The episode is about self-esteem, and about all the other people in the world who are seemingly designed to make you feel crappy about yourself. And the trick is to do you and you'll be much happier. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Let's start:
This beginning is reminiscent of the first few episodes, there are various screen shots of people enjoying brunch on this fine, fun Sunday early afternoon? She said you could sleep till noon, so I assume these people are having brunch at 1pm. But the real reason these people are so happy are not the mimosas, but the Single Woman's Sports page AKA the New York Times Wedding Section.
The foursome are spitting at each other about how young all the former accountants and former has-a-life-of-her-owns on the page are. For how angry they are about it, they can't cut the jealousy from their tone. Well, sort of jealous. Charlotte is obviously jealous of Mrs. Roman Numeral Guy, Sam and Miranda don't want to get married. ever. But it doesn't stop them from gabbing all day about it.
It's funny how small town New York pretends to be. What are the odds anyone actually recognizes anyone in these things, there are millions of people who live on that island-- Oh, Big is on it this week? :cringe:
Course, he's Mr. Big, so he gets a whole article dedicated to him and his 26-year-old teenage bride, Natasha. The titular 5'10" woman.
Suddenly making fun of these women isn't funny to the foursome and it gets awkward.
Charlotte follows Carrie home to make sure she doesn't do anything rash. *heh, foreshadow joke* She knows how Carrie can be, of course she's gonna read it and cry and it'll be awful, so let's just read it together and make fun of it. Charlotte is a good friend.
The article is pretty cheesy, and yet depressing. It is difficult to snark cause I think we've all been there. Carrie feels completely inadequate.
"He wasn't the right man for you." Charlotte tries to cheer her up.
"I know that. I know. It's not him, it's the whole wedding. And it's her. it's her. it's her. You know, she's shiny hair, style section, Vera Wang, and I'm, you know, the sex column they run next to ads for penile implants."
--
The transition here is all about Miranda- who is currently making a single cup of coffee in her Mr Coffee 12-cup coffee maker. Why do people have such large coffee makers? Course, jokes on me, now everyone has Keurigs. Things have a way of coming full circle.-- Anyway, Miranda, after years of domestic independence, has opened herself up to a relationship. With a cleaning lady.
Heyo, it's Magda. Magda is one of my very favorite secondary reoccurring characters. She is a little overbearing, especially in this episode, but she challenges Miranda in the best ways.
Here she is challenging Miranda's temper. Miranda can't find anything in her kitchen.
"Do you know where the coffee mugs are?"
"Oh, I moved them here. See? Now all glasses are together."
"Oh! Sure!" (she tries to hide her annoyance with animation and excitement!) "I guess that makes more sense!"
Magda has handed her the tiniest mug I ever saw. And Miranda tries to tell her gently that she prefers her coffee in her Harvard mug cause it's bigger and it's just the way she likes things.
"Why do I have a rolling pin?"
"It's for you to make pies. It's good for women to make pies."
The transition here is perfection, Miranda is against a white background, which you think is her kitchen, and she's nodding as if responding to Magda, but then she turns and the music starts and tada! She's talking to Carrie somewhere else.
"Do you have a rolling pin?"
"On me?"
Carrie reveals what we always suspected. "Are you kidding, I use my oven for storage!"
My great grandmother used to use her oven to store cereal boxes. And we loved her for it. :)
Miranda is going off on a tangent about how she doesn't need to make pies and that she can buy pie if she wants pie. Carrie wonders if she found Magda in a time capsule.
Meanwhile, Carrie is trying on dresses, she asks Miranda to grab her another size in a dress and from the other curtain pops out Natasha. Miranda tries to keep Carrie from opening her own curtain, but alas, it's too late. Carrie is there, sans clothes, in front of the woman always in white, pristine Natasha.
Carrie attempts to chat casually (trying to wrap a dress around herself with the hanger attached) and learns that Natasha is buying a dress for a Women in the Arts Luncheon that she is hosting. Carrie goes a little nuts and says that she is also a woman in the arts so she is obviously attending. Natasha doesn't look pleased about this but nods cordially. Carrie is so messed up about herself she couldn't read Natasha's body language and insecurity.
As Natasha flees the scene, Carrie grabs Miranda into the dressing room to hyperventilate together.
On the phone with Sam later, Carrie is still hyperventilating. She can't find any Women in the Arts Luncheon invitation, even though she said she'd go. As a PR pro, Sam not only can find a way for Carrie in, but also herself. Good girl, wouldn't want to miss this drama.
--
Meanwhile, Miranda is still being tortured by Magda. Last week Magda organized her bathroom and Miranda is asking where these terrible rose-trimmed towels came from-- "oh no! That drawer doesn't need organizing!"
It's Miranda's goody drawer.
"Look, I have a boyfriend, so it's not like I'm sleeping with a bunch of different men. There's one guy and for a long time there was no guy and that's why I have the other thing."
"You want to marry this man?"
"I don't know."
"Everybody wants to get married. I am married 28 years."
"Well, we'll see. I don't know if I want to get married."
"god bless you!"
So. Awkward. She didn't even sneeze. :cringe:
"I don't need you to bless me. I don't need god to bless me. I'm perfectly fine with my life as it is."
