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
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