Cha cha! Splashy bus.
We pan across a New York City sidewalk cafe, uptown-stylee. Pete's, it's called. Carrie VOs that New Yorkers "treat every beautiful fall day as if it were their last." Because the weather on September 11th was really very beautiful. Blue sky, balmy weather. One of those gorgeous days.
Miranda and Steve are drinking in the afternoon. Love it. They're at the bottom of their mugs of beer, in jolly moods. A bickering old couple walks by them, and they stare. Steve is all, "That'll be us in thirty years!" Mir asks Steve to remind her not to end up like that. Then she asks, "Anything else you don't want?" Yeah. Steve doesn't want to pay for the beers. Or slack off, like he used to. Miranda doesn't "want to be so moody. This is fun!" Hee. Optimistic drunken planning is fun. It's way better than drunken fighting. Steve says the most important one for him is that he doesn't want to lose her again. She agrees, not wanting to lose him again. They beam at each other radiantly, like in an UltraBrite or Newport ad. Then, she drops the bomb: Will Steve marry her? I think I heard screams. She's really over the moon for this guy! She's really serious! Cynical, hard-bitten Miranda! PROPOSED! She is so fucking modern and unapologetic, I love it. Steve laughs, then gets all tender on her. "Are you sewious?" She is. He accepts. "HELL yes!" Oh my god!
Aleksandr's apartment. He's tinkling on a piano. I mean, pee-yanny. Tinkling on a pee-yanny. Carrie, in a god-awful sweater coat (sing to the tune of "Lollipop," "Sweater coat, sweater coat, oh sweater sweater coat! Sweater coat! Barf. Ba dum dum dum...."), likes what he's playing. She goes over, forgets her drink, goes back and gets it, then joins him on the pee-yanny bench. It's a little ditty. A tune-sicle. He wrote it for her. She's all, really? Yeah. He calls it, en francais, "The Girl With the Luminous, Shining, Sparkling Eyes." Carrie kvells. Then he feeds her a cherry with whipped cream on it. A leetle dab of cream stays on her upper lip, and he kisses if off for her. Holy field of buttercups, where's Fabio? I think I hear a bodice ripping.
Over breakfast, Carrie recalls the misty, Jackie Collins-flavored evening. Miranda says she's never heard anything so cheesy, and "Ick!" Seriously. I too hate those barf-worthy early months of a relationship, when the bloom is fully on the rose and you end up being mushier than some overcooked Velveeta Shells and Cheese. It makes your friends hate you. Carrie admits she's too embarrassed to even look at her friends right now, but she will tell them one more disgusting detail. About the little jingle Aleksandr wrote on the pee-yanny. And the title. Char gushes that it sounds "very Old World, very eighteenth-century Russia" to her. Carrie says that she lives in New York City, circa now. Don't worry, in like a minute this show will seem as dated as eighteenth-century Russia. It always does. This show ages faster than microwave popcorn. It's tasty when you first open it up, but in a few hours, Styrofoam city. That's okay, flowers don't live forever either. It's all about moments and transition. Fuck permanence.
Carrie continues that she thinks it's romantic when someone offers her a seat on the subway, and Mir concurs. Char says, "We are just starved for romance, and that is the sad truth." Samantha says she's not starved for romance, because Smith has been in L.A. all week and he calls every night. Carrie says, "Phone sex doesn't count." But Sam's had a glass of wine as they do it! Sigh. Carrie reveals Alek's song title, prefacing it as "the ick heard 'round the world." Sam asks, "What's French for ick?" Mir says, "Eecque." Carrie said she floated up out of her body as he was playing the song for her. Char says Alek was just "expressing emotion in an old-fashioned way." Yeah, and for a follow-up, he made ice cream with snow and real maple syrup. Boy, was that ever delicious. Then they sat around and read the bible and knitted shoe cozies until the whale-fat-burning lamp burned out. Mir says she loathes all that phony sentimental crap, which is why she proposed to Steve over three-dollar beers. Everyone looks at Mir like she just grew a second head. She...what? Proposed...marriage? Mir slams down her fork and knife and says it's not a big deal, she's not "engaged," and she's not doing the whole big white-poofy-dress circus thing. "I hate all that shit." Char says, "Every bride has to find their own style." Mir doesn't want a big thing, she only wants to be with Steve. Char bubbles over with emotion, which blackens Mir's mood like a bubbled-over lasagna burns the bottom of the oven. "Oh, Miranda!" Mir snaps that this is exactly what she didn't want. No tears! Carrie sobs that she can't believe it. Sam's misty too. Mir gets up and throws a crumpled bill on the table. She has only one thing to say: "Samantha, I expected more from you."
