Credits. Cha, cha-cha, cha-cha. Cha, cha-cha, cha-cha. Cha, cha-cha, cha-cha, cha-cha, whee, go xylophone! Splashy bus! Ohhh, the five-dollar tutu, she is ruined. Cha cha cha.
Carrie, in those high-waisted Balenciaga pinstriped pants with suspenders (fab pants, but the polka-dotted blouse she's paired them with takes them well into Maude territory), takes long strides toward a courthouse. She VOs that in New York, where every great social event happens after 9 PM, it's a bitch getting somewhere before 9 AM. She whips out her "JURY SUMMONS -- FINAL NOTICE " letter and gives it a look. Sigh. May I just mention right now that not only was this a very good episode, but there are amazing parallels between what happens in the plot and what's happening in my own life. I have a final summons for jury duty hanging on my fridge right now. And I haven't seen 8:15 AM in some time. I've seen 5 AM, and 6:30 AM, but usually from the side of having been up all night. Freelance writer, you know. So this is the first amazing coincidence in the ep. There will be more.
Carrie hops up a step and spins around to face Berger. She says cheerily that she plans on telling the justice peeps that "before 10 AM, everyone's guilty," and she hopes to "be out of there in no time." Oh, god. I hope she has a book in her purse. Hell is a waiting room. With other people in it. She swills coffee as Berger retorts that he's going to go look at "computer shit," so she should give him a call later. She says, all concerned-sounding, "Aren't you going to write today?" He takes a beat and says yeah. Then he gets pissy and asks if she thought he was going to "sit on [his] ass all day and slack off." Oof. No, she didn't mean it like that. Wow, Berger's testy and makes nasty comments a lot. They take hefty swigs of their Charbucks, then Berger suggests that they have "a Hollywood kiss." She's all, "Here?" Yeah. So he takes her and dips her low, very theatrical, then they have a pretty passionless kiss anyway. Oh yeah, they're breaking up. Carrie skips off and Berger calls out, "Hang 'em high!" Creepy. He's cute, but I'm over him.
When it's her turn to face the bureaucrats, Carrie skips to the counter and says she "hates to say it," but she can't perform jury duty. See, she's a freelance writer and "no one can cover for [her]." The bureaucrat stares stonily, takes her form and stamps it, then says, "Welcome to jury duty." Right. You participate in the democracy, you have the rights and privileges, and DUTIES. You can't pick. You can try to get out of them, but the time comes when people have to serve. When I missed my jury duty's third notice, I thought for sure with my luck that I was going to get tossed in jail and eat cheese sandwiches and drink iced tea for thirty days. Then our Mayor, John Street, came out and said that only 60 percent of those summoned for jury duty actually serve, and that "we're going to get the other 30 percent!" Then I felt a little bit better. And then I got the fourth notice in the mail, and it's week and I am so totally going. Because jail is not for me.
Miranda scrambles to finish her morning routine and make it out the door on time. Magda enters. Mir says, "Is it 8:30 already?" Magda sings, "Good morning!" Miranda says, "Fuck!" Been there. Mir says she's going to be late getting home tonight, and hands off Brady. He promptly starts to wail. Magda says he "just misses Mama." Carrie VOs that, "along with coffee, feeling guilty had become a part of Miranda's daily routine." Damn.
At the Synagogue Sister Society meeting, Charlotte arranges cookies on a plate. A nice-looking Jewish mother comes over and offers to help with that. And isn't it a shame about -- "puh puh puh!" -- Harry? And that she has to come to synagogue alone? Well, Char's loss is this lady's gain, as she has a son who's perfect for Char. Another mother smells the blood in the water and pounces. She has two single sons, both perfect! Both? What is this, Temple Bring'em Young? A third mother swoops down to get a mouthful of carrion, wanting to fix her up as well. Charlotte looks terrified. Her face is a mask of "AIIEEEE!" Yeah, being single sucks. More on that later.
