I hate it so much, I don't actually know where to start with it. Every scene with Carrie is so mind-numbingly irritating I just want to shout at her the way she shouts at Aiden later on.
Instead of "you have to forgive me," I want to shout, "YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE."
But, you know, temporal tv time and space.
So, I guess I'll just let out my frustrations here. You know, the healthy way.
Carrie and Aiden are back in bed together. Making mischief. But when Carrie wakes up in the morning, he's all the way over there and she isn't in the nook anymore. She is pouty and irritated. She wants a good morning kiss, and he is passive aggressive and tells her she should brush her teeth first.
Then he notes the time, he's briefly forgotten that Carrie has no responsibilities in her life, so she can sleep till noon if she wants. He wanted to get to the gym before work.
Between breaking up with her last time, he's gotten a hair cut and lost about 20-30 pounds.
Carrie is a child and says that he shouldn't go to the gym since she liked his belly
You fucking did not.
oh, this is going to be long isn't it?
She bitches to her friends about all this, and they are like, 'wake up. you may never get back in the nook.'
She obviously can't grovel for the rest of their relationship, so he has to forgive her. Which is true, but you can't force it.
You can't force it, Carrie.
Charlotte is dealing with a more important issue. She's redecorating the apartment, which is a full-time job, she's on the baby-making track, which is also pretty time consuming (insert eye-roll here) and she still has her gallery job. She's tearing her life apart trying to have it all and she decides with Trey that she might just quit the gallery job and focus on her family and other important things, like pottery glazing.
Her friends are totally NOT on board, and I think it's just a shame.
Sure, they are consistent here, they've always hated women who quit their jobs as soon as they find their Mr. Moneybags, but can't they turn it off and at least be happy for Charlotte who doesn't *have* to work?
nope?
Ok.
Miranda, especially, is incredibly judgemental.
They all are, tbh. I think Sam is the only non-judgemental person here, and her shtick is just to remind her in an honest tone that she should be very sure she wants to quit because it might be very difficult to get a job in the future if she changes her mind.
Which is useful information.
Carrie tells her that if she saw Charlotte glazing a bowl at a pottery painting shop, she'd just keep walking.
These people are not makers, and it is really frustrating, as a maker, listening to them berate women who spend time on their hobbies.
And really, for Charlotte who doesn't have to work and is probably not actually going to volunteer for Trey's hospital but keeps mentioning it, how is exploring her hobbies and doing fun things for her (as well as finishing the redecorating job) any different and less fulfilling than working for a gallery that probably doesn't pay all that well considering the time she's putting into it and doesn't allow her any 'ME' time?
Whatever. Call me old-fashioned.
I like to think of myself as post-enlightened.
Charlotte is adamant, but you can tell their judgement got to her. "yep I'm quitting, that's what I'm doing. yep."
She calls Miranda the next morning to berate her about about it.
"The women's movement is supposed to be about choice. I choose my choice."
Then Miranda goes low and tells her that she shouldn't be disappointed if all that she gets out of quitting her job is a glazed mug with Trey's name on it.
What a cunt.
Miranda is irritated. It's morning and she was in a towel having this conversation. She goes to dry her hair a little *too* aggressively and ends up tweaking her neck.
She does the only thing she can, call Carrie. Carrie, the one without the real job who can come and save her.
Well, Carrie actually has a meeting this morning, and after a shirt-less trip down to the grocer's for juice, she has to go put on a shirt and meet her editor.
Yeah, about that.
Carrie thinks that going to the grocer's without a shirt will make Aiden want Carrie back in his nook.
God, she is a moron. She acts out the way a toddler acts out, in no one's best interest.
She can't rescue Miranda, so she sends Aiden to do it for her.
Which, normally isn't a bad plan, but Miranda is buck naked on the floor. So, Aiden gets a show and Miranda gets mortified.
The only good part about this episode is the line of Charlotte clones they've got lined up waiting to be interviewed to be Charlotte's replacement.
Here are two of them.
The one on the left here is next to chat with Charlotte, and she's absolutely perfect for the job.
