So Carrie tells us that NYC can be terrifying, but nothing is as frightening as bumping into an ex “before you’ve had your morning coffee.” So, what if you don’t drink coffee? Is it not as scary to bump into an ex then? Is it merely disturbing? Miranda is walking out of a coffee shop when good ol' Steve yells her name. Miranda almost does a spit-take of her coffee, but acts happy to see him. He asks her how she's doing, and she says her life is boring and asks him what's up with him. He guesses she didn’t get the invitation, and Miranda starts to turn pale and asks what the invitation is for. When he tells her he's opening up his own bar, the color returns to Miranda’s face and she gets all excited for him. He tells her the opening is Saturday, and as he's telling her he would love to have her come to the opening, a cute blonde walks out of the coffee shop and joins him. Miranda starts acting all fake happy then as Steve reminds Miranda that she met Jessica before (in last season’s finale). Steve then reminds Miranda that the opening is Saturday, and Jessica tells Miranda that “we’d love to see you there.”
Miranda is at her office, and she calls Carrie to bitch about Jessica using the term “we” like it is some taboo word, like how Jewish people can only say the word “Yahweh” one day a year. And there is some sort of “art” on the back wall of Miranda’s office that looks exactly like something I saw this week while watching Trading Spaces, where one of the interior decorator guys used pipes and thin pieces of wood and weaved the wood around the pipes so it sort of looked like a big basket pattern on the wall. I wonder if Miranda’s office set was done in forty-eight hours, using only $1000, and done by two set designers from another television show, while the Sex and the City set designers went to the other show to decorate a set there. Carrie is still half asleep and she tries to wake up as Miranda complains that opening a bar was her idea but she didn’t get any credit, and she's annoyed that Steve wasn’t as ambitious when he was with her. Carrie suggests that Miranda was his inspiration, and that he named the bar after her. Miranda tells her he named the bar Scout, after his dog. Which I think is a good thing to do, because you can have a falling-out with a significant other, but your dog is your buddy all its life. Miranda doesn’t want to go to the opening, but Carrie tells her she has to now that she and Steve are friends. Miranda asks Carrie to go with her, and Carrie says, “Well, of course. Absolutely. That’s what friends are for.”
The girls are having breakfast, and Carrie tells them that she refuses to go to the opening. Carrie looks like she partied hard the night before and didn’t have time in the morning to wash the smeared eye make-up from her face or do anything with her messed-up hair besides pull it back into a ponytail. She looks pretty ragged as she wigs out about the opening and shows the girls the invitation she got, which says that Steve is partners with CIM! Charlotte and Samantha are shocked. Miranda tells them that she called Steve that morning and Jessica answered the phone, and Jessica told her that CIM was a silent partner. Carrie doesn’t want to go because it will be a “parade of failed relationships,” and wonders if her junior prom date will be working there too. Charlotte tells Carrie that CIM was trying to reach out to her and wants to be friends again by inviting her to the opening, but Carrie doesn’t want to be friends and refuses to go to the party. Samantha volunteers to go with Miranda, and Miranda is very happy to be going to the opening with Samantha and her lesbian lover. Samantha suggests they leave “the old ball and chain” at home that night, because she is tired of staying at home all the time, taking baths together, and yakking about feelings. She tells the girls that she doesn’t know how they do it and that she finds it exhausting, and Miranda is all, “I know, don’t you just hate that!” Oh how wacky -- Samantha thinks like a man regarding relationships! That’s something we’ve never seen before. Oh, wait, we have. At least the writers are consistent here.
Samantha and Sonia are walking into a chic restaurant as Carrie tells us, “That night, Samantha was determined to get [Sonia] out of the tub, and out on the town.” Sonia is complaining about being in such a big crowd with all the cigarette smoke and how she'd rather be at home in the bath, and Samantha tells her that it will be more fun getting clean if they go out and get dirty sometimes. They sit at the bar, and the bartender comes over and sweet-talks Samantha for a bit and makes her and Sonia free drinks. Another guy comes over to Samantha and asks her what she's doing on Saturday. Sonia tells him they have plans, and he then asks Samantha for a "late run” and slinks off. Sonia asks what a “late run” is, and Samantha tells her it “doesn’t translate.” It’s a hetero thing -- you wouldn’t understand, Sonia. Samantha then asks what they have plans for on Saturday, because she already promised her girlfriends she would go out with them. Sonia asks if she can go too, and Samantha tells her she didn’t think Sonia wanted to go since she likes to stay home. Before Samantha can dig a hole for herself any deeper, the bartender comes with the drinks and tells Samantha he gets off work at four. Sonia gives Samantha the stink-eye, and Samantha looks sheepish and drinks her drink.
