Season 4 Premiere The Agony and the 'Ex'-tacy

You know, this show was always good at premieres and transitions.  They were always good at reminding people things that happened without hitting them over the head with information.

In the first sequence of this episode, for example, we get a very clear idea of who the main cast of the show is without any conversation. Carrie likes to show lots of cleavage and has great curly hair, Charlotte is Park Avenue with a good supply of lip gloss, Sam has a Costco-supply of condoms in her apartment, and Miranda has an old palm-pilot.  Course, when this aired I'm sure it was state of the art.

They are walking together to the beat of the music that was playing during the whole sequence when they realize their pace is just a little too quick and eager for where they are going, right around the time the music stops.

Charlotte is of course excited to go to someone's engagement party, while Miranda and the other two decry the wordage on the invitation.  "Two Souls, One thought"

"Two souls, one pushy fiance" Miranda scoffs.

Then they all reveal a time when each of them in turn had sex with the groom-to-be.  Well, Miranda only showed him a boob once.

And it didn't pay off!  When Carrie and Miranda are introduced by groom-to-be, he calls Miranda Charlotte.  whoops.

"Maybe you should have shown him both boobs." Carrie whispers to her.

Charlotte meanwhile is running on and on about her and Trey's complicated relationship.  She was asked "are you here alone?" and she is still talking details about her and Trey.  She just goes on and on.  When she stops, finally, the lady she's talking to just nods, turns to leave, and advises her friend not to talk to Charlotte.

She's more than a little embarrassed.  She decides the best course of action is to confront Trey and get their relationship sorted.  While at his place, she's trying to get a word in edge-wise while he is getting hot and bothered and kissing her as much as he can.  And then he comes on her leg.  She says, "This isn't working.  Whatever THIS is, it isn't working." And he offers to pay her dry-cleaning as she escapes his apartment.  Well, at least he is willing to do the right thing.

Meanwhile, back at the party, Carrie and Miranda are chatting with some of the women there.  The duo were also asked whether they were here alone, but they seem to handle it a little better than Charlotte.  Miranda starts some kind of a comedy act, choosing humor as armor, which seems to work well.  While chatting with Carrie on the way home, Miranda explains that no one wants to hear it, and she might as well lean in and make people laugh.  Go on the offensive.  She pretends that she's the only one who's thought of this though, which is annoying.  But it is just like her.

Carrie sloughs off any judgement, choosing instead to judge Miranda for her insecurity at being single.  She then reasserts the talking points from the season one episode about singles vs. marrieds.  I guess they forgot we already talked about this.

blah blah, marrieds wish they were singles, blah blah.  Miranda asserts that Marrieds absolutely do not wish they were single, Single people make Marrieds uncomfortable.  again, blah blah blah.  Can't we all get along??

Then, like so often happens when someone is happy-ish with her situation, Carrie is humiliated.  Next day in the mail, she receives a dating service application.  ah, life before the internet.

Rather than toss it in the bin and forget about it, she brings it along to brunch and they foursome talk about it.

Miranda reads from the application, "Don't let your soulmate slip away." and is annoyed on Carrie's behalf.

"Oh I know, it's almost a threat." Carrie explains, "It's like 'we have him, he's just waiting for you, but hurry cause he's slipping, slipping away.  oops there he goes.'"

Miranda is the realist here who doesn't believe in soulmates.  Charlotte thinks there's one perfect person for everyone.  she thought that Trey was hers, "But I don't think that a soulmate would... on your leg."

Miranda gets a bit heated about the subject, she's adamant that this type of wording is dangerous. She is my spirit animal, here.  It is one of my favorite past times-- ripping apart social norms and asking why?  I'm super fun at parties.

Sam says that she believes in soulmates, since she's had hundreds.

And Charlotte explains that that's not how it works.  Everyone humors her, of course, cause honestly how would she know how it works?  Her estranged husband just came on her leg.

For some reason, they decide to fill out the application for Carrie, but it is really just a guise for the show to tell that Carrie's 35th birthday is coming up next week.

The age boxes on the form annoy me.  It's split up into age groups of 5 years until it hits 34 and then it's grouped into 10 years.