Samantha and Jerry "Smith" Jared stand in Times Square, looking at a new billboard Sam wrangled with her PR intensity. The product? Absolut Vodka. The image? Jared, nude, with a sheet loosely wrapped around his lower abdomen, and a strategically placed vodka bottle you-know-where. And the slogan? "Absolut Hunk." Jerry makes a number of "uh, wow" comments, which Sam lobs back in her usual purring style. "Fuck me!" "That's the first thing every woman who sees it will say!" "It's so big!" "And that's the second." You get the idea.
Carrie sits and waits, watching a tape of Diane Sawyer describing how it feels to sit around and wait for jury duty. ["That's the actual tape they use. Well, sometimes you get Morley Safer." -- Sars] She reads her , then peeks at her seatmate, who opens up his briefcase and pulls out a mango. A mango?
A mango. She and Berger walk into a restaurant (she in a very lovely purple dress), and she concludes that a mango is "the oddest thing you can pull out of a briefcase." Berger differs: "Except for a pineapple. The moment he pulls a pineapple out of a briefcase, I want you to call me." They slide into a booth, and Charlotte instantly dives in too. She's on a terrible date (one of the synagogue fixer-uppers) and needs rescuing. Carrie says she'll call Char on her cell phone, say something bad happened, and then can rush out, then sneak back in after her date has left and hang with her and Berger. Berger raises the tiniest part of his bushy eyebrow.
The plan works. Charlotte re-hashes how lame the guy was: He brought her carnations. Berger has to be outspoken with his opinion. "Wait a minute! The guy brought you flowers? What an asshole!" Char corrects that they weren't flowers, they were carnations. "Filler flowers." Berger asks Carrie if he would get the ax for bring her carnations. Nah. Carrie likes 'em, especially the pink ones, and feels they're "making a comeback." She would, however, dump a guy for wearing "Topsiders or Docksiders or any of the above." Char disagrees. "Nooo, those are cuuuute!" She's such a preppie. Besides, can one wear sneakers on a boat if you descended from passengers of the Mayflower? Berger says loudly and flatly, "So basically guys are just fucked." Carrie looks at him out of the corner of her eye. Char says she loved Harry even though he chewed with his mouth open and loved sports and whatever. Berger adds that he "never brought [her] filler flowers," either. Char, a little wounded, says no, she just loved him. Carrie says quietly that of course Char loved Harry. She tells Berger not to speak to Char like that. Berger looks at her quickly and says he was just trying to be funny. Carrie says it wasn't. Berger rants that "it wasn't funny" and he's a "slacker" and if he "were wearing Topsiders," he "wouldn't be here." Oof. Everyone takes a beat and lets that sink in. It's a moment when everyone knows the night is in trouble, and that the couple fighting has Serious Issues.
And, to break the tension, up pops the waiter. Are they ready to order? Yes. Carrie orders the goat cheese salad and the tuna, but with no parsley. Can there be no parsley on the plate, even a sprinkling? And could the waiter ask the chef if there's parsley in the marinade, 'cause if there is, she shouldn't have any, cause she's allergic. Berger seethes through all this, and when the waiter's gone he says, "You're not allergic." Carrie says she knows that, but when she says she just doesn't like it, it ends up being on the plate. He's all, you didn't even order stuff that comes with parsley! She's like, "It comes with EVERYTHING!" Char says, you know what? I have to go. And she skips out on what Carrie calls Char's "second bad date of the evening."
