Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Season 3 Episode 11 Running With Scissors

This episode has my favorite Miranda story in the whole series.  I've probably already said this, and I might say it again, but it is definitely top 5.

As for Carrie, this is almost as low as when she demands Aiden ask for forgiveness for what she's about to do to him in this episode.

The title of this episode is right on the nose here.  The one thing we all remember being told as kids, don't run with scissors, you're going to get hurt.


The episode starts out in a series of hotel rooms.  Carrie and Mr. Big are having a grand affair.  The stuff of legends and books and it is so very sexy.  Until it's not.  As time advances, the rooms get dingier and dingier and finally reality sets in.

"It's so hot, and we can't open the window!" Carrie complains

"You picked the hotel."

"I picked it cause it's on 56th and 8th. No one knows us on 56th and 8th. 56th and 8th is safe."

And finally Carrie seems to realize what shitstains she and Big are and asks "Who are we?"

--

Carrie does the right thing and gets Miranda's opinion about all this. Miranda really is trying her damndest not to be a jerk, you know, since Carrie is already beating herself up about it. And also, things are different when you're friends with someone who is acting out.  It is a really difficult situation all around.

"I'm in the middle of this and I can't see, so I need you to yank me out of it." Carrie says.

"What about Aiden?" Miranda and the Audience ask plainly.

"Yes, exactly! What about Aiden? I would die if he found out and now Big's acting jealous and I'm so afraid that he's going to call him or do something stupid. He's already threatened to tell Natasha."

"Well, what did you think would happen?" Miranda is hitting all the right notes.

"I didn't think, I just did.  And now I'm terrified that we messed it all up and now it can never be what it was supposed to be. I'm just so confused, does he only want me now because he can't have me?"

"Yes." Miranda says without taking a beat. "Forget about him.  What do you want?"

"I want everyone to get out of this without anyone getting hurt."

"oh, that's realistic."

Carrie describes her fantasy, that everyone will get out and be happy in their original relationships without anyone being the wiser, and Miranda sarcasms on that as well.

"Carrie, you have to just stop."

"I am. I'm stopping... I am."

"Good."

They chat a bit about how Charlotte would die of heart palpitations if she found out that Carrie was cheating, since she's obsessed with her wedding right now, so the only two people on the whole island of Manhattan who don't know about this whole thing are Charlotte and Aiden.

--

Because no episode featuring wedding dresses is complete without a whole bit about AIDs, Sam has to take that one.  She meets a guy in a bar who is as renowned as she is, but he won't fuck her unless she gets tested for diseases.  This is such a modern plotline, and I really wonder why Sam doesn't have the same policy already.

She's actually *never* been tested for HIV because she's terrified that she might have it.  That's reasonable.

Don't!

(that's an in-joke!!)

At breakfast with the other three, she talks about her fears.  Her friends sort of freak her out more.

Miranda warns Sam about the little room where she'll get her results if they're not good, which is only a set up for a future scene, but... don't they mail results to you, or call? I've never heard of lab results given like that.

 When Sam goes in for the test, it is actually hilarious the line of questioning that they give her.

(and pedantic me notices absolutely no questions about drug use but I'll forgive them this, because this is hilarious)

"Do you have sex?"

"Yes."

"Do you have oral sex. Give, receive?"

"Yes. Yes, yes."

"Do you have anal sex?"

"yes" she answers timidly.

this goes on a few more questions, then finally,

"How many sexual partners have you had?"

-insert loooong silence and Sam looking up toward her brain, counting--

"...I'm counting..."

-another silence-

 "uh, this year?"


In the end of her storyline, Sam *is* motioned back to the little room. She panics and faints in the middle of the waiting room. It was all for nothing though, they wanted to take her back only to have a discreet conversation about safe sex.

And in the end, she gets to have fun sexy sex with the renowned sexy man on a swing, even!
--

Back to Charlotte.  At the brunch, she had acquired an acute case of bridezilla and was trying to infect her friends.  They were immune.  She had brought in a whole stack of bride magazines, looking for the perfect dress.

"There are 1400 dresses in this magazine, and I've only seen 600 of them, I need help!"