Sam says, playfully, "Welcome to my box." and it's cute.

---

Carrie writes about soulmates in her little laptop.  It is actually a really touching scene.  Carrie is alone.  She's Alone alone. And she has to deal with the idea that she might not end up with someone, that maybe she doesn't have a soulmate.  She's forced to define her Single life using words that happy couples use, and it really is damaging.  To her self-esteem and to truly happy Singles.

As Writer Carrie asks, "As you move from age box to age box and the contestants get fewer and fewer, are your chances of finding your soulmate less and less?"

It is so fucking stupid, soulmates. How many people exist on Earth?  Assuming you are conveniently meant to end up with someone who even speaks your language. ONLY ONE person is perfect for ONE person?  Shoot me now, I think I'll settle for someone who makes me happy.

And if that is the case, if that is really what we all are doing here on this planet, just finding someone to settle with, then we can stop with the goddamn flowery language and be honest.

We all just want someone whom we can put our cold feet on in the middle of winter.
--

Sorry, let's get back to Carrie and Sam.  They're walking down the street chatting about Carrie's birthday, and how she doesn't want to celebrate it.  Sam insists that she set up a dinner at the very least.  She suggests Carrie invite Big, and Carrie's like.. meh.  I think she's had a flashback to the last time she regretfully invited Big to her birthday party in Season 2.

Carrie and Sam are walking by some kind of Parish with men in cloaks.  If this were Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it would be some kind of a demon-worshiping cult.  Unfortunately it's just a boring old church, and the guy is a celibate priest who has devoted his life to collecting food for poor people and not having sex.

 Sam is immediately taken in by the beautiful priest.  Carrie reminds her he's off limits, but that doesn't stop Sam from thinking about him.

In a scene reminiscent of season 2, Sam is masturbating to the hot priest-man with choir music in the background, when she comes she lets out a musical note that matches the music.  It's funny!
--

At their next dinner together, Sam brags to the other three about masturbating all afternoon.  Miranda is seriously impressed since she doesn't think she has the time for that.

"I like to get in and get out."

"Well, I enjoy a quicky every now and then, too, but when it's good like today I go with it."

Sam then tells everyone that she was thinking about her priest-- friar fuck (great name) and Charlotte has a mini stroke (heh) at the thought of Sam desecrating religion.

Sam is adamant that she is allowed to masturbate to whomever she likes and that it is imagination and perfectly healthy.  Then she asks the important question.  Who does everyone flick the bean to?

Carrie and Miranda are boring and say "Russell Crowe"

Then Miranda bares all here and admits she used to masturbate to a busboy who was rude to her once.

Anyone else have a weird, embarrassing masturbation fantasy?

Anyone?

but no one does.

Sam won't budge from the conversation until Char tells everyone who she fantasizes about.  Charlotte doesn't want to.  Finally she admits that the only man who she thinks about is Trey and then everyone is sad.

Rather than leave the priest in the spank bank where he belongs, she decides to see him in meatspace again.  She brings him canned food and tries to come on to him.  He doesn't budge and reaffirms his chastity and blah blah blah.

Sam admits that perhaps he is her soulmate since he is so unattainable.
--

Carrie is sitting in bed the night before her birthday.  She watches as the clock turns over to midnight and calls Big.  He's not home (or not up at midnight, wtf Carrie?) so she leaves an awkward message about her birthday.  She invites him to the special dinner and halfway through the message she remembers that he's supposed to be in London and ends with a "Cheerio old Chap" and it's awkward. And when she hangs up the clock changes to 12:01 and suddenly she's not the only one who feels old.

--

Remember Miranda's stand up routine from earlier in the episode?  good.

She's walking down the street alone, and is met by a friend who she hasn't seen in awhile.  The woman asks if Miranda is seeing anyone, and Miranda doesn't feel like putting on armor, so she's honest.  She says the truth, "Maybe there isn't someone out there for everyone."

She realizes how bleak that was, and asks the woman about her husband.  The woman goes on her own comedy routine about how they're going to be child-free and they're totally Ok with it, really.  Miranda realizes that maybe she's not the only person who wears humor like armor, and that everyone has sticky subjects that make them feel the need to put on a front.

