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Spring Break is here, so of course everyone is working. Mouse has the basketball team to manage, Tom is trying to relax at a meditation class, and Walt is working to figure out who he is. Most importantly, Carrie is working full time at Interview Magazine, still as an unpaid intern. Working full time at Interview is not too different from working one day a week, it would seem, because no one is ever really doing anything there.
Carrie makes the mistake of answering the phone at Larissa's desk while Larissa is out. She is asked to have Larissa pick up a package for Andy Warhol. When Larissa doesn't show up, Carrie goes to the store and must pose as Larissa to get the package. It's a Shirley Temple movie without the blackface.
Being Larissa has its perks and its drawbacks. Carrie gets to try on lots of clothes, but is attacked by the girlfriend of the regular package deliverer because Larissa sleeps with her boyfriend. Carrie escapes the scene with the package, which she briefly thinks is cocaine but turns out to be Andy Warhol's wig.
All the while, Sebastian's separated parents have been having sex, Mouse decides to get herself fired as team manager to reunite the basketball team, and Tom makes out with the most annoying, but hottest, woman in his meditation class. Walt is questioning his sexual identity, but he joins Carrie in New York for the Adventures of the Wig and the Mistaken Identity.
Carrie, Walt, and Bennett decide it's not too late to get the wig to Andy Warhol at this club. The club is a secret, traveling club, and this week it is in the back room of a children's clothing boutique. Carrie's attempt to be Larissa again fails, but she learns the valuable lesson that it always pays to be yourself. The bouncer lets Carrie give the wig to Andy Warhol's assistant, she doesn't lose her job that was never paid or in danger, and the whole thing is very ya-dada-duhnuh-nuh, FART.
It could have ended there but does not. In fact, several more endings happen, as Walt almost sort of maybe comes out to Carrie and himself, after getting jealous of a guy talking to Bennett. Then Mouse realizes West might like her as more than an academic competitor, and Sebastian and Carrie hang out and Sebastian doesn't tell Carrie he saw her dad sucking face with some stranger in a car. Maggie got a fake ID somewhere along the way, and Donna LaDonna's screen time was far too short, but memorable nonetheless. Over budget and therefore missing from this episode: Dorrit and Larissa.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!In a matter of weeks, The Carrie Diaries has caught up with us and it's spring in 1985. And with spring comes spring break for high school students. Carrie is taking advantage of spring break to work at Interview magazine all week. Walt will take this opportunity to visit Bennett, his gay crush, and Maggie will take this opportunity to be boring. Meanwhile, Sebastian will be complaining about his flighty, rich mom, and Mouse is managing the basketball team.
Sebastian's mom shows up at the high school to unload on him between classes. The poor acting in this role tells me Sebastian's mom is not long for this show. She cries to Sebastian like he's her therapist, and Sebastian unpacks his mommy issues on Carrie. Even though it's not entirely descriptive of an unpaid internship, I like that the show utilizes "She Works Hard for the Money" to transition Carrie into the work week at Interview.
Carrie arrives at Interview on Monday morning bright-eyed and bushy-haired, trying her first sip of coffee. This is in the days before the Frappuccino, the gateway drink into the world of coffee. Carrie answers a trendy looking phone perkily and Andy Warhol's assistant is on the other end requesting that Larissa pick up a package. Carrie tells them Larissa will be on it right away, not knowing that, according to Bennett, "Larissa's field trips can last for days... everyone knows that."
Bennett puts the pressure on Carrie, telling her she needs to figure it out or else. Carrie, who has nothing better to do at this job, picks up her bag and heads out to get that package on a cab fare she can't expense. When she arrives at some store or gallery, a shop girl Pretty Womans her away. Filled with shame for looking her age, Carrie decides to pretend to be Larissa. She tucks her infamous name necklace under her shirt and turns her "Carrie" bag around, ready to go in for the kill.
I actually enjoy the charm in this Carrie Bradshaw (AnnaSophia Robb) moment. The accent is more like Madonna's than Larissa's, but the wording and the attitude are right, having me think that this Carrie Bradshaw is a quick-thinking, fun character who knows how to find her way out of a jam. The salesgirl thinks the same thing of fake Larissa, and offers to let her try on their fall line while she waits for the package that isn't there yet. So, this package might not be so urgent after all, if it's still not where they asked her to pick it up at least two hours later.
After all the hustle and bustle of a city storyline, we need to take a break with two lame ones. Mouse calls a basketball team meeting to go over their stats and make everyone hate her. Tom tries a meditation class, where he sees a fellow meditator with gorgeous bazoons. The hot lady also pops her gum during meditation, which is, you guessed it, annoying. What will happen to Tom !?
Walt arrives at Interview to meet Carrie for lunch, but Carrie is busy pretending to be Larissa. Walt doesn't mind because he is really just there to see Bennett anyway. Bennett offers to share his lunch, and Walt eagerly accepts.
Never one to turn down a phone call to her boyfriend, Carrie talks to Sebastian from the phone in the lounge of the store she's in. She's wearing an expensive, glittery dress, and lots of fun accessories, drinking "coffee that's actually good -- it's called a cappuccino." Carrie tells Sebastian that when she acts like Larissa she takes things too far, it's almost like she's a different person. Speaking of themes, Sebastian has a new fake ID for Maggie. His parents are having sex in the room above him. The shop girl gives Carrie all the outfits she just tried on, and I am immediately upset that we didn't get to see a fun clothes-trying-on montage.
