Episode Report Card Alex Richmond: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT I Heart NY
By Alex Richmond | Season 4 | Episode 18 | Aired on 02.09.2002
Cha cha cha!
Carrie lies in bed, then turns over. She VOs about the seasons in New York, how they turn from hot to crisp, and all of a sudden, "you need a blanket on your bed." Forgive me, but I wish I didn't have perfect recollection of last summer turning into fall. It was summer-like for a while into September. September 11th, I remember, was a beautiful, warm sunny day. But for the sake of winding up this summer-into-fall mini-season, I will suspend my awareness of time and the context it places us all into, and say that yes, I too love those early fall days with the crispness and the changing of the contents of the closets (tank tops out, sweaters in) and the blankets on the bed. Run-on sentence, woo! Carrie adds a blanket to her bed and re-tucks herself, then switches on the light and makes a phone call. To none other than Big. Over in Big's World, he checks his watch and answers. Carrie asks what he's doing. He's reading a newspaper, but he plays with her a bit by asking who it is. She asks who he thinks it is. "Princess Grace of Monaco." Carrie says, "She's dead." "So you can imagine my surprise." Heh. She tells him it's fall. He says he thought it was Indian summer, but if not, he'll "take off [his] moccasins." He lights a cigarette and she's all, are you smoking? Hearing people smoke on the phone is kind of fun. It's almost as good as watching them smoke onscreen; it looks cool, and you can't smell it, thank God. Big intones that he's "baaad," and Carrie gets to her point: She's lonely. Does Big ever feel lonely? He says no. Well, can she come over anyway? Sure! She doesn't say, "I won't have sex with you," but instead some nonsense like, they'll just be "keeping" each other "company." Big says lugubriously that he "loooves company." Sure he does. NAKED company.
Carrie does the knock-knock-knock-knock-knock, KNOCK KNOCK thing, Big answers, and she says, "Get it while it's HOT!" She meant the pizza she's holding, you perverts. Which leads me to believe that it isn't early morning, but late at night. An early-morning booty-call food would be bagels, or donuts. She walks in and sees that his apartment is totally empty of furniture. She's stunned. He says that's why he's leaving New York -- "the crime." She's all, "Leaving? No you're not." Instead of the obvious retort of "yes I am," he says, "Tell it to my realtor in Napa." As in California, Carrie stammers out? No, Carrie dear -- "NaPa" is yet another new acronym for a neighborhood Next to the Park. That should probably be NePa, and could apply to just about any park in the city, but give me a break and spare me your hate mail. Big bought "half a vineyard. Technically it's three-quarters of a vineyard, but there's a dispute about a hillside." She hands off the pizza and stalks toward the fireplace, stunned. When was he going to call her? And from where? And why? Big is "tired of old New York." Hey, you know, his timing is pretty good. He'd be all down on Wall Street and shit, working, when the disaster went down. Plus, he's getting out while the market is not yet at its softest point. Oh, there I go with the context and the facts again. My bad! Let's just say this episode is a love letter and shit, shall we? Carrie jokes that if you're tired, you "take a nap-a, not MOVE to Napa!" There we go, back on (laugh) track. Carrie sits on a box and falls into it. Big laughs. Carrie says she needs a drink. One-point-five martinis should do it.
Sam lounges unhappily in bed, chewing chocolates and flipping the pages in a magazine. Richard walks in the door, three hours late, held up at the hotel. Sam says, "Richard, phone, have you two met?" He was too busy to call. Mmm-hmm. Sam complains bitterly that when she gets "cellulite, [he'll] have no one to blame but [himself]." Wow, just last week they were so happy together! Now he's being an ass, and she's totally become a shrew. I guess if you never learn to compromise, as all relationships require, it doesn't come easily. Or fast. I didn't think Sam would turn into such a clingy, needy love-hole all of a sudden. Or even that she'd wait three hours! Love is a bitch, isn't it? Or should I say, love is a cruel mistress. Or even quote the J. Geils hit, "Love Stinks." Yeah, yeah. Sam says she doesn't appreciate being kept waiting, particularly when she has a gift for him. Richard asks if it's really a gift, or sex. Wow, he's a jerk. She meant an actual, physical gift, one she bought herself to give to him. To celebrate "Richard's A Prick Day." The gift is art, a sequence of three red-and-black Warholian hearts. "The closest Samantha came to giving her heart to a man in a long, long time," Carrie so subtly VOs. Sam wants to hang the hearts in the bedroom, on the wall facing the bed. Richard looks over his shoulder at the spot on the wall, makes a face, and voila, the clock, she has barely a minute left on this relationship. Tick tick boom.