mpk

Season Five

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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.

oh, she may be weary/young girls, they do get weary

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Episode One: anchors away

This is supposed to be the big “post-9/11” episode, where the healing of New York is dealt with in an unsappy way. Hence, Fleet Week.

The Miranda nursing scene involves some “very expensive” prosthetic boobs, says MPK. It’s kind of disturbing, but there’s a sweet moment when the baby looks up at her.

In fact, we see everyone’s tits in this episode, except for Carrie’s, because SJP won’t do nude scenes. (That was intended to be snide. She has every right to cover herself up, but it’s not fair that the other girls have to bare all. My teeth start grinding right now).

It took me a while to get the joke with Charlotte “new” York and Charlotte “old” York. MPK had to explain it.

When Carrie is at the Guggenheim and the wind is blowing, she does that hoarse little shriek like five times, and it’s really annoying. Yes, this is the beginning of me hating her.

Methinks someone is a little jelly.

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Episode Five: plus one is the loneliest number

I always got the two of hearts joke, but I never caught on that it was the jack of hearts (for Jack Berger) that she saw on the sidewalk outside Gray’s Papaya. The only way I knew that it was Gray’s Papaya was because of the reflection on the limo windows.

Costume designer Pat Field makes a cameo at Carrie’s book party. Isaac Mizrahi’s cameo is kind of lame, especially since he had to say his own name, so people would know who he was.

I also didn’t catch the gag where Samantha is reminded that she has to verbally tell people “I am so angry” after she’s been Botoxed, and then Enid (Candice Bergen) says exactly that when she sees her boyfriend at Carrie’s party. MPK pointed that out.

This party is going to be fantastic, strictly A-list. — Are we still invited? — Yes, but Shitty Pants there is not.

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Episode Eight: i love a charade

HATE the zsa zsa zsu. It’s such a stupid thing to say, then MPK has the audacity to commentate that everyone loved that phrase and he even saw it in a couple of articles. Bull shit.

He also mentions that the Carrie necklace disappears and reappears in very significant and symbolic ways. This episode is the first time she wears it all season, and it’s supposed to mean that she’s back in touch with her identity.

Turns out the theme for costuming the wedding scene is the Great Gatsby, which I didn’t catch and I love that book. Oh, wait. Maybe they mean the movie. Hate the movie.

Smile, gorgeous.

…because I was a sex columnist, I was resourceful, and I was drunkity-drunk-drunk.

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Episode Two: great sexpectations

Ah, Berger. MPK is saying in his commentary that Berger was brought on the show because they wanted to put Carrie with someone like her – a wry writer. Ha.

Apparently the sales girl in La Perla got that part because she was such a huge fan of the show.

Okay, I always realized there were some similarities between my two favorite TV heroines, Carrie Bradshaw and Veronica Mars (“annoy, tiny blond one, annoy like the wind”). But this episode, for some reason, I almost forgot what show I was watching because SJP resembled Kristen Bell so closely. I don’t know what it was, maybe the side ponytail.

MPK says that Carrie hitting Berger in the face with her furry shoe was not scripted, but Ron Livingston just played it out. Nice.

They're not strangers. They're our new friends with pot.

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Episode Seven: the post-it always sticks twice

Okay, I’m going to try to tread very lightly here. There’s this whole Sex and the City tour industry, and places that are featured on the show can kind of become NYC destinations for tourists from the “fly-over regions,” such as where I currently live and blog. MPK even said in one commentary that because the SATC girls went to Raw and didn’t like it, the raw food movement never caught on. Ass. But that’s a whole other can of worms.

The reason I bring this up is because of Bed (“If that last place was called Bed, this should be called Smell”). It’s a real club, and I know this because two fellow Texans I know have been there. One of them said it was really exclusive and you had to be selected to get inside. Oh, God, how do I say this without being a bitch?

If it was featured on a TV show, and probably owes it’s staying power to said TV show, then I really don’t think it’s a place where real New Yorkers are clamoring to get inside. I mean, Bed? A little gimmicky, don’t you think? And I love my friends and I think they are great, but I’m not a member of the “glitteratti” and neither are they. If two gals from Texas on their second trip to NYC are chosen to move beyond the velvet rope, then I’m tempted to say that the “exclusivity” is a facade, or is artificially created in order to skew the pussy ratio inside the club.

