Episode Eleven: coulda, woulda, shoulda

Okay, this posting was further delayed, because between writing up this episode and last episode, I had to run from severe weather. There were possible tornadoes near my house, so me, my dog, and my laptop all drove to Austin to ride out the storm. I was oblivious to all storm cells until people started calling me and saying to get out of the house, and then I was terrified.

Anyway, I started the first part of this season write-up on Wednesday, and now it’s Friday (early Saturday) and I’m drunk and not sleepy so I’m trying to finish this so I can start watching Season Five. Whew.

Episode Eleven is the abortion episode. Samantha has had two, Carrie has had one, and Miranda is talking about having one.

Carrie’s guy was a waiter named Chad at The Saloon (not T.G.I. Fridays) who is still working at the same restaurant 13 years later and there’s a shot of him getting the plates mixed up at a table. So not only has he been a waiter for at least 13 years, but he’s a bad waiter. Carrie reminds him that she ordered “half lemonade, half iced tea,” and I liked the sound of that so much that I started ordering it. Turns out that’s called an Arnold Palmer, and most waitstaff actually know what I’m talking about when I say that.

Miranda’s scary age is 43, and Carrie’s is 45. My scary age has always been 30. I was just at a social event with a bunch of people I knew in high school mixed with a bunch of people who are still in high school. All I could think/talk about all night was how fucking old (and fat) I am. I am so very, very close to my scary age, I need a new scary age.

Episode Twelve: just say yes

So Carrie makes a big deal about how bad the first engagement ring is (the one Miranda helped pick out), and I honestly had no idea what was wrong with it. She’s supposedly not the marrying kind, but she sure had opinions about the ring. I’m not the marrying kind, but I have no thoughts on engagement/wedding rings. Or maybe it’s just jewelry in general.

There’s this whole scene between Samantha and Richard that kind of zooms in on Samantha’s PR job. It’s pretty insightful, and I never caught it before this viewing. Basically, it boils down to: all those features you read in the New York Times travel section are journalistic prostitution for advertising dollars, but in a different way than you might think. Neat.

I also never noticed, and really love, how Trey walks into his apartment, hears the Mandarin language tapes, and looks at the number on the door to make sure he has the right apartment.

The proposal scene is kind of sweet, except Aidan asks Carrie if she has a baggie (for Pete’s poo) before he pops the question. Kiss and Tell says that Woody Allen and Sun Yi were watching from their apartment window as SATC filmed this scene. And if you look on the Kiss and Tell map, the spot where Aidan proposes is kind of far from Carrie’s apartment.

Hate Charlotte Moment: she tells Trey she’s doing all the work to get pregnant, leaving out the fact that he goes to an actual job to pay for her to sit at home and do all this baby-making “work.”

Episode Thirteen: the good fight

We have commentary.

MPK says the Pete in this season is a replacement Pete, partly because the original Pete was terrified of John Corbett. He also says that “stunt Pete” had to be trained for two months in order to really chew on Carrie’s shoe. Ha! My dog could beat the crap out of Stunt Pete in a shoe-chewing contest.

There’s this talk about “the SSB – Secret Single Behavior.” This is the type of thing that made me want to give up on this show. What a stupid thing to say. “Invasion of the Single Snatchers,” hell no. This is the first pin prick of a constant needling that will dominate the final two seasons, and believe me, I’ll have plenty to say about it when we get there.

Turns out Kim Catrall speaks German, which is why there’s the whole scene with Richard conducting a business deal in German. The thing is, German sounds a lot like English sometimes (I repeat, SOMETIMES), so you think it would be pretty obvious that “Fichh Mich” equals “Fuck Me,” not “Fuck you.”

Hey! I just came across some internet porn trying to translate “Fuck Me” to German.

Here’s something big that I’ve been waiting on: I had heard that, at some point during Season Five, the World Trade Center would no longer be included in the opening credits. I never really noticed the first time around, but this is the episode where that happens. What I didn’t know, and MPK so kindly provided, was that the entire rooftop scene with Samantha and Richard had the Twin Towers in the background, and they were digitally removed before the episode aired. I thought 9/11 had been Hollywood-ized, politicized, and Toby Keith-ized enough that I would no longer feel chills, but this kind of did it.

Episode Fourteen: all that glitters…

As much beef as I have with Hillary Swank playing the lead in P.S. I Love You (in the book, Holly was blond and bubbly), I did like the movie, especially for it’s beautiful Irish scenery and beautiful “Irish” men. One of Gina Gershon’s lines (love, love Gina Gershon – Eva Mendes is like the poor man’s Gina Gershon) is about “grope-free dancing” at a gay club. That is exactly what it is! I never could verbalize why I liked gay clubs so much in college, but that was the reason. No groping, and the guys would tell you how pretty you were and that they loved your outfit.

