Episode Three: attack of the 5’10” woman

“It’s her. It’s her, her. You know, she’s just, you know, she’s shiny hair, style section, Vera Wang, and I’m, you know, the sex column they run next to ads for penile implants.”

This is so sad! Charlotte is sitting in Carrie’s apartment, reading Big and Natasha’s wedding announcement out loud, and Carrie starts crying and the music swells and the curtains start fluttering in the breeze. So sad.

I think this episode really touched a nerve, because who hasn’t gone through that phase where you think there really are girls put on this earth to make you feel bad about yourself?

The irony of this scene is that Carrie is saying all this to Charlotte, who, out of the four, is the most likely to be that woman. Seriously, in one episode she asks if her hair is too shiny, and later in this season, she’s going to wear a $14,000 Vera Wang wedding dress. Plus, she has not one but two wedding announcements run in the Times’ style section.

Carrie does the whole dance where you’re feeling insecure and you realize you’re dressing for other women. Then she finally accepts that some women are simply better: “I will never be the woman with the perfect hair, who can wear white and not spill on it, and chair committees and write Thank You notes, and I can’t feel bad about that.” Then she spots Natasha’s misuse of the word “their,” and calls Miranda to gloat about it.

Oddly enough, I did the same thing this week, probably subconsciously thinking about this episode: there’s this really perfect, pretty girl I’ve met briefly, and I found some comments of hers online and there were like two grammatical errors. I was overjoyed. But looking back over this blog, I can see I really have no room to judge.