Sex and the City - Season 1, Episode 4

"Help! I pinched a loaf before I realized
you were out of toilet paper!"

"Valley of the Twenty-Something Guys"
Original airdate: 6/28/1998

Episode summary: Carrie discusses the merits of engaging in casual hookups with twenty-something guys, and Charlotte is troubled by her boyfriend's request for anal sex.

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Recap: Carrie is tapping away on her computer, gabbling about how "a certain man and woman" (her and Mr. Big) keep bumping into one another. By scripted coincidence, they seemed to run into each other everywhere they went, a phenomenon she describes as "dating accidentally".

Samantha's PR firm is handling the opening of a hot new Manhattan restaurant, so she's invited the gals to attend the event. Charlotte is there with her new boyfriend, who has the three most important traits she seeks in a man - looks, manners, money - because she's too shallow and immature to look beyond the surface and appreciate the complexities of human beings. Carrie complains that Mr. Big is late, and that he hasn't referred to the evening's plans as a date, but rather a thing. Miranda tells her that Skipper will be meeting her at the restaurant, then clarifies in her usual man-hating, bitchy, potty-mouthed fashion, "We're not dating; it's a fuck thing." Run, Skipper. Run far and fast.

Samantha lets the gals cut in line and enter the restaurant, and Carrie makes a beeline over to the pay phone to check her messages. She listens to a message that Mr. Big left for her and looks befuddled...then asks Miranda to listen to it to see if she can determine whether he regards her as a woman he's dating or just a skanky acquaintance he felt obliged to ask out. Miranda listens to the call, also looks befuddled, and says, "I have no idea." Carrie and Miranda head over to join Samantha, who's sitting at a table with two twenty-something guys: Jon (the restaurant's chef), and Jon's disheveled friend Sam. Carrie introduces herself to Sam and the two look instantly smitten with each other and start flirting...and Sam offers to get her a drink at the bar. She warns him it's packed over there, but he flashes her a grin and says, "No problem - the bartender is a buddy of mine." Carrie stares appreciatively at his ass as he makes his way to the bar, then voice-overs that twenty-somethings are great to hang with 'cause of their helpful connections and nice butts. Jon tells Samantha he has to head back to the kitchen and do his job, now that the New York Times' food critic has arrived - but Samantha orders him to make out with her first, and the two go at it as Carrie and Miranda pretend not to gawk at the nauseating display. After Jon toddles off, Samantha gleefully asks, "Did I mention I'm sleeping with him?" No. But shocker alert.

"Well hello there. I'm Carrie, sex columnist extraordinaire."

"I'm Sam. Your next meaningless fuck."

A harassed looking Skipper brings two drinks over to Miranda and explains that the bartender stopped making martinis, so the best he could do was rum and Coke. Miranda snippily replies, "Well, I hate rum, and I hate Coke. But thanks" and Skipper somehow refrains from telling her to go fuck herself. Sam, meanwhile, comes over with a tray full of martinis, and poor Skipper's all, "Wuh?" Sam pulls Carrie aside and asks her if she wants to see something, then darts his tongue out a few times so she can check out his piercing. Ick. As she giggles like a twelve year old, Mr. Big suddenly appears from out of nowhere and eyes Sam curiously. Carrie scrunches her face in confusion and says she thought he wasn't coming, so he explains that he told her in his message that he'd try to make it to the restaurant before he had to go do some work-related thing...but since he spent so much time in line waiting to get in the restaurant, and then trying to find her once he was inside, he now has to leave immediately. After Big exits, a bored Sam declares, "This place is tired" and asks Carrie if she wants to go somewhere else. She chirps, "Sure!" and the two head out.

Carrie, Sam, Samantha, and Jon walk over to a club filled with twenty-somethings. Samantha somehow convinced Jon to leave the restaurant in mid-shift 'cause "he's too talented to be seen somewhere that's borderline tired". Well that's an interesting work ethic - I hope he's talented enough to find new employment from a restauranteur who's willing to hire such a flaky dinkwhistle. Inside the club, Carrie points out to Samantha that everyone is in their twenties, and Samantha grins and says, "And so are we." (No...you are definitely not.) Carrie admires the various types of twenty-something guys on display at the club: groovy, corporate, jock, and underage. Carrie and Sam squeeze onto a tiny couch beside Samantha and Jon, and Carrie coquettishly tells Sam she'd like to know what it feels like to kiss someone with a piercing...so he eagerly indulges her, and as they smooch, Carrie voice-overs that Sam's type is "good kisser guy".

