Sex and the City - Season 3, Episode 16

"I have just two words of dating advice for you ladies: crotchless panties."

"Frenemies"
Original airdate: 10/1/2000

Episode summary: Miranda is bummed when she's asked on a date by a cute guy who dies before he can take her out. Carrie accepts a gig from the Learning Annex to advise women on how to date...and does a horrible job. Charlotte is dissatisfied when Trey's penis remains flaccid.

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Recap: Miranda is excitedly primping for her first date with a guy named Will O'Connor, a cute urban planner she recently met at Starbucks. Elsewhere in Manhattan, Samantha is getting boned by a guy whose superhuman thrusting is somehow causing the bed to roll clear across the floor...while Trey, on the other hand, is atop Charlotte and nervously thrusting his low functioning penis at her before it completely conks out in mid-thrust. When it actually does conk out a few seconds later, he hangs his head in defeat, says, "The wind died", and flops onto his back beside Charlotte who's scrunching her face in disappointment.

Carrie is at home, tapping away on her laptop when Miranda calls her to announce that she's officially been stood up, given that Will is now three hours late picking her up. She chides herself for not having better judgement in picking men, then asks Carrie if she'd like to grab a drink. Carrie's like, "No can do" and tells her she's teaching a class called Bright Lights, Date City at the Learning Annex. Yikes. They must really be desperate to fill their calendar with useless schlock. Miranda decides she's not willing to take this rejection lying down and dials Will's number to admonish him for his rudeness. When Will's mother answers the phone, Miranda launches into a tirade about how she raised a thoughtless turd...then has to shove her foot in her mouth when the mother sadly informs her that Will died today.

During brunch, Miranda glumly pronounces, "They're starting to die on us" and explains that Will had a heart attack while at the gym. Samantha tells her to look on the bright side: she wasn't actually stood up. Heh. Miranda says she's ready to throw in the towel on dating altogether, then mentions that for some inane reason she promised Will's mother she'd attend his wake. Samantha tells the gals she made a reservation for four at Samba this weekend, and Carrie coos, "Fancy!" Charlotte lets out a huge sigh and says she's still coping with Trey's Limp Dick Situation, and that last night she got so horny she almost...then stops herself from naming the shameful solitary activity. Miranda reminds her that everyone indulges in a little self pleasure from time to time - but an inconsolable Charlotte just wails about how Trey is able to climax while he masturbates to porn but can't seem to get the job done when he's in bed with her. Samantha nods knowingly and says, "Madonna-whore" and explains that Trey sees her as his virginal wife not a naughty sex kitten. She advises her to buy some racy lingerie asap in an effort to change the way Trey sees her...and Miranda and Carrie get in on that action and purr at Charlotte about how rockin' her body is.

"This is serious, girls. I almost masturbated while in the same room as my husband."

"What's the big deal? I was just masturbating while the waitress took our order."

Carrie arrives at the Learning Annex to a large auditorium of single women who apparently have nothing better to do with their time than listen to the misguided ramblings of a skanky sex columnist. Carrie opens by telling the women she's had lots of experiences with men - good, bad, and ugly - then breezily tells them that there are millions of men all over New York just waiting to be bumped into at every corner. When this seems to be the extent of her presentation, one of the women asks her for specific suggestions as to where to actually meet men, and Carrie struggles to come up with anything remotely helpful. One particularly disappointed looking woman asks her if she's ever been married, and Carrie sheepishly admits she's single...and that she's not so much an expert on men as she is a writer of superfluous raunch. A sassy woman blurts out, "Then why are we paying to hear you talk about it?" - right?! - and then a youngish looking woman in the front row comes to Carrie's defense and points out that since she's much older than them, it's possible she has some sage dating advice. Carrie stares blankly into space, hopefully realizing that a) she came to this session totally unprepared to give these women their money's worth and should be ashamed of her laziness, b) knowing she's too lazy to come to the session prepared, she should have declined the Learning Annex's offer to give her a "teaching" forum, and c) given her disastrous history with men, she has no business giving anyone advice on anything relationship related.

