Splashy bus, cha cha cha!
Carrie stands atop a curved metal staircase and gazes onto a huge empty room. Violins swell. She VOs that there is a day that "even the most cynical New York woman dreams of her entire life." Down on the floor, Char's friend Anthony says he can make "everything white, white flowers, white candles, white tablecloths, white food, W-H-I-T-E white!" The day, Carrie VOs, is "a girl's book party." Sam smiles and tells Anthony that this is a "sexy party," and not to be afraid of color. Anthony says he isn't afraid of anything. "How about pink?" How about it? Carrie waves her hot-pink organizer, and Anthony dashes off yelling, "PIIINK!" Sam says she's going to finalize the guest list, and dashes off also. Carrie tilts her head at the giant poster of her that sails by (the one she posed for in last week's episode) and says, "When your career is going well, it's hard not to get a big head." Sure. Hasn't Carrie's head always been big?
Miranda slides a photo of Brady into her desk organizer, obscuring her card that reads "Partner," and answers the phone. It's Walker Lewis, that hot government guy she banged last season! She says she's glad she wasn't waiting for his call, and he says he's glad she remembers him. And that he remembers her -- naked. Mir perks up more than she has all season at the purr in his voice. She offers to take him as her plus-one to Carrie's book party, and hooray, Mir has a date!
Charlotte steps off the elevator in her building with a boyish-looking man, a Justin Someone The Third. He's walking her back home from "another lovely lunch," and as they kiss, a mean nosey neighbor opens her door and poops all over Char's good time. Char says, "Nice day," and Poopy Neighbor says, "It was." Char whispers to Justin that she's "one of the nicer ones."
Carrie VOs that she's in a new relationship herself -- with her publisher, Amy Sedaris (a.k.a. Courtney). Courtney is throwing a spaz because the buzz about Carrie's party is good. "People actually want to go to this book party!" A rarity, I guess. Except not. Who doesn't want to go to a party? Everyone loves parties. People rarely read. But they always go to parties. ["Please. The publishing world would go to the opening of an envelope -- free food and booze, don't you know." -- Sars] Courtney says that "all of Condé Nast is coming, even GQ, and that's actual straight men!" The better to speak lines to, my dear. See what I did there?
Just then, Ron Livingston pops his head into the office. Wow, looks great! Really scruffy and writer-y. I have a real spot in my heart for Office Space; it was so funny and true. Ron, you're all right by me. He apologizes for barging in, and says he just stopped by to use the Xerox machine. Courtney, who looks like she doesn't much care about Ron, asks if he's finished his second book. No, his "suicide note." Carrie laughs. Ron asks if she'd like a "save the date card." Carrie says, "Please." Courtney asks, annoyed, if they know each other. Carrie looks expectant as she shakes her curls "no." Carrie, meet Jack Berger; his novel was published last year. Carrie is all, "And your name is Berger?" Yeah, he never heard of you, either. Jack wrote a "hilarious comic novel that speaks to men the way [Carrie's] column speaks to women." Jack adds, "Except men don't buy hilarious comic novels, that's the flaw in the plan." Well, maybe not straight men. Somewhere in Paris, David Sedaris is laughing at this -- all the way to the bank. And the name of this book? "Half off, it's just...half off. Sometimes it's seventy-five cents in a box on Sixth Ave." Carrie laughs, "to the incense." I would have said, "On an old blanket." Courtney says that the two of them should talk, since Jack knows the deal -- "the parties, the signing, the reading, the tour." Carrie smiles beautifully. I love her rhinestone necklace.
