CIM and Carrie are in bed having sex while she keeps her bra on, and she tells us that once they got back together, “it seemed like nothing had happened to break us apart.” Until the phone rings and the machine picks it up, and Big leaves a smarmy message telling Carrie that he's back in town and to give him a call. Carrie doesn’t know what to say, and CIM just keeps going at it like he didn’t care about the call.
Carrie and the girls are having breakfast, and she tells them about the Big call. They ask her what happened after Big left the message, and she tells them they “kept making love,” which impresses the girls, and Samantha tells her, “Honey, he’s a keeper!” Because a relationship is all about keeping a dick hard. Charlotte asks if they talked about it after they finished up, but Carrie tells her they just went to sleep, and in the morning she found CIM sleeping on the other side of the bed, which upsets her because they usually sleep snuggled up together and she gets “in his little nook.” Now she's worried that CIM will think that every time the phone rings, it's Big looking to “start affair number two,” and she comes to the conclusion that they can’t start fresh and she has to talk to CIM about Big. Samantha tells her, “No one wants to hear about their lovers' past lovers. What happened was in the past. Leave it there.” Except for when their lover’s past lover was also a current lover at the same time. Their breakfasts are served, and Charlotte changes the subject. She tells them that she's going to quit working, which stuns the girls. Charlotte defensively announces that she has been driving herself crazy decorating the apartment and trying to get pregnant, and she wonders what the gallery has done for her lately, and Trey suggested she quit. Miranda gets all annoyed that Trey wanted Charlotte to quit, and Carrie reminds Charlotte that she loves her job. Charlotte agrees, but feels there is so much more she can do with her life, like be a mother, take cooking classes, volunteer at Trey’s hospital raising money for the pediatric AIDS wing, and glaze bowls at the Color Me Mine pottery place. Carrie thinks the cooking classes and AIDS fundraising are good, but tells Charlotte that if she saw her at Color Me Mine glazing a bowl, she would ignore her. Samantha and Miranda just look down at their food and smirk. Charlotte then tells them again that she is quitting, but not very convincingly.
Carrie is sitting on her bed with her laptop and wondering if there is some sort of surgical procedure to take away all the bad memories and keep the good memories, and she blathers on about people forgiving and forgetting and finally asks her laptop, “Can you really ever forgive if you can’t forget?” When your past keeps leaving messages on your answering machine, I think it would be a little hard to forget it.
Carrie tells us that there are some things Samantha finds unforgivable, and stealing a cab is one of them. We see Samantha in a big pink pantsuit hailing a cab, and it stops, but it doesn’t stop anywhere near her, and as she is trekking down the street to get to the cab, some guy runs over and jumps into the car. She yells to the guy that that was her cab, and he just yells “sorry!” as the car drives away. He doesn’t get very far down the street because of a red light, so Samantha pops a Mentos, the Freshmaker, and decides to run over to the cab and jump in, reclaiming the cab that really didn’t look like hers to begin with. She gives the driver her address and tells the guy, “I hope you enjoy the ride!”
And boy, does he! They end up on a bed somewhere, with Samantha still wearing her bra and riding him like a mechanical bull. Are the girls having a boob strike or something? What is the deal with them having sex while wearing their bras?
Carrie rolls over in bed to find that CIM is way over on the edge of the bed farthest away from her, and she tells us she was even farther from the nook. She moves over to him and rolls him onto his back so she can burrow her way into his nook, and he looks at the clock and tells her he has to get up to go work out. She tells him he doesn’t have to get up yet, and he asks her, “Do you want me to get all soft again?” She tells him she liked him soft, and he says, “Well, Nicole didn’t.” Okay, not really. As he starts to get out of bed, she asks for a kiss, but he suggests that she brush her teeth and then leaves; Carrie wonders what the hell is happening. What is happening is that she's getting the royal diss, used by many an eighth-grader.
