Recap: Charlotte's gallery is hosting an art opening for a lesbian painter from Brooklyn Heights, a gathering Carrie describes as "lesbian chic meets art world cool". Charlotte, who is in charge of the exhibit, is in attendance with her latest beau: an uggo named Gareth, who brazenly ogles attractive women when Charlotte's not looking. Carrie's date is Samantha, who's grumbling about the lack of men at the gallery...and when Carrie reminds her that they're at a lesbian art opening, Samantha quips, "Don't straight guys follow them around to see what they're going to do?" Samantha suddenly spots a tall, muscled man and recognizes him as a trainer at her gym, and is about to make a beeline over to him when Carrie suddenly pretends she has a debilitating headache and needs to go home immediately. Samantha's like, "Yeah, OK, whatever" and sashays over to the muscled man, while Carrie slips out of the gallery and heads straight to Mr. Big's building. She voice-overs, "Sure I knew it was wrong, seeing an emotionally unavailable man I had sworn off months earlier." A minute after she enters his apartment, the two strip off their clothes and head for the sack...and while they're in mid-doink, Carrie purringly voice-overs, "I had never felt sexier or more alive in my entire life." Back at the gallery, the power lesbians are flaunting their enormous disposable incomes as they admire the fugly art. One of the servers informs Charlotte that they're out of champagne, so she heads over to the storage room to bring out an extra case...and is shocked to find Gareth locking lips with a blonde woman he had checked out earlier. She makes a WTF? face and goes, "Excuse me..?" and Gareth turns, smiles at her, and says, "Relax. We're just kissing. I'll see you in there." Charlotte chews on that for a few seconds, then shoots him a look of disgust and stalks off. While browsing at a flea market the next day, Charlotte complains to the gals about how Gareth didn't even act like he had been caught cheating. Carrie suggests that perhaps the uncouth douchebag doesn't consider kissing to be an act of cheating, and Samantha whitewashes his boorish behavior further by condescendingly chuckling, "Oh come on. It was only your second date." Miranda then throws a red herring onto the pile and says she once knew a guy who "didn't consider fucking below 23rd Street cheating". Samantha urges the gals to "get in line with reality" then makes one of her dumb, all-encompassing pronouncements: "Men cheat for the same reason that dogs lick their balls. Because they can. It's part of their biology." Carrie reminds her that women also cheat, but Charlotte argues, "Women don't generally go around attacking every man they're attracted to." Samantha chuckles at the notion of not attacking every man she finds attractive and cackles, "Speak for yourself!" To summarize the idiotic conversation thus far, Carrie states that Charlotte and Samantha have different definitions of what constitutes cheating. Charlotte concurs and snaps, "I don't tolerate it!" while Samantha boasts that she's much more realistic about human nature, and this prompts Miranda to bellow, "That's because you cheat!" Carrie suggests that perhaps there's a cheating curve, then can't help but wonder if the level of tolerance toward cheating is in direct proportion to how much cheating a person wants to indulge in. Miranda, who's pretending as though they're actually having a coherent discussion about infidelity, looks aghast and cries, "That's moral relativism!" and then Samantha unleashes her most nonsensical pronouncement to date: "The act of cheating is defined by the act of getting caught. One doesn't exist without the other." Back at her apartment, Carrie ponders Samantha's muddle-headed logic and rhetorically asks herself if cheating is like the proverbial "tree in the forest". [No, Carrie. It is not. Being caught cheating occurs in addition to cheating, meaning the cheating has occurred independent of being caught cheating. Arrrrrggggg. Am I really trying to knock sense into a fictional skank who's on a TV show that's been off the air for more than a decade??] Carrie stares thoughtfully at her laptop, then taps out this week's moral mind-bender: In a gravity free world of anything goes, what constitutes cheating? Over at the gym, Samantha's trainer, Thor, leans right up to her ear and declares, "Everybody cheats...that's the great thing about having a trainer." Under his tutelage, Samantha is working out in a way that looks a lot more like private foreplay than cardio in a gym. Afterwards, he asks her how she feels, and she purrs, "You got me all wet...I mean sweaty." Hmm...I can't help but wonder if these two are going to hit the sheets in the next half day or so. Charlotte is at the gallery, on the phone with Gareth as he weakly tries to explain his reasons for making out with the blonde woman. Charlotte notices the arrival of two power lesbians and cuts the call short. They tell her they're there to pay for and retrieve the fugly painting they purchased during the opening. After some pleasant chit-chat, blah blah, the lesbians invite her to join them and some additional lesbians for a drink. Charlotte couldn't think of a reason to decline...and then "a drink" turns into dinner and some late night, inhibition-free dancing at a hot nightclub. Miranda and her latest beau, a dorky documentarian named Ethan, are strolling together after watching a Holocaust film. After a smooch, he invites her to his place...and once they're in his apartment, they immediately strip off their clothes and get it on, 'cause why get to know someone on a human level before whipping out your genitals? While they're making out, he turns on the TV and asks Miranda if she minds watching a little porn to help them (meaning him) get in the mood. Miranda just kind of shrugs...but when the same thing happens a few nights later, she starts to get irritated. She asks him if the TV really needs to be on while they doink, and he responds by asking her to move her head slightly so he can get a better view of the TV screen. So, um, yes. Carrie is spending the evening with Mr. Big, cooking terrible tasting fondu. When they both agree it's too awful to eat, he asks her if they can go eat at a restaurant now. She agrees, gives him a smooch, and says she hasn't told anyone they've been hitting the sheets again. He says he hasn't either, and they agree to keep the reigniting of their shitty relationship quiet. Early the next morning, Carrie quietly gets dressed and beats a hasty retreat from Big's apartment. As