Episode Sixteen: frenemies

Miranda gets stood up, and she calls Carrie and says: “This hasn’t happened to me since I’m 27.” Okay, what is that? The Bat Mitzvah brat says “since I’m 12” in one episode, and Miranda says “since I’m 27” in the next. Did I miss that grammar lesson? Why are they saying it like that? That’s always bothered me.

In the final scene, when Carrie takes her Learning Annex class out for drinks and helps them meet guys, there is some very, very bad acting going on in the foreground right before the credits roll. Seriously, it’s terrible. This girl has to be sleeping with someone involved with the show, because she stinks. And the thing is, she doesn’t even have a speaking part, yet she manages to stink up the whole shot.

Episode Seventeen: what goes around comes around

Carrie gets mugged for her Monolos, and she goes into a salon to call the police. They give her some slippers to wear, but wouldn’t it be much funnier if she were wearing those goofy flipflops they give you after a pedicure? Just saying.

Samantha says Natasha works at Ralph LAUR-en, not Ralph Laur-EN. Now I’m confused.

Carrie feels like she has to apologize to Natasha, and the ice princess gives her some major frost burn. I had a situation kind of like this, where I got involved in messy little triangle, but the guy wasn’t married. When Carrie says “I can’t believe there is someone in New York who could hate me that much,” that kind of sums up how it felt to be the other woman.

Episode Eighteen: cock-a-doodle-do!

This is weird because Aidan and Steve are out with their new girlfriends — because, apparently, they’re friends now — but we never saw them meet when they were dating Carrie and Miranda. Carrie says “two beers at a time? Did Miranda and I give you guys a drinking problem?” which is such a foot-in-the-mouth moment because obviously there were other people at the table. And “Jessica,” Steve’s date, is one of the models from the Modelizer episode, with a new haircut.

Carrie tells Big that the two of them are a good idea in theory, but they just don’t work. Then the voiceover says that they have become something else. So does that mean they might be able to work, now that they are something else?

This is my least favorite season-ender, because SJP is so obnoxious in that roof top scene: “I need to see you spin first, sistah!” Uggh. But they are drinking Flirtinis (champagne, vodka, and pineapple), which is something I might have to try.

Sorry to keep you waiting, my adoring fan (yes, fan, singular. Hi Mom!). I have had a busy two weeks in real life, but I’m back. Luckily, Season Five only has eight episodes, due to SJP’s pregnancy, so I will be able to catch up with my viewing.

I’d like to point out that the buzz is definitely brewing for the movie. The London premiere was this week, and SJP wore some crrrazy hat that has everybody talking. I also heard the movie got panned in the London review, but I’m not going to read that just yet. And SJP is on the cover of Vogue, and I can’t even open my copy because I’m scared I’ll learn something I don’t want to know.

But the biggest “oh God, everybody jump on the bandwagon” moment for me was today when I went to Blockbuster to rent a season, just like I’ve been doing every week for the past month, and there was a big gaping hole in the television section. I ran over to DVD-shelving-guy and screamed “where is Sex and the City? There’s a whole row missing!” Apparently he didn’t see my wide-eyed, fangrrrl look of frenzy, because he pointed over to the “Hot for summer” shelf (or something similarly stupidly titled) and said “They’re over there because the movie is coming out soon.” No shit, Sherlock.

Anyway, on with Season Four…

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 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 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 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 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 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.