B

Season Five

/ Mandy / Leave a comment

One- I’m posting Seasons Four and Five on the same day because I just now got the use of my internet back. Apparently, I was so desperate to run from the tornadoes that I left the modem plugged in and it got fried. Like hell I was logging on to myspace at work.

Now I can use the internet, but B. can’t talk shit to Korean kids while he plays video games. Actually, this worked out quite well. *Evil Villain laugh*

Two- SJP is on the cover of Vogue, so now I can’t open my copy until after May 30.

Season Five is beyond weird. Michael Patrick King says in the commentary for Episode One that the season was “problematic, interesting, dark and eventually light.” He also calls it “the year we sent the men away,” and if you pay attention, the only time Carrie has sex is with Mr. Big in San Francisco.

The season is only eight episodes long, reportedly because of SJP’s pregnancy, which they spend the season concealing with empire waist dresses. Also, by the final season of the episode (ha! strike that, reverse it), Cynthia Nixon (Miranda) is pregnant as well, which is confusing on a number of levels: she spent half of the fourth season pretending to be pregnant, and winds up really pregnant a year later. She’s noticeably a little heavier at the start of this season (and actually looks really really pretty with some weight on her), so I’m wondering if Cynthia Nixon had to gain weight to give Miranda some baby weight, slowly lose it, then gain it all back for real.

Personally, this is “the lost season,” because I was studying abroad while it was originally airing. I would get some news about plot lines, but spent the semester watching reruns and getting drunk off Bailey’s Minis, the sponsor of the program in Britain.

Also, and this is going to be slightly blasphemous: this is the season where I get annoyed with SJP. I can’t pin point it exactly, especially since she’s pregnant for the whole season and probably went through a lot of personal changes, but I just remember having the feeling that SJP had become way too full of herself, and it was seeping in to the show. Maybe it was because the show had officially become a juggernaut, or SJP had become more comfortable with her role as a producer and was wielding more influence on the direction of the show, but this is the point where I started to dislike her. I’ll point out some specific examples momentarily.

It's late. I should get back to Brooklyn before Steve thinks I've defected.

/ Mandy / Leave a comment

Episode Five: the cold war

Alright. I like how Miranda eats junk food and likes to watch TV, but giving her the trashy magazine addiction is just overkill. Especially when she says “I love it it’s my thing let it go.” Like, twice. She went to Harvard, come on.

Again, Carrie sucks: Whee! Let’s get drunk and go to my boyfriend’s house. My boyfriend who is an actual creative person and has to follow his muse, not like me, making a living off my social life.

The night I watched this episode, in which two mice invade Carrie’s apartment, I actually saw a mouse in my own house. Turns out he was a field mouse who can quite easily squeeze under the front door. The three of us ganged up on him (actually, i just kind of watched as dog and boyfriend did their jobs) and frightened him so much that he hasn’t been back.

Chanel-lo!

/ Mandy / Leave a comment

Episode Eight: an american girl in paris (part deux)

I’m writing about these last two episodes in real time because I watched them one time through without writing anything down, and now I’ve got two screens open on my desktop and I’m typing while watching and now I’m wishing I had been doing this all along. Damn.

Smith’s hair looks stupid after he dyes it.

Ah, the return of the cigarettes. She’s even eating at the patissier and smoking between bites. MPK says the giant dog smelled like a barn.

I’m guessing the tourist that’s filming her from the boat is …swedish?

aww, she sees her book in the shop. Too bad she completely screws those people over. I hate that.

Oh, the couple from Charlotte. Why would Charlotte and Harry serve them lox? That’s not really a very democratic offering, especially knowing that they’re hillbillies. “Is that the fish?” B just told me “lox” is also a rap group out of NYC that includes DMX and Eve.

My sister tells me that I really liked the french rap song (DJ Solar) that’s playing in the background while Carrie is running around Paris and Miranda is running around Brooklyn. I don’t remember saying that, but I’m proud of myself if I did.

Magda gets prettier in every episode. I hope I look like her when I’m old.

I love that when Big finally finds Carrie, she’s squatting in her nouveau-tutu looking for diamonds.

She says “this is so surreal.” I hate that word, ever since a fellow bookstore employee described our work environment as surreal. Fatuous statement, here and then.

Ah, Big’s name. That was my achilles heel. I didn’t like Big, but in arguing with a Big proponent, I conceded that Carrie was allowed to end up with Big IF we learned his real name. And we did, so she did.

“And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that’s just fabulous.” Okay, I get it now.