Carrie tells us, “Speaking of not forgetting…” Charlotte calls Miranda as Miranda is getting out of the shower, and tells her she thinks Miranda was being judgmental to her at the coffee shop. Miranda doesn’t know what to say, and it upsets Charlotte. As Charlotte weaves in and out between people painting her apartment, she starts babbling about the women’s movement and how quitting her job is her choice. Miranda adopts a very patronizing voice and tells Charlotte, “This isn’t about me. This is your stuff…maybe if you have a problem about quitting your job you should take it up with your husband.” Which makes Charlotte turn into a raving lunatic about Miranda being judgmental and how she is going to be a good mother and cure AIDS, to which Miranda tells her that she shouldn’t be too upset if she only ends up with a pretty ceramic mug with Trey’s name on it. She then tells Charlotte that she is going to hang up, and Charlotte tells her that she's starting to interview girls to take her job, and she needs Miranda to stand behind her choice. Miranda tells her to stand behind her own choice, and Charlotte starts yelling, “I choose my choice!” over and over as Miranda hangs up on her. When Miranda starts to dry her hair with a towel, she hurts her neck. Was karma hiding in the towel?
CIM finishes drying himself off and gets dressed in the bathroom. Okay, did he just take a shower so he could go to the gym and get all sweaty? Did he become so anal about his looks that he feels he needs to look his best to walk into a gym? Were the writers desperate to have a scene in the bathroom? Carrie knocks on the door and hands him a glass of orange juice while wearing a skirt and bra. She tries to be all sexy but he's ignoring her. She then tells him that she has a big meeting with her editor in an hour, so she needs two nicotine patches, and she asks him to put one on her. She says pointedly that she's doing better at quitting smoking this time, with “no cheating.” As she asks him, “Now I’m practically perfect, don’t you think?” he puts the patch on her back and then slaps her back real hard to make it stick. She is shocked and tells him that it hurt, and he tells her, “I was just making sure it was on good and tight.” If I were him, I would have slapped her upside the head for even thinking she was anywhere near perfect.
In the kitchen, Carrie asks CIM if he's mad at her, and he asks her why he would be mad at her. She starts to bring up the other night, and he gets all annoyed that she let the milk in her refrigerator go bad. Then he complains that he has to strip furniture over the weekend and deal with toxic chemicals and he has no one to take care of Pete. Carrie tells him she will take care of Pete, but he doesn’t want to make her do something she doesn’t want to do. She tells him if he loves Pete, she loves Pete, and that's just the kind of girlfriend she is. Meaning that she morphs herself into a kind of person she would never be just so she has someone to sleep with at night. She then offers to take CIM out to dinner that night, and he tells her he has plans to hang out with the guys at Scout. She asks if girlfriends are allowed, and he acts all aloof and tells her to do whatever she wants. The phone rings; it's Miranda, telling Carrie that her neck is out, and her whole body is fucked up from training for the marathon, and she wants Carrie to come over right now and help. Before Carrie can tell her she has a meeting with her editor, Miranda thanks her and hangs up. Carrie tells CIM she doesn’t know what to do, because it may be too late to cancel the meeting with her editor, and CIM offers to go over to Miranda’s to help. Carrie tells him he is the “best boyfriend.” Could she keep telling CIM she is his girlfriend and he is her boyfriend some more? Because I don’t think he's convinced yet.
Miranda is lying naked facedown on a mat in her bathroom when CIM arrives. She tries to get up and cover herself, but it hurts too much to move, and CIM walks in on her in the nude. He leaves quickly, and Miranda tries again to get up but she's in too much pain, so he comes back in and puts a towel around her back and picks her up as she grabs onto the bathmat to cover the front of her. He tells her she is “snug as a bug in a rug.” Poor Cynthia Nixon. The writers have turned her into the court jester with all the mortifying storylines. I hope she gets a big bonus at the end of this season for having to be such an embarrassment on screen.