The next morning, Samantha calls Carrie to share every grisly detail of her fuckfest with Jon and says, "I've been fucked literally every way you can be fucked." And instead of establishing tasteful boundaries for this and all future conversations, Carrie wryly indulges her and says, "If you keep talking like that, I'm going to have to charge you by the minute." Samantha continues to give her a needless rundown of her steamy night with Jon: him on top, her on top, her on her side, him on his side...blah blah, you get the idea. "Guys in their twenties are up for anything!" she gleefully cackles, then asks Carrie how things went with her and Sam. Carrie says they kissed, and Samantha contorts her face in disgust and says, "Just kissed??" so Carrie tells her they kissed for five hours. She lights up a cigarette and dreamily says she forgot how much fun it is to just kiss - but Samantha's already stopped listening and is now gabbling about the gazillion orgasms Jon gave her in every existing sexual position.

"Sam and I just kissed."

"Until you fuck some guy you barely know upside down while hanging from a chandelier, I have nothing more to say to you."

Later, as Carrie is tapping away on her computer, she ponders, "Are men in their twenties the new designer drug?" [No. They're just people in their twenties.] She wonders if she and her friends were getting into something they couldn't handle, then poses this pronouncement/question for herself and viewers to contemplate, "We're attracted to twenty-something men for various reasons - but I couldn't help but wonder: what do they see in us?" God only knows. Incidentally, I cannot stand Carrie's overuse of the phrase I couldn't help but wonder whenever she's tapping out her shittastic column. 

Some random twenty-something guy playing basketball addresses the camera and bloviates about how women in their thirties are "so grateful", and that every nice thing they do "is like throwing food to the starving". His young friend agrees and crassly says, "They give great head" and then another twenty-something says, "They remind me of my mom" which was weird. Skipper, who's playing basketball with these morons, says he likes women in their thirties 'cause "they know who they are and what they want". And then a seventeen year old appears on the screen and says, "Two words: smart pussy" and this is now the second time in the episode that the writers have creepily ventured into underage boy territory, which...ew.   

A couple of days later, Carrie and Miranda are walking along the street...and Miranda is once again trying to look like a man/unfashionable lesbian in an ugly suit and tie outfit. Carrie asks her if perhaps they should be dating men their own age, but Miranda derisively snorts and says, "Good luck finding one" and flatly declares that New York has no available men in their thirties. Carrie looks perplexed and wonders aloud, "What's really going on here?" and Miranda caustically retorts, "It's just sex", so Carrie mulls that over [while ignoring the possibility that quality men in their thirties have no use for vapid nitwits such as themselves]. She checks her watch and tells Miranda she has a meeting with her editor, then abruptly rushes off.   

Carrie voice-overs that she didn't want to admit to Miranda that she had canceled the meeting with her editor to meet up with Sam at Banana Republic to pick out a new shirt. It really is a miracle she's still employed. Sam pulls her into the fitting room, and the two start slobbering all over each other...and Carrie voice-overs about how fun he is, and wonders if perhaps their kissing dates could turn into more than just a fling? or a potential boyfriend? (No and no.) A store clerk pulls open the fitting room curtain and tells them to knock off their smooching, then glares at them and says, "Please. This isn't The Gap." After he leaves, Carrie and Sam giggle and continue to make out. 

Carrie's getting ready to meet Mr. Big for a drink when Charlotte calls, in desperate need of advice. Apparently, her rich, well mannered boyfriend asked her something so heinous that when Carrie hears what it is, she says she'll be in front of her building in a cab asap. Turns out the boyfriend wants Charlotte to agree to have anal sex. The fuck? That's the big emergency?? As they discuss Charlotte's anal sex quandary in the cab, Carrie tells her they're picking up Miranda and Samantha to offer her "girl support". Miranda asks Charlotte how much she likes this guy, and she says she isn't sure and gets all flustered. Miranda starts blathering nonsense about how anal sex signals a shift in power in the relationship, and throws out the question, "Will he respect you if he fucks you up the butt?" Samantha breezily waves her hand in the air and says, "A hole is a hole" and that the human body was designed to experience anal sex. She chuckles and adds, "P.S., it's fabulous - with the right guy and the right lubricant!" and all four cackle at Samantha's raunchy wit while the beleaguered cabbie contemplates dropping them off on the nearest bridge.   

