Episode Report Card Alex Richmond: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Shaving All My Hair For You
By Alex Richmond | Season 6 | Episode 16 | Aired on 01.24.2004
Char runs in the park, passing everyone else on the track. She cuts through a grassy area away from the river and passes a woman with one of those jog-strollers, avec baby. Char looks at it, then runs faster to pass the stroller. She sprints away, and Carrie VOs that Charlotte had won everything she'd ever tried to, except "the baby race."
Mir and Steve hang in bed together, looking at real estate listings. Mir scoffs at one ad, which reads as a two-bedroom, but Mir says in reality is a "crack den on an air shaft." Heh. When I was house-shopping, I saw places that were so scary I half-expected to find a body in the tub. I'd go up the stairs whispering, "Here I come, Mister Killer!" Pentagrams on the walls. I didn't even blink. Mir says she's a Manhattan girl, ergo she doesn't like anything not-Manhattan. Oh, come on. That attitude is so ridiculous. Plus, it makes non-Manhattanites hate you. I mean, I was BORN in Manhattan and lived there until we moved here (which I wasn't thrilled about), and most of the people that have this attitude are from fucking Kansas or Massachusetts. Like, what's the entitlement about? The pride? The exclusivity? You MOVED to a CITY and now you think anywhere else is Shitsville? Get over it. Manhattan is now as much of a StarbucksGapDisneyVirginMegastoreVille as the Mall of Fucking America, and those Manhattan snobs aren't going to move to Minnesota, are they now? Why not? All the same shit is there! Sure, there's no Magnolia Bakery at the Mall of America...YET. But still. I mean, Carrie DRAGGED her worldly "lovah" to MC-FUCKING-DONALD'S this season with the rationale that she's "an American" and McDeathburger is WHAT WE ALL LIKE. Well, that attitude (and Giuliani) made Manhattan GENERIC AS FUCK, complete with extremely high property values, and no smoking inside. Oh, I'm kidding, I love New York. But I can live in other places without breaking into hives, is all I'm saying. And I can smoke! So, in your face, Manhattan. So, Miranda, after scoffing and shrugging, "Sleeping in the dining room isn't so bad," decides to look at the house in Brooklyn.
Carrie sips espresso that Alek has made for her and explodes, "Gah! Ho-ho-ho, waugh. That's some strong coffee. No wonder you work all night! I'm gonna need a little milk." Wow, she never had espresso before? She's not a writer. OR a New Yorker. Or been to Little Italy. Or Italy. ["Or TGI Friday's. Espresso isn't exactly exotic at this point. Shut up, Carrie." -- Sars] Alek says he likes it strong, and she should just keep sipping it, she'll get used to it. I like my coffee like I like my men: sweet, strong, and a little cool. And they shouldn't expect to come around every day. Sometimes I like green tea. Which I like the same way I like my men: organic and well-steeped. So Carrie keeps sipping and making faces and then says she needs to talk to Alek about something. About her friend. Alek says, "The one with cancer?" Carrie grimaces and says that her name is Samantha. And the other day, in the kitchen supply store, when he was all, "My friend died"? Well, that wasn't being very sensitive to Carrie's feelings, or so she says. Alek sits calmly and listens as she say, "I'm sorry about your friend. But my friend is going to be fine." Alek says, "And my friend died." Carrie claps her hands on her sides and says exasperatedly, "See? You're doing it again! Not everyone with cancer dies!" Alek intones, "Den dey are lucky." Carrie is all, "Please stop saying 'die'!" Carrie? Please shut up. Or grow up. Or face your feelings of fear about Samantha's disease and try to imagine how SHE, the SICK ONE, must feel. Jesus.
Alek says, "Try to be realistic. You must acknowledge the possibility?" Carrie doesn't want to. Stage one, "Cadillac of chemo," the popsicles and Barcaloungers all mean Sam's in the clear. Alek begins, "My friend who died," and Carrie cuts him off again. "You're not listening to me!" Alek says, rightly, that Carrie is not listening to HIM. True, she isn't. She isn't shutting up, either. Carrie covers her face and says that all she wants is for him to stop talking about his friend that died. Oh, that's cool. That's grown-up. That's sharing and listening and caring. Not. He begins, "Her name was Sophia." Carrie leaps up like a Mexican jumping bean and says she's leaving. Alek does not say, "Yay!" When she whips her coat off his chair, he barely adjusts himself. He's stone-faced. I think this is one of those cases of men and women not communicating that well. He's trying to help her see that Sam is in fact seriously ill, and she wants him to sugarcoat everything so she can continue to live in denial. She can't help getting one last word in. "I asked you not to mention your friend, and now all I can think about is your friend!" He says quietly, "I think you are acting like a child." She yells, "And I think you're acting like an asshole!" He says she should go. She says she already is. So go then, Carrie. Slam! goes the door.