I am not going to lie, I spent the last several weeks mentally preparing myself to watch this and do the snark thing, but I could not for the life of me remember what the episode was about. It was a major hurdle in the 'do the thing' motivation I had for myself. I usually spend a little while planning what I might write about what I am going to see, but I completely blanked on how season 6 opens.
Well, now that I've brought up the box containing season 6 part 1 and opened the menu on my handy dandy portable DVD player, I -finally- have thoughts.
Namely, I can't believe this show got away with selling season 6 in two parts the way they did. Especially considering season 5 was only 8 episodes long! This one is a tad longer at 20 episodes, and honestly does feel a bit like two separate stories, but come the fuck on! So greedy!
Each disc only has 4 episodes, and part 2 only has 2 discs. greedy greedy greedy!
Without further ado, let's get started.
---
The season opens up with Carrie outside her brownstone. Narrator Carrie talks about how it comes as a shock when you oversleep, as if it isn't cannon that Carrie frequently sleeps till noon on weekdays. But whatever, let's follow the chaos that is Carrie Bradshaw.
She's currently running late for ringing the bell at the stock exchange. The newspaper that airs her column every week, The New York Star, is going public!
There's a scene of her running on the street, trying to catch a cab. She trips over the ubiquitous dog walker and all the dog leashes. She catches a taxi at the end of the block, but next scene there's a ton of traffic. She manages to escape the cab stuck in a gridlock and takes the subway the rest of the way. Makes it just in time. WHEW! Such relief! High stakes tension, this show offers. XD
She even makes it despite being stopped at security. I suppose they think she's hiding something in that shiny naked-dress she's got on.
Next day, she's met her friends at the 'fashionable meat packing district' and they're talking investments.
Sam doesn't disappoint with her commentary "a room full of sweaty men all trying to get it up." I mean, how do you follow that?
Miranda doesn't invest anymore cause it's too volatile. I'm with her. The way they've convinced people that it's smart to put your retirement in stocks? it's uh, not great. It's essentially gambling. But I'm going on.
Carrie likes her money where she can see it, hanging in her closet. Uh Carrie, we were there at the end of season 4, we know how stupid that is. It's not remotely funny. Ok, it's kinda funny in that awkward, 'wtf are you doing with your life, you're 36 grow the fuck up', kinda way.
Charlotte is looking *amazing* in this fantastic rose patterned fit and flare dress. She's my fashion idol. J'adore.
She's invested in Carrie's stock. "Was it expensive?" Carrie asks. She didn't even look up what the shares cost. I would be so curious. But, whatever. "Oh no, you're cheap!" Charlotte says.
"well, I never!" Carrie quips.
They get their menus and complain about the price.
"20$ for a hamburger," Miranda whines, "that's reasonable."
let's see, in 2003 money that's... a lot for a hamburger. (or 32$ if you wanted to get pedantic about it, and I do.)
Sam makes a very -dated- and offensive joke about the type of people she's dealt with historically in the meatpacking district since she moved there. I'll uh, remind everyone that it was 2003 and Sam isn't politically correct. but yeah, the tr***y word is not great.
She then complains about how it's gotten so 'sanitary' since she moved here. I... mean, it's called 'gentrification' and you, ma'am, are part of the problem. But I don't want to go on.
"no smoking in bars" she goes on, "what's next, no fucking in bars?"
"Well first there would have to be a no-fucking section." Miranda is fast with the quip back. Very funny joke there. best one in the episode, I daresay.
Carrie uses this talk about new neighborhoods to talk about her new man, Burger. They're WAY over-hyping their first date. To theirs and -my- detriment. Can we skip this part? He's so wrong for her.
"oh, I really like him." Carrie ignores my judgement and scorn.
"Then you better find his bottom line right up front." Charlotte puts, very wisely. She's dealing with Harry and his Judaism. Ok, so if you don't remember, Harry can't marry a woman who's not Jewish. There, now you're caught up.