Charlotte and Harry emerge from the Tasti-Delight (she's got butter pecan, in a cup, with chocolate topping). She's recalling the ickful details of Carrie's romantic evening with Aleksandr. "It's like something out of a Victorian novel!" Harry is not impressed. Oh, he can do better? "It's not just for foo-foo foreigners." He offers to wine and dine her, baby. Give him another taste of that Tasti-Delight. Woo hoo! Date night.
Steve and Miranda round the corner, lugging massive Duane Reed bags. Carrie VOs, "And from licking to lugging." Oh. My. Fucking. GOD. How much do I hate Carrie's voice-overs? There are no words. It stops me dead in my recapping tracks. Ugh. I'll try to resume. Mir, Steve, walking with bags. She's ranting about how she wants their wedding to "feel like us," not like "all those cookie-cutter weddings" she's been to in her life. That's fair. I'm sure all the characters that invited Mir to their "cookie-cutter weddings" were aiming for the most generic, undistinctive events ever. Who wants that day to be special, anyway? Steve suggests a boat ride around Manhattan. Mir scoffs. Her Duane Reed bag breaks, and she curses, "Shit! This is SO us! We should get married right here in this mess." Steve's shoe is stuck to a huge wad of red chewing gum. He finds this comical. Mir, picking up boxes of over-the-counter meds, looks to her right and sees a little sign that reads, "This Is A Community Garden Project." Hey. Heeeyyy. She doesn't hate it! We have a wedding site!
Carrie, Sam, and Charlotte shop for a gift for Miranda, the anti-bride. Carrie has some weird pink snug-ugly scarf thing on her head. It looks like a stuffed animal carcass. Char finds a sweet white heart-shaped dish. Carrie says, "Too bride-y." Sam suggests, "Let's try not to piss her off." Char gets a little hysterical and says, "Well, why don't we buy her a stapler and wrap it in brown paper, and smear dog poop on it!" Or you could get that paper that's made from elephant dung. It smells less. Hey, what's brown and sounds like a bell? Dung. I'm sorry.
Sam takes a few steps toward the center of the store and says she has an announcement. One that her friends may not like. Carrie growls that if Samantha gets married too and leaves her all alone, she'll kill her. No, it's not that. Sam says she's always liked her body. "I have fantastic legs, killer abs. My ass is perfection!" Mm-hmm. But. She's "always wanted bigger boobs." Sidebar: I'm recapping right now with my roomie, The Little Girl, parked on the couch. I pause the TiVo just as Sam says she wants bigger boo...and the screen shot of Kim Cattrall forever in moue cracks The Little Girl up. Of course, she's also flying on Vicodin she scored (legally) after getting a kidney stone, but there you go. Bigger boooo...infinity. Bigger booo...merangs. I mean, "-oobs." Boobs. Char and Carrie are surprised. Sam had a "reality call, in the form of paparazzi shots in In Touch magazine." There's five days worth of candid snaps of Sam and Smith Jerrod, and in all of them, Sam's boobs look "teeny-tiny." Carrie snipes at Sam for going to Planet Hollywood. Oh, for fuck's sake. It was probably for an event, you troll. Char says, "You are a confident, intelligent woman. Why would you want to look like a bimbo?" Word. Smaller breasts look better in clothes, and are classier all around. The bigger-boobed of the world have to overcome the stereotype that we're dumber. Life, she is so unfair. The boobless want boobs, and the boobed ones just want to be treated with a little respect. Or we want bigger tips. Either way. Sam says she wants boobs like Carrie's. This point is lost on me, because for a visual, we have Carrie in a denim jacket with that horrid pink panther scarf wrapped around herself. Meaning, we can't see her boobs. Char protests. What about her boobs? Sam makes a grab for them, and Char squeals, "Okay, get hers!" Carrie nods, satisfied. It's a very Donna Martin moment. Though Donna would have probably let Sam grab her boobs.