---
"It's like I hired my mother." Miranda says to her friends. They are all in towels at the spa in the locker room heading toward the sauna.
The foursome talk about what's in their goody drawers. It's all the usual stuff. Charlotte, the dear, doesn't have one. And Sam has a goody closet-- "We don't need to know what's in your goody closet."
They enter the steam room, and one by one they all take off their towels.
Why yes, I'm the worst.
Charlotte is all hot and bothered-- and not by the steam. She declares she's too hot and leaves with her towel still wrapped tightly around herself.
Carrie is a good friend and follows her to figure out what's the matter. Charlotte is insecure and doesn't want to be naked.
Carrie assures her that her figure is beautiful and no one is really looking at her. Charlotte is already too far gone in insecurity land, "Then why was that woman looking at me like my thighs were too big?"
Poor Char. D:
After her massage, Sam finds out that she missed out on a very lucrative opportunity. Another woman revealed that her masseuse goes down on his clients. Sam is intrigued, but doesn't need to pay for sex since she has a goody closet-- till she sees him emerge from the massage room. damn. Maybe just this once.
And of course it backfires.
Later on, Carrie and Charlotte meet for zerts. Carrie has brought new Manolo Blahniks that are exactly the same colors as in her coat. I like this detail because I am SO guilty of this sort of thing. Sometimes I just am into certain colors and everything I touch turns to gray or teal or purple or whatever.
"I need your honest opinion." Carrie asks Charlotte's advice.
"You can't afford them." ha.
Carrie orders a decadent flourless chocolate thing, and Charlotte orders a fruit cup. "I hate my thighs."
"The problem is not your thighs, sweetie, the problem is your head."
I love how it's like the blind leading the blind here. These women are so insecure!
Carrie surmises that these shoes will allow her to be face to face with Natasha if she wears flats.
"Do you think they make the right statement?"
"What statement do you want them to make?"
"That I'm beautiful and powerful and I don't care that you're only 25 and married my ex."
Charlotte reminds her that she doesn't have a complex about how she looks to other women, and Carrie rationalizes that it's a Natasha specific obsession which will be over at the luncheon when Natasha bows before Carrie's style and prowess. So, you know, this will all work out. That's how obsessions work, yes?
Charlotte is ever the encouraging friend, "Oh listen to you! You don't have to prove anything. You are stunning and intelligent and funny. And what is she? Married. That's all. You could go to that luncheon wearing what you're wearing now and still be the most incredible woman in the room."
"Wow! Why can't you do that for yourself?!" Carrie deflects.
Well, Carrie. Joke's on you, cause she does. In one of the funniest sequences of the show. Charlotte is back at the spa, in her towel, nervous as all get out. She steps in front of a rack of towels that perfectly aligns with her breasts, which she's taken out! And she's cautiously scurrying to the steam room. She is still covering herself with her hands, but she must pass by at least 4 women who are completely nude.
And it all works out for her, cause when she gets to the steam room, she finally sits back and relaxes and one of the aforementioned nude ladies compliments her on her great breasts.
Course, now that I think on it, every single time someone compliments someone in this episode, it is ALWAYS in the context of putting someone down. Like back when Charlotte told Carrie to get her head out of her ass, she did it in a way that made Natasha look like an idiot stick figure bride, rather than a fleshed out person with feelings. And here, the woman doesn't just say "You have a nice pair of knockers" She says, "I'd kill for your breasts." Which is just mean to her own breasts. Which, objectively, they aren't as nice as Charlotte's, but they didn't have to hire a woman with flat exposed boobs, they could have had the woman in a towel just making an observation.
But I digress.
--
At the luncheon with Sam, they snag their name tags and notice that Natasha isn't here yet. The lady at the table says that Natasha is sick and isn't coming. Rather than realize that Natasha is clearly avoiding Carrie, Carrie makes it all about her. She didn't *have* to spend a month's rent on a new dress, it isn't like Natasha has seen everything in Carrie's closet.
Sam tells her to buck up and enjoy her lunch and drinks, which Carrie enjoys a little too much. Sam goes off to actually have a good time, and brings back a woman who went to Tulane with Natasha in order to shit talk her in front of Carrie. It doesn't work.
"That's supposed to make me feel better? 5 years ago she was a cheerleader with a weight problem?" Seriously, show, stop shitting on women. You're giving yourself a bad name.
--
Miranda discovers that Magda has gone through and reorganized her goody drawer. Instead of her vibrator, there's a lady. Anyone else here think the Virgin Mary looks like a vagina? I think it must be all the robes.
Finally. Finally Miranda confronts
--
In the last scene, Carrie finally comes to terms with the fact that "some women are simply better, and no amount of shoes or lack of pastry or making of pies will change that. I will never be the woman with perfect hair who can wear white without spilling and chair committees and write thank you notes and I can't feel bad about that."
Course, Natasha signed the note 'Thanks for being their' and Carrie could feel smug about that. She calls Charlotte to tell her what an idiot Natasha is.
So I guess all that stuff I said in the beginning about doing you to gain self esteem that way was crap.