It's not bad advice though. Even though it's personal for her and her story, it's what everyone should do. No games, no tiptoeing round the hard stuff. If you're with someone and they don't check off all your boxes, then you're just wasting everyone's time.
In the next scene, Harry is ordering pork tenderloin and Charlotte looks like he ordered a foot.
"What's with the face?" Harry asks.
"I didn't make a face." Charlotte lies.
"Yes you did. I said pork you went..." Then he makes the face.
And she dives right in. Here, it's funny cause you can tell she's been trying not to have this conversation with him despite the fact that it's an important conversation to have. She doesn't want to seem nuts. She can relax. not. XD
"Charlotte, it doesn't work that way. I'm not kosher, I'm conservative."
Is this real? Are there conservative Jews who aren't kosher? I have to admit I'm not very educated about Jewish people and their traditions. I have a few friends that are Jewish, I suppose I could ask them.
"I'm conservative, too." Charlotte says. I mean, in the WASPy way, sure, but is she? I've spent the last 10 years dying inside slowly from the discourse coming from the right side of the aisle and ho boy, she's not exactly a shrill cunt who hates people that aren't like her. I can't see Charlotte voting for Cheeto-lini.
"yeah, well, my conservative doesn't have anything to do with wearing pearls." Oh, Harry.
"Look, I know what you're thinking," Harry continues, "Why did I let things get this far without talking about this? Why did I sleep with you or even kiss you?"
"WELL, Why did you?"
"Because I couldn't not kiss you. Not sleep with you, not see you."
Goddamn, Harry's the best dood on the show. Tied with Steve, of course.
"Believe me, I never thought a shiksa goddess like you would fall for a putz like me." He continues.
"You're not a putz." Charlotte looks at Harry like we're all looking at Harry. Best dood on the show.
"Do you even know what putz means?" Harry. Everyone knows what 'putz' means. XD
--
At Miranda and the baby's, Steve is there, being all homey.
While changing Brady's diaper, Miranda somehow ends up with doody on her forehead, and Steve tells her about it.
She smudges more on herself and it's funny.
"Baby wipe me!" she panics. Steve helps her with the poo removal and jokes with her and Miranda ends up chasing him around the place with a poopy wipe. I mean, it sounds gross, but it's also funny. I do know for a fact it was not poo, but frosting, so that makes it a little better.
"Brady, tell Mommy to stop chasing Daddy!" Steve says.
Miranda freaks out and all the fun is vacuumed out of the room. You can just feel it as Miranda's face falls. And Brady starts crying. poor baby.
She kicks Steve out.
"Don't you have a life?" She shouts.
"yeah, I got a life." Steve puts up with so much shit, man.
Miranda is next seen outside Carrie's door, baby in tow.
"I'm in love with Steve. Hold this."
"Oh my god I can't believe it." Carrie says to Brady.
Miranda is surprised that Carrie didn't know. Carrie is only surprised that she -admitted- it.
Miranda then describes the evening, that they were laughing and having a good time, and she realized that they belong together.
"oh, Miranda." Carrie looks so kindly on her friend.
"So I picked a fight and threw him out of my apartment."
"Good thinking." Carrie jokes.
Miranda is going on and on about how she and Steve are meant to be together.
But Carrie is distracted by the baby at this point. She's going through her cupboards, looking for some kind of booze for Miranda since it's 11 am on a Saturday and that's reasonable. Carrie doesn't have anything though.
"uh, Miranda?"
"You're right. Steve so is the guy for me."
"oh, no, I was wondering if Brady can have crackers yet?"
"no."
It's funny. XD
Maybe cause I'm a freak who got married at 20 to my first adult boyfriend, but what the fuck is Miranda's problem here? This feels so forced, man. If you like a guy and he likes you and you get along and you have a baby together, then why the dramatics? Why the fight picking? Do normal women do this? I've never forced a fight to get away from dood I like.
And Steve is of course left completely baffled by all this, too.
I know it's probably my neuro-divergence talking here, but I really hate the stereotype that they're playing of of here, that women never say what they're feeling and are crazy. and confuse the doods in their life with their unreasonableness.