Carrie tells us that, now that Trey “had no problem getting hard in the bedroom, [Charlotte] saw no reason why their bed should be.” Charlotte is waiting for Trey at a furniture store, and Bunny arrives. She tells Charlotte that when Trey told her that they were getting a new bed, she insisted on helping, and that she picked out the bed they have now. Charlotte tells her that she and Trey want a bigger bed that isn’t as hard, and Bunny tells her, “I’m a firm believer in firm mattresses.” Which totally reminds me of the time I was in high school and my parents went to buy themselves a new mattress for their bed and ended up also buying a new mattress for my bed, and my father is also a firm believer in firm mattresses, but when he says “firm,” he really means “a rock slate with mattress material sewn around it.” And the mattress was so hard that for the first week I had it, I slept on the floor, because my carpeting was softer than my mattress. I finally got that foam egg-crate stuff and put that on top of the mattress so it was tolerable, but I was never able to sleep very well on it. So anyway, Bunny sees the “perfect dust ruffle” and tells Charlotte how important the right dust ruffle is, and Charlotte explains to her how some of the new beds don’t need dust ruffles, and shows her a more modern-looking bed. Bunny tells her, “You cannot not have a dust ruffle. It is unsightly!” and then sits on a bed that she likes. Trey appears, and Bunny tells him to lie down to her on the firm bed she picked out. He lies down to her and asks Charlotte to join them; Charlotte resists, but then lies down so that Trey is in the middle between her and Bunny. Trey tells them, “This is heaven.” And Charlotte gives him a look of disgust. She sits up, and when she tries to tell Trey that this whole situation is just wrong, he thinks she's talking about the firmness of the mattress. Trey tells her they'll go to look at softer mattresses, and Bunny reminds Trey to get a bed with a dust ruffle. Trey is all, “Whatever you say, Mother. You know best,” as he and Bunny are still lying in the bed together. Charlotte yet again has a look on her face like she can’t believe she got herself into this bizarre situation. How many red flags have to be flying in Charlotte’s face for her to realize that she needs to get. Out. Now!
Miranda is in bed with her cat, Fattie, when she is woken up by weird noises.
At dinner, Miranda tells the girls she thinks there's a ghost in her apartment, because she heard strange noises that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Carrie tells her that it's probably noise the upstairs neighbors are making. Miranda tells her that she went upstairs in the morning, and there's no one living up there. Charlotte tells her that her grandmother had a ghost, and she had to tell it to leave. Samantha tells them that you have to “confront the ghost, acknowledge its presence, then release it.” Miranda asks her how she knows that, and Samantha is all, “Everybody knows that!” I thought that too. I’ve known that for years, but then again, I love watching television shows about ghosts and the unexplainable. Miranda wonders why the ghost has just appeared now when she has lived there for two years, and Charlotte tells her that when she lived alone she felt scared often, but now that she's with Trey, she feels safe. Miranda asks if she has a ghost because she's single, and says she thinks it's discriminating.
Carrie talks to her computer about ghosts of relationships and how you are bound to run into people you have unresolved issues with again and again, blah blah blah, she couldn’t sell the chair CIM made even though she knew they were over and now he is back in her life, yadda yadda yadda, “When a relationship dies, do we really give up the ghost? Or are we forever haunted by the spirit of relationships past?” Someone confront the writers of this episode, acknowledge that we get it about the ghosts already, and release them so they can go write for some other anvil-dropping show.
