Episode One: the agony and the ‘ex’-tacy

At first I thought this was the episode where Samantha takes ecstasy, because of the title. Now, looking back, I can’t seem to remember why exes are mentioned – unless it’s Senor Big’s arrival at the very end. Geez, maybe I shouldn’t wait this long to blog, if I’ve already forgotten the plot. But seriously, I’ve looked at the episode recap on imdb, and that’s really the only mention of an ex.

Carrie’s lonesome 35 birthday is about on par with all of my recent birthdays — I haven’t had a good one since I turned 21 (and we know why I had fun then).

Big gives Carrie red balloons, and I’m wondering if these are the same balloons from the HBO commercial. And she asks him to “pick a box” to indicate his age, but she knows how old he is (she called him “a 42-year-old baby” in Season Two, and a “43-year-old emotionally unavailable man” in Season Three).

Episode Five: ghost town

Miranda runs into Steve and he says “I guess you didn’t get the invitation yet.” Ouch. It turns out to be the bar opening invite, but you can practically see Miranda’s stomach drop when she thinks it’s a wedding invitation. And they don’t even have to say it out loud, you just know what she’s thinking.

Carrie gets a little huffy, saying “that’s all I get?” when Aidan acknowledges her presence at the bar with a bowed head. Come on now, Bratty, you cheated on him. He could come over and punch you in your (horse) face.

Oh my god, I have to say this even though it is mean, mean, mean. There was this girl I didn’t know in college, but people I knew did know her and didn’t like her, and they would say “why the long face?” Yikes! But I saw her today (that’s why I thought of it) and she looks really good and she’s got a fancy job so I guess she’s coping just fine.

Episode Four: what’s sex got to do with it?

“I know you’re probably busy having mind-blowing sex right now, but I feel that you need to know: your good friend Miranda Hobbes has just taken a piece of cake out of the garbage and eaten it. You’ll probably need this information when you check me into the Betty Crocker Clinic.”

Okay, another grammar/pronunciation question, and it’s got to do with ladies’ anatomy, so little boys, look away: Samantha says clit-OR-is, when I’m pretty sure everyone else on the show says CLIT-or-is (yep, I just typed “clit” in all caps). This is weird, sort of like the Ralph Lauren pronunciation. This type of thing infuriates me: I’ll have said something one way since I learned the word, then someone will say it the fancier, more sophisticated way, so I’ll say it like that, and then someone comes along and says you can pronounce it either way. So why did I have to change in the first place? The worst one is “Caribbean.” No one can seem to decide how that is pronounced: Ka-rib-ee-an or Care-a-be-an.

Episode Three: defining moments

This is actually a really good episode that I had forgotten about. And Ray King, the jazz musician, is a multiple-episode boyfriend that I had overlooked. Craig Bierko…. oh my god! He was in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (the crazy dust-covered photographer at the bike race who hooks up with Cameron Diaz.) He’s also a broadway star.

Carrie’s voiceover perpetuates the myth that eskimos have 100 words for “snow” (while she’s drinking San Pellegrino out of the liter bottle – wouldn’t it go flat? I had lunch in an Italian restaurant the other day and ordered a San Pellegrino. They brought me an entire liter bottle and charged me $5 for it, so I took it with me when I left). I’ve heard that the researcher that propogated this myth didn’t realize that there were several different eskimo languages. It’s a nice idea though, sort of like college students having 100 different words for “drunk.”

Ray slips Carrie a note that asks if Mr. Big is her boyfriend. That’s kinda forward, isn’t it? By all appearances, he would have been her boyfriend. I wish Big would have hit on a waitress or something to signal that they weren’t together. And Ray orders Big “another Glenlivit,” but there’s no way he could have known what the man was drinking. No way anyone can be that good, I don’t care how much you like scotch.

Big getting so jealous and put upon during the menage-a-taxi is a moment four years in the making, and I love it. I also love the perfect comedic timing of Carrie’s dual-phone call with Ray and Big.

And Samantha! Forget the faux lesbian storyline; when she sets Mr. Big up with “so you’re available?” and then tears him a new one, it is definitely, as Maria puts it, “keek ass.” They never say if Carrie found out what she said to him, or that she said anything at all.

Episode Two: the real me

Hi kids! This week, we’re going to learn about confidence: Samantha getting a nude portrait of herself, Charlotte’s vagina being depressed because she tells it it’s ugly (“What, it can’t meet its deadline?” “It always wants to go to Krispy Kreme.”) and both Carrie and Miranda getting built up only to have the rug pulled out from under them.

This is the fashion show episode. The first time I saw it, I knew they were going to have her trip on the runway (foreshadowing: the line about feeling very comfortable in “big girl shoes,” asking Stanford to bring her another champagne), but when they got her all dolled up, I thought there was no way they would let her fall because she looked so good. And I was wrong. SJP does a really good job of acting embarrassed, crow’s feet and all.