Carrie tells us about all the “gallerinas” waiting to take Charlotte’s job, as we see a group of about twenty young women sitting in the gallery waiting to be interviewed by Charlotte. Who has people sitting around to interview for a gallery job like they're waiting for an acting audition? That doesn’t seem very professional. Charlotte then asks a young lady with her hair parted down the middle and flipped at the end like That Girl to come to her office as she reads her résumé. She notices that That Girl has a degree in art history with a minor in finance, just like Charlotte, and that her career objective is to own her own gallery -- just like Charlotte! What a small world! Who would have thought that someone applying for a job in a gallery would have the same credentials and objectives as Charlotte? Charlotte, ever the consummate professional, tells That Girl that she has the job before she finishes interviewing everyone else. She asks That Girl if she has any questions, and That Girl asks Charlotte why she's giving up such a great job. Charlotte tells her that she just got married and wants to start a family, and when That Girl doesn’t look impressed, Charlotte adds that she's also on the board of the Lenox Hill Pediatric AIDS Foundation. Carrie tells us that Charlotte knew she was lying, but she didn’t want to tell That Girl that the objective on her new résumé would say, “Wife, mother, and part-time bowl glazer.” You know, if I married into such a fucked-up family, I'd quit my job to be a full-time mother too, just to make sure that Bunny didn’t have any influence on how the baby would be raised and cared for. Being a full-time mother is a hard job, and it's a little sad that no one is being supportive of Charlotte; I think the only reason she isn’t acting so sure about her decision is because she's afraid of the backlash she's getting from her friends and colleagues. ["I think it's because she's only doing it because she 'can' or thinks she 'should,' and she's genuinely not sure about it. Given the disaster that her marriage turned into, I can't say I blame her friends for being skeptical." -- Sars]
Carrie decides to straighten her hair, put on a driving hat, expose her abs, and go to the bar to thank CIM for helping Miranda and tell him what a great boyfriend he is. Not that she would want to stop over at Miranda’s to see how she is; since she couldn’t get over there when Miranda first needed her, it is much more important to go find her boyfriend and give him a big smooch and fawn all over him. Shayna the bartender interrupts them, and CIM explains that Shayna is teaching him how to play jacks with peanuts. He introduces Carrie to Shayna, and Carrie starts to get jealous that CIM has been hanging out with her and not with his guy friends like he said. She tells Shayna that CIM helped Miranda and took her to the chiropractor. Why he didn’t take her to a real doctor is a mystery, since chiropractors usually just help with the spine and not with muscles, which Miranda had the problem with. And I use the term “real doctor” as the opposite of chiropractors because I have gone to chiropractors in the past, and all they have done is make my neck and upper back worse, and I actually have more problems now than when I first went to a chiropractor. I think the only thing a chiropractor can do is drain your wallet. And don’t email me or post anything on the forums telling me about the benefits of chiropractic care; I don’t want to hear it. I’ve heard it all before, and I don’t believe it. And I want to know how CIM got Miranda dressed. I don’t think CIM took her to a chiropractor wearing a towel and bath mat.
Anyway, Carrie then asks CIM how Miranda's doing. Shouldn’t she have asked Miranda that herself when Miranda told her that CIM took her to the chiropractor? Oh, that’s right -- Carrie really doesn’t care about Miranda and felt it was more important to get that information from her boyfriend. CIM tells her that Miranda can’t work or run for a week and has to wear a foam neck brace. Then he starts playing jacks again. Carrie decides to leave, and asks Shayna to give them a minute. She asks CIM, “What’s going on?” He just shrugs at her. She then tells him that she doesn’t have to work tomorrow, and asks him to come over. She tells Shayna it was nice to meet her, then tells CIM she will see him later. He just goes back to the game with Shayna as Carrie walks away, pouting.
Carrie then tells us that CIM never came over that night. She's in bed with candles lit, and she just lies there and looks sad. Okay, from what Carrie said at the bar, it sounded like she wasn’t working the day and wanted him to come over then. She never invited him to her place that night. And the phrase “see you later” can mean “see you tomorrow” when she never mentioned a sleep-over. She tells us she was being punished for her “Big mistake” as she blows out the candles and goes to sleep.
