Season 2 Finale Ex and the City

The episode starts out with Carrie asking the all important question:

Should I buy the flowers that cost 5 dollars and last 3 days, or the ones that cost 10 dollars and last 5 days?

I dunno, I have flowers on my sill that husband brought me for my birthday in March.  They're dead, but they are still lovely.

Miranda doesn't know either, but there beyond Carrie, crossing the street, is Steve!  He's got a basketball and he isn't afraid to use it!  Miranda freaks out and forces Carrie to run from him in the street. She can't just fake friendly for half a minute, she has to make a dramatic scene.

Silly woman.

The foursome discuss the events over a shared desert at coffee shop.

Carrie noms on a spoonful of whipped cream, "He just looked so hurt, like a kid in one of those big-eyed velvet paintings"

"Poor Steve!" Charlotte voices the audience.

"Well I'm sorry! I panicked!" What was I going to do? Stand around and chat about the weather-- The man has been inside me for god's sake!"

She has a point.

She goes on to talk about people who can be friends with an ex.  She can't do it, she doesn't know how anyone can do it.

Sam has her own insight, "I'm never been able to be friends with any man. Women are for friendships, men are for fucking."

Charlotte withholds friendship as punishment (that really doesn't many any sense when you think about it-- I mean the results are the same as what Miranda and Sam do-- but I guess it has a special vindictive attitude.  For what? It is mildly out of character for her.)

Miranda reiterates: "I'm much more like, We didn't work out.  You need to not exist."

Carrie is kind of hypocritical here with her judgy eyebrows.  She says in a moment of self-clarity, "It's just so childish!  We keep dresses we'll never wear again and we throw away our ex-boyfriends!"

This is really hilarious to me, as an avid watcher of the show.  Again, an early episode belies a later one. In season 5, her book gets reviewed in the New York Times-- it's a rave review-- but Carrie gets caught up on a small blip in the review of how the men are disposable in Carrie's world.  She says it *herself* here in coffee shop, which means she has to have said it in her column, it is such an important take-away from this particular topic.

Anyway, Carrie wonders why she hasn't been able to stay friends with Big.



BECAUSE HE WAS AN ASSHOLE TO YOU!

Carrie wonders where the love goes when a relationship ends.  She takes a moment to  complain about Natasha-- "Natasha." Miranda nods, "Since when did you stop calling her the idiot stick figure with no soul?"

It almost feels like there's an episode missing here, doesn't there.  What is the point of anger toward Natasha?  What the hell did she do wrong? No, really?  Isn't it Big's fault for loving Natasha better and faster and better?


Carrie talks about seeing Natasha and Big at some cafe the other week.  He's over Carrie, they are over.  He's in love. Period. "And it's OK"

After a pause, Sam says "'Natasha' what a bullshit name."  and Charlotte and Miranda add to the mockery. Finally Carrie says how she's really feeling, "That is total bullshit."

Writer Carrie later asks what mysterious ingredient leads to friendship with an Ex.

I think I can take this one.

How about respecting them and their wants as people and not undermining their new relationship choices?

eh?



 --

Steve isn't going to take the slight on the street lying down.  He comes to Miranda's apartment the very next morning to call her behavior hurtful and shitty.  He also wanted to remind her that it's not just anyone she's running from and hurting,"Miranda, this is me, Steve. I held your head when you were sleeping."

Miranda turns away from him, starts sobbing and apologizing.  He says it's OK, but she's not sure.

"I am shitty!" Miranda bemoans and Steve tries to comfort her. "You're not a shitty person." "I am! I'm shitty. I'm a shitty person! You would never do anything that shitty!"

"What do you call showing up to your apartment in the middle of the afternoon and calling you shitty?"

"Yeah, that was pretty shitty!"

"You got a bat in the cave."

Miranda blows her nose, and tries to tell Steve about all the times she wishes she could call him, but won't.  When funny things happen, when she thinks of him.  It's sweet.  Steve reminds her that she can always call him, they can be friends.  And Miranda thinks it is a good idea.





