Sex and the City - Season 4, Episode 15

"We have come to mock your inventory of poofy wedding gowns."

"Change of a Dress"
Original airdate: 1/20/2002

Episode summary: Carrie has a freakout about her upcoming wedding and tells Aidan she's rescinding her acceptance of his marriage proposal. Samantha is irked when a newspaper columnist chronicles Richard's various liaisons with beautiful socialites.

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Recap: Charlotte is out with Carrie and Aidan, gabbling about how she's filling her jobless days with tap dancing and sculpture classes to keep her mind off of her impending divorce, which she breezily declares will be swift and not require a grieving process of any kind. Susan-Sharon (Carrie's wack-a-doodle friend from the Awful Truth episode from Season 2 who's married to a verbally abusive dickwad) spots Carrie from across the room and comes over to say hey and ask what's new. Carrie's like, "Just gallivanting, writing, eating.." and Charlotte gives her a funny look and tells her she's forgetting the most important thing, then squeals at Susan-Sharon, "They're engaged!" A delighted Susan-Sharon congratulates Aidan and Carrie and asks to see the ring, so Carrie fishes it out from the layers of tacky fake pearls she has draped around her neck. Susan-Sharon asks her if this is "what the people are doing these days", and Carrie says no and explains that it's her way of buying time while she finds a way to weasel out of the wedding - I mean keeping it close to her heart. When Susan-Sharon asks where and when the blessed event will take place, Carrie says they haven't even begun to think about that yet...and Susan-Sharon warns her to "chop chop, missy" 'cause decent wedding venues book up years in advance. 

Samantha and Richard begin their morning in his fancy shmancy apartment eating breakfast and reading the paper. When Richard ambles off to take a shower, Samantha sees a photograph of him in the paper's Style section canoodling a socialite named Bebe London. She looks miffed and calls up J.J. Mitchell (the columnist responsible for publishing the breaking news) and haughtily informs him that Richard is currently limiting his canoodling to one person and that it ain't Bebe London. She then storms over to the bathroom to tell Richard that J.J. Mitchell has been inaccurately reporting on him canoodling with Bebe London - but Richard just shrugs and says that all press is good press, confirms that, yep, he actually is bumping uglies with Bebe London, and coolly asks her if that's a problem. Samantha pretends she's totally A-OK with it and says she's merely trying to gather all the facts so she can do her job as his PR rep. He orders her to take a break from that BS job and get her sexy ass in the shower with him...then picks up the removable shower head and aims it at her well worn cootch. 

Aidan joins Carrie in her shower, and she looks totally put out by the intrusion. He gives her the day's update on the renovations next door: the dividing wall between the two apartments is coming down, plus the new washer and dryer will be arriving. Squeal! (As someone who once had to drag heavy bags of laundry several blocks to a laundromat, I know first-hand what a luxury it is to suddenly have in-unit laundry facilities.) Aidan changes the subject to wedding planning and asks her what she thinks of Hawaii, then suggests they invite a few friends to come along, down some Mai Tais, and get "Maui'ed". Carrie chides him for punning in the nude and jokes that her grass skirt days are over...so he asks if she'd maybe want to seal the deal in Aspen over Christmas. Carrie mutters something unintelligible under her breath, then stares mutely into space as she voice-overs about the pressure she suddenly felt "beating down" on her shoulders.   

A perky medical technician is performing a sonogram to check up on Miranda's spawn...and she points out the fetus's beating heart and asks her if she'd like to know the child's sex. Miranda's like, "I dunno...whatever", so the technician pronounces that it's a boy, then asks her how she feels 'bout that and stares at her expectantly. Miranda stares back at her blankly for a few seconds before fake squealing, "Great! A boy! Boy oh boy!"

"OMG! OMG! You're having a boy!"

"I'm thrilled."