Sonia and Samantha are having a tubby together, and Sonia asks why she wasn’t introduced to any of the men Samantha talked to at the restaurant. Samantha tells her they were just some guys she used to fuck. Sonia asks her why she didn’t introduce Sonia to them as her girlfriend, and Samantha is all, “Well, what am I supposed to say, ‘Hi, this is my lesbian lover, and P.S. I’m done with dick’?” Sonia asks her if she misses dick, and tells her they should talk about it. Samantha gets a look of fright on her face, because she realizes she will now have to talk about their relationship again. Sonia then asks her how many men she has been with. Samantha tries to go on the offensive and asks Sonia how many women she has been with. Sonia tells her she has been with twelve women, and asks if Samantha has been with more than twelve men. This week? Samantha looks very guilty and then tries to change the subject by asking why they need to talk. Sonia asks her why she always tries to change the subject, and Samantha tries to kiss her to make her forget about talking. Sonia tells her she can’t “just turn it on and off. After all, I’m not a man.” Samantha grumbles that she thinks she's clean, and gets out of the tub. When she is getting out, you can see a good side view of her, and to be honest, she looks a little too skinny. You can see all her ribs. I think she would look a lot better with five to ten more pounds on her. I realize Kim Cattrall feels she needs to be very very skinny, what with working with size 0 SJP, but she's taken it a little too far.
Carrie tells us, “That night, Charlotte felt herself haunted by dust ruffles, ducks, and Bunny.” Charlotte walks into the bedroom, holding a mallard duck decoy and pointing to all the plaid, and asks Trey if Bunny decorated the whole apartment. Trey tells her that Bunny decorated each family member’s home. Charlotte says that with all the plaid and ducks around, they live in “the museum of natural ugliness,” and tells him that since it's their home, it should reflect their tastes. Trey admits that he has no taste. Knowing is half the battle, Trey! Charlotte suggests that their home should reflect her tastes as both of theirs, then. Trey is concerned, because Bunny spent a lot of time and money and she may not like it. Charlotte suggests that she talk to Bunny, but Trey insists on doing it himself and promises to talk to her the morning. At this point, Charlotte should have packed up her stuff and run away in the night. What a freak show the MacDougal family is!
The morning Bunny comes over with a dust ruffle, and finds Trey sick in bed with a sore throat. She tells Charlotte to call her home and have her servants bring over some broth and her overnight bag; since Charlotte will be so busy at the gallery that week, Bunny can stay in the guest bedroom and take care of Trey. She then notices one of the mallard decoys on the nightstand and tells Charlotte that the duck lives in the study. Run, Charlotte, run! Don’t look back!
Carrie is walking down the street, and she tells us that she didn’t want to make a scene at the opening, so she decided to visit the bar a few days before the opening, and give CIM a gift as a gesture that she appreciated the fact that he wanted to remain friends. In this voice-over SJP sounds like she's fighting a cold, or the urge to burst into tears. She walks into the bar with a potted plant and looks around at all the woodwork, and she tells us, “There was no sign of him, but he was everywhere.” Another ghost reference? I think the ghost is taking on the form of a large anvil. So Carrie walks around the bar a little bit, checking out the place, and Steve walks in, all happy to see Carrie. He asks if Miranda came also, but Carrie tells him she came alone because she won’t be able to make it to the party, but she wanted to thank CIM for inviting her, and she brought a mulberry bush since the bar is located on Mulberry Street. Steve tells her that CIM didn’t invite her -- he did, because he thought Miranda would feel more comfortable if Carrie came too. Carrie starts to feel stupid, and then CIM calls for Steve from a back room. Carrie shoves the mulberry bush into Steve’s hands and runs out the door.
Carrie tells us, “That night, I wasn’t the only one who was haunted.” Miranda is woken up again by the ghost and calls Carrie, who comes over with a bag of Oreos. Miranda apologizes for making her come over, but she wanted another witness to hear the ghost noises. Carrie, being the good friend she is and telling Miranda so, tells her it's fine.
Meanwhile, Bunny walks into Trey and Charlotte’s bedroom and starts to put Vick’s Vaporub on Trey’s chest. Charlotte wakes up and tells Bunny that she is Trey’s wife so she should do that, so she takes the Vick’s and starts rubbing it on Trey’s stomach. Bunny tells her she doesn’t know what she's doing, and Charlotte tells her she is being inappropriate, so Bunny turns her nose up at her and starts to leave. Charlotte stops her and tells her that Bunny living with them isn’t going to work, and that Charlotte is going to decorate the house as she sees fit, and announces that there can be only one lady of the house. Bunny tells her, “The decoys may come and go, but I’m going to be here forever.” All this time, Trey is sound asleep. I would like to know what sleeping meds he is taking, because all my husband has to do is turn over to make me wake up, and Trey’s got women rubbing greasy medication all over him and having a mini-catfight in the room and he doesn’t even move.