The Kiss and Tell book actually came in handy for this episode, because it’s got a frame-by-frame of the tumble, and you can see where the toe strap of her shoe has come loose and the entire shoe is actually dangling from the ankle strap. I never would have noticed that otherwise.

The guest stars in this one are abundant and fantastic:

• Margaret Cho (“I use the term ‘boyfriend’ loosely, as Damien is clearly a homosexual”)

• Alan Cumming (“It’s a fashion house of cards, love,” and, of course, “Me likey!”)

• Heidi Klum (okay, bitch just walks over Carrie when she’s lying on the runway, prompting Stanford to scream “Oh my God she’s fashion roadkill!” Then SJP and the Klum hi-five like they’re best buddies.)

• Kevyn Aucoin (I knew two people that had his book Making Faces, right around the time he died. This excerpt from the intro somewhat explains his voice, but not entirely (it’s really strange):”…trying to conceal the fact that I was a gay, effeminate, hyperactive, adopted child with a serious lisp in southern Louisiana would have been like trying to hide Dolly Parton in a string bikini!”)

• Orlando Pita (hairstylist. I have no idea who this is, but apparently he’s a famous hairstylist.)

• Edward I. Koch (no clue who this is either, but he gets lots of applause when he hits the runway. Ah! Wait. I wikied him and he’s an ex-mayor of New York.)

Episode Six: baby, talk is cheap

Little catching up with things I’ve mentioned from previous seasons:

This is the episode where Carrie gets the internet, and her first two e-mails are from AOL (that’s kinda dated, huh?) and Miranda. But what about those e-mails from Stanford, way back when? Huh? What.

The apple on Miranda’s laptop is right-side-up.

I also noticed Aidan’s turquoise rings this time around, though I never wrote anything about them, and in this episode Charlotte says they have to go.

And a little something I mentioned for the last episode: Aidan tells Carrie he has mentally kicked her butt all over Manhattan. And she was thinking the bowed head was mean.

Episode Eight: my motherboard, myself

I can’t find the name of this coffe place Carrie frequents. It’s sounds like Obam Pam, but I’ve googled googled and searched through lists of NY coffee houses and nothing. It’s like a low-rent version of Starbuck’s, said Michael Patrick King in one of his commentaries. New Yorker thing that I’ve never heard of otherwise.

Aidan calls Carrie “Lady Bird.” I’m going to take this opportunity to say that Lady Bird Johnson did not want Lake Austin renamed after her while she was alive, so the city officials are some mighty presumptious punks to rush it through two weeks after her death. And it should be Lake Lady Bird, not Lady Bird Lake, you morons. She was married to LBJ, of Lake LBJ, not LBJ Lake. Duh.

This is the episode where Aidan starts reading her column…out loud…over her shoulder…while she is writing. I would kill him.

Carrie gripes at Miranda about never mentioning backing up your computer work before, that everyone is secretly running home at night to back up their work. I like this scene because I feel like this with a lot of grown-up things, like car insurance and the stock market and posting videos on youtube – how does everyone else but me seem to know how these work?

That same Edith Piaf song is playing during this episode. I’ve already forgotten how to spell the title.

Episode Nine: sex and the country

Carrie trying to schlep the railroad tie through the mud is pretty funny, because good God, she’s a wussy.

I’m gonna roll on through cause this is a two-parter with Aidan’s house in the country.

Episode Ten: belles of the balls

“I’m just saying it’s like the time Batman and the Green Hornet got in a fight. Everybody expected Batman to win cause he’s got the gadgets and the cape and shit, but the Green Hornet had the moves. See, I’m the Green Hornet, I got the moves. Plus, I got Pete, and he’s like Cato, aren’t you boy?”

Favorite episode of the season, probably because of the man-fight but also because there are lots of little throw away jokes and the whole theme of men just being girls with balls is handled very well.

The above quote is recited by Aidan as he’s clipping his toenails in his tighty whiteys (he and Carrie are both wearing boys’ underwear in this scene, and right before the phone rings, she’s about to give his boys a tug). That alone is hilarious, this big burly guy acting all insecure and chasing the dog across the apartment in his man-panties. But, it turns out that when MPK pitched the idea of a fight with Big, John Corbett said “But I’d win, right?” and then launched into the Green Hornet speech. Which makes it even funnier.

I just read (in Kiss and Tell, yes) that Chris Noth had a lot to say about the “Big’s dating a movie star” storyline because it was something that had actually happened to him, and he used the phrase “She could reach me, but I could never get her” in his real life. Wonder who it was.

Carrie makes a slip in the coffee shop and calls the Green Hornet “the Green Lantern…whatever” and then there is a green lantern sitting outside the cabin when she tells Aidan that it was Batman on the phone and he is coming over. Aidan’s reply is “I don’t want him in my house,” which is such a chick thing to say.

And then! Big’s car pulls up, and the voiceover says “there it was – the Batmobile.” Then the shooting hoops and the fight and Carrie screaming “Stop it! You’re middle-aged!” Funny.