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.
Charlotte and Anthony step into the SoHo Chanel for a little shopping. Anthony greets the straight-faced (ahem) security guard with a cheery, "Chanel-lo!" Heh. And I am loving the new chunky Lucite heels they're showing. Char is looking for "something simple to meet the birth parents in." She's giddy that they're from Charlotte, North Carolina. Anthony says the coincidence is "very TV movie of the week." Ooh, maybe someone will get murdered or jam a hypodermic into their leg to "chase the dragon," too. Will Hilary Swank or Meredith Baxter be there, too? I'd love that. Anthony goes on to say that, in his movie, Char will be played by Barbara Perkins circa Valley of the Dolls, and he will be played by Colin Farrell. Char tilts her head and asks if he thinks he looks like Colin Farrell. He snaps, "It's my movie!" Heh. Then Anthony softens in a way that we've never seen before. He's soft like sweet, creamery butter that's been left out on the counter in July. Softer than room-temperature Nuftchanel. Softer than a boatload of Pond's cold cream. He asks, "In your movie, how big is my part? Bit or supporting?" Char is all, what? He means that, after the baby comes, will they still be homies? You know. A hag and her man, out for a walk? Char says of course she'll be his hag. Always and forever. Anthony lets the tiniest smile cross his features, and lets Char take his arm. Plus, if this baby doesn't work out, he knows "some gays that got a Guatemalan baby for like a hundred bucks." So resourceful, that Anthony. And good for Char not outgrowing her best male friend, like someone else we know who's name rhymes with "Scary."
Hair salon. Sam's getting her slowly-growing crop dyed ash blonde. She asks her hairdresser to save some for Smith, over there in the chair, since he's "one hot piece of...ash." Oy. They make goo-goo eyes at each other. I'm gagging.
Post-ashing, Sam looks just like Jean Seberg, or maybe even a little like Edie Sedgwick. Quick, stand on a leather hippo, Sam. Yup. That's Edie. Smith ducks into the changing room with Sam, who's only in her bra, and kisses her. She faintly protests and rebuffs his advances. The hell? The horniest girl on television just turned down a chance to fool around? My hero, she has feet of clay. And pants not on fire. She has unseated herself from the tree. I'm...at a loss. Smith asks if they're going to talk about the fact that they haven't had sex in a while. What? Whoa. It's even worse than I thought. The tree she was sitting in has been chopped down. She's all, do we have to talk about it here? Smith says his therapist told him not to mention it at all. She's all, therapist? Yeah. He needed help in dealing with all the cancer stuff. She's not at all happy to hear this. "Well, since my sex drive has vanished and you're going out of town to work on a movie, why talk about it at all?" The hairdresser sees two pairs of feet underneath the changing room curtain and is all, Sam, you RASCAL. If he only knew.
It's still the Very Sophisticated Parisian Lunch, featuring Alek's two ladies. Juliet says she's been dying to meet Carrie, but Alek always had excuses. She says she grew to hate the phrase "as soon as." Boing. Another anvil bounces off Carrie's head. Can you smeeeeeell? What the anvil is cooking? Juliet asks how her "beloved" is. Oh, he's fine. "A bit stressed." Juliet says he's "very sensitive." Yeah, if his every need isn't tended to, he gets flapped. Carrie misses the point again and says she's impressed at how highly Juliet and Alek still think of each other. Juliet says they had a wonderful marriage, while it lasted. But marriage should be like couture: "If it doesn't fit perfectly, it's a disaster." Well, most of Carrie's clothes fit and are still disastrous. So much for that theory. Maybe something about a Cinderella slipper still pinching, or something. Juliet finishes with, "I hated coming in second all the time." Boing. Anvil shower. They light up cigarettes and exhale plumes of smoke. Whoooo. Ah, this bondin' 'n' smokin' is fuuuun. And the drankin', too. Yup. We're sure sophisti-ma-cated. Juliet leans in and says daughter Chloe said Carrie "was a writer in New York." Then she came to Paris, where the written word is deader than Jim Morrison. Carrie says she "is a writer," what with her newly-dead column, and her book, which was even translated into French. Juliet lets loose a torrent of smoke. "Really? And Alek is comfortable with that? Maybe people can change?" Carrie smokes and fingers her necklace. A road sign appears: WATCH FOR FALLING ANVILS.