After Charlotte whispers to her that she got the job, Charlotte-lite asks Charlotte why she would want to leave such a great job, and Charlotte says, "Well I'm married and we're planning on a baby."
The girl looks at her absolutely horror struck. That's all? She asks with her eyes.
Shouldn't it be enough?
no?
Charlotte adds, "Also, I'm on the board of the Lennox Hill pediatric Aids Foundation."
Charlotte-lite, probably sees through the lie, but she's not going to be the one to convince Charlotte to stay after Charlotte already promised her the job.
I'm glad that the show ends up embracing Charlotte as the stay-at-home wife character. But this intro to it is irritating. Maybe it's supposed to illustrate how painful it can be to leave a career, but it leaves an awful taste in my mouth. I guess it honestly would be anathema for the other three to accept that a woman can be fulfilled at home, but that heavy heavy guilt tripping shit is anathema to me.
It must just be the era of the show. Cause nowadays, there has been a lot of push-back by SAHMs. Being home is important too. There's a lot of emotional and home-labor that women deal with. They're all kind of living in a fantasy land.
Miranda has a maid, for christ sake and Carrie doesn't actually have a steady job, meeting with her editor notwithstanding.
And for the record, I am a stay-at-home mom. My kids are elementary aged, so I could work if I wanted to. I don't. I do a lot around the house, I hold down the fort so they say. I also spend a lot of time knitting and exploring my hobbies. It is kind of amazing. DH works rotating shift, so it would end up costing us a lot for me to work, my energy and usefulness at home probably being a lot of that. Not to mention, my highly prioritized crafting time.
But that's beside the point, I am not guilty about what I do. I don't surround myself with people who make me feel guilty about it either.
And when I first watched this show, I identified so hard with Charlotte. I didn't have children yet, but when I did, I wanted to be at home with them. It isn't the easy way out by a long shot. There are long days, and so so much work. And the thing these people don't seem to think about until I think Charlotte and Miranda get super drunk in the SATC movie we don't speak about-- There is no escape when you're a SAHM.
When Miranda has her baby, she is relieved to go back to work. The show allows Miranda to show that emotion without pushback-- which was probably one of the first representations of an honest woman who likes working not getting judgement for liking that outside stimulation.
This might also be one of the first representations of an honest woman who prioritizes family actually getting pushback and judgement from her friends for quitting her job to stay at home.
But I honestly don't know, there's a lot of late-nineties TV that I haven't seen. I'm sure if it wasn't the first, it's still a pioneer.
And that's a damn shame.
Live and let live, dammit.
Alright. Sorry, back to the show.
I forgot about Sam's bit in this episode. It's not a lot to be honest, there is so much going on with the other three. Sam meets a guy who stole her cab. Well, from my angle, it didn't actually look like he stole it, but the show says he did, so whatever. Instead of letting him get away with it, she chases after the cab at a red light and gets in next to him.
Then they do it, and it is aggressive. Afterward, the guy berates Sam for her lack of grooming, says her bush has gotten completely out of control. Not slick enough for his tastes. What a child.
Sam complains to Carrie, and it essentially boils down to this:
She is angry at him, and rather than just never call him again, she teaches him a lesson he'll never forget.
She trims his own bush back.
"Wow, my dick looks so much bigger now!"
---
Back to Carrie. Carrie decides to head out to Scout, to interrupt 'boys night,' and thank her boyfriend for saving Miranda. Aiden is alone at the bar.
Suddenly a lady-bartender shows up and resumes heavily flirting with Aiden. He's pretending he doesn't know how to play jacks, and she's pretending that's not ridiculous.
He's up to threesies, btw.
flirting is stupid.
lol.
Carrie is visibly annoyed and asks where all the guys were.
Aiden explains that the guys bailed on him so he came down to Scout to hang out with his buddy, Steve.
"Oh, and Steve. I'm sorry, where's Steve?"
Steve went to get a burrito.
Carrie feels herself completely unwanted, but perseveres. She tells him that she doesn't have to work tomorrow, so he can come over.
He doesn't come over. She stays up way too late waiting for him, but he doesn't show.
Next day, she brings Miranda bagels. Miranda is in a neck brace and can't work, so Carrie decides bagels are a good cheer-up.
