Credits. Cha, cha-cha, cha-cha. Cha, cha-cha, cha-cha. Cha, cha-cha, cha-cha, cha-cha, whee, go xylophone! Splashy bus! Cha cha cha.
Carrie and Berger round the corner of Prince and Spring, arm in arm. She has a goofy clear umbrella and a silvery vintage-looking purse. The blue crochet dress is very '70s. The granny panties beneath them, very 50-year-old lady. Berger is resplendent in a brown tweedy blazer and worn blue t-shirt. He asks if he looks okay, as he "wants to make a good impression." She smiles at him, saying she's sure they'll love him. She VOs that for some couples, the important first step is "meeting the parents." For her, it's "meeting the Prada." She and Berger walk into the newer Prada store, which massive and impressive and yet comfortable and approachable all at once. I love Prada, and the Prada store. One of my fondest New York memories is shopping with Gustave at the other Prada store in SoHo (before the massive one opened) and watching him buy a pair of Prada Sport sandals. Yeah, I watched. And I got off on it, too. Now, in this economy, the full-price Prada splurge is just a memory for us both. But I've got four pairs of Prada shoes, Prada Sport pumps, and a pair of crazy Miu Miu sandals in my closet, just waiting for better times to come back around so they can have a new sister to play with. My Helmut Lang skirt still needs a brother.
Upon entering the store, Berger exclaims, "Holy shit!" Yeah, the Prada store can do that to you. The steps, the luggage, the wall of tiny lip balms and creams. God, do I love the tiny lip balms. They're so cute! Sorry, cherry ChapStick. You've been replaced. Berger addresses the mannequins as "ladies," then asks how often Carrie shops here. Before Carrie can answer, a salesman approaches and shouts her name and kisses her on both cheeks. Wow, faux-exuberance at Prada. How rare. She introduces Berger and he gets the full European greeting too, taking a kiss on each cheek with a little trepidation. Hey, it's his first time. As the salesman hollers, "Hey, it's Carrie," another saleswoman asks if Berger would like anything -- water, cappuccino, champagne? "Champagne! Yes!" Oh yes. Now pop a shot of Pimm's in that bubbly and I'd never leave.
Sam and her boy toy Jerry finish up another fuckfest. She smacks his ass and watches as he pulls up his jeans sans underpants. Then she whips out her book and asks if she can pencil him in for Friday. He can't; he's in a play. "But it's TGI-fuck-day!" Oy. Can I hazard a guess that this is HUMP-day? What's Tuesday? Too-glad-to-be-getting-laid-day? Jerry hands her a flyer. "Full Moon" is, in his opinion, "a kick-ass play." And it's in Brooklyn. Sam not only hates the theater, she "[doesn't] do boroughs!" He offers her a deal. She comes to his play, and after, he'll "make her come and come and come in the bedroom." I don't think Sam could turn that offer down, do you?
Back at the Prada store, Berger tosses back champagne. Carrie walks up in a cute black dress. Berger says he has two things to say. "One, you look damn fine. And two, I'm a little hammered!" Carrie laughs. Me, I'd be drinking too. A few drinks sure help loosen the purse strings. Not that spending was ever a problem for Carrie. The kissy-kissy salesman pops up with a shirt for Berger. Carrie says it's "fabulous," and though Berger admits he doesn't say "fabulous," if he did, he would say it about this very pretty red shirt. Then he looks at the price tag and hollers, "Whoa!" Kissy-Kissy says, "Bat you'll leeve in it forevah!" Berger says he'd have to. "Does it also come with a small studio apartment?" Kissy-Kissy entreats Carrie to "talk him into it," but since this is Berger's first trip to Superexpensiveretailland, adjacent to Ripoffville, three blocks over from Overpricedandnotworthitshire, she's going to "take it slow." Kissy takes the non-sale well, saying only "fine" and not pushing it. Then he asks if Carrie knows any fabulous single girls like herself he could take out. She squinches up her face, wiggles her mouth like Charlie Chaplin as the little tramp, then winks. So fucking precious.