Outside the Cador Patisser, Carrie lights up. She asks if Alek has any comment about her cancer sticks. No, he doesn't. "Everyone smokes in Paris." And everyone knots their goddamn scarves like they're being graded for originality, too. I learned that Frenchie tidbit from Le Divorce. Alek has a purple one on, and it's swooping crazily. So French. He says Carrie got "good reviews." She's "funny, smart, and chic." Ooh, la freak, so chic. His phone rings. It's the gallery. He has to go. Again, some more. Carrie's all, awww! And wow, she beat up Minnie Mouse and stole her dress. Red with black polka dots. And there's a giant bejeweled bug pinned to her coat. Get it off. Get it off! Carrie says she thought they were going to spend time together. He's all, "Don't make me feel worse." She's not trying to, you jerk. She "didn't say a word when [he] left [her] alone with [his] wife." He makes incredibly annoying childish faces at her, and she giggles and gives in. Wow, Carrie is so fucking spineless. He offers her the car and driver, but she says she'll walk, so he takes it without a word. Before dashing off, he says he likes the smoking. "It's very sexy." He makes a barely perceptible thrust with his hips. Oh, ew. Seeing that makes me want to smoke...crack. Because, like this scene, it is wack. Carrie exhales and yells, "It's killing me." Like Carrie's face.
Hey, Sad Piano. Welcome back. You gonna be here for a while? Take off your coat and have a seat. You just keep tinkling, and I'll recap the action to which you play.
Carrie enters the pastry shop, alone, alone. She sits at a table ands stuffs her face. Then the sound of a dog panting joins the soundtrack. Carrie looks to her right and sees a doggie. Then she gives him some pastry. Pathetic. Go, Sad Piano, go. Sad Cello? Break yourself off a piece. There's enough to go around.
Carrie walks the streets of Paris, alone, alone. She sees a family walking toward her. The dad has his little girl on his shoulders. Carrie beams at them, and then the little girl bops Carrie right on the head. Carrie's mouth makes an "O" at the indignity of it all, and then when she turns around to get a look, the little girl sticks her tongue out at her. Heh. I like that little girl. Carrie walks on, alone, alone, and steps in dog poop. It's true: No one picks up dog poop in Paris. And Carrie wasn't paying attention. Her shoes are caked with poo. Go, Sad Piano, go. Sad Accordion? Get you some.
Go, Sad Piano, go. Carrie rinses off her shoe at a nearby fountain. Some old French dudes walk by and have a laugh at Carrie's expense. Haw haw haw, she stepped in le poop! Yeah, yeah.
Carrie eats, alone, alone, by the river. A boat sails by with a cute American dude on it, videotaping the scenery. He grabs some footage of Carrie, then lowers the cam and watches her with his own eye. He waves, impressed by her and her chic-ness, then picks up the cam and resumes filming her. She seems kind of saddened by all this. Me too. Dudes filming random chicks is so New Orleans. What, did he want Carrie to show him her bra straps? That is so every other episode but this one. Go, Sad Piano, go.
It's nighttime now. Alek returns to the apartment. The Sad Piano has been joined by an entire Parisian Sad Orchestra. Carrie is asleep in bed. Alek whispers her name, barely to be heard above the orchestra as it Goes On With Its Sad Self. He pauses, but she's motionless. Then he goes into the other room, and her eyes open. Wow, she was awake the whole time! Could it be…? She's getting sick of his S-H-I-T? Go, Sad Piano, go! Beware of slowly moving anvils, y'all!