Oh, what am I saying? I’m just totally jealous that I’ve never been to Bed.

Miranda says she was wearing her skinny jeans the last time she smoked pot, which would have been in the 80s, but she smoked pot with Carrie and Samantha in Hot Child in the City.

“Carrie, don’t Bogart this split,” — awesome.

Oh please, there are depressed women all over New York doing the exact same thing as her and not calling it art.

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Episode Twelve: one

MPK and I have differing views on why this episode is called “One,” which is unsettling because he wrote the episode. He says: only one man for you, the baby is one, the first of the Petrovsky episodes. I say: yes, the baby is one, but also Samantha finds one gray hair and Carrie meets Petrovsky at 1 a.m.

I saw an interview with the SATC girls and Oprah where SJP tells how Michail Baryshnikov came to be a part of the show. She said she had the idea while she was washing her hair, then she mimed hair-washing, then she repeated herself while everyone else just kind of stared at her. It wasn’t funny, and I think she was trying to be. Anyway, MPK repeats the hair-washing antecdote in the commentary. Is there some connection between Baryshnikov and shampoo that I’m not aware of?

Also, how can Brady be one year old? He was born two seasons ago.

Charlotte gets the best ever “damn, girl” moment on this show, when she walks out of the building in her Elizabeth Taylor get up. So pretty. I always thought she looked like an older, slightly more substantial Katie Holmes.

MPK says they have come to rely less on the voice over in later seasons. I hadn’t noticed.

I also totally spaced on the story with Miranda, how she expects her bullshit to fall away when she meets the right guy so she can say “I love you,” and then that’s exactly what happens with Steve in the laundry room. I just never made the connection. Whoops.

Aleksandr is supposed to shake up Carrie’s world, to give it a more arty, European sensibility, says MPK, and he really does serve to show how limited her world view has been until now. But I think the best thing he does is out-bigs Big, if that makes sense. The trouble with Big and Carrie is that he was so much older, so much wealthier, and, at times, belonged to a different social class. And you thought she was really reaching to be with him. Now we see Carrie (who we’re supposed to think is perfect now, since it she was the sane one in the Berger relationship) really straining to make things happen with the Russian, and suddenly Big doesn’t look so unattainable.

I'll give you $100 if you say something bitchy about someone we know.

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Episode One: let there be light

The theme is that Carrie is light and the Russian is darkness, as evidenced by the chocolates he pulls out of his pocket. Honestly, I thought that image was more Alice in Wonderland – one side makes you larger, the other makes you small. Also lots of looking glasses in this episode.

Miranda asks Steve “why did I have to shit where I eat?” which is nice because I was trying to remember how that phrase went the other day: there were a bunch of high school girls bumpin-n-grindin at the local watering hole last weekend. I was trying to tell a friend about it, saying “go down to sixth street to do that in front of a bunch of anonymous people; don’t shit where you sleep.” So I guess I was off by one word.

Then Miranda goes on to tell Steve what Robert said about “going deep,” which is a stupid thing to repeat to your current boyfriend. I’m surprised it just rolled off his back. MPK says they tried to show in this episode how Steve and Miranda are partners in crime, and I like that definition of a relationship.

Charlotte’s Burberry sleep mask was special-made for the show, says MPK. I actually don’t hate her in this episode.

Heartbreaking moment with Samantha and Smith. If Richard had a theme song, it would be “You’re so Vain.”

Go get our girl.

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Episode Seven: an american girl in paris (part une)

It’s cheesy, and I don’t care. I love Paris, I love how the show treated Carrie’s expectations of Paris, and I love, more than anything, the scene where Carrie steps out on to the balcony and squeals at la Tour Eiffel. It’s just the Parisienne rooftops in the background and the sunlight and even the air looking European. Sigh.

Also, I’ve always thought that Petrovsky’s daughter was a nod to Paul and Stella McCartney. I think the girl looks like Stella, and the fact that Stella used to design for Chloe and the girl’s name is Chloe… Just another stylish girl with a famous father.

Ha. Samantha’s a cougar. I just realized that.

Ouch. Carrie left her laptop.

MPK does this really funny thing on the commentary when Big walks into the coffee shop. He says Big has to answer to her…and her…and her, as the camera pans past each of the girls.

I like how the wife of Alek’s best friend holds her own in the conversation with the boys instead of just making small talk with Carrie.

Chanel-lo!

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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.