During the bad cab ride home from dinner, Berger asks the driver to stop at 73rd and Madison. Carrie asks if the driver can go around, since her place is on 73rd between Madison and Park. Then she says to Berger that she's "in heels." Berger grits his teeth and says he can't believe she "put [him] down in front of [her] friend." Carrie says she didn't put him down. He snaps, now you're gonna tell me what I feel? She's not telling him what he feels. Then she asks, "What's going on with us?" He asks when she stopped being on his side. Ooh, I know the answer to this. It's when she criticized the character he wrote for wearing a scrunchie. That's when it all went wrong. But she asks when he stopped being on her side. It was that same moment, Carrie. That's when he felt unfairly criticized, and turned against you. The cab hits two bumps, and she says that "this isn't working." He agrees, and suggests they "take a break." Whoa! That was fast. And lame -- why not dump her right now and prove yourself to be a cold asshole! She asks how long he's been thinking about this, and then they're at her brownstone. Berger then tells the driver that there will be "two stops," and Carrie's all, what? "You want to take the break starting now?" Yeah. He wants to take a week to "get some distance" and go hide out in his Hamptons house. He'll call her when he gets back. She agrees (what else can she do?), and gets out. As the cab drives out she hollers, "Thanks for dinner!" Oh, Carrie.
Lunch with the girls. Carrie tells Sam she knew she and Berger were in trouble, but she didn't think it was this bad. Char says that "a break isn't so bad," but Carrie says, "It's a hop, skip and a week away from a breakup." Yeah. Char kvetches that if she and Harry had taken a break, maybe she wouldn't be going on blind dates right now. Wow, Carrie's roots are almost two inches. I like a bit of root, but honey? You're worth it. Time to touch up. Though I love that pink satiny top she's got on. Carrie whines some more and recalls the days when "breaks" were good, as in "spring break." Good god, you're so far away from that now. Mir suggests that the bad break might be "hip break." Hee! Which is why it's good the show is getting the ax. Who wants to see geriatric sex? We can't even see a penis when we're screaming for it to be on TV, dammit. Sam suggests that Carrie "not do that." What? That horrible pained face. So squinchy and pinched and suffer-y. Sam says she thinks the measure of a good relationship is whether you're frowning or smiling. Hey, that's a good litmus! Unfortunately, Sam's smiley or frowny faces are directly linked to what's happening south of her navel, instead of what's beating beneath her breastbone. Love scared the shit out of Sam. But even if you're not a surface skimmer, that happy/sad rule is a good one to follow. Is someone making you miserable? Regularly? Cut it. Life is too short. As Carrie whines and cries and moans about how Berger had to skip out to Long Island to get his head straight, Sam whips out more Absolut Hunk postcards for the girls. But Mir -- sensible, sweet, strong-with-a-mother's-love Miranda who gets all the funny lines -- asks Carrie what she wants. "Remember you? What do you want?" Exactly.
So, as Carrie languishes in jury duty limbo, avec laptop, she ponders "trial separations... How can two people mired in the mess ever figure it out? Do we need distance to get close?" Carrie: WHY would you want to get closer to Berger? He's not that nice, he's wounded from the scrunchie thing, and he's trying to wound you. Drop it and move the hell on.
Miranda walks into a meeting a few minutes late, and is surprised to learn that the meeting isn't about the MacKenzie file, but rather about her. She's been late, and mishandling her case load. Miranda smiles and says to her female co-worker, "Way to watch my back. Where I'm doing a bad job is at home. So if you'll excuse me...and may I remind you that when my mother died, I was back in the office on Monday." Wow, I think Miranda could totally have a case against her employers if they try to fire her. I have a friend who keeps a file of everything objectionable that her employer has said to her, about having children or other employees becoming pregnant. It's so outrageous. You know, like "if you ever decide to get pregnant, give me a little notice." Why, so you can fire her ass before she even conceives? That's so illegal.