Aleksandr's love nest. He and Carrie are snuggled on a leather couch, with a roaring fire roaring away like the MGM lion. Aleksandr is all, hey, check out this poem. He begins reading to her in a flat voice with no modulation. It puts me to sleep. I try to pick out some words, and get "snowflakes," "eyes," "fluttering," "butterflies," and "she." It's not dull on its face, this reading poetry aloud, but this moment is giving me the sleepies. Carrie sits and tries to pay attention, and reacts about fifteen times, cocking her head as rapidly as a cockatoo. So, what does she think? "Yee-ow. That is some serious stuff." Now how about some of her poetry? She picks up the November issue of Vogue and reads from Andre Leon Talley's Style Fax. God, do I love Andre Leon Talley. I gave his book one of the only positive reviews it got for the Philadelphia City Paper. I just think he's so smart. I want his life. And his Chanel basketball. She reads lugubriously about Oscar de la Renta's pink full-skirted dress with black patent leather bow belt. "Now THAT. Is pure poetry." The way Andre writes is poetry, for sure. But still. That kind of demeans Alek's gesture. But this is Carrie. Alek says he "knows Oscar" and will tell him she liked the dress. She's all, "Oscar? You call him Oscar?" Ow, my foot. Someone dropped a name. Then he asks why she's uncomfortable with the poetry. She says perhaps they haven't been introduced. "I write a column based on the assumption that romance is either dead or just...phony." God! How rude. If she's freaking out that Alek is just over the top in his gestures, say it. She's being so rude. He says, "You think I'm phony?" No, she feels like a phony. She's "not used to these grand gestures." No one ever played her music or read her poetry. Wow, Carrie dated some duds. I don't believe her, either.
Carrie washes bras in her sink, talking to Mir on the phone. Mir's on a cell phone, shopping for wedding dresses on her lunch hour. A saleswoman brings over a dress, and Mir nixes it. "I said no white, no ivory, nothing that says 'virgin.' I have a child. The jig is up." That is so classic. Classic Miranda. Wrap it in a box with brown paper. Carrie whines that "the Russian read me a Russian poem," and that she "doesn't think it's an act. I think he's serious." Mir says it doesn't mean Carrie has to put up with it. Like he's a cigar smoker or a foot fetishist or something. He read her a fucking poem -- why is there drama about this? It's a perfectly nice gesture. And, at this stage of the game, are these two woman unaware that the romantic gesture, along with the romance, GOES AWAY after a few months? Yes, kids, you read it here first: Romance is fleeting. It goes right away. The chivalry, the gentleness, and the very frequent lovemaking you have in the beginning of relationships is greatly reduced after, oh, three or four months. I think that would apply to poetry being read aloud, too. If Carrie stays in this relationship, I'd like to ask how often he reads aloud after two years of togetherness.
Carrie asks why, if Mir is so anti-romance, she's having a wedding at all? Mir has thought about this. She actually does "want to say those vows, out loud, in front of Steve and all our friends. Are you gagging over there?" Carrie says the opposite. "You were my cynical touchstone. Do you promise to be cynical even after you're married?" Mir says happily, "I do!" She wheels around to see a saleswoman bringing what looks like the Lara Flynn Boyle pink tutu disaster from the Golden Globes a few years back. Mir has gotta go. She clicks her phone shut and says, "Okay! We need to have another talk!"
Carrie pads toward her laptop in red Uggs and a v-necked argyle sweater, lap-length. Hoo-wee. I like the Uggs, though. She muses and types that New Yorkers accept Tasti-Delight as the real thing, and have given up on finding that real love thing, too. "Have New York women settled for a sugar-free existence as well? Is it something we could learn to digest? Or have we become romance-intolerant?" Oh, boy.
Harry is in the process of wining and dining Charlotte. He orders foie gras and beef -- sorry, "boeuf" bourgignon, and the fromage cart, not the plate. His Francais is le meh. I remember with love the TWoP recapper's convention in Las Vegas, where we stayed at the Paris and we called everything by its French name. I took le douche. We drank le cafe. And we sang "Alouette" and "Thank Heaven For Leetle Girls" all the livelong day. Anyway, Char is charmed by Harry's ordering skillz. He says, "The French learn romance from me, bay-bee."
Sam, in a pinstriped blazer with no shirt, hangs at a bar to boob-shop. She's parked to two piggy guys who are doing the same thing. For different reasons, of course. She's looking to see what looks right, they're horny fuckwits who'll never get laid. They like the big, cartoony ones, like that chick has on The Real WorldSan Diego. It's rather gross. Finally, the bartender arrives, and shakes a shaker. Her boobs shake, too. She's more like Coral from The Real World: Return to New York. Sam compliments her boobs and says they're either naturally great, or she needs the name of her doctor. The bartender is cooperative: Dr. Bevel is the best. "They paid for themselves in tips alone." Boobs are like currency.