 --

Charlotte is running in the park, and runs into her first love lost: a horse that reminds her of Tatty. Tatty is the horse that threw her in an equestrian competition. Could she be more Connecticut?

Meanwhile, Sam is walking down the street in Red.  She catches the eye of a hunky man and has to stop short to catch her breath from all the breath stealing. Rather than continue walking, he cockily walks up to her and says hi.

"I gotta tell you, you look amazing."

Sam flirts back, calls him cocky, and gives him her phone number.

This should be good!

--

Carrie has completely lost her damn mind.  She is looking through her closet and finds one of the aforementioned dresses from the eighties that she refuses to throw away and decides it would be a good idea to call her ex.






Unfortunately the "idiot stick figure with no soul" has answered the phone and she immediately hangs up--

before realizing  Big has caller ID!



She immediately calls back and Big answers.  But I thought Natasha had the phone?

Anyway.  Big asks if that was her who had *just* called and she says it wasn't.  And then says it was.  She's a mess.

She asks him out to lunch, as friends, and he says yes.

So, at lunch it's Big's turn to be nervous.

They order soft-drinks and then change their order to hard drinks.  (that must be fun for the waiter!) and they talk about nothing for a minute.  Big is kind of rambling at this point.  Finally, after a drink or two in, they are reminiscing nicely about their terrible relationship. Carrie decides to do the thing.  She asks about Natasha.

And then.. she changes her mind.  She makes a rule that they shouldn't talk about SOs unless it gets really serious.  And Big looks at her like he knows he's about to hurt her, and he just guts her. "It is serious." He admits that he's already asked Natasha to marry him.  He then tries to soften it by saying that he wanted to tell her, just just didn't know how.

She is gutted.  She grabs her forehead, complains about a headache and then looks up completely irate. "How can *you* be engaged? You have a problem with commitment, remember?"

"In fact," She goes on, "You told me that you never wanted to get married again. ever."

"Well, things change!" God, He looks so punchable right now.

"Meaning what? You just didn't want to marry me!  You string me along for 2 years and then turn around marry some 25 year old girl after only five months?!"

"I did not string you along!"

Carrie is getting up and leaving the restaurant. She grabs her purse off the chair badly and it ends up toppling.  It's difficult to say if she's slightly inebriated, or just extremely pissed off.  Big offers to help her. "Don't help me. Don't YOU help me."

Halfway across the restaurant, he holds her back, "Don't end it like this."

"You're the one who ended it like this."

I don't understand her meaning here.  I mean, yeah. it fucking hurts to be gutted like this; To see everything you were hoping to get from him being funneled toward another person. But like, you can't control what he does.  Him getting engaged and telling her is not rudeness to Carrie.  It just isn't.

And at this point, the entire restaurant is watching the embarrassing scene that she is making.

--
She goes off to support her friend, Charlotte, as she attempts to ride a horse for the first time in 20 years.  She is in no way to support her, she is irate and sad and completely out of control.  She's also smoking, and has to be told to cut that shit out around the horses.

Charlotte decides at the last minute that she can't.



So they run out of the stables and down the city streets.  It is so weird to me that there are actual stables on the island of Manhattan.  Obviously there are, cause of all the horse-drawn things.  But it is still unexpected.

--

Mr Cocky is in bed with Sam.  He is warning her, before they go in too deep, that he might go in too deep.



Sam thinks she's hit the jackpot, but.. It's too big.

"If he was Mt Everest, I could only get to base camp one!" She recounts her failure to Carrie.

She wants to have another go at Mr Cocky, but first needs to psych herself up.  Carrie tells her she's crazy.  Why does she want to try again?

"Because it's there!"

"You're unbelievable," Carrie summarizes, "First you broke up with James because he was too small, This guy's too big. What are you Goldilocks?"

"Goldicocks!" (I love puns!) "And I'm looking for one that's *juuuust* right" (You go girl!)