I've always been direct. This is like, watching aliens.
Anyway, Miranda and Carrie talk about how they're going to deal with this. Miranda has an enormous amount invested in the relationship with Steve before you even bring up the baby or the being in love bit. She decides to take him somewhere romantic to tell him about how she feels.
Her story continues over a few scenes, but I'll just skip to the end right here. She leaves him the WORST phone message in history. so awkward. And when they go to the 'romantic' dinner, it's awkward.
"you look pretty," Steve says, "you got a date later?"
He has no idea. XD
She starts to explain to him why she picked a fight.
"Miranda, I know you. I know why you picked a fight with me." he starts and we all inhale in anticipation with Miranda. "You're upset because I'm hanging around too much. You think I'm getting too close. But you don't have to worry cause I just started seeing someone else and it's going really good." And we collectively let our inhales out with a very large sigh.
She doesn't tell him anyway. And Carrie berates her for it later.
"Carrie I swear to god, I love you but I will have to kill you."
"I'm sorry, I'm looking and I'm talking. This is your life. You two have a baby together, this is not high school."
And for once, Carrie is absolutely right.
---
Samantha has a whole story line with an investment banker new to her neighborhood. It honestly didn't make too much of an impression on me, even back then. He gives her some tips while he -gives her some tips- if you know what I mean and I think you do and ends up getting arrested for insider trading. aha.
In the scene where he gives her the tip it's for Elan Pharmaceuticals and I can't help but wonder if that was a dig on me in the future. Remember Glen? or Len? Lemm? Elan? from a few seasons ago? The older dood who Sam went out with because she thought she was never getting her period again? yeah, I'm gonna say it's definitely a reference to that.
I feel bad cause I haven't really talked too much about Samantha and any of her plot lines in Ages. Ages, I tell you. I barely scratched the whole Richard thing when it was imploding, it just felt like such an afterthought to all the fun good stuff that was going on at the time.
Her romantic story line does pick up though in this season. She finally gets a long-term boyfriend that -isn't- a joke of the week.
--
And Charlotte is riding Harry. He's of course into it, but Charlotte is clearly just going through the motions. It's funny though.
"Harry," she asks while he's smelling vinegar, "Is this whole Jewish thing really that big a deal?"
And he says 'no, no, god, no' while he's coming.
She wakes up so happy, "It's a beautiful morning and the sun is shining... and you changed your mind about the whole Jewish thing."
"woah woah woah," He doesn't remember. "Asking me to renounce Judaism in the middle of sex is a clear manipulation."
"oh, blah blah blah!" Charlotte is back to brooding. She wants to know why it's so important to him.
"I promised my mother I would marry a Jew."
"your mother?" Charlotte is having flashbacks to bunny.
suddenly things are looking up for Charlotte.
There's more about tradition and stuff, about how Harry's mom definitely wouldn't love her anyway. And then he brings up the holocaust, and Charlotte "can't say anything, because you brought up the holocaust."
I mean, that's not a terrible instinct to have.
Then she rolls over like she's going to bed. Wasn't it just morning? XD
--
Carrie meanwhile is completely overthinking the date with Burger. Didn't they... didn't they already have a first date? The one with the strawberry shake? I mean, I know Burger was involved with someone at the time, but it could take the edge off if she thinks of it that way.
She even says to her friends "I think burger and I will be Very Happy Together." like.. calm the fuck down, lady. You haven't even met his BFF, Grimace.
Her friends insist that she go on a date with this other guy who called her asking for a date. To take the edge off.
Writer Carrie compares dating to investing again. Stock market, money, stakes. It's all gambling. "When it comes to finance and dating, why do we keep investing?"
I think we need to shift our thinking, culturally, about dating (and investing, let's be honest) and realize that just because you broke up with someone doesn't mean you're left with nothing.
The date-to-take-the-edge-off goes Awfully by the way. Worst date in the show. But hilarious. They go get coffee and he asks if Carrie is staring at the sty in his eye and then a bird lands on his head. He gets vinegar in his sty and the bird lands on him again and he falls over, brings the whole little table down with him.