Sam sips a milky-looking cocktail and hails Jerry. She's drinking an Absolut Hunk! Her honey is a cock-tail! Ew, it's milky. That's so blatantly obscene. And not at all appetizing. Jerry is wearing a knit cap, hiding out. Sam pulls the hat off so "people can see" him. Jerry isn't happy with all the vodka-related publicity. "My sober friends are mad at me for shilling booze, my acting class thinks I'm a sellout, and my mom is running to every grocery store in Seattle hiding magazines so my grandmother doesn't see my dick." Sam counters, "Drunks, nobodies, prudes." So, now even his own GRANDMOTHER can't see his cock? And we, the audience of a show called Sex & The City, which features female nudity regularly, also don't get to see it? So, we're just like a grandma in Seattle? Thanks. Thanks a lot. Jerry would be happier, but he's not getting auditions and "nothing's happening." Then, Jerry gets toasted by ten or so smiling gay men, all sipping milky cocktails. Ew. Well, at least it isn't dripping off their chins. Sam purrs, "First come the gays, then the girls, then the industry." Oh, boy.
Charlotte's on another blind date, this time with a gay man. He suggests they drop the pretense since they both know he's gay, and the only person who doesn't know he's gay is his mom. And his type? The Absolut Hunk. God, that placement is getting a lot of screen time. I mean, good for them, yay vodka, glug glug glug. Char says that A.H. is straight, and he says his brother will be so disappointed. Oy.
And speaking of oy, Char goes to synagogue and runs into a Jewish mother who hasn't had a chance to properly foist her offspring onto Char yet. The single-and-mingle night, okay! And her son is indeed handsome -- she shows Char, and us, a picture in her wallet -- so maybe it'll work.
Miranda rushes through the door, screeching, "Is he awake? Is he awake?" No, Brady went to sleep about an hour ago. Mir sits down, fighting back tears, and gets to work on the MacKenzie brief. God, that would suck. Babies are so great.
Carrie shops at Century 21, wheee! In a horrible gray-checked smock thing, booo. Her pink sparkly phone rings, and it's Big! Calling from a golf course, he growls that he's with two men in plaid pants and he's holding a nine iron. She says she just scored an Anna Molinari dress and a Dolce kimono. Sweet. Big asks how "Hot Dog" is, and Carrie says good, but that they're on a break. He's all, "A break from what? You?" Carrie says a break can be good, and reminds him that he moved to freaking Napa, for god's sack. Big says, "You're breaking up!" Carrie protests, then he says it's her cell phone that's breaking up. Then she VOs that "with an armful of discount clothing, [she] realize[s] [she] can't discount her feelings." So she rents a car to drive up to the Hamptons. Except she only drives out of the garage, stops, then backs right back into the garage.
Carrie hashes it out with Miranda. It's not working, why is it so hard to admit that? Been there. Been there this week, actually. I just broke up with my boyfriend. And it was so hard, because he's a great guy, and smart and funny and all that, but it just wasn't working out. So, yeah -- when people had issues because I omitted that plot point from the recaplet? Imagine the lump in my throat when I tried to write it. Told you there were parallels.
Miranda meets with her boss and asks to "cut way back, to fifty hours a week. Fifty-five tops." Then she goes home and puts her baby to bed. There's the funniest shot of Brady's mobile, with her face pasted onto each sphere. Miranda is trying to "be around" for her baby. Hee.
Jerry sees graffiti on his poster: ABSOLUT ASSHOLE. Great, all of New York thinks he's an asshole. Well, what about all the people who graffitied JESUS SAVES onto elevator brass and phone booths? Are they the majority, too? Sam tells him to develop a thicker skin. He says it isn't working out, and he's leaving. Sam commands, "Stop right there! You don't get to bail at the first bump in the road! It will get better." Jerry asks, "What if it doesn't?" Sam barely frowns. Oh no! Sam can't doubt herself over PR! It's like God not liking a rainbow, or a squirrel finding a nut not totally delicious! Sam! Buck up! Just then, a gaggle of schoolgirls sees Jerry, screams, and swarms. Aiieee! The hunk guy! Yeee! Blaarrgh! Skreee! Sam smiles, Jerry accommodates them, and Carrie VOs that a week later, Gus Van Sant offers Jerry a part as a hustler in his latest movie. So yeah, that plot point is wrapped, baby.