As Carrie types her weekly installment of raunch, she wonders aloud if so many years of being on the dating market in New York just makes one confused, older, or dead. While deep in contemplation, she writes: are we getting wiser or just older?

Miranda drags Carrie to Will's wake, and the two lament the lack of datable men in New York. They approach Will's casket, check out his corpse, and agree that he was pretty good looking. 

​Miranda and Carrie attend Will's after-wake party and happen to run into one of Carrie's meaningless hookups from eight years ago, Jim. Miranda seems intrigued by the handsome engineer...but when he steps away to get drinks, Carrie warns her that he's an asshole of gigantic proportion. Miranda chews on that tidbit for a few seconds...and when Jim returns from the bar, Carrie beats a hasty retreat. Jim, who looks smitten with Miranda, asks for her number, and she eagerly fishes out a business card from her purse that includes every possible method of how to get in touch with her.

Samantha and whatever guy she's currently doinking are having sex, and once again the bed is rolling across the floor. Uptown, Charlotte is frowning at a sleeping Trey, and I can only assume that their nightly sack time just ended with another failed romp. 

During lunch, Samantha brags to the gigolas that she and her flavor of the week fucked each other so hard that they almost broke the bed. Charlotte irritably snaps, "You can't break a bed!" then gets all judgey when Samantha admits she knows absolutely nothing about the guy except that he gave her six orgasms. Charlotte berates her for "always talking about sex like that" and Samantha reminds her that this sort of risqué dialogue is Sex and the City's raison d'être. Charlotte argues that sex should be something special between two people who love each other, and Samantha gets fed up with her uppity 'tude and bitchily snarks, "At least I'm getting laid!" As an enraged Charlotte storms off, Samantha screeches, "You can forget about Samba!" ... and when Carrie and Miranda avoid eye contact and do their best to stay out of the squabble, Samantha dis-invites them to Samba too.

"Why do you always have to talk like a nympho who's waiting for the fleet to come in?"

"Let's see...'cause the writers like to portray me as a cartoonishly oversexed freak in every episode..?"

Miranda asks Carrie if she minds her going out with Jim, and Carrie rolls her eyes in disapproval and growls, "He soooo needs to be voted off the island." Miranda insists that he was very sweet to her on the phone when he called to ask her out, and believes that during the last eight years he's metamorphosed from asshole to mature guy. Carrie mulls that over, decides it's possible, and gives Miranda her blessing.

Charlotte takes Carrie along for a shopping trip to buy racy lingerie to get Trey more perked up in the sack. Carrie points out that shopping for skankwear is more up Samantha's alley than hers, but Charlotte makes a face and says she needs a break from her. When Carrie chides her for being so hard on their slutty friend, Charlotte snaps back that she doesn't need a lecture.

While shopping, Samantha gets into an altercation with a sassy southern belle over a silk scarf...but eventually the belle, who introduces herself as Claire-Ann, is charmed by Samantha's spunk and agrees to let her have the scarf in exchange for a drink at the nearest upscale bar. 

Miranda is on her first date with Jim, and things seem to be going very well.  Jim tells her he's matured a lot since when he was boning Carrie, then tells Miranda he'd like to see her again. The two kiss...and as he saunters off, she stares after him with a longingly smitten look on her face. 

Carrie tells Miranda that the Learning Annex students asked for refunds after attending her class - bwahahaha! - then cries, "I feel like a total sham!" Well, d'yuh. You're a sham, a fraud, and a lazy deadbeat. Miranda reports that her date with Jim went well, and that they have plans to get together on Friday. She suggests that Carrie meet up with them so she can reacquaint herself with Will 'cause she doesn't like the idea of dating a guy her BFF abhors.