Only, from the first, Carrie talks about her boyfriend not showing up.
"He said he thought "come over" meant today, not last night." she ends.
"You know what? This is bullshit." Miranda says.
"yeah, that's what I think." Carrie doesn't get it.
"No you. You are bullshit. You and your bullshit 'cheer me up' bagels. They're just a decoy so you can talk about Aiden. Look! You didn't even bring cream cheese!"
(Miranda wins best line of the episode!)
Did I ever tell you guys about the time we bought too much cream cheese? true story. I told babe, hey we're out of cream cheese. So at the grocery store, among a cart of other things, we both end up grabbing a tub of cream cheese and didn't realize it till we got home. So we had two unopened tubs, plus the mostly empty tub and then I saw that we didn't actually need cream cheese since there was a third unopened tub in the back. Hilarious. We looked through the expiry dates to use them up in the right order, and all four of them had the same date. lolol.
Carrie doesn't actually have a decent response to Miranda pointing out the truth, except that she got the good bagels.
Miranda continues to complain about Carrie's bullshit, that Aiden saw her naked and she's mortified.
Carrie apologizes to her and says that she'll never send a boyfriend to do her job again.
(Ok, fair enough. But. How was size 2 Carrie going to carry Miranda off the bathroom floor?)
Speaking of Carrie grovelling, Carrie had been guilted by Aiden to watch his dog for the afternoon so he could get some toxic work done without the dog in tow. Carrie is with Sam, chatting about whatever when suddenly the dog gets super sick, pooing all over the place. yuck.
Sam bails because sick dog is so not her scene.
Carrie follows the pooing dog with a magazine.
"Pick up after your dog!" Some woman yells at her.
"It's not my dog!" Carrie is the fucking worst.
She takes a cab with the dog (now in a convenient doggy diaper) back to Aiden, who is currently not working with toxic anything, but is in fact, flirting with the lady-bartender again. Carrie sees this, and yells at Aiden that his dog is sick and good-fucking-bye.
Aiden doesn't let her go. He explains that they were taking a break.
"And she just happened to be there with coffee. I diapered your dog!" Carrie shouts at him.
"Keep your voice down." Aiden says and I must admit, it is hot.
"What are you doing?" Carrie asks him. They are acknowledging Aiden's ghost now. Oh wait, wrong episode.
Aiden says that he and lady-bartender haven't done anything. He says he thought about it, but didn't act on it.
She says "maybe you should just fuck her and then we can both be bad." And exits the scene.
He comes to her door some time later and it is the worst scene. I hate it. I hate it. It's essentially Aiden being irritated by everything, and him asking her to cut ties with Mr. Big, and her refusing.
"You have to forgive me." Carrie says over and over and over again. NO HE FUCKING DOES NOT.
She starts crying and tearing up. and finally, I guess he does forgive her. He holds her anyway.
And for some reason she's back in the nook.
I guess the moral of the story is that *I* don't have to forgive her for cheating on him, and he can do whatever he likes, but he can't bring it up again or punish her if he wants to be with her.
fine.
In Charlotte's last scene, she's shadowing Charlotte-lite. They're setting up new paintings in the gallery. Charlotte tells the people hanging up the pieces that one of them should go on one wall, and Charlotte-lite says that they should go on another wall.
"You're 22 what do you know about life?" Charlotte shouts. "I mean art. I'm sorry. I'm just freaked out. I've been working my whole life this is a big transition."
Charlotte-lite is very patient and says, "well if it's any consolation, my mom worked all the time and it would have been nice to have her home more."
And then Charlotte sighs an turns and starts walking out of the building. "Oh, don't forget to set the alarms!" Charlotte says.
"You're not going to finish the day?"
"I think I'm done. Good luck."
Narrator Carrie is trying super hard not to be sarcastic: "Charlotte left her past to pursue her new life objectives: be a good mother, cure aids, and prove Miranda wrong."
And Miranda, in a supposedly fun switch although I hate the hypocrisy here, has removed her neck brace but is lying to her boss in order to stay home for a few extra days.
And that's the end. Worst Episode Ever! Hope my annoyance wasn't too overbearing.
<3
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