Carrie enters Alek's love nest. She's in this hideous Little Red Riding Hood-y fleecy cropped jacket. Ugh, what a Little House on the Prairie nightmare. And pink satin elbow-length gloves? Okay, gloves are "in" this season, but they just don't look good. Alek is in a tuxedo. She says she didn't know this was a "formal sleep-over." He says La Traviata is playing at the Met, and he wants her to go with her. Hey, that's my favorite opera! I love the ones when the whores die of TB. It really gets me -- right there. Carrie says she almost put on her ball gown to go, but didn't. She can run home to change. No, he says. It'd be easier if she stays. He gestures to a box behind him. Oh. My. God. He got her the Oscar de la Renta dress. I saw the spring 2004 fashion show of his line, and those dresses came in yellow and white. In fact, I bet they could come in any color. That's the beauty of couture. Carrie slooowly opens the box: tah dah! She kvells. He says, "Tonight, only your poetry. Not mine. You like it?" She does. Of course she does.
Char and Harry cuddle together in bed. She's thanking him for the most romantic, luxurious, decadent, delicious seven-course dinner ever. His stomach gurgles loudly. Then again. He gets up and makes a dash for the bathroom, his bathroom trailing behind him like a plume, comically. Then Char's stomach starts gurgling. She runs to the other bathroom.
Now out of their silky lingerie and into more comfy t-shirts, the couple resumes their spots in bed. Harry thinks he may be "done" expelling their romantic dinner. Char makes a dash for the loo, squeaking, "I'm noooot!" Harry lies on the bed, spent, muttering, "It was that fucking fromage. That fucking fromage!" Hee. Then he gets up and says, "I'm coming in!"
The overhead shot of Harry and Charlotte lying together on the black-and-white tiled bathroom floor, holding hands? Beautiful.
Carrie and Aleksandr prance their way toward the Met. She looks fabu in the Oscar de la Renta pink gown. SJP has a great body for couture. She has a black velvet bolero jacket over it, not the nightmare Little Red Riding Hood thing from before. Thank god. A string quartet plays. Alek stops her in mid-prance, wanting to savor the moment. The night, the music, her in the dress...he extends a hand to her. "Dance with me?" Oh my GOD. I'm kvelling. She smiles, and VOs that "it was THE most romantic gesture." Then she swoons dramatically into his arms, and folds herself onto the marble outside the Met like a swan. The quartet stops, and the crowd of people (outside the shot -- I bet this was a closely guarded set. From a distance and without dialogue, it looks like he just proposed) start murmuring, "Is she all right?" He shakes her gently, and she comes to. No, she's not all right. She's "an American." She needs him to "take it down a notch." Oh. My. God. I just can't believe her. There are no words. She can never be happy! She freaked out when Aidan wanted to stay in and eat fried chicken, and now she's complaining when a sexy Russian wants to dance with her outside the Met. Carrie: She's never happy. Which is why I hate her.
So, they go to McDonald's. He asks if she can "handle" super-sizing their order. She can. And she's sorry about the opera. He says, "Another time, another dress." Oh lord, he's getting her another dress? What a trouper. She feeds him a fry, intoning, "They're French." They have that Lady and the Tramp moment when they eat a fry from different sides, then kiss in the middle. Now, she's ready to dance. He dances her, and they're framed by the golden arches. This is such a low moment. Such a low moment.
Sam chatters to her doctor about breast size as he gives her a routine breast exam. Someone on the boards mentioned that they were aware that it was an actor, not a doctor feeling Kim Cattrall's breast, and I have to say I was aware of this too. Something about his hand...something about the way he only felt the lowest quadrant...something about the way he so clearly enjoyed himself. Then, he finds a lump. She can feel it herself, right there. He wants her to have it looked at right away.