In the next scene, Miranda is ambling down the street with Carrie, who has dressed herself in the most bizarre concoction of clothing pieces ever showcased on Sex and the City. On top she's wearing a pink blouse with what looks like something white underneath, and she's cinched them so they're tied in a knot just below the bust line. Across the upper part of her bare torso is a green patterned belt, which appears to match the long flowy skirt that's riding low on her hips - but since it doesn't appear to have belt loops, I can't help but wonder if the designer might really have intended for the superfluous matching belt to be worn as an over-the-ribcage accessory. I guess anything's possible with Pat Field overseeing the show's weird fashion choices. Anyway, Miranda tells Carrie she just faked a sonogram after the technician told her she was having a boy - and when Carrie squeals, "You're having a boy!", Miranda glumly says that that was just the type of reaction she couldn't bring herself to genuinely express, so she faked it. Carrie shifts the conversation to herself and says she gets the same sort of judgeyness about her upcoming wedding...but finds herself unable to get interested in the planning, including the buying of the gown. Egads! Miranda excitedly proposes something radical: go to a terrible wedding boutique that just happens to be located nearby and try on ugly dresses! When Carrie looks hesitant, Miranda calls it aversion shock therapy and sweetens the deal by promising to try one on too.

The two enter the boutique and tell the saleswoman they're both getting married (not to each other) and that they'd like to try on the poofiest, cupcake-simulating monstrosities she has in stock. In the next scene, the two exit their fitting rooms dressed in ghastly layers of lace, taffeta, and tulle, and giggle heartily at each other. Carrie stares at her horsey mug in the mirror and has a sudden freakout when she sees herself looking so bridey. She asks Miranda to help her take the fugly thing off 'cause she's starting to burn up...and when Miranda says there are too many tiny buttons along the back to undo quickly, Carrie screeches, "Rip it off!" Miranda does, and gasps at the sudden rash on her back. As Carrie buries her head in her hands and starts twitching uncontrollably, Miranda scrunches her face in bewilderment and goes, "What just happened?"

"I'm the most beautiful, fashion forward bride who's ever lived."

"Who has suddenly developed an unexpected skin allergy. Get it off! Get it off!"

At the next brunch summit, Carrie announces to the gigolas that she can't get married...and Samantha glares at Miranda and asks her what she was thinking, taking her to that dump. Miranda sheepishly retorts, "It was an experiment. It went awry." When Charlotte suggests that Carrie merely has cold feet, Carrie lifts her shirt to show her the bright red rash on her torso and says her body is literally rejecting the idea of marriage and that she's obviously missing the bride gene. She asks why marriage is even necessary, so Charlotte says that when her marriage to Trey was good she felt a sense of security - financially speaking, no doubt, 'cause of the shady way she got Bunny to agree to a pre-nup that awarded her a million dollars in the event of a divorce that seemed pretty inevitable from the get-go. Miranda asks Carrie why in the bloody hell she said yes to Aidan when he proposed, so Carrie says that when a man you [pretend to] love kneels and presents you with a diamond ring, you say yes. She then moans about how she can't bring herself to break Aidan's heart (like, for example, she did when she cheated on him) and says she feels like she's a bad person (which she totally is), then laughingly wonders if the poofy wedding gown she made Miranda rip open is still in a back alley dumpster. I hope the boutique owner is somehow able to hunt her down and force her to pay for the ruined gown.

Carrie is lounging about her apartment in her underwear, tapping on her computer as she tries to get her brain around the notion of "happily ever after". She voice-overs about how everyone is supposed to hit targets in life (e.g. marriage, kids, a home to call your own), then ponders if they're merely being programmed to want those things...the way the Sex and the City writers are always trying to program their viewers into equating an icky level of promiscuousness with being a sexually liberated, independent woman.

Carrie runs out to the newsstand with the intention of restarting her smoking habit, but decides instead to buy several bridal magazines to kick-start wedding planning. In the next scene, she's sitting by her bed, browsing through the magazines, when Aidan sledge-hammers his way through her wall from the apartment next door. Carrie has another freakout and starts yelling, "Stop it!" ... but when it's clear that Aidan can't hear her panicked screeching over his blaring music, she runs next door and tells him she's having a very strong reaction to all this change - meaning, mostly the marriage stuff - then kneels down as if she's having trouble catching her breath. A confused Aidan is all, "Whassup?" so she tells him she's not ready to get married yet, then self-piteously asks, "Do you hate me?" He's like, "Er...no" but admits she is kind of catching him off guard, then quips, "Was it because I said we could get Maui-ed?" She thanks him for lightening the moment, then says she just needs time...and by time she means never, now that Mr. Big is unattached and back on the dating market for the foreseeable future. 