Ding! Cut to lunch with the girlfriends. Char picks sadly at a burger with fries. Carrie tells her to cheer up, since she knows a man for her who works at Prada. Miranda and Samantha perk up. "Ooh!" God, I'd be excited too. Think of the discounts! The parties! The celebrity gossip! I wonder if they ever give damaged merch away. I'd walk around with a beat-up bag or scuffed shoe. Hell, people buy used makeup on eBay. I wonder just how good you have to be to work at Prada. I'm obsessing, I know, but it's just the coolest fashion house, and the vintage-yet-timeless appeal really speaks to me. Too bad I'm not a millionaire. Or even completely gainfully employed at present. Char's response to the idea of a date with Kissy-Kissy? "Is he Jewish?" Everyone at the table plotzes. Well, she's not intending to give up the new religion she converted to to win herself a husband now! That just wouldn't be right, she says! I wonder if there's a Judaic equivalent of getting an annulment. "Hello, Rabbi? I know I went through conversion and all, but you know what? My intentions were, uh, less than honorable? And, um, the guy? I converted for? He left me because I freaked out on him and let him know that all the time I was judging him for being bald and fat and hairy. So, uh, can I get out of this Jewish thing and go back to being a goyim? It really suits me." Char says she's "not a fair-weather Jew!" Sam says that "this Prada item may be off the rack" if she waits to long to get over Harry. Mir says that you can't hurry along the process of getting over someone. That has to happen at its own pace. Carrie looks at her, and Mir says, "I'm just sayin'!" Yeah, say it, chicken. That isn't even hindsight. It's chicken-sight. Char says she doesn't even know what she'd say to someone on a date. That she was married, then divorced, then stepped out with her divorce lawyer, then blew that. Carrie says, "Well, now you went and told the truth!" She suggests drinks Friday night. And she'll wear her new Prada! Sam and Mir clap and cheer, until Sam checks her book. "Shit motherfucker, fuck shit." Mir says, "There's a 'shit motherfucker, fuck shit' situation?" Yeah. Jerry's play. In Brooklyn. Char of course thinks it's "sweet," but Sam disagrees. "It's disgusting how far a woman will go for a good fuck." All the way to Brooklyn? Not that far. Really not that far.
Mir dejectedly watches Trading Spaces. Shout-out? No; it's actually Changing Rooms, the original BBC series. Then she hears Steve at the door and leaps to attention. She unmusses her hair and arranges herself ever so (not) casually to greet him. Hey! I love you! Now c'mere. Except not. He's brought her a cupcake from the playground, and she's clearly touched. He mentions that the never-ending parade of birthdays have given him a cupcake gut. She says he doesn't have a gut, and he lifts up his t-shirt to reveal near-perfect abs. Mir takes a good look, then dies a little inside. God, she wants him so badly, it hurts me to look at it. Just tell him! TELL HIM! Finally she invites him to watch the game there, unless he has other plans. "Nah, Debbie's got shit to do." So he stays. And crashes on her couch. Then Mir comes out and has another heartbreaking moment as she watches him sleep peacefully on the couch. He coughs, and she retreats into the shadows. Oh, Miranda. Stop pining and get in the game! You don't even know this Debbie person! Ooh, what if it's Debbie Harry? That would be cool.
Berger sits in a cafe, waiting, waiting. Carrie walks up (wearing a hiddy red bandanna dirndl thing) with a Prada bag, and hails him ("Hey hey hey! Yeeeeeee!"). Berger cracks that he thinks she has a "Prada abuse problem" (not a Pra-ddiction?), and then Carrie presents him with the "'I never say fabulous' fabulous shirt!" He accepts it somewhat reluctantly. She doesn't notice his understated reaction, since she's too busy being elated -- her book will be printed and sold in Paris! She shows him a check for $25,000 -- a very hefty advance "from France." She's "the literary Jerry Lewis!" So, she splurged and bought him a shirt. Wow -- what about a big fat check for Charlotte, since she helped save Carrie from near-homelessness? Oh, right. Ye old plotlines, we don't address ye.
Miranda and Carrie take a morning walk. Mir tells her that Steve slept over, on the couch. Carrie sing-songs, "Someone's gonna get huu-rrt!" Mir says she's "acting [her] ass off" not to give her feelings away, and Carrie reminds her that they don't give out awards for that. P.S.: Car, what's with the green football shirt that says "55"? A reference to your weight? I like the camo pants, but oy. Then Mir and Car bump into Courtney (brilliantly played by Amy Sedaris) coming out of a liquor store. Courtney greets Carrie with "the toast of Europe," then relays that she herself just got canned. Why? "Disappointing sales in my sector, quote." Carrie sighs her apologies. Courtney is tough. "Fuck 'em, unquote." She says she would have gotten the boot earlier, and mentions that all her authors have been dropped. "How's Berger doing, anyway. He's so talented, they never should have dropped his second book option." Um. Courtney is gone, with a quick "cute kid" in Brady's direction. Carrie starts to beat herself up. Why did she whip out her huge check and buy him that expensive shirt and squeal with glee about her huge success? Sure, it was gauche of her to actually show him the check, but to share her success with him is totally within limits. Why Berger couldn't have told her about his disappointment is a little puzzling. Oh, right. Men are threatened by successful women. Berger and Carrie are so breaking up episode. Mir says it's okay for her to be proud of her success, and maybe she should wait until he brings his getting dropped up first before she says anything. Carrie groans and whines. How can she feel sorry for herself when it's his loss?