Moments later, Jack and Carrie are sitting on a park bench. Oh man, I just thought of Jethro Tull. My bad. They eat McDonald's (note to MPK -- enough already). Carrie slurps on a shake, and Jack tosses fries to the pigeons. He says he's "hitting them" more than feeding them. He pretends to type (a gesture I and many of my writer friends make) and mock-narrates, "Did the man have a little repressed anger in him, the woman wondered? Or did he just hate pigeons?" Carrie says she's "tripping over the word 'repressed.'" Jack says he's "not really bitter, [he's] just trying it on for size." Okay, that's a non sequitur. His lines are to provide character insight. We get it: He's a clever, witty, maybe bitter writer. Check. Carrie says she thinks bitter "fits." He goes on to say that it's "a little tight in the crotch." Carrie blush-blanches, swivels her neck, and says she can't believe he said "crotch" to her. After all, they just met. He offers, "Long in the sleeve?" She admits that it's not as funny as "tight in the crotch." ["Then she admits that she shouldn't write a column about sex, because she's such a damn prude that the word 'crotch' gives her a wig. Shut up, Carrie. God." -- Sars] Jack teases her for having a strawberry shake, and asks if it would be weird if she came with to pick up his dry cleaning. She says it would be weird for him to send her for his dry cleaning. He stands up and offers her his hand, and she kvells over the gesture.
As they leave the park, he protects her from a speedy bicyclist, and picks up a playing card. He collects "found playing cards," see -- "hoping to get a full deck," ha ha -- and he didn't have a two of hearts! Okay, I'm going to barf from all the cuteness. I love sugar, but please. I'm going into a diabetic coma. Hooray for new crushes and all, but oy. Just when I'm about to die, Carrie asks Jack to be her plus-one for her book party. He can't, because his girlfriend's parents are coming in to town and they're staying with them. Oh. Oh.
Carrie describes the event ("like a bomb that kept going off," she says) to her girlfriends at lunch. "That guy's a jerk!" says Char. Carrie doesn't think so. She "sparked" with him. Aww. Sparky sparky! Then she says evilly that she wonders "how happy" Berger and his woman are. Ooh, nasty! But it happens; people meet people that are in relationships, and steal them away. Just saying! Sam offers a "mani-pedi-Botox" to cheer Carrie up. Mir mutters that Sam says it like "everybody does that." Sam says, "Everybody will." Dude, I don't know. I'm booked for my first facial this week, and I'm a little scared. But waxings and mani-pedis are par for the course now. I think I'd like to travel to the moon first -- everyone will get to do that in our lifetime, right? I'd take space travel before Botox, given a choice. Sam says the fab party is soon, and Carrie will meet someone there -- and Sam will even be Carrie's plus-one! Great. Carrie cries and moans some more about how Jack didn't mention having a g.f. Mir says she didn't mention having a baby to Walker. Char is shocked. Mir says that this is a guy she could be dating, and she didn't want to blow it. Char notes the similarities between Mir and Carrie's similar situations, and Carrie is all, "Thanks for bringing that up."
Carrie walks home, nonplused. Hee -- see what I did there, again? She says that everyone in NYC wants a great job, apartment, and significant other, and even when they have two out of three, the missing one is a lack they bemoan. Why is that, she wonders? It's because people love to complain. They love it! Back home, Carrie sits in her black bra and white puffy slip-top and types, "Why does 'plus one' plus no one feels like it adds up to zero?" What did I just say?
Sam sits in her doctor's office, ready to get her Botox. Um, no self-respecting actress would EVER get Botox, and I know KC is no exception. So, no Botox was harmed in the filming of this scene. A nurse leans in and says to Sam, "Some patients have said they found it difficult to register emotion on their faces after the procedure. So you may have to say things like, 'I am so angry right now.'" Heh. The doctor informs the nurse that Sam is "familiar with the procedure," and "oohs" at the new lines present in her face. Then he suggests "a freshening chemical peel," which can make the patient look "ten to twenty years younger." Sam says, "Oooh!"
Fifteen minutes later, Sam steps out onto the street and makes a little girl scream. Why? She had the peel, and looks like a burn victim. Her face looks like crispy bacon. Not. Pretty.
