Out of the Frying Pan

Lights up on a Manhattan storefront with Korean writing on the awning. It's night. Carrie VOs that dating someone new can seem foreign, particularly when they themselves are foreign. And, one minute in, I roll my eyes. It took only one sentence, people. Apparently, Aleksandr has been taking Carrie on exotic culinary trips, and tonight, it's Koreatown, Midtown, NYC, New York, North America, the planet Earth. They kiss in the middle of the street and are almost struck by a passing car. Don't get your hopes up, I said "almost." And to finish that thought, dang.

Carrie flounces out of her front door and poses for Alek, who waits on the sidewalk, to either take her all in or try and get a peek up her skirt. He says, "Wow. You look..." Please take note of the fact that he TRAILED OFF and did not finish his sentence. She says anyway, "Thank you!" Um, he forgot to describe how you look, Carrie. Shut up. She's wearing a multiple strand of pearls, a red drapey corset-y-looking top, a black jacket, and a long, white, multi-tiered ruffled skirt with white ankle boots. Okay, the skirt? So wrong. Potato chips have ruffles. That's okay. A skirt with ruffles? Not okay. It's like Johnny Depp took peyote, and in his hallucinations got in a knife fight with Seinfeld around the time of the pirate shirt episode, then they suddenly started making out, and from their union an unholy skirt was given unto Carrie. And now for the boots: I'm sorry, when I ponder the boots, I start to feel a little sad. I mean, I'm getting upset here. The boots themselves are not bad things. They could be fine. They just got mixed up with a really bad skirt, and you just know that the two of them together, i.e. boots and skirt, are only going to get into trouble. That skirt will make those boots stay up all night doing blow, and then a few weeks later, after they've bonded, Skirt will pull out a bag of meth and be all, "C'mon, wanna try it? I've got some o.j. in the fridge, we can do it just like David Silver did on ! It'll be kicky, Boots! Ha ha, get it? 'Kicky'? 'Boots'? Oh, come on, Boots, don't be such a pussy! It's just a little meth! Now where's my mortar and pestle. Oh' Boots, could you crush this for me? Into a fine powder, please. Thank you, Boots. Now roll up this bill." So I really hope the boots come to their senses and just stay the hell away from that skirt in future. Boots? Do what you're made to do and WALK.

Carrie embraces Alek and asks where they're going to tonight. Somewhere where the women have opinions, I hope! He says, "berry, berry, exotic place." Is it a box of Berry Berry Kix? You don't come across those every day. Carrie says, "Just so you know, I'm fully vaccinated." Oh, don't mind me, I'm just looking at the ceiling. Not rolling my eyes at all. So, should they grab a cab? Alek says they can walk there. In fact, Carrie should turn around. Then he nimbly flits up the stoop with two bags of groceries. Ha! He fooled her but good. They're staying the hell in. Welcome to relationships; after a while, dating means sitting to each other, inside. ["Alex, how many times do I have to tell you -- don't sugarcoat it for these nice people. Hee." -- Sars]

Carrie cleans her plate and beams. Mmm. Alek can cook. He says wryly that he never made risotto in a frying pan before. She apologizes and says she "never use[s] the kitchen." And still, she has a frying pan. For beaning burglars, I reckon, or maybe to toss at felines caterwauling out on the fence, backlit by a perfectly round moon. No, people toss old boots at those. Boots, you have an escape plan! Go for it, Boots! So what, I wonder, would a person who claims to "never use" a kitchen be doing with a frying pan? Oh, right: to reheat coffee. Alek pulls himself off the floor and shakes his leg out. His "foot sleeps." Now, for espresso. Carrie doesn't have an espresso machine, either. Maybe a "Mister Coffee one-pot." Oh, wow. A writer without a coffeemaker? Come ON. Well, Carrie does suck. So, they go into the kitchen, and a rather large mouse moves languidly across the kitchen counter. Carrie screams like she's in a horror movie. It's waaay over the top, and I'm a mouse-screamer too. But then again, I screamed when I saw Brody Dalle from the Distillers and Kevin Hawkins from the Darkness sharing the cover of February Spin magazine together. Well, I didn't exactly scream. More like a loud gasp. Because I was thrilled. Alek grabs the frying pan and smashes the mouse with it. Oh, gross! And at the same time, nice reflexes, dude. No, it's totally disgusting. He killed vermin with a cooking utensil. But he killed it super-fast. Wow, I'm so on the fence. Okay, I can come to a conclusion. It's loathsome, but I'd still want him around to do that if needed. Carrie, on the other hand, is looking like she wants a frying pan to descend from the heavens and eradicate Alek from the planet. She suggests the mouse was just passing through to get to the nicer apartment door. Alek is all, "Talk about denial. Where there's one, there's more." He's right. Carrie says yeah, they're going out.

