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Cha cha cha, splashy bus!
Lights up on a gorgeous cafe, with a glass ceiling overlooking some impossibly Parisian rue. It's gray and mizzly. Carrie is shown to a table by a tall, beautiful hostess. The dreaded VO begins: After two weeks in Paris, it's time "for the ultimate in sophisticated French fare: Meeting your lover and his ex-wife for lunch." Yeeks. Is there anything more dreaded than meeting the ex of your current flame? Of course not. Alek's ex-wife, Juliet, is beautiful and gracious, and welcomes Carrie with a handshake. Juliet is played by Carole Bouquet, actress, L'Oreal spokesperson, and former Bond girl. Classy! So chic. I love her red satin jacket and low ponytail.
Of course, Carrie is barely holding it together, and yet one can tell how pleased with herself she is to be having this lunch in the first place. She says with a nervous stammer (naturally) that if she's fashionably late, then Alek is "very fashionable." Juliet laughs that Alek is in fact "always very fashionable." She compliments Carrie's bag, the same clutch that she tossed her necklace into and dropped in Dior. Carrie says it's vintage and that the lining is a "hundred years old," but she loves it EVAH so much. Juliet says they'll get along perfectly, as she oversees accessories for the collections. Wow! This should make Carrie go on and on about shoes and things, but instead she walks right into a "boing" moment of clarity by saying, "Alek never mentioned what work you did." Juliet sips her wine and says rien. Um, yeah, job quitter and life-leaver, are you surprised that Alek doesn't care about what the women in his life do? Because he doesn't want them to do anything but support him. Boing. It's almost anvil-licious, but for the fact that Carrie has been so completely oblivious and into the fairy tale aspects of this relationship. Like, horse-drawn carriage, yay! Giving up job and moving around the world, yay! Getting constantly blown off and meeting the ex who has already lived through the cycle, yay?
Juliet's phone rings. Can you guess what's going to happen? Right. Alek can't make it. He's stood up his ex and his current flame. Carrie orders a wine and looks a little lost when she realizes she's now lunching with the ex, solo. She compliments the restaurant, and Juliet says it "used to be" something good. Now, "Look at the chairs. They're hideous." Heh. Chloe is her mother's daughter. And the chairs are hideous, with their Lucite backs and strange little faces painted on them. One looks like a red-headed Bjork. Odd. Carrie rolls with Juliet's pooh-poohing without being threatened. Wow, how she's grown. Then again, those chairs are fugly.