It is sort of funny, cause you would think Miranda's friend would be upfront with Miranda-- Miranda doesn't have kids and just admitted to being painfully single, I think she'd understand more than anyone the need for nice furniture and a full night of sleep. You know, without the guise of humor.

But alas, humans be humaning.
 
--

And we're at Carrie's birthday party. At the restaurant, Carrie has arrived a bit late.  And she's the first one to arrive.  She orders a Shirley Temple, warns they're going to eventually be ordering lots of drinks eventually, and eagerly watches the entrance for her friends.

Someone starts to sing Happy Birthday, and she looks down bashful but happy, looks up and doesn't recognize the people singing.  They're going to another table, where some young stupid is complaining that 25 is old.

Stupid young stupid.  Can't they see this old woman is alone waiting for her 35th birthday party to start?

but, I jest.

It's starting to get sad.  The sommelier keeps coming around to see if anyone else has arrived for drinks, but no one has come.

An hour later, Carrie is still alone.  The Maitre d' has come around to tell her that someone is here with the cake and wants to be paid.  She is clearly miffed that the table has been held for so long and no one has ordered any food.

Carrie is thoroughly embarrassed.  Absolutely wrecked.  She pays 70 dollars for her cake and walks home.

Well, the source of everyone's delay is clear on her walk.  They are paving a major street.  She's so distracted by her gloom that she starts walking on the wet pavement.  The workers yell at her to get off the road.  She starts to go back, they yell at her to go the other way and in the confusion, She drops the cake!  D:

She ends up picking up the cake, yelling SORRY and crossing the way she originally was crossing.

Once home, she presses play on her machine and starts up the shower. Everyone has some excuse or another, Stanford actually went to the wrong restaurant.  Miranda shouts at her through the machine to "GET A CELL PHONE."

While the machine is still shouting at her, Charlotte unlocks the door and comes in.  It scares the bejesus out of Carrie, who's barely gotten her suds on.

"I just aged 35 more years." She tells Char as she wraps a towel around herself.

Charlotte explains that they're meeting up at coffee shop for a quick meal.  Carrie is not in the mood, she's been through enough tonight.  I concur  Give her a break.

And pay her back for her wrecked birthday cake.

It's just going to be the foursome, so Carrie agrees to go.

She reveals to her friends how absolutely mortifying it was waiting in that restaurant all that time.  And that she's alone, truly alone and she wishes she had someone-- anyone-- who would be there for her.  She doesn't have a goddamn soul mate and it's making her feel almost worse than just being stood up for her birthday.

It's bringing tears to everyone's eyes.

Finally Charlotte says something smart.  finally.

"Don't laugh at me but, maybe they could be each other's soulmates." she begins.  "And then let men just be these great nice guys to have fun with."

Sam concurs that it sounds like a great idea.  In their situations, it definitely sounds reasonable.

While Carrie is walking home, she sees Big's familiar limo parked outside her apartment.

She knocks on the car's window, and several red balloons pop out through the slowly opening window.

If you're a fan of It, this might freak you out a bit.  ><

 It is Big, and he's brought a bouquet of balloons. It's sweet.  And for once, they're sweet.

They talk about their respective ages, they share a cup of champagne out of paper cups.  You can almost pretend he's not a withholding creep.  Maybe he can think about someone besides himself.  Maybe.

Carrie asks what Big thinks about soulmates.  Big says, "I like the word soul, and I like the word mate, other than that, you got me."  And isn't that the most infuriating answer?

Big asks if she had a nice day and for some reason she's had another stroke, or pill or something and says she had a fabulous day.  Like, no you fucking did not.

In the last scene, she's walking up the stairs to her apartment with the balloons.  Narrator Carrie explains that with three soulmates already nailed down, it makes it a lot easier to spot the really nice guys to have fun with.

He's not a nice guy though, Carrie.  Don't make me say I told you so.

So, that was a fun start to the next season!  I'll be taking a bit of a break here, but I'll be back into it first week in January!  Happy Merry and Good New Year folks!

<3

Season 3 Finale: Cock a Doodle do!

Hey there!