Anthony’s love interest in this episode is so cute and funny. I think he was in another episode, but I’ll have to check. Yep! He’s the guy Stanford meets in the underwear-only club.

Stanford makes fun of Carrie for wearing Candies. I swear, if it weren’t for this show, I wouldn’t know that things like Candies and scrunchies were verbotten. Or how to pronounce Manolo Blahnik.

Stupid Carrie moment when she mimmicks gay porn music for Aidan. Painful to watch.

Episode Sixteen: ring a ding ding

Oooh, the money between friends conversation. This is hard, because you want to agree with Charlotte, because what she says is more logical, but Carrie wins out in the end, and Charlotte does look like a bitch. Maybe if she had just handled it better.

The whole make-up scene between Carrie and Charlotte (which may be at the same restaurant where Carrie shows her the shoes she bought to bring her face to face with Natasha) is like Charlotte is proposing to Carrie. It seems intentional.

If each of the girls had lent her ten grand each, I would have been happier. This in-debt-to-Charlotte thing doesn’t sit well with me, because by the time the series ends, two years later, you know she hasn’t paid it off. At least, I wouldn’t think so.

Episode Fifteen: change of a dress

The return of Susan Sharon. She’s blond now.

Also returning is J.J., with the same name, from the Season Three opener. He hit on Charlotte, got hit by “gets in fights” guy, then grabbed Carrie’s thigh as he tried to pull himself up. I think he’s funny, but I hate hate hate that Samantha has sex with him and messes things up with Richard.

MPK also commentates on this episode, but I don’t really agree with/care about anything he has to say. It’s the break-up-in-front-of-the-fountain episode, so it’s pretty much down to personal reactions.

Episode Seventeen: a ‘vogue’ idea

This was in the running for favorite episode of the season, but I just can’t get past that old dude with his pants around his ankles.

Carrie stores the picture of her and her father in a classic JD Salinger paperback copy of Franny and Zooey. I’ve read that book since Season One, when it first came up, and it turns out the Zooey is a boy (short for Zachary) and Franny is his sister. Really good characters.

Fun Charlotte-is-psycho quote: “It has a white chocolate peanut butter baby inside and YOU CAN EAT THE BABY!”

The whole Manolo Blahnik-Mary Jane scene kind of gets me in my little shoe-loving heart because I’ve been looking for a pair of Mary Janes. It was weird; they came back big time when I was in junior high, but we all got ours at Payless. That’s not going to work this time around.

And I love the choice of Candice Bergen for the Vogue editor, and I love that she keeps coming back on the show (twice? I’m not sure). I remember watching Murphy Brown with my grandmother when I was little; and when I was in college, I would get out of swimming class and take a shower before dinner and watch M.B. reruns on Lifetime while I dried my hair/took a nap. Good times.

Episode Eighteen: i heart ny

So, MPK had to comment on this one because he had to make very clear that he had written this episode, title and all, BEFORE 9/11. It’s kind of obnoxious to hear him say it, but someone has to do it. That kind of thing is so hard: you want people to know that you were not jumping on a band wagon or, worse, exploiting a catastrophe; but to be the one saying it about yourself still sounds like you’re tooting your own horn. “I predicted New York was special BEFORE it was attacked by terrorists! I’m a true I-heart-New Yorker! The rest of you are just posers.”

Otherwise, I really like the commentary because it completely justifies my (poorly-integrated) rant about Breakfast at Tiffany’s in the very first SATC blog entry. “Holly Golightly is a prototype, descendant of Carrie’s,” he says about the decision to use “Moon River.” I feel totally justified. And they itentionally did not reference the movie.

I like that Carrie tells Big that he can’t leave because he’s the Chrysler Building. I’ve always liked the Chrysler Building best.

It’s funny how Charlotte confesses that Monet is one of her favorites, and Bunny detests Monet because he’s “such a sap.”

MPK says they didn’t know if Mr. Big was coming back, and his final appearance on the show could have been riding away in a horse-drawn carriage. No way.

MPK also says something about the doctor “stitching up” Miranda after she’s given birth. Is that standard procedure? Always? I’m really not having kids now.

The leaves in the trees in the final scene were actually green when they filmed this episode, says MPK. They made it look like fall by tinting them, and the falling leaf is animated. It looks really good though.