I love this arc, if you can believe it, it IS an arc.  The guy she ends up with by the end of season 4 does have the perfect dick, and of course they make a big deal out of how perfect it is. :D

--
Miranda and Steve are navigating their own friendship.  They had a good meal together, and go back to Miranda's so she can return Steve's fireman shirt back to him.



You all know where this is headed.

That's right.





As she sets her alarm when they're all done (she's wearing his FDNY shirt) Steve keeps leaning over attempting to kiss her and she's swatting him back.  Their body language is very telling here.  She looks completely regretful and embarrassed.  He, at first looks pleased with himself (hence the attempted kissing) but then sullen-- like what the fuck have I done?

whoops.

Back with Sam with Mr Cocky.  She's smoking a joint, attempting to prepare herself for entry.  They breathe together, he says "ready?" and it begins.  There is breathing, laughter, a little bit of hesitancy and careful slowness guided by Sam, and then finally "oh, good.  Good!" And a proud smile.

Followed immediately by Mr Cocky saying "Ok, here we go."

"You mean, we're not there yet?"

He shakes his head no, and she puts her knees down and says "OK, stop. Whoa boy, whoa! Can we just be friends?"

Poor Mr. Cocky.  D:  He settles next to her with a very horsey sounding exhale.  ><


This segues nicely to the next scene.  Charlotte is leading a horse around Central Park.  She's amping up to try again.  She is alone this time.  Good idea.

As she feeds the last carrot to the horse, she puts on her helmet and mounts the beast.  It goes well!  So, she gets a good trot and shouts "whoo hoo!" off the screen.  Yay Charlotte!

And from an emotional high to Big.  Big is in his living room calling Carrie.  Who is screening.  As usual.

He says that he's sorry, that he wanted her to know, but didn't tell her to hurt her. He would never hurt her deliberately.

She finally picks up in the middle of his message spiel, and it's mildly disorienting, although he really looks kinda pissed and annoyed that she didn't just pick up.

She says that she knows that he wouldn't hurt her deliberately.  But now he's kind of lost his train of thought.  They both apologize for acting badly (although I still don't know exactly what Big would be apologizing for, but whatever)

She ends the conversation by waxing optimism: "I wish you the best, I hope you and Natasha will be very happy"

"Do you really mean that?

"No."

They both let out a similar breath that's kind of a half-laugh.

"But I will.  Really."

She held on to those friendly feelings until she gets an invitation to an engagement party in the mail.  She sort of sets it on the bed and pushes it off with her toes.

--

At the day of the engagement party she's having drinks with her friends at a bar and they are talking about the engagement party.

Charlotte can't believe he had the nerve to invite her, but Carrie explains that it's her own fault for thinking they could be friends.

She asks again for the millionth time, "Why her?!"

Miranda explains the whole thing with one word: "Hubble"

And everyone seems to know what the hell she's talking about.  but I didn't.  So, she explains for Sam (i.e. the people in the audience that don't watch old movies) that Robert 'Hubble' Redford from the chick flick "The Way We Were" Couldn't pick Barbara Streisand's character Katie, to be with because she was too complicated.  Her hair was curly--

"Hello? Curly!" (says the blonde, rejected curly-haired woman at the table)

And Redford ends up picking a simple brunette. Who is boring and has straight hair.  (Like Natasha)

Carrie decides there are two types of women in the world:  The simple girls and the Katie girls.  k.




I tried to watch that movie.  It was SOOOO BOOOORING.  I couldn't get through it to the end, but that's OK, because Miranda, Carrie, and Charlotte here go over the end, "She looks up to Hubble, straightens his hair and says 'your girl is lovely Hubble." And the music plays.

And the three of them sing the lines together.

It's so CHEESY.  But they're drunk, so I totally get it.

Sam ends up crying about how she misses James. (the man with the small penis from season 1)

Instead of heading home afterward, Carrie finds herself walking toward the Plaza, toward the scene of the engagement party.  (and amazon tells me they are recreating the aforementioned last scene of The Way We Were. HUH.)

