aren't giraffes with big breasts.
Skipper is trying to navigate her ire, but missteps. He suggests that beautiful people and intelligent people are mutually exclusive and Miranda eviscerates him for it. "Well, I guess that you must find me beautiful... Or interesting."
Carrie was going to rescue Skipper but before she can, she runs into Mistake. Mistake is miffed at Carrie for leaving him (as would any normal well-adjusted person), but then iterates that this is the kind of non-relationship that he would LOVE to have with her. She nods her way out of the conversation, completely baffled. She had felt so powerful before, and he's stolen her wind. Is this what modern men want?
Why she's surprised, I don't know, she just spent the first half of the episode talking about how most men just want sex without commitment.
Sam points out Mr Big beyond the throng. She says he's the next Donald Trump, only younger and much better looking. Could you Imagine Chris Noth spouting racist diatribes? I can't. Do you think the show writers regret giving Trump so much publicity on this show? They reference him at least once in every season. (He even guest stars in a future episode)
Big does his cute little wave to Carrie, and Sam asks if she knows him. Carrie lies that she's never seen him before in her life. Sam says that she's as pretty as a model and makes her attempt at Mr Big.
Narrator Carrie really doesn't seem give a hoot about Sam:
"Samantha had the kind of deluded self confidence that caused men like
Sam is way over the top, puffing on a cigar in front of the mans. Big is unimpressed, and rejects her over-the-top advances.
--
Miranda is meanwhile trying to rebuff Skipper's advances. They are walking back from the club, and he is hopelessly smitten with Miranda. She calls him 'Skippy' again-- I hate that!-- kisses him on the cheek, and says that he's a nice sweet guy, but. you know. Get lost.
Emboldened by the rejection, he takes on a new persona: a strong masculine manly man-- no more mister nice guy!-- and grabs her as she's walking away and deeply kisses her against the wall. It's kind of hot, actually. Narrator Carrie says that Miranda knew he was nice, really, but was willing to overlook one flaw.
---
Carrie later is walking home from the club. It is late, and she has resigned herself to the walk, as there are no cabs about. Mr Big, in the back of his town car, stops by and offers to drive her home.
The two-some are talking in that cute way they do. They are chatting about what Carrie does for work, she calls herself a 'sort of sexual anthropologist' and Mr Big makes a really cute joke about her being a hooker. Carrie corrects him, and explains about her articles and the kinds of things she writes about, like fucking like a man. Big suggests that she isn't like that, Carrie says, "Well, aren't you?"
"Not a drop. Not even half a drop."
Carrie is cool, and confident, says "wow, what's wrong with you?" And Big says that she must have never been in love before. And she doesn't correct him.
I don't buy that she's never been in love. How is that even possible? Her relationships may not have ended well, but how can you be with someone for any longish amount of time without some kind of love? I don't really like that we follow her from her early thirties on, and she's only had 2 major loves through the show and in her life. Like her life didn't even start until she started walking her in Manolo's down 5th avenue. That isn't *real*-- and I know the show writers tried really hard to make things feel as real as they could. People don't just wake up one day with dozens of conquests and a job where you write about relationships and sex without having had those relationships.
Even through the course of 6 seasons and a movie (the second one really doesn't count, you guys) she never knows what love is. She sees other people in love, and she's like a pod person or a robot-- unable to properly mimic the mechanics of it. She doesn't love naturally. It is weird. I guess it is her. but it makes her REALLY unrelatable. Miranda is stand-offish about being in love and being girly, but when she does finally love Steve, she loves him. Carrie lets her own weird rules about what love should be get in the way of her actually doing any loving. I guess maybe that's how she's never loved anyone before.
Anyway.
I love the very final scene where she knocks on the window, asks Mr. Big: "Have you ever been in love?" and he says "abso-fucking-lutely" as the car speeds off-- one of his very best lines. :nods: So iconic.
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