Samantha and Sonia are sleeping when a man wakes them up by knocking on the door; he's looking for Samantha. Random guy is there for some late-night sex, and Sonia comes to the door to join Samantha and tells the guy she's Samantha’s girlfriend. Random guy thinks it's sexy that Samantha has a girlfriend, and wants them to make him “a sandwich.” Samantha closes the door on him, but he keeps knocking. Sonia calls him a “motherfucker” and threatens to call the police. Carrie tells us, “And with that, [Sonia] released Samantha’s ghost and confronted Samantha.” What ghost did she release? Damn, the writers are really stretching this ghost theme thin. Give it up already! Sonia complains about men coming to Samantha's door in the middle of the night, serving her drinks, and leaving messages on the answering machine. Samantha tells her that she used to have sex with men, and used to enjoy it until she got into a relationship with Sonia. Sonia asks her, “You call this a relationship?” to which Samantha spits at her, “Well, it’s tedious and the sex is dwindling, so from what I’ve heard, yes!” Ouch! Sonia asks if there's something Samantha wants to say to her, and Samantha tells her she is sick of talking, because it has “replaced the fucking in our fucking relationship!” And then she tells Sonia, “I want passion, I want fireworks!” Sonia screams, “You want fireworks? I’ll show you fireworks!” and then starts to smash Samantha’s plates in the kitchen. Samantha starts to cry about her plates, and Sonia screams, “You don’t even cook!” She then takes smaller plates and asks Samantha, “Want a little firework? Bing! Another little one? Ba-bing!” as she smashes the smaller plates. Go Sonia! Kick Samantha’s poser-lesbian ass! Or dishes, whichever.
Miranda and Carrie are having milk and cookies and talking about Steve and CIM, and how the men have gone on with their lives without them and they still seem to be the same. Carrie thinks that what she did to CIM is going to haunt her for the rest of her life. Really? Haunt her? I had no idea that Carrie had feelings about CIM that she can’t escape. How clever of the writers to have her mention being haunted by an ex-boyfriend, while she's at her friend’s place that supposedly has a ghost. I think the ghost in Miranda’s apartment is of the horse that they beat dead in the first ten minutes of the episode about “ghosts” and relationships, and he is stomping with his hoof in Morse code, “We get it already!” Carrie then asks if Miranda still has feelings for Steve, and she tells Carrie she doesn’t and then asks if Carrie still has feelings for CIM. Carrie looks sad and tells her she doesn’t think so, and then goes for another cookie. The bag of Oreos is empty, so Miranda unscrews her Oreo and gives a half to Carrie. That, readers, is the sign of a true friend. I guess all the girl talk about ghosts scared away Miranda’s ghost, because they never heard any noises and there's no further mention of the ghost. Well, that ghost, at least.
Carrie tells us she left Miranda’s place early and went home, and the morning it felt like all her ghosts had disappeared and she saw the world “exactly as it was.” But she doesn’t tell us what she saw; instead, she just clears all the clutter from the chair CIM made, and she sits in it and looks sad again. Oh, quit pouting, you big baby. You made your bed, now you must lie in it. Or sit in the chair. Or whatever, Carrie. Get over it. ["And can I just register my official objection to this 'plot,' since this is the first time all season that we've heard anything about Carrie still pining for CIM? A little lead-up, maybe, 'writers.'" -- Sars]
Carrie then tells us that a few days later Trey felt better, as did Charlotte, since Bunny moved out of the guest bedroom and back into her own home. Charlotte and Trey are having some good-morning nookie in their new modern bed that has no dust ruffle when Bunny barges into their bedroom with some muffins and goes into shock when she sees Charlotte and Trey naked. She stammers a little, then leaves the basket of muffins on a table and leaves. Trey and Charlotte giggle and get back to the nookie, as Carrie tells us that “Charlotte didn’t know whether it was their making love, or making love in a bed without a dust ruffle that offended Bunny, but either way, their sex-orcism insured Bunny never haunted their home again. Unless expressly invited.” Bunny definitely looked appalled at the lack of dust ruffle. You know, that does make the bed. She might have been disturbed by the soft mattress also. Charlotte may have won that battle, but the war against her freak in-laws will last forever. I can’t wait to see what kind of wacky family member she has a problem with ! Oh, except for the part about not being able to wait.