Carrie VOs that she thinks the whole world has gone romance-loco when Sam offers to pick her up in a cab to go to Miranda's wedding. She has on a very Andie Pretty in Pink flowered trench coat on, over an okay dress. Carrie plops herself on the seat and says she's a hundred blocks out of Sam's way, so what gives? Sam, in politician blue and a weird black-and-white mohair scarf thing, says she has something to tell her. So, she had her breast consultation, and there was a lump, and she had a biopsy, and she has cancer. She says it all matter-of-factly and no-nonsense, just like that. Carrie is flummoxed. Sam promises to give Carrie all the details, and she doesn't want her to get all "emotional or upset," and the only reason she's telling Carrie now is because she "didn't want to blurt out 'I have cancer' in the middle of Miranda's wedding." Carrie, moist-eyed, is all, what? When? Well, she found out yesterday, the biopsy was Wednesday. Sam directs the cab to avoid Broadway as Carrie composes herself. Oh, and no telling Char or Mir, Sam doesn't want their days to be ruined too. And she's sorry for putting a big cloud over the day. Carrie says thanks for telling her. Sam pats her hand and says not to worry, she knows she going to be okay. She just "doesn't want to lose [her] breasts. They're fabulous." Carrie laughs and agrees. I have to say, this is the most wonderful and dignified Sam's been in two seasons. Great job, Kim Cattrall.
Miranda's wedding is beautiful. Even Steve's "for wicher or poower." Mir is radiant, luminous, and other clichés. Char holds Brady and says, "Look, your mommy's getting married!" Hee. When she says, "In sickness and in health," Carrie takes Sam's hand, and I tear up, even after my third viewing of the episode. When the woman uses the power given to her by the state of New York to pronounce them man and wife, Magda makes everyone applaud. "Come on, clop clop, it's happy time! Clop clop clop! Happy time!" It's so sweet.
Reception. Carrie VOs that Mir never had a problem with the eating part weddings. Well, duh. She's not a supermodel. At a table far from the happy couple, Char is shocked when Sam blurts out, "I have cancer." I love Sam's lack of cushioning. She's blunt. Me like.
Steve's Maaa, brilliantly played by Anne Meara, congratulates Miranda. She compliments her on the color of her wedding dress: A deep rusty burgundy velvet. It's gorgeous. Maaa says, "It's brave, your not pretending." Pretend? Please. Mir can barely pretend she isn't annoyed as hell at this conversation. When Maaa says she has a confession to make about her wedding day, Mir practically sighs out loud in impatience. Maaa plows ahead anyway. She wore white on her wedding day, but she shouldn't have. She slipped. Once. God forgive her. When she walked down the aisle at St. Agnes, she wore white on the outside, and "her little Jackie on the inside." Mir has a smile plastered on her face like they're talking about the Yankees. Maaa's face, of course, is contorted with the pain of a too-long pent-up confession finally coming out. Maaa takes a swig of her drink in relief. Mir waits, still smiling in horror. She takes a beat, then another, then says, "Steeeve?" Steve takes over and gets his Maaaa some food. What about some lithium crushed up on ice cream? How's that sound?
Mir joins her three girlfriends at the table. They all sing-song, "Hiiii!" Then they all fall silent. The elephant in the room clears his throat. Cough-cough-CANCER-cough. Mir looks at them all sharply and asks why they're being weird. What? Oh nooo. Not them. Ahem-tumor. Mir is all, "You think I'm an asshole, that I've become one of them, that I'm a Stepford bride." An chorus of "Noooo"s erupts. God, I love that movie. Want a spoiler? Okay. It's in the quiz. QUICK POLL What was the real deal with the Stepford wives? They were robots. They were aliens. They were possessed by Satan. This movie sounds AWESOME!
Mir demands to know what the girls were talking about. Sam demurs, saying it'll ruin her special day. Mir barks, "Forget about my special fucking day, just be normal, please, I beg of you." Seriously. She's an adult. She's not precious at all. Sam is trying to be polite and protect her, but it's better to just tell people the bad news and let them deal with it then. No one likes to be told bad news later more. So Sam says it: I have cancer. Mir takes a breath in, and I get a lump in my throat, again. "What?" Sam goes, "See? Now it's my special fucking day." Mir gets tearful, and Sam says gently, "No tears! I expected more from you." Char says this is why they didn't want to tell her. "Now go back to your people and we'll talk about this later." Mir says rapidly, "You are my people and we'll talk about it now." She wants to know everything, starting from the beginning. Carrie says, "You are the bossiest bride in the world." Mir says yes she is, and they have to do everything she says. The camera pulls away from the table as Sam recalls the details of her experience. Carrie VOs that "for better or worse, we were all ourselves that day. Just the way Miranda wanted it." Sniff!