Cha, cha cha, cha cha. Splashy bus, cha cha cha!
Lights up on Carrie's apartment. She VOs that there are two reasons to don the little black dress during daylight hours -- "one is getting home from the party at dawn, the other is leaving the party too early." She means funerals. She grips a newspaper, folded open to an obituary, and the camera spins around her as she recalls Javier, the Cuban fashion designer who loved clothes but was fonder of heroin. Carrie knew Javier "since he was Harvey." Her buzzer buzzes, and Samantha breezes in, wearing a rather large white hat (so large it nearly lops Carrie's head off post-air-kiss) and a powder-blue suit with her white fur slung around her. Hardly fit for mourning. Except that the suit is a Javier original, which Sam bought for two thousand clams, and has since been marked up thirty percent. Sam is rather too bouncy to be attending a funeral, I think. She wants to "make an impression" with her outfit since "everyone is going to be there." Carrie points out another NYC truism: "You're more popular when you're not around." In Philly, people leave and come back, and it's as if they never left. Seriously, you can be gone for months and it's like, "Oh, hey. How ya doin'." Anyway, Charlotte pops by, all in black, as Carrie's guest to the funeral. Sam is rather outraged that Carrie scored a plus-one for the event, and Char points out that Sam's outfit is totally inappropriate. Mee-yow.
We have an outdoor burial scene. I'm guessing somewhere in Queens. Everyone is clad in bright modern outfits and odd little hats: Javier's spring line. Carrie and Char are the only ones in black, and Char begs to wear Sam's hat. Sam rolls her eyes and prompts her to say if asked that the hat was a gift. A woman takes the podium, and Sam hisses and jabs her pals, demanding silence. The woman is Javier's sister, who apparently has undergone a dramatic makeover in order to take over the throne of her brother's fashion house in good face -- pun intended and references to Donatella Versace standing tall. Carrie lights up a cigarette, claiming that "Javier would have wanted it this way." Hee. Sister of Javier announces tearfully, and with a heavy accent, that donations to the Javier House (of Pancakes? Nah) will be accepted. The J-House is to "help" people in fashion with "substance abuse problems." Sam begins to applaud, and is told by Carrie to perhaps not. Sam gets a gleam in her eye, and decides to offer to help them raise money. Her intentions aren't entirely altruistic; she wants to get her hands on the mailing list and "get every single unlisted 212 number in Manhattan," which seems more than a little redundant. Like she was supposed to get all the unlisted 212 numbers in Boise? Sam smoothly makes her way over to the grieving sister and begins her spin. A gust of wind blows the hat off Char's head, and she dashes after it, making "ooh, ooh!" noises as she goes.
The hat lands by the feet of a cute guy, who happens to be mourning at a gravestone a few feet away. His wife, of course. Char apologizes for intruding. "She loved hats," the guy says woefully, making eyes at Char. "It's fitting, really." Would your late wife "love" you hitting on chicks as she lies cold, six feet underground? Hell of a woman you have there. "Had," I mean. Char asks hopefully, "Kids?" He shakes his head no, stroking the gravestone like it's a woman's shoulder.
Char, Carrie, and Sam sit squished into the back seat of a black car. Char is meeting the guy for a drink, since he works on the street where her gallery is. She likes the idea of dating a widower, since the fact that he was married is proof of sensitivity, and "that he can commit." Oh, that is just wrong. Sam advises her to date a divorced guy; he has still been proven able to commit, and yet both parties are still alive. Because the wife, in death, becomes sainted, and the still-alive woman looking to take her place? Becomes a bitch. A theory I very much look forward to seeing proven true. Char? A bitch? Come on!
Miranda strides around a roomy, spacious, huge, enormous apartment. Lots of light. Parquet floors. A deco-looking mantle. Very, very nice. She walks slowly, taking it all in, barely noticing the chattery real estate agent who asks repeatedly if it's "just" Miranda that's buying. Maybe the boyfriend will move in? No? Well, she has a son. No? Miranda, "just" Miranda, will take the apartment. She's buying real estate. All by herself, for the first time. Mazel tov.
Carrie smokes and wanders around her apartment, contemplating her mortality. She hasn't "been to Greece yet," or "finished painting [her] bathroom." Never mind about the Visa bill. So, instead of doing any of these things, she calls Big.
They play around on the phone for a while, on the subject of dinner. Sure, Big likes to get dinner. Anytime. With whom? With YOOM, Miss Bradshaw? He finally calls eight o'clock at Roberto's, daring her to "be there or be square." She says, "You're so old," and hangs up, grinning at how easy it was to "resuscitate a relationship that had taken six months to die." Maybe that relationship should have been left on the slab? Oh, what am I saying. Everyone loves Big.
