Or catching up with her friends.
This sequence always made me laugh, and then recently it made me think of an episode of Bob's Burgers where Teddy has rehearsed an entire conversation with someone else before having it with Bob. I'm having a difficult time remembering if it was that show or the context for it, this is all getting muddled and I'm getting behind myself, I'm afraid.
Carrie is having a series of conversations with her friends one-on-one. In each partial-scene she's complaining about her relationship with Big and it flows like one long monologue of Carrie's, parts of it with each friend.
So, it seems like she's had the entire conversation with each of them once.
And the sequence ends and her last sentence is in front of all three of her friends and they are looking at her like she's boring the pants off of them. Because they've all been apart of this same conversation with her at least once before. Not that they weren't rolling their eyes initially.
The content of the conversation is totally crazy, btw. Carrie is talking about how amazing she is and how Big missed out. And she pities him, really she pities him because she can walk away and be her and he has to walk away and be him. She was this magic moment.
She was the poof.
And She pities him, really she pities him.
Her friends are holding their heads up on the opposite side of the table. Bored to death.
Sam crosses her arms, and they wait in anticipation. Is she done?
"What?" Carrie asks like she's the sane one.
"Alright, who's going to tell her?" Miranda asks the other two, and Carrie looks like maybe something was in her teeth or something.
Sam, always the boldest one lays it out plain: "Honey, you're obsessed with talking about Big and frankly we can't take it anymore."
The other two pile on, and Carrie is defensive. Miranda suggests she whine to a shrink as her problems are completely out of their league.
"Hey, I don't need therapy. I need new friends."
Miranda and Sam press reasons why maybe she should go see a shrink, that her friends are also fucked up and can't really be of any help, and also that an outsider can have a new perspective.
Carrie projects, and reasons that Miranda sees a shrink because she's "all in her head," presses once again "I'm fine. I'm functioning."
She also doesn't buy the whole shrink thing, and then to Carrie's dismay, Charlotte agrees with her, but for unexpected reasoning. Charlotte's family, rather than going to a shrink were taught that physical exercise can heal any head problem-- "that's why all of us are really good tennis players"
lol.
Carrie and her friends try to pretend that Charlotte didn't reveal that she's nuts. Carrie continues to rationalize why she shouldn't have to see a shrink-- she's afraid she'll turn into one of those people that is there all the time, and beginning every sentence with 'well my shrink says--'
"My shrink says that's a very common fear" Miranda helpfully adds.
Narrator Carrie wonders if her friends are right-- whether she's crossed the line from pleasantly neurotic to annoyingly troubled.
(well, if you have to ask)
In the next scene, Stanford is also on the pro-shrink side. "This is Manhattan, even the shrinks have shrinks!"
Then he talks about the three shrinks he sees. "One for when I want to be coddled, one for when I want tough love, and one for when I just want to look at a really beautiful man"
"well, that's sick."
"Which is why I see the other two."
Carrie tells Stanford that she's going to go see a Dr Ellen Greenfield-- referred by Miranda's shrink-- and Stanford mentally jumps up and down at the name "She is hot hot hot, Gwyneth Paltrow sees her." "Why does she go to a shrink?" "She suffers from high self-esteem."
Meanwhile, Miranda was doing a crossword in her living room. With her drapes open.
Why? Why have drapes open? Is this normal? If I lived in a city like that, I would have them closed, excepting rare situations.
There is a man a story or two above her across the air shaft, and he's staring in through her window.
See? Shut the damn drapes. Problem solved.
Only, the man is really cute.
And it is slightly flattering.
Two nights later, he waves flirtatiously at Miranda again, and she's emboldened by a glass of wine and waves back.
In future scenes, Miranda and the man across the air shaft play nightly, peeping parts at each other. I'm seriously wondering how their relationship could have ever come to that.
Shut the damn drapes, Miranda. You'll thank me.
In her conclusion, she runs into the man at the grocery store. He doesn't recognize her. He was playing peek-a-boo with the guy who lives above her. She was playing with an imaginary friend.