Over at the Brooklyn Arms, Miranda and her family are having dinner. Steve's Maaaa is dining with them, sipping on a can of Bud. She seems a little out of it. Steve asks if she likes how the house is coming along, and she gives a blank stare. Steve's all, "Maaaa, wassa matta?" Then she comes to and asks what "Little Stevie is doing down there." Steve says that's Brady; he's right here. Maaaa just sips on her Bud. Steve goes to the kitchen, where Miranda and Magda are dishing out ice cream, and says, "Does my mother seem odd to you?" Heh. She seems awesome too, but somehow not right. Mir thinks it's "one too many beers syndrome." Steve says that isn't it. "Her eyes aren't focusing or something. I'm worried." Mir looks at him, then carries the ice cream out to the table. She asks if Maaaa wants some, and Maaaa says, "Don't let little Stevie have aaaaaany strawberries." Mir says, "That's Brady." Maaaa snaps, "What are you talking about! I know that's Brady!" Um, okay. Mir puts the bowl down, and Maaaa finishes, "But who the hell are you!" Mir looks worried and upset. Steve says quietly that he's gonna run Maaaa down to the emergency room.
Sam's apartment. She's smoking a huge joint. I hope her cancer status got her the medicinal, G-13 type of weed. If not, she can just call her regular supplier. Smith is packing. She asks that if it's a movie about Attila the Hun, why are they filming it in Canada? Exposition, thy name is filler. Seriously, Sam should know this: Because it's cheaper. And because Canada rules. Smith says that it's in the middle of nowhere, too, so for eight weeks, there's nothing to do. Sam says she wants him to listen: she's giving him the green light to bone other babes. Smith's like, "Are we here again? After everything?" Sam says she's trying to keep him, not let him go. She knows how important sex can be in a relationship. To say the least. Smith says it's just the chemo, and her sex drive will come back. "It's like winter. Just because the trees are bare doesn't mean they're dead." So true. It's in Ecclesiasties. To every horndog, turn, turn, turn, there is a season, turn, turn, turn. Sam says emphatically, "I want you to have sex. Sex is just sex, I understand." Smith says he doesn't want to have "just sex." Sam says he says that now, but after a day riding horses and wearing "animal skins," some hot Canadian extra will look good and he should "feel free to pillage her." After all, she adds, he's "playing a barbarian!" Smith glumly keeps packing.
Steve and his Maaaa return home from the hospital. After depositing Maaaa in front of the TV, he and Mir confer. It seems Maaaa has had a small stroke. No one knows when, since she's been home alone. There's "significant memory loss." Which, as we've seen, tends to come and go. Steve says he wants Maaaa to stay with them tonight, so he's gonna go grab her things. Mir gets her coat and says she'll come with, and Magda can watch over Maaaa. Then she kisses him tenderly and says, "I'm so sorry." Wow. Steve looks so empty, and Mir is being such a rock. It's really touching.
Steve flicks the light on in Maaaa's apartment. It's a total wreck: the sink piled with dishes, papers everywhere, food all over the counter. Horrible. Mir says gently, "Didn't you notice?" He didn't, because Maaaa was always waiting for him downstairs when he came to pick her up. Steve angrily swats at a cockroach, then grabs the garbage can and starts to clean up. He rants about how he's going to hire a maid and a nurse, someone to live with Maaaa full time, since "my Maaaa can't live like this. My Maaaa can't live like this!" Mir stands quietly behind him, open-mouthed. She looks unsure, for maybe the first time. Then she says definitively, "Steve, your mother can come live with us." Wow. This is not the Miranda we know! This is a newer, softer, kinder Miranda. I like her. But what has she done with the old Mir?
Hey, Sad Piano learned some minor chords! Cool. Carrie, in a blue coat and white fluffy hat, walks toward a book store. That hat is poodle, I think. Maybe Bichon. Or a remnant of a Kangol. Her book is in the window. So, of course, she goes inside to look at it. The real-life version of Googling herself.