The morning, Carrie arrives at Miranda’s door with bagels. Immediately Carrie starts complaining about CIM not coming over to her place last night, telling Miranda that she called him and he said he thought she meant for him to come over the day. Miranda blurts out, “You know what, this is bullshit.” Carrie thinks so too, but Miranda corrects her and tells her that she is bullshit for bringing up bagels as a decoy to talk about CIM, and points out that she didn’t even bring cream cheese. Carrie doesn’t even look surprised, and tells her that she got the “good bagels,” like that excuses everything else. Miranda tells her, “It’s bad enough you send your boyfriend to help me when I call you, but now, the bullshit bagels!” She adds that, if Carrie were hurt and needed her help, she wouldn’t send over her boyfriend, even though she doesn’t have a boyfriend at the time. Hey, Miranda, thanks for pointing out that you don’t have a boyfriend, because you haven’t griped about that yet this episode like you usually do every week. Carrie is all, “What’s the problem?” Gee, Carrie, maybe the problem is that you are a whiny little me-me-me-me twit that doesn’t appreciate the few friends you have. Carrie then matter-of-factly tells Miranda that CIM is better in a crisis, and that she herself can’t even remember to bring cream cheese. Miranda tells her that CIM saw her naked lying on the bathroom floor, and asks if he told Carrie that. Carrie tells her that CIM is a gentleman, and apologizes and tells her she will never send her boyfriend to do her job again, and then asks Miranda if she wants her bagel toasted. Miranda right then completely loses her spine and accepts Carrie’s apology. Carrie starts up again with the complaining while she goes to the toaster, and you can see that she is wearing a Gucci fanny-pack. People, she is wearing a fanny-pack! The only place where a fanny-pack is remotely acceptable is at an amusement park if you don’t want to lose your keys and money going upside down on a roller coaster. I would have told Carrie that not only are her bagels bullshit, but so is her choice of accessories. So Carrie thinks CIM is having an affair with Shayna, and Miranda tells her that just because she cheated on CIM doesn’t mean he is cheating on her. Carrie thinks it is just a matter of time, because, you know, it is for her. Miranda tells her CIM is a good guy, and Carrie thinks she is the “bad guy” and that she deserves to be treated poorly because of the way she treated CIM in the past. Personally, I think she should be treated poorly because of the fashion monstrosities she has sported in the past year, and because she's the worst friend a girl could ever have.
Samantha and the guy from the cab finish up another session, and Samantha calls him a “wild man.” The guy is all, “Speaking of wild, it’s getting a little too wild down there. Might be time for a wax.” He gives her a quick peck and leaves. Samantha just stands there, stunned.
Samantha is with Carrie, who is walking Pete. Carrie looks like a cross between a prostitute and Tiny Tim from A Christmas Carol, wearing striped knickers with a matching jacket, white stiletto heels, and a riding hat. God bless us, one and all! Samantha tells her that it is her week between waxes and she has “three errant hairs” and the guy thinks she is “George of the Jungle.” Okay, if you get a waxing, you need to have somewhat long hair to begin with, because the wax has to have something to hold on to so the hair can be ripped from the root. Because the hair is ripped from the root, it takes some time for it to grow back, and it grows back finer. Therefore, a woman like Samantha who has regular waxings would first of all not need a waxing every other week, and second of all, would not have hair growing wild in her bikini area. I know women that have had leg waxing done so many times that their hair stopped growing in, or it's so fine and takes so long to grow that it takes months for it to be long enough to wax again. I think Samantha would be in the same boat. This part of the show must have been written by someone who has never had wax come near his or her body hair.
Anyway, Samantha loudly complains that she needs a “weed-whacker just to find his dick,” and that men have it so easy compared to women when it comes to body hair. Carrie notices that Pete has to go to the bathroom, and we see Pete squatting and walking at the same time. I wonder how the trainers got him to do that. I can make my dogs pee and poop on command -- I wonder if I can get them to squat and walk on command too, you know, as a party trick. Samantha asks Carrie why she is taking care of Pete, and Carrie tells her that she is proving to CIM that she “is trustworthy and loving.” Samantha asks, “So watching his dog take a dump is going to make the memory of Big fade away?” Carrie thinks it may, and Samantha tells Carrie that she needs to get past Big and Shayna and realize that things will probably never be the same between her and CIM. Carrie doesn’t want Samantha to say that even though it may be true. Samantha notices that something isn’t right with Pete, and Carrie realizes that Pete has the runs. Samantha tells Carrie that hanging out with dogs taking runny shits isn’t “her scene,” and leaves. Good for Samantha! Carrie deserves to deal with stanky shit. Pete tries to run off, and Carrie doesn’t know what to do, and a lady walking by tells Carrie to pick up after her dog. Carrie tells her it isn’t her dog, like that's an excuse to leave a pile of runny shit on the sidewalk for everyone to smell and walk in. You know who would be perfect for Carrie? George Costanza. The two of them can have no redeeming qualities whatsoever and bask in their self-centeredness together. Carrie then wonders how much shit she is willing to put up with to deal with her mistake, as she follows Pete and holds an open magazine under his butt.