Anthony and Charlotte sit in the park, looking at guys. Anthony calls most of them out as "gay. Gay. Gay and doesn't know it yet." Then he sees a suitable match for Char. "Pale with no arms, straight and Jew-hew-ish!" Char demurs. She just broke up with Harry and isn't ready to move on yet! Anthony says that "it's been two weeks. ! You are knock-knock-knocking on sad gal door. And nobody likes a sad gal." It's true. The only thing worse than a person who looks too hard for love (or to get laid) is a sad sack who mopes around for so long that her vagina grows closed, like a pierced ear. Anthony warns her, "You better get interested, or you're gonna end up all alone and with no mans!" Hee. I get alllll the mans.
Sam snoozes during the sparsely attended preview of Jerry's play, Full Moon. It is awfully dull. It's kind of a parody of a Bergman film, but with an American Gothic/farm motif. An older couple sits onstage. The back wall is a painting of a sunset, framed by stalks of wheat. He says, "The corn?" She, a ringer for Dianne Wiest, says, "Harvested." He: "The hay?" "Harvested." "My youth?" "My youth...?" Jerry takes center stage, wearing overalls and nothing else. Then he takes off the overalls. Gong. Though we only see his (luscious, wonderful, extremely well-shaped) ass, the audience gets the full frontal treatment. Sam, naturally, sits up and takes notice and is very impressed. But all we get is ass. Hey, the food here is great, but could the portions be bigger? Like, can we see some cock too? Please? How long have I been asking for full frontal male nudity now? I've been writing for TWOP since 1999, and while NYPD Blue had plenty of ass and even some tit, we never say cock. And, S&TC producers, a second of Richard's cock two seasons ago is not. Enough. What do we want? Full frontal male nudity in films and TV? When do we want it? NOW! Seriously.
Back at Sam's apartment, she snarls, "Get your COCK out." Yeah, whip it out, man! We all want a look. He asks if she liked the play, and his monologue. Well, she wasn't exactly paying attention. Jerry says he hopes the critics like it more than she did, since he quit his restaurant job. Sam pauses. "How?" Then she asks who's doing the PR for his "sad little play." No one; they don't have the cash. Sam says she'll do it just to get the word out about the best thing in the play. "Full frontal. You. Naked." Jerry says he just has to work on his craft. Sam tells him to "work on [his] abs," and that his real name has to change. "Matt. Toby! Ryan!"
Carrie and Berger read in bed. Wow, they're already at the reading-in-bed phase? Jesus, their relationship is deteriorating faster than Brady is growing. He looks like a two-year-old, and their relationship looks like a five-year-old sexless one. Carrie asks into the empty air, "Something wrong?" Berger says no. Carrie says she knows. She ran into Courtney while she was out with Miranda. Berger yells that he didn't want Mir to know! Then Carrie apologizes for the shirt and the check-waving and stuff. Berger says that he's happy for her current success. "Good for you!" Then he goes back to his book. Carrie isn't buying it. "Hey Berger, want to talk to my editor?" No. He turns off the light and rolls over. Carrie says he's great and he'll be fine, and he goes, "Ungh."
Carrie and Sam go out for cocktails. They are both covered in glittery rhinestones and sequins. So sparkly. Sam tries to buck Carrie up by saying that "flailing" men need a strong woman to come in and lift them up -- like she did for "Smith Jerrod"! Yup, she changed Jerry's name to something that sounds like an investment firm. And she got him a mention in Liz Smith's column. Hee -- she called him an "it" boy. Sam got tickets for all of them to come out and see him in the play. Carrie asks if Jerry wasn't threatened by Sam's power and ability to make things happen. "Oh no! Younger men aren't threatened by stronger women!" Carrie is intrigued. "Is that a whole generation, or just him?"
And now we get to the question of this episode. Carrie types in her apartment, eating a tiny cup of ice cream. "Are the men of today less threatened by a woman's power, or are they just acting?"
Steve unwraps a stick of butter, then doesn't quite know how to answer the knock at the door. It's Miranda! And she's charmed that he's making cupcakes. She's happy to help him with the mixing, and says he's "really going to score points on the playground this week." Except that the cupcakes aren't for the playground; they're for Debbie. Mir flinches, then says, "Fun!" Yeah, Debbie said she didn't want a cake, but she didn't say anything about cupcakes! Ha ha!