The page, in French, has "tard" and "Culture Vulture" and "Samantha" and "Mr. Big" on it. I know "tard" means something in French ["'late'" -- Sars], but still, hee. Plus, "tard." Carrie looks at her book without understanding it, like a dog sitting on a newspaper, or a cat walking across a keyboard. A shopgirl in a gold tie comes over to help Carrie, then recognizes her. She loves Sex and the See-tee! She is, 'ow you say, ze seen-gal ghorl! She calls over another fan, a nice young man, who also drops his jaw when he recognizes Carrie. He conjugates a verb for her. "I 'ave ze sex. She 'as ze sex. We all 'ave ze sex." Very nice. Gold Tie says she wants to have "ze party" for Carrie, half-past eight? They can talk about sex? Carrie beams and nods, eyes misty.
Carrie and Alek walk arm and arm. She says she fell into her French fan base -- "all two of them" -- and they're throwing her a party on Saturday night at La Petite Auberge. Alek can't go. That's the night he unveils his show to the museum curator. But she should go, to greet "all [her] screaming fans!" He says it a tad sarcastically and maybe with a hint of jealousy. Carrie is too happy to notice, and happy to go alone. She asks, "Do you think they'll really be screaming?" He says he hopes so. She squeals like a New Year's Eve novelty noisemaker and says she does as well. I wonder when squealing gets old? Let me ask the staff of TRL. Okay, I'm back. They said "after one goddamn second." Shut up, Carrie.
Char, in a lovely pink and black Chanel dress, pours tea for the Charlotte, NC, possible baby donors. The husband is in a mustache that rivals any pair of ape-hangers I've seen on Monster Garage. She, the mom-to-be, is blonde. Char rattles off the amenities of their neighborhood and proximity to the best schools, not that they would send him or her to a PUBLIC school, oh no. Blonde Baby Mama says, "She. It's a she. I didn't want to know nothing about it, but I was there and they asked me, and it's a she. Ever since then, I've been thinking of little girl names." Char and Harry's faces freeze. Blonde BayMa says she likes "Tiffany" and "Britney. Any name with an 'Eeee' on the end." Char says, "We're not getting the baby, are we?" BayMa instantly bursts into tears and says no. Harry, with a perfectly controlled voice, asks why they put them through all this, then. Handlebar says, "We've never seen New York." Char contains her emotions well, but Harry has a face on him that contains disgust, anger, loathing, and a little pity. That Evan Handler is good.
Char enters Harry's office. Elizabeth Taylor's puppies sit in a basket. So cute! He's writing an angry letter to their baby lawyer. He squeezes the bridge of his nose between his eyes and asks, "How much more can we take!" Wow, Char's been in this baby-fight for a lot longer than you, pal. And she's taking this like a trouper. A real pro. Char kisses him on the head and says, "It's okay. That wasn't our baby. Our baby's still coming." Harry says he thinks "God lost our address." Char says, "We're Jews. We've been through a lot worse things than this." Yeah, you mean the Mayflower crossing, Miss Star-of-David carpetbagger? That was rough.
Sam enters her office to find flowers: Not-yet-bloomed tulips, with a note from Smith that reads, "Looking forward to spring." God, that's sweet. She picks up the phone and calls him. He's on line at catering, in animal skins and a horned helmet. Even in the comedy of it all, that helmet is better than most of the hats Carrie has donned this season. Sam says she got the flowers and the card, and "sorry to be a wet blanket," but could he please not have sex with anyone else? He says he won't. Then she upgrades her pleasant request to a firmer "Don't." He says okay. Sam, happy, says, "Cool!" Wow. This is a new Samantha!