Carrie happily reads Hello! and waits for her solo entree. Ah, lunch alone. It can rule. Candy Bergen (remember, she was Carrie's editor atVogue, a.k.a. Enid?) walks in, also alone. Carrie hides behind her magazine for the moment, enjoying her single status. But after some very awkward hemming and hawing, she gives in, says hi, and invites her to sit down. Candy looks less than thrilled and says, "At least this way I can expense it." What a charming way to accept an invitation.
They eat their salads politely and silently. Carrie tries and tries to break the ice, but Candy isn't having it. Finally, after Carrie points out that she's killing herself with the small talk, Candy gives a little -- she doesn't live around here, but the man she's seeing does. Carrie gushes a bit about how "there's a MAAAN," and Candy really does have it all -- a great career and a relationship. Wow, that's awfully presumptuous. What if she's miserable? What if the guy's lame? Candy smiles tightly and says, "Yes, in magazine copy [she does] have it all -- on the east side." See, the man she's seeing has another woman on the west side. "The park provides a buffer." Oh, wow. That's revelatory. And a little grim, but hey, that's life, right? Candy says she can't have a full-time man, because she has a full-time job. "That's the key to having it all -- you have to stop expecting it to look like what you thought it was going to look like. It's true of the fall lines, and it's true of relationships." Carrie likes this analogy, and feel it "earns" Candy an invite to her book party. I'd think she'd invite Candy because she's her boss, too, not just because she's a great philosopher, but whatever -- that's Carrie.
Char takes off her bra to sleep with Justin -- for the very first time! Aww, first sex. In her very own apartment! In the morning the doorbell chimes, and she says it's the breakfast she ordered in from Mangia. Wow, more plugs? Way to sell out thickly, just like the challah French toast you can get from Mangia! Char pries herself away from the snuggly Justin just in time to see her front door open, aided by a key attached to a silver bunny key chain, in the hand of none other than Bunny, Char's former mother-in-law! Dun dun dun! Char asks, faintly outraged, what Bunny is doing in her apartment. Well, that's the thing: Even though Trey "gave" Char the apartment, it seems it wasn't his to give. That, and Bunny is a total shrew that hates Char. She's kept in touch with the co-op board, and she's heard about the kissing, and the overnight gentleman caller who's still in the apartment. Justin comes out of the bedroom just in time to hear Bunny's withering comment: "You're still married!" His face falls, and even though Char protests that she's in fact separated, he looks crestfallen and skeeved. Char grabs Bunny's arm firmly and tells her she has to go. "Don't you hustle me out, young lady! This is Chanel!" Really? A Chanel jacket with exposed seams and hidden buttons? How interesting. I'd ask to see the lining.
Carrie autographs a stack of her own books and answers the phone -- it's Char, eating a waffle alone and saying glumly, "Bunny's back." Carrie says, "Ooh," and clicks over to the other line to tell Stanford that he's on the list with a plus-one, since he wants to bring his sweet, sweet Marcus. Stanford is looking at the cutest sneakers --what are they, Keds? I can't tell. Carrie says she misses the days when she had Stanford as her plus-one, and he says she sounds "a little jelly." And I don't think you're ready for this jelly. Carrie whines that even Char has a gay plus-one, and Stanford leaps on it -- Char's "boy-bitch Anthony is coming?" Stanford sees and relishes the opportunity to rub his happiness in someone's face. Great. Carrie's other line rings again -- this time it's Sam. She wants to bail out of the event, as her face looks like Hamburger Helper. Carrie whines that she needs Sam to help her talk to the press, and to sort out all the invited guests, and besides, she promised to be Carrie's plus-one! Oh, Christ. Stop it with the plus-one-itis. Sam agrees to show up, stoically clips on her party earrings, smiles into the mirror, and cries out in pain. Aww, poor Sam.