She's just shocked that he's treating this like a real date and is Nervous. Carrie kept calling it a 'simu-date' in her head. She is the worst. She treats men like they're disposable.
She goes on an errand date with Charlotte to the grocery store. It's sweet. She's complaining about how "caring too much is like a disaster magnet." It wasn't even HER that fell over on the date or had the sty or got vinegar in her sty and yet she's complaining like it happened to her.
Charlotte segues into talking about Judaism. Elizabeth Taylor apparently converted to Judaism for one of her husbands.
I... don't know much about Elizabeth Taylor. Well, honestly, the only things I know about her are from this show, cause Charlotte develops a sort of obsession with her. I love old movies, but I don't think I've seen one with her in it. oop.
This episode feels so wildly random, with all the different plot lines going on. It's not very cohesive. No wonder I forgot what was in it. It's merely a set-up for everything that's going to happen to finish off the show.
Charlotte is considering "pulling an Elizabeth Taylor" and converting to Judaism. She wonders how far she'll go for love. She then grabs a jar of gefilte fish and makes the most disgusted face about it. Apparently not that far.
She talks with Harry about it, to try to find a reason -besides his mother- that she can relate to. He says that he would want to raise their children jewishly.
She then has to reveal that she might not be able to give him children. "you want a family and I might not be able to give that to you."
He says that they could adopt or something, and even after she says that they wouldn't be his own, he's still on her side. It's sweet.
Two things though.
1) I hate the idea that a family has to be a couple with children. Children do not a family make.
2) I am having a hard time believing that her reproductively challenged condition didn't come up in her very contentious divorce. But maybe it didn't. I can only easily imagine a scene where Bunny brings up "A Mandarin child" in order to dig into Charlotte.
OK, bonus third thing.
3) How is saying to someone "if we were to have kids I would want them to be raised jewish" relating something positive about your religion in order to convert them?
She ends up convinced though, because of his "humor, compassion, and acceptance." good stuff.
--
Carrie sees Burger on the street, and because she's not wearing her -official- first date outfit, she RUNS.
She's a child.
She runs right into Aiden. And he's standing there, looking heroic. He turns slowly, there's a big reveal happening. On his chest there's a baby, of all things!
I Have done the Math on This and It Does Not Add Up. This child is at least 5 months old. Babies take 10 months to gestate and plus there is the break up time and the meeting a person time. He would have had to meet this gal soon after breaking up with the face girl. And immediately impregnated her. When Carrie was obsessing about the face girl last season, Steve didn't even mention that Aiden was with child.
On the other hand, suddenly by the next half of the season Carrie is 38 when she was just 35 last season, so. Maybe there was this massive break in between seasons that I was not aware of?
:spends 5 minutes looking it up on wikipedia:
No, not really. There was a small mid-season break in season 6, but the shows aired from June to Septemberish each year. No massive breaks that add a lot of time here.
ETA a bit later: put it another way, Miranda was many many months pregnant when Aiden and Carrie had that moment in front of the fountain the episode they broke up. This baby has full head control, and Aiden is holding him so the baby is facing *out* in the carrier. The baby is at least as old as Brady, who is probably about 6ish months in this episode.
Aiden starts out by saying "I had a baby!"
And she replies with "I have a date" and it's sad. it's sad. XD
They make a date to catch up, but they both know they won't actually go through with it.
As she's walking away, she realizes that if she could survive "that crash and both get out alive, there was nothing [she] could do on a first date [she] couldn't bounce back from"
Say that to your simu-date's sty, Carrie.
She calls Burger, the guy she was initially running from, and invites him to see a movie right then and there. He, also being a writer, has fuck all to do on a weekday and joins her.
He says "This blows. I had my special outfit all picked out for tonight" and perhaps they are more compatible than I first thought.
That was the first episode of the last season! I am on my way to the end!
I'll try to come back in a week or so to do episode two. Now that the dvd is upstairs in my work area, there's nothing holding me back. :nods sagely:
Cheers!
