Episode Ten: the baby shower

I’ve deemed this my favorite episode of the season, although it may have had a lot to do with the conversations I had on the day I saw it. This episode is about women who get married, have babies, and lose their identities.

“It’s a cult,” says Miranda, “They all think the same, dress then same, and sacrifice themselves to the same cause: babies…I’ve lost two sisters to the Motherhood, I know what I’m talking about.”

I lump this in with the “marrieds vs. singles” episode because it’s basically the same thing: the show is addressing the belief that single women in their thirties are pathetic because they haven’t snagged a man yet. It’s what landed SATC on the cover of Time magazine, with the headline: “Who needs a husband?”

For the sake of this argument, Marriage = Babies.

Miranda must have a serious aversion to crepe-paper storks, because she wants to rip off their cardboard beaks in this episode. When she has her own baby shower in a later season, she gives Charlotte the mandate “no storks.”

They are obviously using a body double in the Laney Berlin strip scene.

Carrie sums up the ‘burbs: “I was struck by how a place so filled with nature could look so unnatural.” For their trip to Connecticut, the girls are all wearing black again. I realize this is symbolic, but two episodes in a row? And the poor dog’s invisible electric fence serves as a metaphor for married life later in the show. “No, I don’t want to go back there,” Laney says, and you’re supposed to feel sorry for her.

Laney is a total bitch at her baby shower:

“Remember that feeling like if you left Manhattan even for a second you’d fall of the edge of the earth?”

“Is she still bar-hopping and bed-hopping? It’s so sad, isn’t it, when that’s all you have?”

“Life is not a Jaqueline Suzanne novel: four friends looking for life and love in the big city.”

I have one of these in my life. That’s why we don’t talk much anymore. But if you ask her, it’s because I’m jealous and pathetic since I haven’t convinced my boyfriend to propose to me. Makes me want to throw an “I don’t have a baby” shower, like Samantha.

Samantha is pitch-perfect in this episode, maybe because she’s supposed to be drunk the whole time.