Sam, Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte loll around, eating popsicles. Oh, and Sam's having chemo. They're in a "chemo lounge," a semi-private room where patients having chemo can hang with their peeps. It must make the process easier. They suck on popsicles athletically, Mir intoning, "Good Humor me!" Heh. Everyone has cherry except Mir, who chose grape. She sucks it efficiently, and Sam comments, "Look at her work Mr. Grape! Steve is a very lucky guy!" Heh. All women deep-throat popsicles when no one is around. It's the truth. Okay, maybe it's just me. The nurse asks if everyone is as much fun as Sam, and Carrie says she wishes. Then Sam says if it's fun they want, listen to how awesome the premiere party of Smith's movie is gonna be. She's got a hot dress and fab shoes and she's gonna nail that red carpet's ass! Everyone clinks popsicles and "woo hoo!"s. Yeah, this chemo thing is easy! Popsicles for everyone!

Carrie and Alek stroll through the aisles of Williams-Sonoma (shout-out to Keckler? Could be), past all the Bodum products, with Carrie chattering all the while about how much fun Sam's chemo session was, what with the Barcaloungers and popsicles and videos they could watch. Wow, I remember reading about special Barcalounger-type chairs marketed to hospitals for blood donors to use. They were hella expensive, but looked as comfortable as can be. I had to wonder, okay, they can invent these chairs that feel like you're in heaven with an angel cupping each buttock, but we STILL NEED BLOOD DONORS. Priorities, people. Anyway, as Carrie concludes that, avec shuffleboard, Sam's chemo would be "a vacation in Miami." Um, yeah. Exactly. Alek sees the espresso makers and drags Carrie towards them. Carrie says Sam "doesn't even look sick." Alek is all, but she is sick, yes? Well, not really, says Carrie. She was! But now it's all popsicles and dreaming of red carpet flashbulbs. Alek says seriously, "I had a friend with breast cancer. She died." Then he walks away, leaving Carrie to finger the tiny espresso cups, alone, alone.

Char fries eggs in the kitchen like a good little wifey. Wow, more wine, Mrs. Stepford? Just kidding. I already used that line in a recap. And it's on my mind because, when I was watching the Golden Globes tonight, I learned that I'll soon be seeing Nicole Kidman in a remake of The Stepford Wives. Which is both thrilling and horrifying to me. Like, first of all, do they have to remake EVERYTHING these days? Is there anything original out there? But then again, I love that movie, so yay. Maybe Sofia Coppola could direct and leave it a period piece, circa the '70s, and she could put her dappled-sunlight touches all over it like she did with The Virgin Suicides. Or maybe Vincent Gallo! Then again, it could suck, and people will go around thinking that The Stepford Wives is crap, and I'll be bummed, because the first one is so campy and feminist and scary and wholly lovable. So yeah, anyway, Char's frying something up in a pan, never letting Harry forget he's a man, cause she's a woooo-man, double-you oh. M-A-N. Want to sing it again? No? Okay. The phone rings. It's Dr. Steiner. She thanks him for calling, hangs up, serves Harry his eggs, and tells him none of her eggs were viable. But she wants to try again. She's sure. "It'll work. It has to." Harry reaches for her. Is she okay? Yeah. She says she's gonna go for a run.

Char runs in the park, passing everyone else on the track. She cuts through a grassy area away from the river and passes a woman with one of those jog-strollers, avec baby. Char looks at it, then runs faster to pass the stroller. She sprints away, and Carrie VOs that Charlotte had won everything she'd ever tried to, except "the baby race."