Episode Five: the power of female sex

Okay, Gilles may be #3 on favorite single-episode boyfriends list, simply because he is French. “I suddenly recalled my terrible weakness for gorgeous French architects.”

I like this episode because of its international flavor, with Amalita and all her beaux. Amalita and Carrie are much better friends in the book, and I kind of wish she had been a reccuring character on the show. Side note: Amalita is also on an episode of Veronica Mars, but she’s playing a Middle Eastern woman, not euro-trash like on SATC. I guess that’s why they say actresses can have an “ethnic” look; it’s kind of a catch-all phrase.

All throughout the season, the show has exhibited some distinctive (amateurish?) editing techniques. This episode is a smorgasborg: Carrie walks out of Dolce and Gabana swinging her shopping bag in slow-motion; there’s a shoe wipe between the time Amalita calls Carrie on the phone and when she gets to Balzac; and when Carrie leaves Gilles to go home, she literally floats on air (they must have filmed her on a lift).

Carrie and Gilles’ day together seeing the sights of New York is enviable. “I felt like I had landed in a Claude Larouche film: a man, and a slightly neurotic woman.” They go to the Alice in Wonderland statue (this is also where SJP’s character goes with her father in “If Lucy Fell”), and one of the three Edith Piaf songs I know (Soul de Seil) is playing in the background.

Also, I don’t blame her for not running off with the Italian in the end, because he’s way less attractive than Gilles. That was probably an easier choice than the voiceover implies.

Episode Six: secret sex

Samantha is swilling Veuve Cliquot all throughout this episode. Carrie thumbtacks the bus poster to her wall: I would totally frame that. Charlotte tells Carrie she can’t put the Hasidic Jew in her column, and it’s not really clear if she does or doesn’t, since you can’t tell what’s the column and what’s the show.

Episode Seven: the monogamists

Nothing to really say here, either. Carrie almost leaves Big for a novelist, which could have been much more interesting than it is. Then there’s the goofy synthesis of Carrie’s metaphoric approach to life and Big’s literal one: she asks him to get off the merry-go-round and stand still with her, so he actually stands still with her.

Episode Eight: three’s a crowd

Another episode that starts with “Once upon a time!!!”

Charlotte’s boyfriend wants her to have a threesome, and he is very transparently “buttering her up,” as Miranda puts it.

Carrie is drinking a blackberry Clearly Canadian while she writes her column, and I’m so jealous. I really miss Clearly Canadian, and blackberry was my favorite. It’s even in the old-school clear bottle.

This is the “lost episode” for me, because it was so long after the original airing that I finally got to see it. It’s kind of important too, meeting Big’s wife. It’s a shame she never shows up again, especially since she wanted to be friends with Carrie.

They never clarify if Big and Barbara had a threesome with the best friend he eventually cheated on her with. And at what point in the episode does Barbara know that Carrie and Big are dating?

Episode Nine: the turtle and the hare

Well, the ladies meet in a coffeeshop, but it’s not THE coffeeshop. I guess they start the weekly brunches next season.

This is the first of what I think is a total of three references to John Kennedy, Jr.: “Look, we all think we’re Carolyn Bassett, then one day John-John’s out of the picture and we’re happy to just have some guy who can throw around a frisbee.”

Miranda and Carrie have to stage an intervention for Charlotte and the Rabbit, which is hilarious until Miranda sticks the confiscated vibrator in her purse.

One thing I noticed was that Carrie gets three e-mails from Stanford, but seasons from now, she’s going to “discover” the internet for the first time.

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.

Episode Eleven: The Drought

“I’m not like me. I’m like Together Carrie. I wear little outfits, you know, Sexy Carrie and Casual Carrie. Sometimes I catch myself actually posing. It’s exhausting.”

Ah, the farting episode. I read that Carrie running into the door with the sheet over her head was not scripted, but happened accidentally. So that belly laugh from Mr. Big is natural. She makes it worse when she’s trying to act all mature, and all the while he’s planning to put a whoopee cushion in her chair.

She’s totally out of line when she goes to his apartment and tries to seduce him while he’s watching a pay-per-view fight. The whole “not having sex” problem is a really good example of Carrie going to her friends and getting three different perspectives.

I like that one of her interviews in this episode is the manicurist that is doing her nails while she talks to Miranda about the fart. And I’m impressed that she’s painting her kitchen cabinet freehand, without tape.

Episode Twelve: oh come all ye faithful

So we learn in this episode that Carrie writes every Sunday while Mr. Big is taking his mother to church. It makes sense that his mother lives in New York, since he’s supposed to be Mr. Manhattan. Carrie is really bull-headed about meeting his mother, and I don’t blame him for being pissed at her for showing up at church.

The scene where Samantha meets James in the jazz club is supposed to be taken from Kim Catrall’s real life. I think she and that husband are divorced now. I saw this episode in Spanish, and I remember the line “Cuando chupalo…” Now there’s a useful phrase.

The past two episodes have shown a really obnoxious side of Carrie, and it brings to mind an advice column I saw in a teen magazine once. I wish I could remember which one it was, or that I had clipped the column, because it was really significant. A girl had written in and said she had no self-esteem and how could she become more confident? Instead of answering with some fluff about recognizing how great you really are, the agony aunt actually responded that maybe the girl had no reason to be confident. Sort of saying ‘don’t worry about self-confidence, just self-honesty and acceptance.’

That’s what these past two episodes make me think of regarding Carrie and Big. It’s supposed to be about Carrie finding someone to love her for the fabulous person she is, but she’s honestly not that fabulous. Really, if you’re that neurotic, maybe you should just take what you can get? We know they wind up together in the end, but I think they both have a lot of growing up to do, not just him.

He asks her: “what are you trying to do, test me?” and he’s right, that’s exactly what she was doing. If she hadn’t gone to church to spy on him, she wouldn’t have been introduced to his mother as “a friend.” Big talks a lot about timing with her, as in ‘don’t rush me, bitch.’

I’m not saying Big should take the lead in the relationship, but she’s complaining ‘I can’t get inside’ and wanting to be told she’s ‘the one,’ and they’ve been together less than a year. It’s all about ‘finding someone to love me for who I am,’ but if you find yourself acting like a crazy person in front of a guy you really like, shouldn’t you start looking at fixing yourself?

This is season es mucho mas mejor que Season I. The show has more direction and the storylines are woven together more seamlessly. But I’m tired, so here goes:

Episode One: take me out to the ballgame

Carrie rebounds from her relationship with Mr. Big with “Joe,” the new Yankee, up from the minors. The new Yankee is my favorite of all single-episode boyfriends, although he doesn’t talk much. I just like the idea of one New York icon dating another and their photo ending up on Page Six.

Also in this episode we learn that Carrie has been dating for ten years in Manhattan, and that she was there before Big (“If Big had any class, he would have moved away. I was here first”). Wonder where he was before that. Sidenote: Chris Noth’s current picture on imdb.com is disturbing.

Behold, the introduction of the coffee shop, “our Saturday morning ritual.”