Then, it's six-thirty, and Steve has to go. Mir offers to finish off the lettering (H-A-P-P-Y B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y D-E-B-B-I-E), but as soon as Steve is out the door, she gets weepy and calls Carrie. Oh, it's so sad. Carrie beseeches her to "put down the icing" and come out to the play with the rest of the girls, but Mir has other concerns. "Dammit! I fucked up Debbie's 'B'! I have to finish!" Carrie warns, "Debbie can't have your tears. Move away from the icing." Mir puts it down and stops crying so hard. She says that if she stops, Steve will know something's up. Carrie tells her to blame it on the baby, "that's what they're there for." Then Berger rings her doorbell and Carrie is off to change.
Carrie steps outside in her Prada dress and this crazy black Fendi bag with looooong fringe (it looks like a garment bag and is so extreme. It's so Carrie), and blanches. Berger isn't in a cab; he's on a motorcycle. He looks damn good in his biker-chic leathers, but Carrie isn't a motorcycle girl. "Come on," he says. "It'll be fun." She keeps smiling, but says through closed lips that she "can't have the helmet hair when there's a red carpet situation." Guess what, Carrie. You will. Berger goes, "C'moooon, Carrie. For me?" She says, "Just don't go fast." Then the Fatboy Slim starts up, and we're back in 1998! Couldn't they have used Fischerspooner or Interpol or even something remotely "hip" and "downtown"? Even Fannypack or Gravy Train would have been fun.
Berger zooms over the bridge, past the theater, and parks somewhere off the street. Perfect spot for a fight. Carrie screeches that she "told [him] not to go fast!" He says that wasn't fast, it just "feels fast." She screeches some more -- didn't he feel her hands digging into him? He thought she was "excited." No, just scared for her life. She yells that she's not going to "die on a bridge" so that he can feel like "some big man on a bike." He plays dumb: "What the fuck does that mean?" Oh, please. Carrie and I say at the same time, "You know exactly what that means." And she's not sorry for earning that money, since she worked really hard for it, and didn't think he'd be the kind of guy that would be bothered by it. Neither did he! And, with that admission, Berger kicks the wall. Wow, this is falling apart so quickly. Carrie looks at him balefully, and I mean full of bale, until Berger says he "doesn't want to be this guy." The guy that's threatened. The guy that takes things out on his women. The guy that resents his woman. The guy that endangers her life (or at least scares her) because he needs to feel big and strong. He says he'll "do whatever it takes," and that Carrie is "magnificent," and as he holds out his arms to her, you can see the Prada shirt she bought peeking out. She goes to him and holds him, then smacks him in the chest lightly. "That is for the helmet. Come on, let's get this over with." She walks off, then turns and looks back. He's taken off his biker jacket and looks amazing in the Prada shirt. She melts a little. Carrie? He may look good, but you deserve better.
They walk hand in hand to the opening, weaving between limos and other patrons of the arts. The red carpet action is hot; there's a ton of photographers there. They call out for Carrie, "Right here! Carrie, over here!" She and Berger pose for a few photos, and then one photog asks for "one alone, Carrie." Her face falls, Jack's plummets. She insists that they're together, and his name is "Jack Berger. He's a writer too." Berger's face gets distinctly uncomfortable-looking. He pries his hands out of hers and leaves her alone to pose. She can't smile, and goes after him. "Please, let's just do it so they can get it right for the papers?" He can't. And he can't go see the play with her. He'll just "wreck it for everybody. You okay?" He leaves, and I hate him for doing so. Carrie looks so upset. Then Stanford says in her ear, "Hello, gorgeous." She says that's the worst Barbra Streisand she's ever heard, and Stanford says, "When in Brooklyn, do as the Brooklyns do." Couldn't he have said "Brooklynites"? Carrie gives Stanford Berger's seat. Hooray, at least she won't be alone.
Charlotte sits alone in the theater, acutely aware that she's surrounded by couples. Ready to move on yet, Char? Hope so, because Kissy-Kissy from Prada has appeared at the last moment to take Miranda's seat. Good thing he was available.
And the play. Everyone in the audience gasps at Jerry's naked penis. God knows why -- I mean, what's the big deal? It's just a penis. We see boobs all the livelong day. JUST SHOW IT TO US! God. Anyway, Jerry does his monologue, and Sam actually listens. "The rain came down. Hard, and soft. It hit the grass. Green, and wet. Wet. So wet. It reminded me of you. You always smelled like the rain." Stanford whispers, "A stud is born." And curtain call. Sam asks where Berger is, and Carrie covers for him with a flu excuse. She VOs that "maybe we were all acting." And tonight, she "was playing the part of the girl in the great relationship whose boyfriend was coming down with a cold." Sniffle.