Because letting a dog shit all over a number of city blocks isn’t enough, Carrie decides that it's time to take him home, and she puts his shitty ass in a cab to bring him back to CIM’s place. When she gets out of the car, she sees CIM standing outside with Shayna, laughing and having fun. They are probably laughing about the Ex-Lax they gave Pete before handing him over to Carrie. Carrie walks over and gives CIM Pete’s leash, tells him that the dog is sick and she's leaving, and stops a cab. CIM runs over to her and asks her what she's doing. Carrie accuses him of an improper relationship with Shayna while she was taking care of his sick dog. CIM tells her they are just friends, and Carrie tells him, “Well, why don’t you just fuck her so we can both be bad.” Oh, that Carrie. Spinning everything to make her look like the innocent. CIM is the bad person because he didn’t cheat but is friends with pretty women, and it upsets Carrie because she did cheat and thinks everyone is as weak as she is, so she has to constantly worry about CIM and his good-looking female friends.
Later, CIM comes to her door. He tells her that nothing happened, even though he thought about it. She invites him in, and he almost starts crying when he tells her he's too upset to come inside. He then tells her he hates it when Big calls her, and she tells him that there is nothing going on between them, and nothing will ever happen again; she would never hurt him again. CIM says he wants her never to see Big again. Carrie responds that Big is in her life and she can’t do that, and that he can’t keep punishing her; she made a mistake and she's sorry. She then tells him, “You have to forgive me!” seven times in a row, and I guess seven is the lucky number, because CIM hugs her, and I guess that means he forgives her.
Samantha goes off on Taxi Guy about all his body hair, and he apologizes and asks if there is anything he can do to make her forgive him. Carrie tells us, “Samantha forgave, and Brad got a lesson he never forgot.” We cut to Samantha using what looks like a beard trimmer to trim his wild crotch hairs. He is amused and thinks his dick looks bigger without all the hair around it. It’s a happy ending for all! ["But, dude -- don't try that at home. Those things jam. Or so I've heard." -- Sars]
Carrie tells us that Charlotte’s last day of work came, as we see her and That Girl deciding where new paintings should be placed. That Girl disagrees about what wall a certain painting should go, and Charlotte spits out, “You’re twenty-two, what do you know about life?!” That Girl gives her a taken-aback look. Charlotte tells her she meant “art,” and apologizes and tells her she's a little freaked out about not working anymore. That Girl understands and tells her that her own mother worked full-time, and it would have been nice if her mother had been around more. That makes Charlotte feel much better, and she decides to leave early. As Charlotte leaves the gallery, she sees a woman holding a child, and she smiles, and Carrie tells us that Charlotte’s new life objectives were to “be a good mother, cure AIDS, and prove Miranda wrong.” Cure AIDS? Just because she made the decision to find a man and get married last year and actually did it doesn’t mean she can cure diseases that have been studied and researched for the past twenty years. And raising money for a hospital isn’t exactly curing anything. Yeah, what she will be doing is good, but don’t call it "curing AIDS." It's an insult to the people who actually have dedicated their lives to finding the cure.
Miranda is on the phone with someone at her office, telling him/her that she isn’t a hundred percent and is still wearing the neck brace, even though she isn’t. As Miranda settles down onto her couch to watch a cooking show, Carrie tells us that “Miranda learned the joys of cooking and not working. Of course she would have to go back eventually, just to prove Charlotte wrong.” Oh, whatever! Like taking sick leave is anything like quitting a job! Bah!
Carrie voice-overs that she and CIM weren’t back to the way they were, but they were in a new honest place, and she made it “back into the nook,” and we see them in bed as CIM pulls her over to him, and she snuggles into him and looks smug. Carrie has become the Donna Martin of this show. She always gets the guy and always ends up smelling like roses, even though there's nothing to like about her. thing you know, she’ll end up with her own line of clothing. Thank god the episode is over. I don’t think I could have taken another minute of Carrie.
week, Samantha can’t get the big O. Wacky hijinks ensue.