"I'm rescinding my acceptance of your proposal...and am also on the fence about us living together."

"Before you say another word, I should maybe put down this sledge-hammer."

Miranda is going through her bills when her cleaning lady, Magda, comes across the sonogram photo. She asks if the baby is a boy or girl...and when Miranda tells her it's a boy, she squeals happily about how a boy is the highest blessing, then demands that Miranda share in her joy. Miranda grins, but not very convincingly.

Charlotte is at tap class, dancing to Tea for Two. When the class splits up into groups of two to cross the floor in a step shuffle step series, Charlotte looks around and is suddenly alarmed that everyone but her has a partner. When she's the last remaining step shuffler, the instructor urges her to just go it alone, but she refuses and starts railing about how she doesn't want to go it alone, and that Tea for Tea is an abusive and hurtful song to someone who's going through a painful divorce. When she notices the other dancers staring at her with their mouths agape, she taps into what a giant arse she's making of herself and quietly slinks off the dance floor and out of the studio.

The gigolas are in attendance at Richard Wright's charity fundraiser, the Black and White Ball. Carrie tells the gals that Aidan is coping reasonably well to her weaselling out of his marriage proposal...and when Charlotte learns that Miranda is having a boy and claps excitedly, Miranda fakes an expression of excitement and strains her neck. Samantha, meanwhile, runs into J.J. Mitchell and smugly asks him if he has anything noteworthy for his column, and he tells her as a matter of fact he does...which is that Richard is now hitting the sheets with a woman named Judith (the woman he's currently chatting with). Samantha storms over to where the gals and Aidan are standing and complains about Richard's philandering, and that for the first time that she actually gives a shit 'cause she's uninterested in hooking up with anyone else. She grumbles, "I think I have monogamy. I must have gotten it from you people" ... and by you people, I'll assume she's mostly referring to Aidan. She then storms over to Richard and grabs him by the short and curlies, calls his bed-hopping tacky and immature, and decrees, "Stop fucking other women. Just fuck me." Richard's like, "Er...no" and makes it clear that he has no intention of becoming her monogamous boyfriend.

Samantha grabs J.J. Mitchell to indulge in a quickie in the men's room (classy as always)...but when his pecker unexpectedly goes soft, she exits the room in in disgust. She runs right into Richard, who tells her that maybe he was too quick to dismiss the idea of monogamy - but promptly cancels that when he sees J.J. exit the men's room a few seconds later. He chuckles knowingly, says, "You'll never change" and tells Samantha he's A-OK with keeping things as they were. 
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After the ball, Carrie and Aidan leisurely stroll by a fountain. Aidan compliments the pretty white (bridal-like) dress she's wearing, and suggests that since he has his tux for another half a day they fly to Vegas and "lock this thing down". Carrie starts moaning about how she's not reaaaady for marriage, and Aidan says he really really wants the world (aka Mr. Big) to know that she's his. Carrie stares at him in bewilderment and shriek-asks, "Who else's would I be?!" and when he responds by shooting her an accusing stink-eye, she's all, "OMG! You still don't trust me." Aidan's like, "Well duh", and I find it more than a little dicked up that he'd want to rush into marriage with a skank like Carrie 'cause he's so afraid she's going to cheat on him again. He gets all pissy about how she doesn't wear her engagement ring on her "fucking finger" and says it's pretty clear that she's not ever going to want to marry him. As Carrie weakly denies that, he backs away from her and mutters, "I can't believe I'm back here again" and tells her he's going to sleep in the apartment next door before wisely exiting her life in the morning.

"You want to rush into a marriage 'cause you're afraid I'm going to cheat on you again?"

"It is pretty fucked up, I will admit."

Miranda feels the baby kick as she's getting ready for bed, and for the first time she looks genuinely happy and excited at having a bun in her oven.

​Carrie lays in her bed alone, fondling her engagement ring. After a few seconds, she gets up and tip-toes next door, where Aidan is sleeping, and lays down beside him. She voice-overs that it was the only night she'd ever spend "on the other side of the wall" ... and that the next day, Aidan moved out.

Hurray, Aidan! Consider the bullet dodged.

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