Carrie finishes making up in her vanity, makes a satisfied little sound of "all pretty now," then says goodnight to her "gorgeous Russian." Alek sits on the sofa, looking more lost than Steve's Maaaa, fiddling with his cufflinks. He says he thinks he's having an anxiety attack. "What if they think I'm a silly old man with his light machines?" Don't you mean "when," silly old man? That light bulb contraption is straight out of the video for "Rock Your Body." Carrie takes over on cufflink duty and tries to reassure him that he will be fine. He says, quick like a bunny, "Will you come with me?" But she has her party. And she doesn't have anyone's phone number to call and cancel. And she's done absolutely everything he's asked and now she wants to do something she wants to do, for once. Sad Piano goes pling pling pling! He says he needs her there. She says, um. Then he says he'll be fine. She says, no, okay, she'll go. It's important to him. Carrie, you idiot. He takes her hand and says, "Promise you won't let go all night." She promises. Why is she falling for this needy routine? Oh, right: She's an idiot.
They walk together to the gallery. His name is outside on a big brass plaque. They step inside. He bites his lips; she smiles brightly and reassuringly. In a clean, art-free hall, a group of people gaze into a red-lit room. When they see Alek, they begin to applaud. The curator screams, "Genius! Genius!" Alek sighs, relieved. Carrie is happy too. But then, Alek lets go of her hand to shake the curator's, and Carrie's face falls. Alek walks toward the applauding group and leaves her, alone, alone. There isn't even Sad Piano to keep her company. Hey, Carrie? You chose to support him. That means "support." Not pout when he has to leave you to do work stuff. He's been leaving you to do work stuff the whole time you've been hanging out. Are you just noticing this now, or did it take this long to finally bother you? If so, this is your final wake-up call. Smell the espresso: this dude puts you second to everything. Le like it or le lump it.
Mir and Char are having tea. Char shows Brady a train in a book. Then Maaaa walks in, with her coat on, and says she wants to take little Stevie to the zoo. Mir says Steve is all grown up, and that this is Brady. Maaaa leaves the room suddenly. Char asks how Mir is dealing with all this. Mir just smiles and says she admires Steve, since he comes home from the bar late and deals with his Maaaa all day. Char says she thinks Mir is amazing. Mir returns the compliment. Steve's Maaaa hollers about getting ready to go to the zoo. Mir says that Brady is amazing. Then she listens to the silence and wonders why Maaaa had her coat on. They go downstairs, and see the door standing wide open. Maaaa is gone. Mir says, "Shit! Shit, shit! Shit! Stay with the baby, I'm going to go look for her." Wow, this just got all Lifetime Movie of the Week on us.
Carrie sits, alone, alone, but Sad Piano is there to score the scene. Alek walks, flanked by his crowd. Carrie, for whatever reasons -- jealousy? Insecurity? Resentment? -- sits at the other end of the gallery, separate from his throng. She takes out a cigarette. Sorry, mademoiselle. Ne fumar pas! She says, the one place in Paris where you can't smoke. She pokes through her purse and discovers a hole in the lining. She pokes around some more, and voila: her Carrie necklace, she is found. The Happy Harpsichord starts up as Carrie kvells and grins hugely. She goes to tell Alek, but everyone's paying attention to him and laughing at something. So she tells the guard to tell him she left, and runs out of there.
Run, Carrie, run. Run in those stilettos. She screams for a taxi, but none stop. She runs in the road like she's the frog in Frogger. She does not get creamed by a log. Then, as she stands helplessly by the side of the road, Big pulls up in a car right behind her. Yeee! It's him! He came to get her! Big is in Paris! He's right there! Carrie, stop licking your lips like you're Cher and LOOK BEHIND YOU!
Mir runs frantically down the streets of Brooklyn, screaming for Maaaa.
Carrie emerges from a cab at the party venue. It's empty. She missed everyone. And on the remnants of the table is her book, which someone used as a coaster for their vin. Fitting.