This episode is pretty ugly, tbh. I'm pretty sure there's some transphobic language in it to boot, although I am not trans and I don't really know if it is as offensive as the earlier bi-phobic episode was to me.  I'm just leaving this here as a warning.

It is likely just a serious case of ignorance, just like the bi episode.

Also, a warning, I get a little ranty about men in the middle of this recap.

So, I warned you all at the end of last episode that Carrie has taken some sort of drug and gone all stupid.

She begins the episode by being woken up to the sounds of roosters crowing outside her window.  Ah, hell no.  That would not fly with me.  She is tortured, and everyone else seems to have lost some brain cells too, because when she goes to complain about the goddamn chickens, everyone corrects her by saying "roosters."  Obviously, if a chicken is crowing it's a rooster.

fucking morons.

roosters ARE chickens.

She finds out they are on the roof of a veterinary office, and the receptionist explains that they were moved there after being rescued from a cock fight in the Bronx.  She suddenly feels extremely bad for the chickens and thinks they must need air, so she changes her mind about asking them to move them. And lives to regret that decision.

The woman she talks to even *says* that they live a happy life and would be fine in the basement, but whatever, let's move on before I have an aneurysm talking about Carrie and her issues.

--

Sam is presently being tortured by a different cock.  ha, see what I did there?

It's 4 am and there are some very loud people laughing and conversing down on the street.  They are obviously men in drag.  And here's where the show goes off the rails and I don't know how to talk about it without stepping on toes.  Cause, honestly, it is 2017 and I don't think *anyone* knows the right way to talk about this stuff without offending someone.

Look at what the 'Nerds with Vaginas' facebook admins have to put up with.  They are literally the nerds in question, and they have :gasp: VAGINAS! and there are a lot of people out there who claim they are trans-phobic.  As if vaginas are inherently offensive for some reason.

Now, I know vaginas ARE offensive to some people.

But those people are cunts.

See, these men in drag are "ladies of the night," as it were.  Although, I'm not sure if they are drag queens or transgender. It doesn't really matter. She wrongly refers to them as transsexuals, which is a dated term and I don't think they like being called that anymore. Anyway, the point is, they are LOUD and keeping her up.  And you know how Sam gets without her sleep.

Well, she gets along OK, but she doesn't like it.  Well, sometimes she likes it, but as she says, 'there are certain dark circles even the cleverest make-up tricks can't cover.'

OK, so being a PR professional, she decides to face the situation head-on (apply directly to the forehead) and have a conversation with them.  She asks them to move and has the worst fake-smile voice I ever heard.

But it seems to have worked, for a few nights anyway.

While Sam is busy with random date, they are out there again, carrying on and making a huge scene.  Since calling the cops wasn't an immediate resolution, she yells down at them from the window to shut the fuck up.  And then she fills a pot with water and pours it down on the three-some.

One of them gets it right in their face!  It is terrible!  They are absolutely livid!  They leave, but soon return with eggs.

Sam hears the eggs splattering against her window.

Now, this is New York City.  Having an egg decked window should mean absolutely nothing to her, I mean, I guess at some point she can pay someone to clean the outside of her window for her (cause you know she's not about to do it herself) but she *opens the window* while the offender is pelting eggs toward her.  and she gets it.

Right in her face.

She must be -embarrassed- now.

See what I did there?

I made a yolk!

:D

I'll just leave here and move on to Miranda, cause timeline wise, I'm way ahead of myself.

--

Miranda is bothered by the Chinese take-out lady.  She's called the restaurant, told them her address and started her order when the lady interrupts and finishes her order for her.  Then the woman says "I know. Every night the same!" And then she starts laughing.

Miranda thinks the Chinese take-out lady is being incredibly judgemental.  And she feels pathetic.

When I saw this for the first time I immediately thought she was being overly dramatic about the whole thing. She didn't say it in a judgemental way, she said it in a sandwich way, uh, I mean a young ESL person enjoying her job way.

For people who are regulars anywhere, isn't it *fun* when the people taking your order remember you and finish it for you?

That happened to me last week, in fact, and it made my evening.

But whatever, sure, Miranda.  The woman is a bitch.


She complains to Carrie while they walk down the road next day.  She assesses that she's being sensitive because she feels in a rut. a -food- rut.  She says "The only thing that could make it sadder is if I had a Cathy comic taped to my refrigerator."