"Listen, you need to chill the fuck out and hire yourself a stylist!" Sam yelps-- uh, I mean helps.

"A stylist?"

"Some little minion to run around town doing your dress bidding."

"I can hire someone to do that for me?"

"Honey, this is New York, you can hire anyone to do anything."

She hires Anthony Marantino and they pick the dress in less than 4 tries.

--

When Carrie is writing in her little laptop, she is asking the big questions.  And she is so off base, I don't even know where to begin.

"Later that night I got to thinking about safe sex," Writer Carrie says, "Odd, how only when our physical life is at risk do we follow certain guidelines to protect ourselves."

Has she never heard of boundaries?  And self-protection?

She continues, "Wouldn't it be nice if there was a pamphlet to warn us what behaviors might be 'high risk?' to ourselves or our relationships?"

Has the affair made her stupid?

I'm only kidding.  She was already stupid.

I don't even know who her audience is here, cause it is so dumb.

And sure, maybe I come across as a little pious, but I feel like most people know what behaviors are risky to our emotional selves.

things like:

getting emotionally involved too quickly.
sleeping with someone who is unavailable.
cheating on someone.
cheating on someone with a married ex.
trying to get back together with someone that you previously cheated on and expecting them to just forgive you for it.
saying yes to being engaged with someone that you don't want to marry.
ending up with a guy who only wants you when he can't have you.

I could go on and on with Carrie's mistakes.  But I'll stop.  She really is the worst.

I guess the show would be rather boring if there wasn't Carrie to be a ginormous poster board for bad choices.

And finally, How is she even a sex columnist?


--
OK!  Finally to the fun story line!

Miranda is walking along mid-day, pissed off about a lawyer-attorney-brief-subpoena-objection-thingy, (she's a lawyer if you forgot) when suddenly a man in a sandwich suit says, "Eat me."

--But he doesn't say it in the sandwich way--

And she is royally pissed about it.

 Three days later, she walks by the sandwich man and he says it again: "Eat me."

And she stops short, turns around and shouts at him: "OK that's it.  You're not allowed to harass women like that."

"Eat me."

 "We'll see about that!" She is so pissed that she walks into the Hoagie restaurant and demands to speak to the manager.

"That sandwich out front is saying sexually explicit things to women as they walk by."

"What'd he say?"

"Eat me."

"yeah, he's a sandwich."

"No. He didn't say it in the -sandwich- way, he said it in the -sexually harassing- way."

"Lady, He's a sandwich."

Clearly this conversation is going nowhere, so she leaves.  And when she walks by again, he says it again: "Eat me."

"Oh you're so brave inside your sandwich!" She shouts at the Sandwich.  I'm rolling.

OK, So, yeah.. even typing this out, it feels really really wrong to laugh at.  If I were in this sort of situation with a whole lot of plausible deniability on the side of the guy doing the harassing, I would be pissed too.

But it is still the best Miranda plot line on the show.  It is so friggin hilarious.

Miranda notices a hint of a smile behind the mesh, and realizes that he is a person in there, and because it's Miranda and she gets a hard-on for really mean men, she starts fantasizing about the man inside the bun.

She even has a whole phone conversation with Carrie about how she can't have sex with a sandwich, but she wants to.

"That is one fresh sandwich." Carrie's one fun line in the episode.

The last time she walks by the sub shop, the sandwich says his line, and she asks to see his face.  He's cute, young, has a nice smile.

But.

She can't end up with a sandwich, so she walks away and that's the end of that.

Fun fact, if you watch this on amazon prime, you can see pictures of the actors and their names on the side of the screen.  The picture for this guy is of him in the sandwich suit.  poor guy! :(

--

The last few bits of the episode are all about Carrie, so bear with me.

Carrie is still "stopping her affair"-- ie waiting for Big at a hotel somewhere to bang him on his lunch break, when she runs into Charlotte on the street.  Charlotte is like, 'wtf are you doing around here?' and then Big walks up between Charlotte and Carrie.



She knows.

Big tries to lie his way out of it, but she knows.

She stammers something about being in this part of town to see her tailor about her dress.