Mir finally finds Maaaa. She's on the street, her cheeks and hands red and raw from the cold, eating a slice of pizza she found in the trash. My throat gets a lump in it, and my eyes blur with tears. It's really sad. Maaaa, still tough to the core, says, "This pizza tastes like garbage." Well, that's because it is. Mir takes it from her gently and puts it back in the bin. Maaaa says, "I'm still hungry, you know."
Mir runs a bath. I love the rubber ducky thing she has over her faucet. It's very cool. There are so many great new innovations in baby products today. Recently I saw a thing that's like a long tube, so kids can keep the bottle in their laps and suck on it anyway. Very cool. Plus I love those baby bath wrap things, where you can make a baby burrito, with a head of a duck or kitty. The rubber ducky faucet thing covers the taps, so baby can't turn on the water and scald himself. Cute and safe! I love it. Maaaa's in the bath. Mir washes her back. Maaaa is loving it. Magda walks by and sees, then smiles a little sadly.
Carrie returns to the hotel to find Alek making phone calls on the bed. She went to her party. Alone, alone. He asks how it was. "Over. It was over. How could you abandon me like that when I gave up my party to be with you?" One could argue that she abandoned him, too. She's been giving up things for him all along, and just now it's occurred to her that he's a selfish fucker? Talk about hindsight. He says he didn't abandon her. No, but he ignored her when she sat alone on a bench far away. He says he "doesn't want to do this now." He's "tired" and had a "stressful day." She says she's in this relationship, too. "I am a person! In this relationship! Have you any idea what it's been like for me here?" She means being alone all the time, ignored for a "light installation." He says, "That's what I do. That's who I am. You always knew this." Yup. It's true. And she did. But it was different in New York. She had "a life" there. "A job and friends." And she didn't "give all those things up to wander the streets of Paris alone." But you did. He says he's going to take a shower and go to bed, and that they can talk about this later. She grabs him as he walks away and says not later, now. He wheels around with his hand up in a "talk to this" gesture, and accidentally back-hands her across the face. Or, maybe it was just a slap of convenience. Whoa. Damn. Snap. Et cetera.
She holds her face and looks completely shocked. He looks shocked too, but also glad that she finally shut up. Is it wrong for me to be glad, too? It is. I'm wrong. So wrong. Remember the name of the website before writing me mail about how insensitive I am to domestic violence, please. It's "WITHOUT Pity." I mean, Carrie was way into the whole fairy tale of this non-relationship with her "LOVAH." The apartment ("He has the whole floor!"), the fireplace, the couture, the jewelry, the sleigh ride, Paris. It's not like she's been living in squalor. She's been in a high-fucking-end ivory tower of her own making, and now she's had enough. It's not his fault. He grabs her shoulder to...I don't know, comfort her? And her necklace breaks. She looks even more sad, and fishes around in her cleavage to get the stones. He says he's sorry. He thought he was clear all along about who he was. He was. Then she says, "Maybe it's time to be clear about who I am." She's a person looking for love. "Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't live without each other love. And I don't think that love is here in this expensive suite in this lovely hotel in Paris. It's not your fault, it's my fault. I shouldn't have come here." Alek says, "Carrie," and she cuts him off like she cut off Big. "Please don't. I'm fine." He looks sad and creased, like a blanket you find on the street. She gets her coat, kisses him on the cheek, and leaves. Hooray!
Carrie, in mangled French, asks for a room for herself. There are no rooms. Only double rooms. Well, she's a single, and it would be fine. She digs in her dress for her necklace, and drops a stone on the floor. She squats down for it, and Big walks in. Sad Piano can't sit this one out. Carrie looks up and sees Big, then whispers, "Hi." Then the tears come. "Paris is a mess! I shouldn't have come here. We had a big fight and...I got slapped." Big makes a "whachoo talkin' bout" face. She says it was "an accident, he didn't mean it." Big's nostrils flare with anger. Carrie protests that he has it wrong, and Big growls that he'll kick Alek's ass. What? He said he thinks he's gonna "go kick some Russian ass." Too impatient to wait for the elevator, he takes the stairs two at a time. Carrie trails him all, "What are you doing? What do you have in mind? Come back here! Stop, slow down, you're gonna have a heart attack!" Finally he's on the sixth floor, charging toward the room, saying there's nothing Carrie can do to stop him. She trips him, and he falls to the ground. She falls too. Then they crack up, and roll around on the floor together, laughing.