Every time anyone mentions Cathy Comic (and it happens one more time in this show's run, if you can believe it) I think immediately of this gif:

Ah, 30 Rock! Best.

There, over there! is Aiden and Steve, enjoying beers outside some restaurant.  That'll clear your rut for you!  Give you something fun to talk about, anyway.

What are they doing there, and since when did they become friends?  This cannot be!

It's impossible!

While Miranda is petting the now full-grown dog, Scout, Carrie notices an extra two beers on the table.  She is legitimately surprised when two women show up from inside the restaurant. They are Jessica and Susan and they are quite comfortable with the two men.

I don't know why she's surprised, did she really think they had a drinking problem?  What other explanation could there be?

It's a bit awkward.  Miranda and Carrie end up leaving going opposite directions for a beat, before one realizes they're supposed to be going in the same direction.

oop.

While unpacking Charlotte's apartment later on, they reassess the situation.

"Well, they're over us," Carrie begins as she moves a stack of books from a box to the mantle, "we thought they were sitting there pining away, and they have new girlfriends already."

"Were they cute?" Sam asks.

"The point is not if they were cute, the point is they were there." Carrie answers.

"They were cute." Miranda answers too.

"Very cute." Carrie adds.

Miranda pines, herself, "How can they have new relationships already?  I'm still in the 'I just broke up with someone' phase?!"

Uh, Miranda? We went over this when he was moving out and *already* getting calls from strange women, oh about 10 episodes ago.

Charlotte is carrying two very phallic-shaped candle-holders and complaining about men in general, compared to women.  It is astute: "It's infuriating. Women sit around obsessing about what went wrong over and over and men just say 'alrighty' and move on!"

 Sam is offended since she moves on right away after her relationships (she means dates).

Carrie is deluded about the sheer amount of obsessing she does and they rib her for it.

"Oh my god! You're Miss Obsess. Big?" Miranda begins.

"You look back so much you should have a relationship rear-view mirror." Sam piles on.

"Relationships may appear closer then they actually are." Miranda wins joke of the week!

They move on a little bit to talk about how much easier it is for men to move on.  I find this troubling and true.  I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but around the time I started doing this, I stumbled upon a very VERY good and tough read about emotional labor.

Here it is

It is long, and best taken in chunks.  And if you're unfamiliar with the concept, you absolutely will recognize it in your own life within a few pages.

Anyway.  It is exactly what these women are talking about-- about how they've taken on a lot of extra work to be in these relationships, and men can more easily disentangle themselves from the responsibility.

It's about how the "Jessicas and Susans" of the world are plentiful, will pick up the slack and men just get away with not doing enough.  It encompasses every. single. damn. part. of. our. lives. From work, to kids, to social engagements and appointments, to emotions themselves, to sex. Every. damn. thing.

But that isn't a fun thing to talk about, so let's go back to Charlotte's living room.

Carrie says that she probably only obsesses about relationships that feel unfinished, and Charlotte is bitter and says that there's no way Trey is sitting around with his friends obsessing about what went wrong.

Sam helpfully says, "That's because men never think anything is their fault."

Charlotte takes the next logical step: "I wish there were no men."

Sam thinks she's gone insane, but Charlotte persists, "If there were no men, then we wouldn't feel hurt, and we wouldn't be disappointed, and we wouldn't be spending our entire night sitting here obsessing about them. I'm so over men."

They look at her like she's nuts, but I'm over here nodding.

In her little laptop, Carrie is COMPLETELY missing the point.

She is trying to frame it as 'fault'-- that maybe it's not *his* fault, but hers.  You know, the breakdown of the relationship, maybe it isn't the men, but the women.

And I'm over here clutching my keyboard with white knuckles.

Let's break down a few recent relationships of theirs.

Charlotte.  That relationship was built on a pile of flaccid no-good penii. Trey wasn't meeting her needs. AT ALL. He was never there for her and I know you know what I mean. He did ZERO work in their marriage counseling, and Char had to walk on egg-shells protecting his feelings about his penis problems.  Note: in the future when they get back together and try for a baby he does NOTHING to protect her feelings about not being able to have one.

