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.