We have party. It's fab, and packed. Pink lights, pretty people, and a white bar onto which many cosmos are being poured. We pan by Pat Fields smoking, and see an adorable tray of cupcakes decorated with little butter-cream shoes, probably from the Cupcake Café. Mmm, cupcakes. Carrie dazedly poses for photos (there's a throng of paparazzi -- as if). Courtney pops up and asks if she's seen Sam, because "Vanity Fair doesn't have a table! Not your problem -- ooh, cute guy!" Courtney is off like a prom dress. Then a sweet older man steps up, saying he's Harold Keenan from the New Yorker (what, was Rebecca Mead unavailable? She's my fave staff writer for the New Yorker, and she writes for Allure, too!), and congratulations to her. Sam glides up, her face hidden behind a massive black veil. She introduces herself, but Carrie stupidly tells her to remove the veil so that Howard Keener can see her face. She does, and Howard gasps, points, and walks away in the direction of his pointing, gnarled finger. Carrie freaks. Out. How could Sam do this to her! It's her party! Sam, Lord love her, begins to testify: She is "entitled to a chemical peel. Women shouldn't have to hide in the shadows after they've had cosmetic surgery, which society nearly demands of them." SING IT, sister! Or something. Carrie, center of the universe, says that "it's [her] party, and [Sam's] scaring people!" On cue, Stanford and Marcus walk up and gasp at Sam's face. Marcus, Mr. Blunt, says that when he got his nose done, he stayed in for a week. Thanks for that. Then Stanford sees Char and speeds off to gloat. Stanford pretends to barely remember Anthony, then introduces Marcus, his boyfriend. They're getting a house in the Hamptons, and Marcus has a large penis. Anthony runs the other way, saying something about shrimp and leaving Char to ask politely, "Where in the Hamptons?"
Mir and Walker make out. He suggests they go to her apartment. She says yes, but first she has to tell him something. "There's someone else," he says. Sort of. She had a baby, but she's "still allowed to have sex!" Walker says he's not good with kids -- hey, neither is Mir! But for now, it's just them, so "let's go screw our brains out." They do.
Kaboom, we have sex -- for the second time this episode! I love the episodes in which people get laid. Mir is appreciating Walker's efforts. Brady, of course, starts crying (Mir is hardly silent), and Mir starts hollering, "Mommy's coming! MOMMY'S COMING!" My b.f. cracks up and tells me that words like "daddy" and "mommy" are verboten in the bedroom forever. Even "who's your daddy" isn't allowed. Walker says he can't do this, and splits before Mir even gets her nut. Brady wails louder. Mir glumly goes into the bedroom to get him, and says, "So, here we are, huh?" But her eyes sparkle, and Carrie VOs that this is the night that Mir "gave in to her little party" and was finally "plus one." Oh, great, more sugar. Maybe I can make lemonade.
Okay, my b.f. asked me if Cynthia Nixon is really preggers. She is, I said. And so is SJP. "Is that why she's wearing that hideous thing?" I love my boyfriend. And, yes, that's why.
Carrie is chit-chatting with Isaac Mizrahi. How great! I'd love to do that. She asks if anyone reads books anymore. Isaac predicts books will come back. "You can quote me on that!" Will do. Candy congratulates Carrie on a perfect party. Ben, the b.f., takes one look at Candy and says, "She's had work done. Her turkey neck is gone. Remember on Murphy Brown when she was rocking all those scarves?" Then he asks me, "What, are you writing that?" Yes, dear. Carrie grabs the last cupcake off a tray and relishes the atmosphere of her party. Then she sees him. You know. Him. When Ben sees Ron Livingston, he says, "Fuckin' A" -- you know, the last line of Office Space?
Anyway, the girlfriendless Jack makes his way across the room and says hello to Carrie, and that she looks great, and that his book party could have fit in the coat check of her party. Hi, she knows, and she knew that without even looking. He looks into her eyes searchingly, and says it's "nice seeing" her. She says, "Me too," and walks away. Wow, strong girl! It's almost unrealistic to see someone like Carrie not going for someone who's unavailable -- it's against character, really. After all, Big was nothing if unavailable, and Aidan was so available it drove Carrie insane. But good for her for learning and not making the mistake of trying to hook an involved guy. Of course, now I'm rooting for them to hook up, so what good am I?