Miranda. At the end of their relationship, Steve was more like a child than anything. He sapped everything from her and only gave her grief.  Yes, he picked her up from lasik at the beginning of their run, and he's generally a sweet guy, but sometimes that's not enough.

With Aiden, Carrie was the typical guy.  She demanded Aiden do SO much for her, and offered nothing in return. Nothing but a big old Fuck You as she fucked her ex. Her withholding ex who took more from her then she ever gave.

I'm tired of trying to be fair to men. Being fair in this case always feels like giving a lot of slack, way more than most of society offers women for doing the same things.

WHEW.

Sorry.  I needed to get that out.

 --

Speaking of Carrie's withholding Ex.  He's called her while she's sleeping.  But don't worry, it's very late in the morning and she's catching up cause of the chickens crowing outside her window.

and yes, Big corrects her too.

He talks about how he's repainting his beige apartment.

Well, one room.

Well, technically one wall.

And further, he's not painting, he's having it painted.

That would literally take him an hour or two.  With taping.

But I digress.

It's bright red.  Like, the worst red for a bedroom.

The top half of my own bedroom is red, but it is matte, and it is deep blood red, and it is classy.  This is not classy.

He thinks so too. He also invites her to lunch.

She tells Miranda later on that she's accepted and Miranda shuts down, as you do when someone you love is making a mistake and you've had enough.

Carrie is completely offended by the freeze, and they have a small shouting match in the middle of a thrift boutique.

"you know what? I'm not holding your hand through this again." Miranda lays down.

"I'm not asking you to hold my anything." Carrie holds back tears.

"It's a huge mistake." Miranda is almost half laughing here cause she just can't fucking believe this.

"It's not a huge mistake. It's lunch." Carrie insists.

"Wake up Carrie! How many more times are you gonna go through this? He is bad for you!" She continues, "Jesus! Every time you get near him you turn into this pathetic, needy, insecure victim. And the thing that pisses me off the most is you're more than willing to go right back for more."

Carrie is upset.

They continue to argue, and Miranda insists she doesn't want to know anything about it if Carrie decides to be an idiot again.  Carrie administers a low blow herself, calling Miranda out on her judgemental attitude.  She thinks that Miranda cut Steve out of her life for being imperfect.

I don't even know what she's going on about. None of them are good at being friends with an Ex.  We already had this conversation at the end of the last season.

Miranda is right.

She's maybe a little meaner than I would be, but she's right here.

And Carrie is upset at being called pathetic and needy, but she IS that way around Big and she knows it.

Carrie goes home to cool off.  She expects an apology message on her machine from Miranda but doesn't have one.  Why does she always expect to be apologized to first?

Miranda, meanwhile, has her own judgemental person to be worried about. She's calling the Chinese food place again for take-out.  It's the same woman on the line, and Right after she's finished her address, before she can say her order the lady tells her her order.  What great customer service!

No, Miranda doesn't see it that way.  She tells her never mind and hangs up.  The lady is laughing and doesn't care. Miranda decides to give her a piece of her mind, so she walks down to the restaurant.  She is motioned to wait as Chinese take-out lady answers the phone.  There's a misunderstanding on the phone and the lady starts giggling.

Oh. It turns out she's just a laughy, funny, woman with a vociferous giggle.

It wasn't about her after all. Who knew?

 She was just about to leave, when she spots Steve, sans girlfriend, sipping some soup.  She remembers that it isn't the food that brings her back, but him.  It was their place. d'aww.

She comes over.  "Hey, twice in one week, am I lucky or what?" Steve asks all friendly and nice. Steve is one of my favorite of the boyfriends, although it's a toss up between him and Charlotte's second husband Harry. I love him too.

After they realize they're both there alone, Steve insists she sit down with him.


He asks how she is doing, and Miranda talks about her and Carrie's big fight. She asks Steve if she threw him away.  He says that Carrie must have been really pissed off, and Miranda points out that she said some not-so-nice things to her, too. Steve says that what happened between him and Miranda is between him and Miranda.  No one can really know what happened there.

It's sort of nice, and I'm glad that they can be friends.