She finds him outside, loading his future wife into a limousine. He shuts the door and walks over to her.

"I thought by the time I got here, I would know what to say."

"and?"

"Well.  You're late. The party's over"

"I'll say it is."

"Funny."

"Anyway, I was just on my way home and-- hey.  I have a question for you. Why wasn't it me?"

"Carrie!"

"No seriously. I really need to hear you say it. Come on, be a friend."

"I dunno. It just got so hard. And she's..."

"Yeah."

"Your girl is lovely Hubble."

"I don't get it."

"And you never did."

And then she walks away all cool, and he's left as confused as I am.  Course, she's cut off by a horse with a stubborn streak having a bit taken off or put on or something. and Carrie is reminded that some women don't want to be tied down-- They don't want to be broken in.

"...Maybe they need to run free until they find someone just as wild to run with"

Season 2 Episode 17 Twenty-Something Girls Vs. Thirty-Something Women

Ah, this gem.

Ever since I was a young lad of 18, I hated being referred to as a "girl--" I know most women have to grow into maturity and what being a woman represents to them, but I think it starts with defining words. Girl is an immature person, she is not of age, she is a child.  And twenty-something WOMEN are NOT girls.

It's fucking insulting.

I know that I won't be twenty-something forever, I just have a little over a year left, actually, but I hope I will continue to feel this way and fight against my baser "young people these days" urges.

Not to mention, people can be immature independent of their ages. :cough: Carrie :cough:

So, with that tone in mind.  Let's begin:

The foursome are considering taking the last few weekends of a beach rental house off the hands a few friends we never see again.  These friends have had a few combined canoodles and torrid affairs at the beach rental and none of them want to come back.

Miranda thinks it's slightly sad-- four thirty-something women going in on a rental share.

Charlotte thinks it's a great opportunity to enjoy one last summer together as single women before one of them gets married or has a kid.

Carrie thinks that the house is haunted with the affairs of these friends.

And Sam is too busy complaining about her twenty-something assistant (who sleeps and fucks in shifts with her twenty other friends who are also renting a house in the Hamptons) to give her opinion.  When Charlotte finally bends their wills, Sam claims the late shift.

In the next scene, we see Sam's assistant, Nina, who is one of the most annoying characters we've met on the show.  She's loud, and a know-it-all, and talking on the phone to one of her friends and throwing the f-bomb around.  Completely unprofessional.

But I guess it's OK and to be expected, because she's twenty-something and that's just how they act.  Or something.  She ends up quitting on the spot because Sam deigns to ask her to do her job and stop talking on the phone with her friends.  At work.

She has a real attitude problem, this one.

Sam complains to Carrie and Miranda on the way to the Hampton Jitney (a bus that New Yorkers use to go to the Hamptons) all about Nina and her selfish spoiled ways.  And then she and Miranda and Carrie talk about ALL twenty-somethings like they are that way.  It is fucking annoying.

What is extra fucking annoying about it, is the delineation of generations-- technically these thirty-somethings and twenty-somethings are all apart of gen-x. Which, as you may know, was the most hated generation that we've had since, well, since the term "Millennial" was invented.  It's almost as if older people resent younger people. Period. because these complaints she has about Nina and twenty-somethings are identical to the criticisms lobbed at Millennials today.

Sorry, Soap boxing again.

Nothing really of note happens except for Charlotte getting cozy with a 26-year old man, and the foursome finding their way slowly to East Hampton.

They spend the first few minutes in their new digs complaining about everything-- the style of the decor, the smelly towels, the shitty sheets, the smelly house. Charlotte chimes in with how lucky they are to even be here, and Carrie says that cynicism is something that 30-somethings have that 20-somethings don't.  Course Miranda is me in this situation: "I was cynical in high school."

Greg, that 26-year-old man has just knocked on the door.  He wants to hang out with Charlotte, who is currently pretending to be 27.