Char's on her date with Jewish son number three. He's handsome in that oily, Gordon Gekko kind of way. You know, a much much younger Michael Douglas, with less ickiness and more of a dinner-roll chin. Char is not feeling him, even though he's dressed well, seems very well-mannered, and went to Yale. She says she's not ready to date, and he asks if she wants to go back to his apartment and have sex. No, she's not ready for that either. So, he leaves, and some other single ladies say that the only dudes left a the singles mixer are "the fatties and the baldies." Char perks up; could one be her Harry? Yes. There he is. He drawls, "Of all the synagogues in all the cities, you had to walk into mine." Charlotte gets a little weepy and apologizes, and asks that if he could just call her or ask her out again, she'd be so lucky to have him. He says, "That's not good enough." He gets down on one knee and proposes, and my TV screen blurs because my eyes are filled with tears. So beautiful!
Carrie, with her heinous roots, sits in jury duty, again, some more. Her wacky bench mate opens his brief case to reveal...a coconut. Carrie smiles and realizes she isn't ready to let Berger go yet.
He buzzes her doorbell, and after a quick primp and a deep breath, she lets him in. He's holding pink carnations, and says he hears they're "making a comeback." She begins to say she knows things have been bad between them, and he interrupts: he loves her. They hug. She whispers in his ear about the mango guy, and he says, "Pineapple?" No. Coconut. "So close."
The day breaks through Carrie's window. She rolls over to find...no one. There's a dent in the pillow from Berger's head, but no Berger. She walks into the other room; it's too quiet. The carnations stand in a metal vase, and then she sees it: A yellow post-it on her laptop. It says, "I'm sorry. I can't. Don't hate me." Carrie frowns, but it's an angry frown. Then, she swings her arm and attacks the bouquet, sending it flying. After the clang of the vase and the quiet flop of the flowers, the only sound is the water trickling off the tabletop. Then, silence. The silence of a broken heart.
Char's on her date with Jewish son number three. He's handsome in that oily, Gordon Gekko kind of way. You know, a much much younger Michael Douglas, with less ickiness and more of a dinner-roll chin. Char is not feeling him, even though he's dressed well, seems very well-mannered, and went to Yale. She says she's not ready to date, and he asks if she wants to go back to his apartment and have sex. No, she's not ready for that either. So, he leaves, and some other single ladies say that the only dudes left a the singles mixer are "the fatties and the baldies." Char perks up; could one be her Harry? Yes. There he is. He drawls, "Of all the synagogues in all the cities, you had to walk into mine." Charlotte gets a little weepy and apologizes, and asks that if he could just call her or ask her out again, she'd be so lucky to have him. He says, "That's not good enough." He gets down on one knee and proposes, and my TV screen blurs because my eyes are filled with tears. So beautiful!
Carrie, with her heinous roots, sits in jury duty, again, some more. Her wacky bench mate opens his brief case to reveal...a coconut. Carrie smiles and realizes she isn't ready to let Berger go yet.
He buzzes her doorbell, and after a quick primp and a deep breath, she lets him in. He's holding pink carnations, and says he hears they're "making a comeback." She begins to say she knows things have been bad between them, and he interrupts: he loves her. They hug. She whispers in his ear about the mango guy, and he says, "Pineapple?" No. Coconut. "So close."
The day breaks through Carrie's window. She rolls over to find...no one. There's a dent in the pillow from Berger's head, but no Berger. She walks into the other room; it's too quiet. The carnations stand in a metal vase, and then she sees it: A yellow post-it on her laptop. It says, "I'm sorry. I can't. Don't hate me." Carrie frowns, but it's an angry frown. Then, she swings her arm and attacks the bouquet, sending it flying. After the clang of the vase and the quiet flop of the flowers, the only sound is the water trickling off the tabletop. Then, silence. The silence of a broken heart.