Mouse's team meeting is quickly going south as she ranks the members according to arbitrary criteria like "hustle." Two of the guys get into a fight, and West tells Mouse this meeting is over. West tells Mouse that she isn't understanding that they're a team and they need to work together. He says this could be worse than when Donna LaDonna almost broke up the team. Mouse thinks it's all about competition. Mouse, you are annoying and you fail.
Tom is so annoyed by the woman to him meditating that he explodes toward the end of the class. They all look at him like he's insane, and he says, "you know what? Screw it, you hippie freaks." Great story, Tom.
Carrie calls Bennett for advice, and he says that while it's an unethical murky gray area, she should take the clothes, get the package, and get out. Then a girl shows up with the package, and to throw a flower vase at "Larissa."
The woman with the package is the girlfriend of the guy who usually delivers the packages. Apparently he and Larissa have a routine of dropping off a package, then doing it. Frightened by this woman scorned, Carrie confesses to not actually being Larissa in front of the girlfriend and the sales girl. Carrie pushes a rack of clothes into the girlfriend, and she is shockingly bogged down by it, unable to stand back up. Carrie grabs the package, which the girlfriend says "isn't even cut." The sales girl asks if Carrie is a drug mule and if it's coke because she wants some. Then they all drown in a clothes rack of bad acting.
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Oh, but we're not done with Tom and his meditation plot yet. The woman sees Tom in a diner and he stands up to apologize. She starts smacking her gum, which Tom assumes is a joke. He calls her the most annoying woman he's ever met -- cut to Tom and the gum chewer making out in a car. Adults are always going at it.
Mouse runs into Donna LaDonna in the hallway. Donna is there for guy watching, of course, but also to give Mouse some unexpectedly sage advice. Mouse asks Donna what happened with her and the basketball team and it turns out she dated two of them at the same time and caused a three-game losing streak. Then, Donna LaDonna, Unlikely Voice of Reason, tells Mouse that the team started winning again once they found a common enemy in her. A tall, swarthy soccer player arrives at Donna's side and they go off together to continue guy watching.
Maggie gets her new ID from Sebastian and they talk about divorce, then see Tom making out with the gum chewer in a car. Later, they decide not to tell Carrie.
Carrie arrives back at the Interview office in shambles. She got on the wrong train and she accidentally stole that dress and she's pretty sure the box has cocaine in it. Walt and Bennett open Andy Warhol's package and it turns out the "uncut" thing in it is Andy's wig. This somehow makes everything fine. They all go to the club to deliver the package together.
The gang arrives at a closed down children's clothing store, and Carrie is devastated to have written down the wrong address. She is convinced this one mistake has cost her her entire summer job. Bennett can hear the sounds of a club, though, in a frequency only audible to gay men. Sure enough, just beyond this children's clothing store is a traveling club Bennett has only heard of in urban legends.
At the diner, Mouse meets up with the quarreling members of the basketball team to be a maniacal, power-hungry team manager at them again. They fire Mouse, which may lead them to victory? At least it will lead to the end of this B story.
Sebastian's mom cries about his father again, and has more unreasonable expectations of her seventeen-year old son. Sebastian tells her off and his mom admits she's afraid to be alone. Whatever.
Back at the children's store stock room club, Bennett insists they need a plan to get in. Carrie is sure her terrible British accent and affectations will get them what they want again. She tries it on the bouncer, who has slept with Larissa and knows that Carrie is definitely not her. He closes the door on them, and Carrie is devastated again.
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"Is this really how it ends?" Carrie asks her gay men, "defeated by a club filled with people who are partying before it's even dark out?" That thought should have been saved for her diary narration. On the way back to the club door, Bennett says hi to another friend and Walt has a Dramatic Moment of jealousy.
Carrie decides that the trick to this episode is to be herself, so she makes an impassioned plea to the bouncer. She loves the city and her job and she needs to deliver Andy's wig or she stands to lose it all. The bouncer warms immediately upon hearing "Andy's wig" and gets Andy Warhol's assistant for Carrie. The assistant says Carrie is early and she is very professional. Before a circle can close in on Carrie's perplexed face breaking the fourth wall, they leave to wrap up Walt's storyline.
Walt is very butthurt about the whole Bennett thing. Carrie, very tenderly, asks Walt why it's a big deal to him. Walt asks Carrie what if he's not who he thought he was. Carrie tries to compare it to her hijinks of the day, and Walt says it's different because she's figuring out who she wants to be. Walt confesses he's struggling with who he wants to be with. Carrie asks Walt if he has a crush on Bennett, and Walt gets defensive, but then says maybe. Carrie is very tolerant and accepting and the lesson here is just to be yourself, you know. Carrie is such a good friend, even when it's not all about her, which it usually is.
Mouse reveals her plan to West in the hallway: that she meant to get fired to bring the team back together. They flirt a little bit and Mouse realizes that West might be interested in her. I am interested in having more of West on this show, so I'm all in favor of that.
Carrie and Sebastian meet in the diner to talk about their wild days. Larissa never came back to work but told Carrie that she did a good job and Carrie can't wait to work for the world's flakiest, but most fabulous, boss. Sebastian tells Carrie about his parents, and omits the knowledge of Tom's Frenching fest. The morning, Tom has a phone number in his pocket and decides he's ready to date after a few bouts with borderline-anonymous sex. Carrie gives directions to a tourist in the city, and finally feels like she belongs.
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