(fun story, in the director's commentary, Michael Patrick King talks about a scene that was omitted where Charlotte cuts her dress with scissors, but that really would have been too on the nose.  Ok, not that fun.)

Later on, Charlotte and Carrie have an honest discussion about all this while Carrie helps her pack up her stuff for moving. (man this whole wedding stuff is going at warp speed!)

Charlotte rightfully points out that Carrie is only thinking about herself and what would happen to her if she got caught.  She's not thinking about Natasha who will be devastated to their core by their actions.

"You're the other woman, Carrie"

Carrie finally gets it. Although not really, since her very next scene she's at Big's apartment while Natasha is away at the Hamptons.

They have one more conversation about how guilty and terrible Carrie feels.  She says that they shouldn't see each other anymore. Big, again, says that he's going to call Natasha, right the fuck now. And Carrie tells him not to.  For once, I'm on Carrie's side.  that is not something you call to tell someone while they're at the beach.

"What are you gonna do? are you gonna call her at the beach and say that you love me and you want a divorce?"

"You don't want me to call her because you're still in love with that other guy. This is about that other guy."

And for the zillionth time, she corrects him. "The other guy has a name. It's Aiden. And you have a wife, Natasha."

Big demands, "give me the phone."

"And if you really wanted to tell her you would have told her by now."

"What the fuck, you told me not to tell her!"

"Here. call her." She calls his bluff.

"If I make that call, are you going to be there for me?" For once, he's not bluffing.

"Are we going to do this, really?"

"Carrie. In or Out?"

And she needs more time.

"I'm calling her on Monday."

 He leaves her alone in the apartment.

And rather than get the hell out of there, she takes a shower and walks around the apartment ogling Natasha's things, trying to get a feeling for the kind of woman Natasha is.

Apparently Natasha is someone who comes home early from the Hamptons.

And like a child, Carrie runs away from her, and Natasha follows and stumbles down the stairs, breaking a tooth.

To the Emergency Room!


Big shows up a few hours later.  For some reason Carrie is still there.

Carrie tells Big about the accident on her way out of the waiting room. As she's leaving, Big says to her "I'll call you."

"For what? We're so over, we need a new word for over."

And finally the affair is ended.

So much for no one getting hurt.

"Surprise!"  Aiden is at her apartment.

Remember him?

"Where you been all day?"  And she lies to him -again- and goes to wash her face in the bathroom.

The last line of the show is narrator Carrie, and it is so delusional I can't even.

"Somehow I had found a way to let myself out of the mess and I'd made it home."

NO, CARRIE.  Your ex-boyfriend's wife caught you in her apartment and fell down the stairs.  That is not YOUR terms.  You didn't intend for it to happen.

GRRR.

So, will Carrie tell Aiden about the affair now that it's over?  Will Charlotte ever find out that Trey can't get it up? Will Miranda end up with a Hoagie!  Find out next time!

<3

Friday, September 15, 2017

Season 3 Episode 10 All or Nothing

huh, I only just realized that in my last post, I labelled it as season 2.  oooop.

Ah well, moving on.

At the end of the last episode, Carrie had found herself in bed with Big.  And how did that happen?

So, that happened.

So far, it's just a one-off, and she doesn't want to talk to her friends about it for fear of scorn and judgement.

The foursome are at Sam's place, celebrating her life with a drunk viewing of An Affair to Remember.  Good job, show.  Right on the nose.

Before the movie, the foursome are very enthusiastic about how happy they are in their lives-- especially Sam.  She compares herself to her mother when she was her age: a sad woman saddled with three kids and a drunk husband.

Carrie quips that now she's just saddled with three drunk friends.  :DD

Charlotte thinks it's sad that Sam can be happy without a man, "I really think that having it all really means having someone to share it with."

"oh please, that is so Barney!"

"Well, I'm sorry!  My life wasn't really complete until I met Trey!" Charlotte insists.

Miranda is the audience here, nodding along and trying to be happy for her friend.

I really don't understand this about Charlotte.  She literally *just* met him a few weeks ago.  And what about her life before? was it really so void of meaning and fulfillment?  What a whole lot of weight to put on some guy she doesn't know has erectile dysfunction yet.