Samantha is perched on an overstuffed sofa in a very masculine room: the offices of Bear Stearns. She's soliciting a high-powered guy, Dick, to be on the Javier House (of Pancakes) board of directors. He's not used to giving donations, or entertaining women as beautiful as Sam. She demurs seductively and crosses her legs. He asks if he can look at her proposal over dinner sometime. She's sure that can be arranged. They start to make out. Then Dick's wife walks in, fresh from "groping a sweater set at Bendel's." She pops her monocle and clutches her pearls with great dignity, saying only, "Get. OUT." Icicles have more warmth. Sam extracts herself out from under the horny husband, leaves the proposal on the table, and tiptoes out.
Miranda is filling out forms in the very austere offices of her mortgage company. "Just you?" asks the officer? Yes. A single woman is buying an apartment. "Check the single woman box. And is the down payment coming from your father?" Oh, that's offensive. Mir shoots him a look and says, "No. Just me!" He asks that she check "the single woman" box, and initial it, again. Hey, everyone -- this fictitious display of What Happens In A Mortgage Meeting is too bogus for me to even take umbrage with. This episode was supposed to be shot in 1999, not 1969, for god's sack. ["It's a New York Mortgage Meeting. Trust me, there really is a 'single woman box.' Unfortunately." -- Sars]
The four friends are having lunch together in a tony place. Mir complains that if she were a single man instead of a single woman, none of this "it's just you?" shit would be happening. Yeah, we got it. You can also fire real estate agents and mortgage companies for that shit. I would have, had anyone tried it with me. The hostess approaches the table with Samantha's credit card, saying it was declined. Sam says that isn't possible, and to try it again. The hostess makes herself more clear: Sam's card, and Sam, are no longer accepted or welcomed there. What happened was, horny Dick's wife, the socialite, "put out a social hit on Samantha." The girls gather their belongings and slink out, properly shamed.
Char, perched on a barstool, sips her cosmopolitan and peers at her date, the widower. He still wears his ring. They decide to go for a real meal "time." He takes out his wallet to pay for the drinks, and there it is: a wallet photo of the Late Wife. Char peers at it intently, asks for a closer look, and blurts out innocently, "She's sooo pretty!" God, Char is simple. She apologizes for being "thoughtless," and he says sadly, "Let's just go."
They walk down the street. Char remarks that it's a beautiful evening. The guy sobs softly. God, I think I'd laugh. Well, I just did. Could you imagine? You have a nice enough date, and then, out of the bleachers near the hot dog guy hanging around by left field, there's "boo hoo hoo"? Comedy. The guy says it's hard, talking about her, and oh god! He weeps openly, his body racked with sobs. Char hands him a tissue, touched at his open display of emotion. If there ever were a red flag, hon, this is it. Bulls everywhere are snorting and pawing the ground uncontrollably. NASCAR drivers are putting on the brakes. You get me? The guy pulls himself together, says he feels embarrassed, and that he's "feeling so much right now." She tells him to take as much time as he needs, and hugs him. They kiss. Gently at first, then with more urgency.
Guess how much time The Widower needed? "About forty-five minutes." He and Char have lots of sex (two bouts) on their first date, all "under the watchful eyes of a dead woman." As The Widower shudders in orgasm, Char smiles, satisfied and triumphant. What a sucker.
Char, Carrie, and Mir walk slowly around the park. Mir says flatly, "One word. Rebound." Char says it isn't a rebound when the other person's dead. Um, yeah, it is. And the sex is great! Char says it's as if the late wife "is looking over us, sending us her blessing." Carrie says wistfully, "Ah, a threesome in absentia." Char marvels over the fact that her hat blew off and went right to the headstone, "like she was sending me a message." Mir says, "Yeah, like, 'don't fuck my husband, you hat-loving bitch.'" Oh, second season. You are making my day. Char says there's a memorial service at the cemetery week, and she's been invited! Ooh, goody goody gumdrops! Proof that the guy is moving on, and moving on with Char in tow. Mir asks if this means Char "fucked him back to life." She says, "In a way!" Carrie says, "God, you're good."
Saturday night. Carrie laboriously prepares for her date with Big, which means lots of running in and out of the bathroom and peering into the mirror. She feels "confused. Can a relationship bring you back to life?"
Dinner. They're canoodling as she peppers him with questions about death. She believes in reincarnation. When she comes back, she's going to be "someone who knows better." Big believes in heaven, which to him is "a big bed, where they say, c'mon in." Oh, that is so cheesy. JUST DO IT, already.
They make out in the doorway of his apartment. Bamp chicka bamp bamp! Except Carrie says that "it's weird and wrong." She says she has to go, and does. She stomps the streets, wondering if getting back together with Big could even work. Could she "get out a second time?" What a fucking tease. She realizes this after dinner and smoochies? Good gawd.
Samantha can't get a table, or into a nightclub, or even into Javier's latest posthumous fashion show. She's on some kind of VIP-list blacklist. Her name is mud. Or, as Carrie VOs, she's "deader than Javier." Sigh.