she makes the walk of shame while dressed in evening wear and puffing on a cigarette, she voice-overs about how their relationship somehow felt illicit. She runs into Miranda, who's headed to a breakfast meeting, and says she's on her way to the dentist. She then quickly deflects from the fib and asks, "How's Ethan?" Miranda says it's become borderline humiliating when he puts porn on every time they doink and thinks he's more interested in the girls in the video. Well, d'yuh. Carrie clucks sympathetically and agrees that she deserves a man's full attention. Samantha - shock of all shocks - is doinking her trainer, Thor. Afterwards, they go into the shower together, and he offers to shave her legs...then asks her if she's a dirty girl. [Dirty? Dunno. A brazenly lewd, conscienceless slut-bag? Bingo.] Samantha purrs, "It depends on your definition of dirty" so Thor takes this as an invitation to shave her nether regions and gets all bonsai with it. Later, the gals gather at Carrie's apartment. Samantha asks, "What is this thing guys have these days about wanting to shave your pubic hair?" Miranda jokes that maybe Thor wanted a little girl, but Samantha argues that in her case it was like being branded; apparently Thor shaved her pubes into the shape of a lightning bolt. Charlotte arrives, decked out in fancy-wear 'cause she's meeting up with the power lesbians later. Miranda remarks that she's been out with them three times this week, and Charlotte says they're interesting, cultured, and don't drone on endlessly about their insecure need for men to fill any kind of void in their lives. Samantha asks her if the lesbians know she's straight, and Charlotte just sort of stares off into the distance. Miranda advises her to tell them, and Samantha concurs and adds, "Otherwise you're nothing but a big clit tease." She then calls to Carrie, who has locked herself in the bathroom for the entire scene, and asks her if everything is OK. Carrie comes out and sheepishly tells them her new diaphragm is stuck, and that one of them is going to have to dig around her cootch to help pry it loose. An icked out Miranda backs away and motions at Charlotte and says, "You're the lesbian. Go in there!" but when Charlotte looks ill at the thought, Samantha rolls up her sleeves and brashly announces that she'll do it. The gals are out on the town, strolling along a busy Midtown street. They ask Carrie exactly why she's on birth control, so she admits that she and Mr. Big have resurrected their obnoxious hookup. All three are appalled, berate the nitwit for getting back together with someone who treated her so shabbily, and demand to know why she's been sneaking around. Carrie gets miffed by the inquisition and storms off in a huff. Carrie paces the length of her apartment, furiously puffing on a cigarette and overthinking her reignited relationship with Mr. Big. She agonizes about how she doesn't know where it's going, and worries it might be a mistake. The next morning, Charlotte attends a brunch with the power lesbians and is introduced to the Queen Bee Lesbian: a woman named Patty, who owns a fabulous house in Telluride. After some benign chit-chat, Patty comes right out and asks Charlotte if she's gay, and Charlotte admits she's not - but hastily adds that she greatly enjoys the company of smart, funny women and feels a strong connection to the female spirit. Patty wryly replies, "Sweetheart, that's all very nice. But if you're not going to eat pussy, you're not a dyke." And that, I guess, is that for the lesbian contingent on Sex on the City until Samantha briefly becomes one in Season 4. Samantha is taking a relaxing steam after her workout...and as she lounges naked in the sauna, the naked woman beside her gets an eyeful of her lightning bolt pubes, then huffily stands in front of Samantha to show her her lightning bolt pubes and barks, "That asshole!" Right - 'cause it's such a huge surprise to discover that Thor turned out not to be monogamous dating material. Miranda and Ethan are once again doinking while Ethan watches porn. Miranda finally gets fed up with the humiliation and grabs the remote and snarks, "This is not a synchronized event!" She gives him an ultimatum: the women in the video or her. He weighs the two options carefully, then explains that while she's a real live woman he's known for several weeks, the TV porn women have kept him company for years. An appalled Miranda glares at him, throws the remote at him, and snaps, "I am sooooo outa here!" Carrie and Mr. Big are out together, ballroom dancing. She asks him if they're officially seeing each other now, and he just shrugs disinterestedly and mutters, "If you say so." She calls him infuriating and keeps pressing the issue, but he remains stubbornly vague. She cocks her head to the side like a puppy and asks, "Why did we break up?" and he answers her question with the question, "You tell me" and reminds her that she was the one who dumped him. She says it was 'cause he didn't tell her what she wanted to hear - but stops short of admitting that she was afraid he wouldn't love her the way she wanted, nay needed to be loved. She wisely decides against baring her soul and breezily replies, "I guess I was afraid" and he flashes his annoying shit-eating grin and says, "I sure did miss you. Officially." As he envelopes her in a hug, Carrie decides that, yes, they were officially back together. And that's her story and she's sticking to it. Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"!
5 Comments
Faith
6/18/2020 09:54:30 pm
Absolutely LOVE your blog:)) I live in NY and still cannot figure out where Carrie and Mr. Big were ballroom dancing at dinner in this episode:) .
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Isabel K. French
6/19/2020 10:40:29 am
Well, thank you. I do appreciate that. I too lived in NYC for 11 years, and don't have a clue either where that scene took place. But I didn't live the fancy life Carrie and Big lived. LOL..
Reply
Jenna
3/11/2022 08:36:15 pm
So in today's ridiculously pc society, it's still ok to slut shame? Samantha is one of the two only enjoyable characters and one of the only ones who doesn't make people want to eat a bullet
Reply
Adrian
1/19/2024 01:54:42 pm
Love your writing. Haven't read any of your other work, but Google sent me here when I was looking for a synopsis of this episode. Thank you for posting!
Reply
Michelle
9/30/2024 02:42:24 am
Hey what is the song playing in the last scene when carrie and mr big dancing ? I loved your blog
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