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.

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 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 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.