"No worries, Charlotte. We'll work through your anal sex quandary and make a group decision."

"You bitches could all use some back door penetration - am I right?"

Carrie arrives at the restaurant where she and Big are meeting for a drink. She tells him she's so happy to be alone with him at last...and Big stares at her uncomfortably and goes, "Um. Meet my friend Jack" just as a miserable looking sack of a man plops himself down at the table and starts grumbling about his impending divorce from bitch wife #2. Jack is suddenly distracted by a beautiful woman across the room and says he's going to go ask her if she'd like to join them for dinner. After he ambles off, Big sheepishly explains that Jack unexpectedly called him, crying...so Carrie suggests they have a guy's night out, talk, and let Jack cry it out. She gets up, leaves him some money to pay for their next round of drinks...and Big goes, "Are you sure?" and she smiles and says, "Abso-fucking-lutely" which is a needless shout out to the dumb pilot episode. Carrie heads out and walks forty-eight blocks in $400 shoes, and stops in at the twenty-something bar, where she meets up with Sam. She voice-overs that she wanted to kiss him to make herself feel better...but after making out for awhile, she realized that kissing was no longer enough to improve her mood. She needed more. A round of butt sex, perhaps?

Charlotte, meanwhile, stammers through an explanation to her butt-fucking loving boyfriend as to why she doesn't want to have anal sex with him. She says she's afraid that if she doesn't he'll dump her, and if she does, she'll be the "up the butt" girl. She tells him she wants children and nice bedding...and really can't handle something as low-down dirty as anal sex. He mulls that over for a few seconds, then asks, "Can we fuck the regular way?" and she gives him a relieved smile and says, "Yes, please" and the two politely make love, Charlotte style.

"I've been thinking about your anal sex request."

"And I've decided that I can't be your up the butt girl."

Samantha and Jon are indulging in another fuckfest...but things go downhill when he examines her neck and remarks, "You have the cutest little wrinkles here." Samantha rolls over, looks pissed off, and decides right then and there that she's no longer going to whore around with twenty-somethings. And as Samantha goes cold turkey, Carrie gets in deeper and deeper...and we see that she and Sam are going at it in his bed. Afterwards, they both agree that the sex was totally awesome, and she voice-overs, "I was hooked...gone. This felt so good...and then he spooned me." Be still my beating heart..

The next morning, Carrie wakes up in Sam's bed and glances around his pigsty of an apartment, voice-overing her shock at how different it looked in the light of day. Sam wakes up and murmurs, "Morning, babe" and she snarks at him that she needs coffee, like pronto, so he grunts and points in the direction of the kitchen. She gets dressed and tiptoes through the filthy apartment, horrified by the grisly mess that is the kitchen. Sam trails in after her, nattering about a dream he had while she tries to shut him up and begs for coffee. He promises to make her a pot, and she steps out to use the bathroom, shrieking in horror when she encounters his scary looking roommate. In the next scene, she's sitting on the toilet in a graffiti walled bathroom, and realizes too late that there's no toilet paper. When she yells at him to bring her a roll, he yells back that he's using the last of the toilet paper as a coffee filter. She decided then and there that she is too old for this, beats a hasty retreat from his apartment, and goes shoe shopping.

As Carrie ambles along the street wearing a fur coat that totally makes her look like a cheap hooker, she pontificates about how she's outgrown the boys of her past, but hasn't quite grown into the men in her future. She runs into Mr. Big, who's dining at an outdoor cafe, and he invites her to dinner sometime. She coquettishly says, "Call me!" and struts off, voice-overing, "Maybe all men are a drug. They bring you down and get you so high." She can't help herself from sneaking a peak behind her, then scrunches her face giddily when she catches him checking her out. 

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