Charlotte takes a break from hanging with the gigolas and lunches with her pre-Sex and the City friends, The Snooty Sisters of Kappa Kappa Gamma. They compliment each other for marrying into higher stations in life than they'd ever be able to enter on their own merit...and when Charlotte passes around a photo of Trey, they coo about how handsome he is and blushingly gush over the sexiness of being a newlywed. Charlotte grimaces and blurts out, "He can't get it up!", then proceeds to loudly ask her sorority sisters if they like to be really pounded hard and screeches, "I really just want to be fucked! Really fucked!" Yep, that's definitely an appropriate thing to be yelling out loud in a shi shi Manhattan restaurant filled with other diners well within earshot. Her appalled sorority sisters stare at her in total bewilderment and the most bewildered of the three women mutters, "You're such a..." but Charlotte cuts her off and snarls, "A what?" [a boor? a moron? a spectacle?] then tosses some bills on the table, springs out of her chair, and flounces out of the restaurant. As she smugly smirks to herself, Carrie voice-overs that Charlotte suddenly realized she had a little of Samantha's skankitude inside of her.

"Sometimes I like to be pounded hard! Really really hard. Like my vagina's the head of a nail and Trey's penis is a jack-hammer. Hard."

"Uh, do you mind? We're trying to enjoy our cucumber sandwiches."

Samantha and Claire-Ann are in a fancy bar, toasting their new friendship. Samantha invites Claire-Ann to Samba on Friday night and says her reservation is for four...so the two glance around for some plus ones and notice that two dork men are leering at them from a nearby table. An hour later, Samantha and Claire-Ann have joined the men at their table, and the four are having a raucous good time. Claire-Ann suddenly gets so giddily horny that she cackles at the man she's been flirting with and exclaims, "I could just eat you up!" then crawls under the table to do just that. Samantha looks uncharacteristically appalled at the public blowing, shouts at Claire-Ann that she's leaving, and shrieks, "You can forget about Samba!" Carrie voice-overs that Samantha suddenly realized she had a little of Charlotte's uppity prudeness inside of her. 

Carrie meets up with Jim and Miranda at a restaurant. Jim tells Carrie that, for some reason, he keeps up with her weekly raunch and remarks that there's always so much sex in her column...and that it's strange 'cause she didn't seem to know a whole lot about it back when they were dating. Carrie throws down her napkin and is about to storm out - but Jim chuckles and says he was just kidding...though not really, 'cause immediately after that he chides her for her shoe fetish and bitchily adds that it must come in handy for when she walks all over people. Miranda tells him that Carrie doesn't walk all over people, and then she and Jim launch into an argument which ends with her calling him an asshole and storming away from the table with Carrie. Jim bitches at Carrie for never calling him after they broke up, and she exasperatedly retorts, "That's 'cause you're...an asshole!" As she and Miranda exit the restaurant, Jim rants that he doesn't give a shit and yells that they're the assholes.

​Outside, Carrie shoots Miranda a gleeful grin and chirps, "I told you so!" and Miranda laments her stupidity for falling for the asshole. Carrie reminds her that there are plenty of other assholes for them to hop in and out of bed with.

Charlotte sashays into the bedroom in a sheer nightgown, and Trey's all, "Wha-at's going on?" so she explains that this is her best attempt to appear sexy and try to spark some life into his chronically flaccid wiener. He haughtily reminds her that she's his wife and not some street walker and orders her to take off the nightgown. She goes, "Fine" and strips naked and further taunts him by pleasuring herself. Trey perks up, feels a little something stiffen between his crotch...and afterwards we learn that he managed to thrust his droopy pecker inside Charlotte's muff for a full minute and a half. Fantastic.

A glowy looking Charlotte calls up Samantha to let her know of this latest development and happily reports, "He fucked me." Samantha's like, "Way to go!" and reminds her that they're back on for Samba this weekend...and the two continue to giggle and chat about Trey's mediocre-ly functioning penis.

Carrie arrives for her second installment of Bright Lights, Date City and finds a small handful of women in the large auditorium. Carrie says that since she has absolutely zero clue how to latch onto a quality guy, she announces that they're going to wrap up the episode by taking a field trip. The group troops over to the nearest bar, where Carrie gives each woman various pointers on how they might strike up conversations with strange men...then proudly voice-overs that she helped make three matches that night.

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