Maybe I'll just skip the childish escapades of Carrie this time, and the unlikely scenario where Miranda gets braces for the episode and has them taken off before the end of it, and Sam dealing with several risque 13-year-olds talking about blow jobs, and just spend some time talking about how hilarious it is that Charlotte suggests "Canoe" as a nickname for Trey's John Thomas.
No go?
Ok. Well, I'm not going over Miranda's story again. That's like, top 5 unrealistic plot lines in the whole run of the thing.
Can I also mention how absolutely crazy it is that at the time this episode aired for the first time, I was about 13 years old.
So, the episode starts off with Sam at work. She's dealing with a very young client who has way too much money to spend on a bat mitzvah party. Like, shockingly too much money.
People should not have this much money.
1 million dollar budget for a kid's birthday party?
Sam's actually jealous of this girl. And I mean, I guess I get it a little bit? But before she even gets to the topic of kids growing up too fast, I already feel bad for her. Not *that* bad of course, and I am having a difficult time explaining what I mean. I think never hearing the word 'no' is damaging to a person. When and if she ever gets cut off from daddy's money, she's going to be a world of pain.
That certainly was lighthearted!
The foursome have lunch at a hip new joint featuring haute cafeteria cuisine, whatever that is. Like, really? They serve the food on a tray and you walk back to your seat with it and that is somehow different from other restaurants where they serve food on a tray and you walk back to your seat with it.
There's a guy checking out Miranda so Carrie writes her name and phone number on a piece of paper and hands it to the guy. It's embarrassing. And it's meant to be. They're acting like teenagers, eating food in a cafeteria, writing notes to cutie cute boys, and talking about getting braces.
Later on, Carrie accidentally finds herself in a comic book store. She's looking for her shoe guy and instead finds the young owner of the comic book store, Wade. He's talking to her a bit too familiarly for someone who was just asked where the previous shop owner went. She don't curr about comic books. They're for boys anyway.
He name drops all of *two* lady super heroes to prove that girls can read comic books too. Carrie's not convinced either.
He's also a comic-book artist. He shows her his rather shoddy comic called Power-Lad. She asks about it, and he describes the plot to the movie "Sky High," and come to think of it one other made-for-TV Disney movie with the same plot. Essentially, son of superhero waiting for his powers to kick in.
In light of the name, Carrie refers to him as Power Lad, and so I'm going to call him Power Wade. You know what's cool about Power Wade? He has electrolytes which is what plants crave!
The following week, she gets an absolutely brilliant comic of herself in the mail from Power Wade. I don't think he actually drew it though, based on the art from his comic book. And how'd he even get her address?? Stalker alert!
She does call him, and they go on a date to a trendy new bar with *expensive* video games in it. So, Dave and Busters essentially?
Those New Yorkers, really on trend.
Rather than take a cab or the subway home, Power Wade pulls out a razor scooter. Classy. He only brought one, so he let's her have a go. She normally doesn't like to go home with men on the first date, but he brags about air conditioning and she is on it. The apartment is huge and fancee (with two e's)
How can he afford such luxurious accommodations as a failing comic book store owner?
Oop, there's his mother.
He lives at home.
Awkward.
Sam tells Carrie that she should dump him immediately. Carrie balks that he's trying to save for his own place, but can't afford it. fair enough, tbh.
Miranda shows up with her braces and her friends are so fucking shallow I can't even. She's your friend, and it doesn't help her to hear "are you in pain? I'm in pain just looking at you" not because getting braces hurts, but because she has them at all and they are unsightly.
Seriously, what jerks.
They get served dom perignon, a gift from Sam's 13-year-old client and it's pretty much the last straw for Sam.
The gaggle of 13-year-olds shows up, and one of the girls has blue bits on her braces
Miranda asks if her braces are blue, and the girl responds, "No, they're sapphires. Oh my god, look you have the old-fashioned kind! I didn't know they made those anymore." and it makes Miranda have a sad. D: talk about adding insult to injury.
"Her braces are Sapphire." Miranda says after the girls leave. "I'm a 34-year-old nerd."
--
Let's talk about Charlotte and Trey, shall we?
Charlotte recently went looking on the internet for solutions to impotence. The first thing she finds is a penis implant which makes Trey blanch when he looks at it. Trey suggests marriage counseling and I'm like finally. Finally. Actually talk about your issues. Finally.
Only, the guy they find is kind of a quack.
It's painfully hilarious to watch.
The psychologist starts off by trying to introduce an easier, non-threatening, way to talk about sex by renaming their sexual organs. Charlotte isn't sure she understands so he gives an example:
"One client rather whimsically dubbed his anus the chocolate starfish."
"Are you quite sure you went to Yale?" Trey ribs.
Charlotte decides that her cunt should be called "Rebecca" and Trey tries to poo poo that. He doesn't want to play along.
"Why on earth would you call it Rebecca?"
"Cause it sounds nice and I've always liked the name. Now you name yours."
"This is preposterous."
He is beyond caring at this point and even though the exercise *is* really stupid, it is telling that he isn't willing to play along.
The psychologist combats his negativity, and Charlotte remembers that he likes to sail so she suggests 'Canoe.'