Carrie strolls over to Char, who asks if that was "the spark guy." Yup. Sam lifts her veil (I almost didn't see her there!) and says he obviously came because he felt something too. Yeah, he felt it on his leg. Carrie asks if Sam "could call [her] from a cab and tell" her that. Her face! Sam says she knows, the "caterer just shooed [her] from the buffet", and can she go home now? Carrie says she thought Sam would never ask. Oy, the mean-as-nice jabber isn't pleasing to me. Sam says she "wouldn't go out in public like this for anyone" but Carrie. How sweet! Carrie says she knows, and she "has to live with that." Well, this makes up for all the Ron Livingston sweetness that made me barf earlier. ["And, because it bears repeating: SHUT UP, CARRIE. Kee-rist." -- Sars]
Carrie and Char talk. Carrie wishes Jack had told her up front, or earlier, that he had a g.f. Carrie? You JUST MET HIM, and you hung out for like fifteen minutes -- it's not his fault. You're crushed and dejected, but your feelings are your own. He's not responsible for them. Char says that there are some things people don't say because they don't like the way they sound, like "I'm getting divorced." Carrie says she's lonely: "The loneliness is palpable." You can be alone in a crowd, even at your own party, but for the love of God, remember that feelings are temporary -- and if they aren't, there's pharmaceuticals. Just a tip from the girl that has to recap The Anna Nicole Show. ["Hey, you asked for that gig." -- Sars] Interrupting the boring, morose reverie is Candy. She rushes over and demands to know why Carrie invited HIM. You know, her him. The him that has another her. The him that lets Candy feel like she has it all. It's some guy named Cliff, a sports anchor, and his other she is on his arm. Candy enunciates, "I'm very angry!" before scuttling away, hiding behind waiters and short partygoers. Heh. Char asks who that was, and Carrie says wanly, "My role model."
Carrie hops into her car, alone, alone. She holds one white tulip. Her widely smiling chauffeur asks what the party was for. Carrie wrote a book. Just a collection of her...well, yeah, she wrote a book, all by herself. The chauffeur gushes, "That's amaaazing! Congratulaaaations!!" Now usually I never point out an actor's race (it doesn't matter), but this time, I have to, because it's freaking me out. The chauffeur is a black woman, and this character is a little Green Mile-esque. Like, Chris Rock did a bit about the Mystical Black Man in Hollywood movies (also called the Magical Black Man, or MBM for short), and this role really smacks of that. Why, PMK, why? Are there no white woman chauffeurs? Was Morgan Freeman not available? Carrie asks the driver to take her home, and, totally unrealistically, the MBW says no! They "have to celebrate this!" Um, you just met? Is this a move she tries with all her clients? "Ooh, J. Lo! You just got divorced! We have to go out and help you get your swing back! Come on, girl! I mean it! Breathe again!" Or, "Wow, Tom Brokaw! You can-NOT retire now! Absolutely not! We're going out for ice cream -- you'll feel better afterwards!"
Carrie and her driver go to a Gray's Papaya stand together -- not Nathan's, like I said in the recaplet (and thanks to all the sharp-eyed readers who wrote in). The driver gushes, "She wrote a book!" The hot dog guy is all, "Really, it's gonna be in book stores and everything?" No, it's going to be up your butt -- WHERE DO YOU THINK a book would be sold? Criminy. He comps them the hot dogs and says "nice to meet you!" Wow. Carrie VOs, "Who needs a Berger?" Oh, kill me. She strolls by a Coach display ad, sees a found playing card (jack of hearts, don't you know), gets into the limo, and rides away. What a weird chauffeur. Almost...magical.