Carrie then goes on about a “dearly departed spirit” reappearing, as Sonia comes back to Samantha’s apartment to apologize. She gives Samantha a gift, and Carrie tells us that Sonia made a last-ditch effort to give Samantha what she thought she needed. Apparently, Sonia thought Samantha needed a strap-on dildo. Carrie tells us that Samantha didn’t have the heart to tell Sonia that she didn’t think she could make a relationship work, so Samantha tells Sonia that they should give it a try. Uh…
Carrie then tells us that Miranda and Samantha talked her into going to the Scout opening. Samantha is walking like she's still wearing the strap-on, and as the girls are looking around for Steve, Samantha is taking baby-steps in each direction, not wanting to move the rest of her body. Carrie asks her if she is doing “the robot,” and Samantha tells them she threw her back out using the strap-on. Miranda wants to know how the strap-on works, but Carrie doesn’t want to hear about it. Miranda asks again, and Samantha tells her it doesn’t work, because she and Sonia broke up. Miranda asks if it was “the strap-on that broke the relationship’s back, or just yours?” Thank you! Can we keep on with the witty comments for Miranda, and get rid of her whining? Samantha tells them that Sonia broke up with her because she has intimacy issues, and the girls act shocked. Samantha said it was Sonia’s fault, because she told her that she didn’t do relationships and Sonia had to fall in love with her anyway. The girls totally agree with her to make her feel better. When Samantha puts her hand up to her neck you can see that she's wearing these big gold gloves, but they are so chunky that they look like welder’s gloves spray-painted gold or something. She looks odd in them, especially since she has chunky rings on over the gloves. Maybe it was the pain medication she's on that made her wear the fingered monstrosities, because she goes to get a drink to mix with her meds.
Carrie then tells us that Miranda was right about just "knowing" there's a ghost, because you can just feel it and have the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Carrie turns around, and there's a close-up on her face, and I guess the make-up artist was going for “smoky” eyes, but they just look like dark smudges. She looks really old. So she sees CIM, and I guess he read the recaps from last year and decided to do something about his look, because he has cut his hair very short, lost about forty pounds, and is wearing a fashionably new suit. He sees Carrie and sort of nods to her, but it's more like he just looked at the ground; then he goes on and starts talking to someone. Carrie turns back to the girls, and says, “That was it? That's all I got?” What she should have gotten was the finger. Miranda didn’t believe that was CIM, and Samantha blurts out, “Does he look better or have I been with a woman too long?” Ha! Carrie wonders why she came to the opening, and Miranda tries to make her feel better and offers to get her a drink. Steve comes over, so Carrie and Samantha make their way to the bar. Steve tells Miranda he's glad she came to the opening, and that he never would have done it without her since she always told him he should open his own bar, and he thanks her. Miranda tells him he did good, and Carrie tells us, “And just like that, Miranda gave up the ghost.” And I'm hoping the writers give up writing about ghosts!
Carrie then tells us that, an hour later, she decided to sneak out the side door for some cake and a cigarette. When she goes outside, she walks into a most contrived plot device, as CIM is also outside smoking a cigar. Carrie drops her cake fork, so the only thing she can say is “I can’t eat my cake.” CIM holds it for her, and she complains about having his fingers all over it. He takes a bite of it, and she complains about that, and he asks, “Now you want the cake?” She tells him, “I never not wanted the cake.” See what they did there? Like, the cake is really him, and he's asking if she wants him back, and whatever. So he tells her to take the cake, and she takes a huge bite out of it and gets frosting all over her face. So if the cake really means CIM, does that mean that Carrie is a big mess with him? Do I care? Carrie notices that he cut his hair and he notices she has frosting on her lip, and before they can really say anything else, Steve comes out and tells CIM it's time for their toast. CIM tells Carrie he's glad she came and it was good to see her, and he goes back inside. Carrie then tells us, “I had confronted my ghost. I had accepted and released him, but now, I was more haunted than ever. Because what I felt out there was no ghost. It was real.” Someone get an exorcist so we can all be released from the melodrama!