"Canoe doesn't go with Rebecca."
"Well what then?"
"How about Schooner."
"Schooner's good!" Charlotte exclaims, "Rebecca and Schooner! Schooner's good, right?"
"That's very good. Very good." The psychologist is a little too into this.
He tells them that for homework they have to tell each other a sexual fantasy while in bed together that night.
I'm just gonna type out their fantasies right now, shall I?
Charlotte's:
"I'm a fairy princess in a forest and I'm riding on a unicorn, when suddenly I see you, a pirate in buckskins. A prince in disguise. And that's when you pull me off my unicorn, you tear away my gossamer petticoats, and you put your Schooner deep inside my Rebecca."
"Now you," she asks, "Where are you?"
"I'm in hell."
Trey goes on to talk about how embarrassing this whole thing is. He pleads with her to accept the fact that he's not that sexual a person. Charlotte is desperate for him to try, "but, we love each other and we're married now. Rebecca and Schooner belong to each other, they need each other. Please!"
Like, the whole situation is sad, but those names man.
So funny.
Later on, she hears something from the bathroom. Mr "Not that sexual of a guy" is jerking off to a magazine.
Back to the Psychologist!
Dr Quack tries to wax optimistic about it. "Trey was masturbating to 'Juggs.' At least we know he isn't gay."
Charlotte is still hurt, and Trey is still passing it off as 'tension release': "Excuse me. What exactly is the problem here? It was tension release with a magazine. It had nothing whatsoever to do with my wife."
God, he's so fucking clueless.
Dr Quack points out that maybe he should start to include his wife in his sexual fantasies.
Charlotte uses her rejected wedding photos, cutting and pasting her face onto the girls' faces in his magazine. He has to take a beat when he sees them
--But decides that he guesses she's hot enough to fap to. he guesses. maybe.
---
Miranda has one final moment of embarrassment about her braces. She's at work, reading a brief to the room full of people, and two of them are laughing about something with each other. She assumes they're laughing at her braces and shamelessly tells everyone to get it out of their system. They tell her that they were laughing at a typo and she decides to get her braces taken off. Maybe she should keep them on until she realizes that the world doesn't revolve around her orthodontia and most people don't curr that much about whether someone has braces.
She needs better friends.
--
Carrie's story line needs wrapping up a bit. On their second date, at Carrie's apartment, Power Wade gets a call from his mother while Carrie is making out with him. So awkward. She's going on and on, asking about whether he fed the dog his medicine. Finally he realizes they can't continue their making out with his mom yakking in the background, and she's not stopping talking, so he picks up the phone.
On another date, they're back at Wade's mom's house. He pulls out a bag of expensive weed and a home-made bong. So that's why he can't afford to move out of mom and dad's. They get high and end up eating buckets of KFC and playing with the hose on the balcony.
fun.
Power wade's parents drive up, and he goes into a panic. They have to find the weed cause if his mom finds it first, she'll kick him out of the house.
"But if they see billions of chicken wings, they're gonna know we were smoking the pot!" Carrie says between belly laughs.
The parents come in, "Is that Marijuana I smell?"
I love it when straight-laced old people say things like Marijuana.
"um. no." Power Wade and Carrie look down, shamefully.
"Then what is this? Did you bring Marijuana into this house?"
"Carrie brought it!" Vile Betrayer!
She thinks about how, as a woman, she has to start taking responsibility for her actions (to tie it into the whole bat mitzvah theme from earlier). "Yes, Mrs. Adams. I brought the marijuana into the house. And I'm taking it with me when I go!" And she steals Power Wade's pot.
Serves him right, I say.
The foursome smoke it together, and they must have smoked a lot of it because they completely forget that they do this by the time season 6 comes around when they do it then.
--
I just have one last note, and this has been bothering me since I watched this episode for the first time, oh, eleven years ago.
At the bat mitzvah party, The 13-year-old girls are talking about how they're going to blow the members of N*sync. Sam overhears them and tells them that they're children and shouldn't be talking like that. "Talk to the hand grandma" one of them says.
The other one says, "Please. I've been giving blow jobs since I'm twelve."
This grammar structure comes up in the very next episode when Miranda says something like I haven't had this happen since I'm 26.
Is this how people talk? Is it geographical?
This is literally the only time I've heard anyone say "since I'm X age." rather than "since I *was* x age."
And another thing, while I'm on the topic of strange "is this how we're talking now" grammar, has anyone else noticed the strange new use of the term 'anymore' on the internet?
For example, "we're not using it that way anymore" is a perfectly adequate way to use the word 'anymore.'
but lately I've heard it thusly, "we're using it that way anymore." I think the word they're looking for is 'still.'
anymore means any longer, an end to whatever it is.
It is driving me batty. That is literally the opposite use of that word. And it isn't like 'droll' or 'gingerly' or any number of words that sort of switched their original meaning and can now mean two opposite things depending on context. I don't mind languages shifting like that. It can be irritating, but I get it. Languages are living things. And people can be really dumb.
This is not that. This is just asinine.
That's all.
Anywho, that's the end of that episode. Hope you enjoyed it!
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