He invites the foursome to a beach party he and his friends are throwing that night.  But it is a terrible party, and someone vomits feet from where they are standing.  gross.  At least twenty-something girls are nice, and hold your hair for you while you puke.

Sam complains that she doesn't want to hit on these young men because they are so young, some of them don't even have chest hair yet.

I remember when I didn't get that, but now I do.  OMG, I do. Chest hair is the best.  :D



:DDDD

Before they have a chance to leave, a young woman comes up to Carrie, having recognized her from her column, and begs Carrie to mentor her in exchange for medial labor.  It's sort of sweet, and also creepy.

Carrie decides it couldn't really do any harm, and takes Laurel up on her offer-- although no menial labor is necessary.

The next morning, Miranda has a mug of coffee and is heading out on the porch, but upon opening the door any thoughts she had of calm, cool and breezy fly away.  "OK, someone puked on the deck!"

And Charlotte peeks out from the couch, and tiredly explains that a few people had too many jello shots.

"What are you 25 now?" Miranda asks.

Greg peeps from under Charlotte, saying "good morning."

"NO. Twenty-SEVEN." Charlotte says emphatically.

"Whatever."

--

Back at the City, Carrie is looking through an old album of hers filled with pictures of her young-adulthood.  She is embarrassed by her lack of good fashion skills, which if you haven't been initiated let me remind you of the best of Carrie and her fashion-present:

 





But yes, I'm sure the stuff she wore in the late 80s was very much worse.  And to be fair, I do adore a lot of her outfits.. but yowza, some of the bad stuff almost makes the good stuff seem worse, if you know what I mean.

Meanwhile, Carrie is talking about 20-somethings, asking if they should be regarded as "clueless halfwits about to have their dreams dashed and illusions shattered?"

Who are these people?!

Did your illusions shatter at 30?

Mine won't.  Unless I -finally- learn like Sam and Miranda and apparently not Charlotte that relationships don't require communication and understanding to work out but -lies and mutually accepted delusions-.

UGH.  These episodes are exhausting.

Writer Carrie writes "Twenty-something girls?  Friend... or Foe?"  Well, we all know how she feels about this already.

The Thirty-something women in this episode? Misguided... Or assholes?

Carrie takes Laurel to a book party as her first act as a Mento.



Laurel wants to talk to Carrie about her own writing.  About the memoir she wants to write, since she's saving herself for marriage.

Carrie is just incredibly stunned by this revelation.

Laurel offers to get Carrie a drink-- "A cosmopolitan. I remember, from your column!"  And Carrie starts flirting with a hunky doctor man who has a cute sense of humor. By the time Laurel has come back with the cocktails, Carrie's gotten his number and invited him out to hang out at the Hamptons.  She's not sure that she wants to date him at all, considering he's good on paper and she can't have that. I don't know what I expected.



At the beach that weekend, Miranda, Carrie and Sam are slathering on SPF while the 20-something women tanned like idiots.  And Charlotte put on OIL.

Now, this is probably the only time in the whole episode that I agree with them.  Cancer is not a joke.  But to be honest, a lot of older people, think 50+ don't wear sunscreen at all, even after getting skin cancer. So.

The Hunky-good-on-paper-Doctor shows up to hang out with Carrie. She's hesitant to give him anything back.  Her friends sort of seem to understand her hesitancy.

 She and Hunky-good-on-paper-Doctor go for a walk and she uses her friends to keep from seeing him further.  Now, I get it a little bit since she is out of town *with* her friends, and shouldn't abandon friends to hang out with new man, but she also planned to meet him there, so maybe she should hang out with him.  Or else, why invite him to hang out at all?

 Carrie finds Miranda starting prep work for fresh seafood and corn feast! Not enough for more than the foursome, "So Carrie, you're little groupie can't stay."

"She's here?!"

"I sent her up to your room, she was asking too many inane questions."

(the whippersnapper!)