When the waitress comes up to ask for her order, she decides that now is the time to try a new dish.  It is sort of funny, the waitress is all annoyed. Her eye roll says,  'Yes, yes.  Choose NOW to look at the menu, rather than, you know, when I wasn't standing here waiting for it.'

--

In Charlotte's apartment, she's reading about Buddhism and trying not to think about how horrible men are.

 Just then there's a knock on the door and it's Trey.

"What are you doing here? it's 4 am."


"Ever since you left I can't stop thinking about you." And then he starts kissing her.

"Honey, we're separated."

"I know."  He continues to kiss her and she is way into it.

And finally, FINALLY they have *good* sex.  On the floor of her apartment.  After that, they have a conversation about what went wrong.
 
Trey says that he first lost "it" when they got engaged, and Charlotte assumes that it means that he didn't want to marry *her.* He insists that he just didn't want to get married at all, that he felt pressured by society and its expectations for men of a certain age.

This resonates with Charlotte who was pressured by the same thing, being a man of a certain age and all.  :p

--

In Carrie's apartment at the same time, Carrie is woken for the Nth time by the goddamn chickens on the roof.  She calls and leaves a message right then and there to the vet to have them move them.

--
Miranda gets a call at work.  It's Carrie.  She is calling to apologize for their fight. Miranda willingly accepts and returns the apology.  Carrie asks if Miranda would feel she was pathetic if she knew she was at the restaurant hiding from Big.

Why, gosh, no.  Of course she wouldn't.

I DO.

But anyway, we know how I feel.

Miranda rescinds her threat of cutting Carrie out of her life if she dives into Big again. So Carrie is unfettered by guilt and comes out of the bushes to see Big.

They are at some dock-side restaurant, and they are standing near a duck pond.

He tells her how nice it is to see her, and as she's looking around distracted, he goes in for a cheek-kiss, she notices him and darts out of the way a little too eagerly and they both tumble into the pond!

Cue shrill screams and cries "oh my hair!"  It's kind of hilarious.  Then they are both laughing at the hilarity of it all. She has dropped her Dior purse too, and he dives down to get it.

It reminds me of this whole scene.

Next scene they are in bathrobes in his apartment.  But don't worry, they've just had showers.

"I no longer smell of pond." she says as she sits down on his bed.  The red wall is in the background and she says the only thing she can say about it, "That is one red wall!"

Big asks Carrie if their relationship implosion was all his fault.

Say it with me!

YES.

YES IT WAS.

Carrie is a little more delicate than that and says no.

Big lays it out, "Man, we really screwed that up.  What were we thinking?"

"I have no idea."  Carrie looks really good here by the way.  Her hair is stunning.

He leans back a bit, asks "How you doin' kid?"

"Pretty good. You?"

"Aside from the fact that it feels like I've been through a war?" Big has absolutely NO idea what he's in for in about 16 years.

"We're like war buddies." Carrie jokes. "War buddies in Calvin Klein robes."

"I hate to admit this," Big admits, "But I kinda like living alone again."  Carrie laughs out loud at this.  Cause of course he does.

"I should go." Good girl, Carrie.

"Don't you wanna stay awhile?" He's not being suggestive per-say, but there's definitely an implication.

"I can't." She insists.

"Why?"

 "Because, sweet friend, you and I are like that red wall. It's a good idea in theory, but somehow doesn't quite work."

PSSSST.  It's the SHADE of red.  And the blinding shade of white covering the other three walls.  geez.  It's not like Rocket Surgery.

And yes, I know I'm being obtuse. But in not too many episodes, Carrie will forget everything she just said and pretend like she's grown and learned from her and Big and I don't think she has.

When she gets home from that whole ordeal, she looks out the window and notices the chickens are gone.  She actually wonders where they went.

YOU CALLED TO HAVE THEM TAKEN DOWN TO THE BASEMENT.

And the final scene is a roof party with the drag queens.  I don't know how Sam made up with them, but she did and they are all there.  It is hella cheesy and I always, always skip the scene and move on to the next season.

So, I hope you enjoyed season 3! I'll try to get in a  recap next week, but after that you'll have to wait until January!

I hope you all have a Happy Merry and Good New Year!

<3