Funny line ahoy: "And Trey's mom is so great!"

She doesn't even know that his mom is a tyrant yet, either!

She is so desperate for a storybook ending, she doesn't realize that getting married is not actually the end of anything.


Ok, well *that* one was.

"You see us Manhattan! We have it all!"  Sam shouts out the window to the indifferent Meat Packing District.

"Fuck yous!"  A Meat Packer replies.

"You wish!"

At the end of their little movie night, and after Charlotte and Miranda go home, Carrie opens up to Sam about the affair.

 Sam really is the nicest character on the show.  She's the most caring, compassionate, and non-judgemental person.  She asks a few simple questions, but is really just there to comfort her friend.  It is super nice.

She doesn't even criticize Carrie's terrible fashion choice.  She's got on a light blue top with bleach stains all over it, random strips of various sized red fabric sewn as a makeshift collar and rhinestones along the neckline.  It is the worst shirt I've ever seen in my life.

And Sam doesn't even mention it.

She's such a good friend.

 Rather than go home after movie night, Carrie goes to Aiden's place, wakes him up in the middle of the night, and spends the rest of the night with him.  He has to get up early though, to make a furniture delivery that weekend upstate.

I don't believe this for a minute.  For the amount of money that each of these pieces cost, there's no way he can't afford a deliveryman or four.  But I guess I'll bite.

Carrie is inconveniently left alone for the weekend.  And we all know how this is going to go.


Meanwhile, Sam "I have it all" Jones has woken up with the flu.  She attempts to close her room-wide curtain, but can't quite reach it all that well and falls over. The curtain rod breaks from the wall and sunshine streams in.  It is so sad.  And Sam has no mans to come over and fix it for her. D:

None of the men she has on call want to come over to fix it for her either: "I can't even blow my nose let alone blow you!!"

--


Charlotte and Trey are at an upscale department store picking out wedding china.

"$1300?!"

Charlotte wants it all, and she wants Trey to pay for it.

"They're very beautiful."

"Yes. They'll look lovely under the ramen noodles we'll be forced to eat due to my outstanding China loans."

She gives him the biggest puppy-dog eyes she can muster, and he's forced to acquiesce.

The shop-worker (on commission, I imagine) looks incredibly impressed by Charlotte's manipulation.

And speaking of manipulation, on Trey's way out of the scene, he hands Charlotte his list of invitees for the engagement party, and tucked away under it is a prenuptial agreement.

sneaky sneaky.

Charlotte is taken completely aback, and has her lawyer friend Miranda take a look over it.

According to Miranda, it looks standard.  They get into a whole discussion of prenups and the reality of two people merging assets.  Charlotte doesn't want her illusion to end, she also thinks she's worth a lot more than what the prenup has valued her as.

It is all very rich people stuff.  I understand alimony, but $500,000 isn't enough?  Really?  It is supposed to set Charlotte up to stand up to Trey's mom, Bunny, but it really just makes Charlotte look like a selfish Cow.

--

The episode wouldn't be complete without a small Miranda story line.

While Miranda is talking to Charlotte about prenups, an old lawyer friend from Chicago says hi, and they decide to go on a date.  The date ends with a doorway make-out, but he has an early flight so they decide to continue the relationship remotely-- err remote phonely. phone sex.  We'll just call him Phoney.

There's a hilarious scene where Miranda is flicking the bean while phone sexing with Phoney.  She has call waiting, sits up and answers the phone.  It's Charlotte.

Charlotte wants to talk about negotiating with Trey and Bunny, meanwhile Miranda is hot and sweaty from phone sexing.  It is hilarious.  She switches lines between Charlotte and Phoney, laying down and sitting up and laying down again.

"Charlotte this is not a good time, I'll call you tomorrow!"

In their next phone sex adventure, Miranda is the one put on hold. But something weird happens.  Rather than come back to the phone remembering where they left off, old Phoney has gone on without her, "We hadn't gotten to that yet!" which leads Miranda to believe that he's having phone sex with other people.

and my suspension of disbelief has broken again.