None of this would have happened if she just left her drapes closed.
---
Carrie is in her first sesh with Dr. G. It doesn't go very well.
Carrie isn't her usual spunky sassy self either, she is timidly talking about how her friends can't handle her neurosis anymore. Then about how she doesn't even believe in therapy, and Dr G doesn't allay her misgivings, she just sits there. It is strange.
So, Carrie moves to actually describe Big and her relationship and she doesn't really do that good of a job. She talks about how Big was playing games, and Carrie didn't know the rules.
I don't like this scene, I'm having the damndest time trying to put my finger on what makes it so awful to watch.
It's like, watching two people talk past each other. I don't like the way Dr G leads the conversation, I don't like the way Carrie responds.
I guess the result is that Dr G supposes that Carrie picks the wrong men. It isn't at all the direction I would have went if I were Carrie. Her problems were with Big: Big's character, her character, not men in general. And Dr G didn't actually have anything useful to say to Carrie about the future picking of men. Things to look out for, things that may have been warning signs to Carrie that she can look for in unavailable men in order to avoid them. And yeah, we only saw 2 minutes of the first session. 2 long, awkward minutes, pretty sure she immediately left Dr G to go back to complaining about men with Sam:
"Well of course you pick the wrong men, I could have told you that!"
Her friends talk about the games people play in relationships, and about how Carrie definitely was involved in some kind of a game with Big.
Because apparently Big was just trying to knock Carrie out at the first opportunity.
That's not how I remember it. I don't think Big was that invested. Besides, he always had the power. She was already groveling.
At a sports bar, Sam meets a man who is way into the basketball game on the TV. Their story line is actually kind of funny for Sam. He won't do it unless his team wins, and this leads to an awful lot of lonely nights for Sam. In the end, after the last game of the season, rather than immediately do it like Sam wants, he changes the channel to baseball game where his favorite team is doing lousy, so she leaves him. What a strange, strange man.
If you haven't noticed, all of the women's stories have to do with games. Writer Carrie pontificates: are relationships just a series of moves, counter-moves, strategy all designed to keep your opponent off balance.
Do you have to play games to make a relationship work?
NO. God NO. JESUS. Who are these people?
They are so fucking dysfunctional.
In the waiting office at Dr G's, a patient is leaving the office, and he's also really cute. I must be the lamest lame who ever lamed, because I only learned just now that the actor who plays him is Jon Bon Jovi.
Carrie thinks that this guy must be the thing that she'll get out of continuing to see her shrink.
God, she is so dysfunctional.
She even dresses up the next time she comes into the office. He notices, and in order to avoid playing games actually introduces himself and they exchange numbers and have a really cute conversation.
Carrie is asking Sam's advice while they sit with wine over some ball game on the TV (Sam is watching to see if her boyfriend will be in the mood). Carrie wonders if it is a mistake, going out with someone she met at her shrinks, what if he's crazy?
"It's the crazy ones who have the good pills." Sam is so helpful.
--
On her first date with Jon Bon Jovi, they seem to have an excellent time. They talk about Dr G and her weird plant, which I think is a cute detail. He is seemingly normal, despite having been a patient of hers for almost a year. So, Carrie is hopeful.
At her house, they decide to play
CHEATER.
He's also wearing shoes.
CHEATER.
They end up in bed, and afterward, Carrie brings up therapy again. I don't know why. She wants to know why he sees her. This seems like the kind of thing you bring up back when you are talking about her stupid plant.
He reveals that his problem is that once he sleeps with a woman he completely loses interest.
And she turns over in bed and holds back tears as he asks what she sees Dr G for.
"I pick the wrong men."
Narrator Carrie reveals that this is some kind of a breakthrough and I don't see how. So, she picks the wrong men, there's her problem. I saw absolutely no solutions offered anywhere for her to fix this issue. We already knew she picks the wrong men.
Rather than continuing to explore her problems with her shrink and maybe look for solutions, she dumps both Jon Bon Jovi and the shrink so that she doesn't have to run into Jon Bon Jovi again and decides that her friends totally understand.
I don't.
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