Big and Carrie walk away from the hotel. The streets are cinematically wet. Why is shiny always better on film? It's so odd. He says that most people come to Paris to fall in love. She came to Paris and got slapped. They giggle some more. She looks up at him, all glowy and happy, and asks how he got there. He puts his coat around her and says it took him a long time to get here. Yeah, about six years. Then he says, "Carrie, you're the one." Happy Orchestra starts up, and they kiss. Then she whispers, "I miss New York. Take me home." But of course.
Harry's home. Char, in a pink Polo top, says she's a bad wife, she ordered Chinese. Harry has something from China too: a baby. They get her in six months. Char begins to cry. The picture is so cute. Char nods and cries and says, "That's our baby. I know it. That's really our baby." Aww!
Mir reads the paper. Magda walks up and says, "What you did. That was love. You love." Mir looks up and says, "Let's not make a big deal of it to Steve. It would just upset him." Magda kisses her forehead, and I think I see a tear fall off Mir's face. Or maybe that was me.
Smith lets himself into Sam's apartment. Sam's sleeping. He wakes her up with a "hey, baby." He forgot to tell her something. He loves her. She asks if he flew all the way home to tell her that. He asks, "Can you think of a better reason?" She can't. Then, with tears streaking down her face, she says, "You have meant more to me than any man I've ever known." They kiss. Oh man, I'm crying now.
Carrie gets out of Big's car, in jeans, a pink top, and a furry coat. She looks up at her apartment with love. Then Big rolls down the window, and with his face framed in the car window like we've seen so many times before, he says he doesn't live here anymore, and the Four Seasons won't check him in until one. Carrie says, "Oh! Did you want to come up?" He says, "Abso-fuckin-lutely." And, of course, it's on. Is it right in the long run? I think not. But is it right for right now? Yes. Righter than Alek. She smiles and lets him follow her up the steps to her apartment.
Brunch with the girls. Mir sees Carrie enter the place, and she screams so loud that my dog Artie tries to jump inside the TV to kill the squeak, like he does with toys. The four friends, together again, talk over each other and look at the picture of Char's baby, cheating it out to the camera. This ending is exactly what the majority of posters on the forums wanted, of course. The four friends together, and Carrie with Big. So, why does there need to be a movie? I think the demand has been satisfied. But who knows. I don't think I could stand a Carrie VO in Dolby. She begins for the final time: "There are relationships that open you up to something new and exotic." Like espresso? "Those that are old and familiar." The four friends spill out onto the sidewalk, in their coats and ankle boots. I saw photos from this scene in In Touch magazine. Carrie types in her apartment and VOs, "Those that bring up lots of questions...those that bring you somewhere unexpected...those that bring you far from where you started. And those that bring you back." We see Char and Harry walking their doggies, Mir and her family around the table, and Sam bouncing on top of Smith, winding up to a siren-sounding orgasm, as the camera pans by her flowers, now in bloom. "But the most exciting, challenging, and significant relationship you have of all, is the one you have with yourself." So, it is sort of like an "I choose me" Kelly Taylor ending. Carrie walks with a shopping bag from Manolo Blahnik, and her cell phone rings. The caller ID says, "John." She answers with a "Hi!" It's Big. His house is on the market. New York, get ready, 'cause he's coming back. The VO continues, "And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous!" Carrie walks on in her Fendi fur, swinging her bag, with the techno music pumping. Shoes, Big, and everyone's happy. The end!