Did he just start up a phone sex conversation as a matter of course with the lady who beeped in?  And how did they get farther along in their sexing before Miranda and phoney did?  Do they not have phone-foreplay?

"We never discussed exclusivity!" Phoney explains simply.

Miranda hangs up on Phoney.

---

Meanwhile, back in Carrie's timeline.  Guys, I don't want to do this.  It is so stupid.

Carrie does what we all know she will with an empty apartment and Aiden off in the boonies somewhere delivering a couch.

She calls Big.  She just wants to talk.  They can just talk...

...yeah, no they can't.

When Aiden comes home a few days later, he is none the wiser, and she is torn.

She carries her guilt over to Sam's place.  Sam is still battling actual problems and is delusional with fever.  Carrie is nice enough to make Sam's mother's recipe for frozen overdose: orange fanta and Robitussin blended over ice.  So much robotussin.

geez.

Sam cries to Carrie that she's all alone, that without a man she has nothing.

Her flu had turned her into Charlotte.

And meanwhile, Carrie is smoking again.

---

At the much anticipated engagement party, Miranda, Carrie and now-healthy Sam have realized that Charlotte has drank the kool aid and is willingly signing herself up to be a Stepford Wife.  So many Wasps.


 I don't know why it's surprising, really.  Charlotte's been trying to land a sexy doctor-type man for years.

Charlotte let's her friends know that she's still a selfish Cow and hasn't signed the prenup.  She still wants to negotiate her value with Bunny.  So it's bunny v. cow.



Charlotte gets what she wants, signs the prenup, and tells her friends all about it.

They are left bittersweet, and it is so lonesome on their walk home without her.

---

The final scene is a real doozy.  Carrie is hanging out in her apartment with Aiden and the dog when she gets a call from Big.

"I need to see you."

 "Miranda, I'll call you back."

"I'm downstairs.  If you don't come down, I'm coming up."

"Right, I'll call you later."

If it weren't so horrible, I would commend her for thinking on her feet so easily.

She actually offers to walk Pete the dog as a pretext for going downstairs.  Rather than, you know, continuing the Miranda theme and not having a dog along.  But Ok.  She has the dog on a leash.


Carrie complains that Big wants it all, he wants the wife and the girl to screw.  He claims that he just wants Carrie.  He threatens to tell Natasha, and Carrie tells him not to.  She still wants to be with Aiden.

Projecting much, Carrie?

"I have a man that loves me, and you have a wife that loves you."

"Don't talk about him and her like it's you and me."

"You have no right to do this.  You can't just come into my life and fuck it all up!"

Big points out what we're all thinking, "Well I think there were two people doing the fucking here, Carrie."

Carrie doesn't notice that she's let go of the leash, meanwhile, and Pete has walked off back down the street.

Carrie shouts at the dog, whose started galloping and Big actually asks "Where are you going?" Like she's some sort of monster who would let her boyfriend's dog get away.

dick.

He chases after the both of them, and she tells him to go home.

Finally, hours later, she's come home reeking of cigarettes.  There's no dog, it's been raining for quite awhile, and she is completely defeated.  She decides to come clean about the cheating with Aiden.

But there, next to Aiden in her apartment, is the dog.  Pete knows what she did and won't come for her.  Aiden chides Carrie for taking a dog running away so seriously.

What is wrong with the men in this episode?  She's rightfully upset, even if it were just about his dog running away.  She couldn't have known he would end up at home.

Narrator Carrie seems to use the dog turning up to get out of telling him the truth.

While he's comforting her, he notices something.

"Carrie, I need to ask you something. I don't want to be paranoid here, but you took Pete for a walk, and we both know you're not big on the dog walking. And I can smell something."

She sits over on the bed.  oop, he totally suspects she's been cheating on him with her ex-boyfriend!

"Are you cheating?"

She exhales, her eyes are red from the tears.  She looks at him and is about to say something--

"I can smell the smoke on you."

She admits to smoking.

He asks if she is going to quit, and she says that she really wants to, but she's shaking her head no.

OMG you guys, it's going to get so much worse before this is over.

D:

Till next time!

<3