Meanwhile Sam is lamenting the party that her own 20-something doppelganger is throwing using her stolen Rolodex.

In her room, Carrie and her groupie Laurel have a more in depth conversation about Laurel's lack of sex life and how older women have completely devalued sex:

"One summer, I read everything Jackie Collins wrote and I thought to myself 'who cares? Is this supposed to be shocking? Wagging one's pussy at every good looking stud who comes along?' Please!"

"And what exactly do you *like* about my column?"

Charlotte comes in from beaching with 26-year-old Greg, she heads to her room to change out of her itchy bathing suit.  A few minutes later, she comes into Carrie's room with Laurel, asking about a tiny tick on her stomach that itches--

"That's not a tick."

"Well then what is it?"



Speaking of, Miranda is just finishing cooking up dinner, and there through the window you can see a few bed sheets fluttering down from the upstairs window.

"Well, there go our shitty sheets!" Sam says.

Charlotte runs from the house.

"Where's she going?" Miranda asks.

"To the drugstore. Charlotte really is in her twenties.  She's got crabs."

In order to avoid that particular plague, Carrie meets up with her Hunky-good-on-paper-Doctor, and shares her vivid fear of pubic lice. Doctor has a good humor about it, and promises to be good when Carrie invites herself to stay the night.

Well, that's all well and good, but really, what's the alternative?

--

The next night, the foursome go down to the big party that Sam's ex-assistant is throwing. It's a Hampton's Hoedown.  More like tacky tack-tack, amiright?

Charlotte confronts Greg, the 26-year-old, about the crabs.  He doesn't apologize for the STD, but digs his heels in, claiming the moral high-ground since Charlotte lied about her age.  "I may have given you crabs, but you deceived me.  That is so much worse."

"Grow up!"

I think they both need to grow up.  It isn't like he did it on purpose.

Sam decides that the party is a hit since so many people have come and that she ought to congratulate her ex-assistant.  "I may need her to hire me one day." But then, as she closes in on Nina and her friends, she sees that the party hasn't gone off without a hitch and everything is going wrong!

Sam is nothing if not selfish, so she is gleeful to be around to save the day. While comforting poor Nina, she wickedly introduces her to Greg.

Carrie's doppelganger runs into her, and Laurel is so excited to see her.  She offers to get her a drink, and Carrie brushes her off and walks away.

Narrator Carrie talks about how annoying and stupid the twenty-somethings are"...and then everything I so firmly believed was promptly blown to pieces."



Him.

It's Big. He's standing there, holding hands and intimately chatting with a woman in white.  Carrie is absolutely stunned by the sight of him.

"Is it You?"

"Hey. What are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here? What are YOU doing here?"

"I just got back this week from Paris. Carrie, this is Natasha."

Natasha's voice is simpering, and it is infuriating. Big explains that Natasha's parents are loaded and they are staying up in their beach house for the weekend. Natasha exits the scene and Big and Carrie are left with a whole lot of baggage between them.

Carrie is stunned still.  She asks who Natasha is, and Big explains that he met her in Paris that she works for Ralph Lauren in Europe, and that the Paris deal fell through (I'd say it did).  For some reason, Carrie asks how old Natasha is, and Big says that he doesn't know, 26 or 27 maybe, because, you know.. she's an adult and it doesn't really fucking matter.

It matters a whole lot to Carrie though, who calls her a 'teenager' in the next episode.

Like, I know she's hurt, especially by how serious his relationship with Natasha has developed so quickly, but Carrie is a total asshole to her.  Carrie continually puts Natasha down in order to make herself feel better.  It's like she doesn't remember how unhappy both Big and she were together.  But whatever, it's cause Natasha is a child.

Carrie makes her exit to the beach, where she runs into Miranda.  She tells her about Big and the new Woman in his life, and she is so wrenched by the whole thing that she starts puking in the sand. gross.

Miranda is a good friend, holds her hair and lets her let it all out while the fiesta fireworks explode in the background.