Miranda emerges from her new apartment just in time to meet her new neighbor, a kindly older woman wearing the only piece of jewelry that automatically ages you unless worn ironically: pearls. The woman dances over, happy to see "a young person" is moving in, since she'll "bring some life to the place." To ram the point home even harder, a very old man clambers down the stairwell, holding some boxes precariously. Yeah. Got it. The neighbor woman tells the ever-so-charming story of how the tenant -- another woman who lived alone -- had DIED in the apartment Miranda now owns, and "it was a week before anyone realized she passed. Rumor has it the cat ate half her face." Mir looks shocked.
Most excellent cut to Miranda pouring half a bag of Whiskas into her cat's dish and all over the floor. Oh, that's good. She jumps onto the counter and eats some Chinese takeout. When she chokes on a morsel of food, she runs frantically around her apartment, which is filled with boxes, unsure of what to do. Finally, she flings herself onto the corner of a nearby box, giving herself a solo Heimlich maneuver. Clever girl. Panting frantically, she picks up the phone and dials.
Carrie poses in the doorway of her apartment and looks at her ringing phone. She VOs that she's "in deep screen mode," unsure of what to say to Big. How about "maybe we shouldn't see each other anymore"? Oh, right, it's Carrie. Mir comes on the machine, all, oh my god, I almost died! Carrie picks up and asks if Mir wants her to come over. Mir, still panicky and near tears, says, "I'm gonna die alone! No, I'm all right! I'll call you tomorrow!" When Mir hangs up, she looks, panic-stricken, at her cat. The cat laughs.
Samantha, tired of being "a social pariah," has a meeting with Shippy Shipman, "queen of ladies who lunch." She's a monster prep, with big ex-field-hockey-player legs and a horsy, unfortunate face. Pearls, too, of course. Shippy is all, "Samantha Jones? The name is familiar." Yeah, I bet. Shippy remembers Sam as "the whore who once groped [her] husband at a Whitney benefit." Damn. Sam asks for her help in spite of this. Shippy says that Sam "has made [her] bed, and needs to lie in it. And [Sam's] good at that, [isn't she]? Saman-tha?" The meanness of the exceedingly well-mannered is very harsh. Sam has a little monologue here, which is great: "What do you want me to say. That I'm a whore? That I've slept with all the men in Manhattan and some in Brooklyn? Well, I have. I'm a whore. Does that help? Is that what you want? Will you help me?" Bitchy Bitchman says she doesn't think so. Sam gets up to leave, saying that she "only groped his flat, preppy ass because [she] was drunk!" Way to exit, honey.
Mir strolls the streets of her new neighborhood, taking it all in. Then she gets a little woozy. The buildings lean crazily. She almost walks in front of a cab. She hails the one and asks to go to the hospital.
The hospital deems it a panic attack. Carrie is there, telling Mir to breathe and asking what went wrong. Mir says, "Take a good look at my face. At my funeral there'll only be half of it left. At my funeral, Charlotte will be picking up men at the gravestone over. I'm all alone, Carrie!" Oh, my goodness. Someone's got a case of the freakies! Carrie consoles her, saying she won't end up alone. No. She'll end up a mother! I know this because this is season two, see. And the current season...oh, you're with me. Okay.
Char carefully steps up to The Widower's late wife's grave, in a white dress and holding some lilies. He's all, "Lilies! Those were her favorite!" Sick. Char hears a door slam, and sees another -- no, two. No, make it three attractive women emerging from cars, holding bouquets. Widower Guy smiles radiantly at them all, as they walk stately toward them. Char is all, "Please tell me those are your sisters." Widower murmurs that he "doesn't have any sisters." Char wallops him with the flowers, making those little "oh! oh!" noises, dashes into her waiting black car, and takes off. Aww, I thought she was supposed to turn into a bitch! What a letdown.
Sam, having "hit rock bottom," can only find work constructing the Javier House (of Pancakes). She totes a wheelbarrow and looks dejected and dusty. Then, from out of the sunlight, she meets "Leonardo DiCaprio ex machina." It's not really him, just a highly backlit handsome actor. He extends a hand to her, and lifts her out of social purgatory. Aww. A rebirth.
Mir's mortgage company has fucked up. They somehow listed her as being "separated." So now she has to write a "rather humiliating letter" explaining her single and never-married status. She begins to have another panic attack as she types "s-i-n-g-l-e," then takes a breath and faces it. Good for her. She places a framed photo of her and her friends on her new mantle and smiles happily. A pan to the cat's bowl reveals that it is still overfilled.
Big knocks on Carrie's door. She opens it; he says, "Good, you're alive," and turns to leave. She asks him to wait, and kisses him. Then she takes him "to the most non-sexual place [she] can think of." A bowling alley. Where they drink two pitchers of cheap beer. Which is so not non-sexual.
Big says that his "idea of hell is wearing rented two-tone shoes." He bowls a strike and beats Carrie. She asks for two out of three. "Oh, you want to play a second game, huh. Are you sure you're ready to get killed all over again?" Oh, boy. They kiss and snuggle some more right there in the alley, Carrie VO-ing that she "isn't sure of what [they're] talking about anymore," and FINALLY, we see them in bed together, going at it.