Sex and the City - Season 4, Episode 4

"Congratulate me, girls. I've decided to start working my way sexually through New York's female population."

"What's Sex Got To Do With It?"
Original airdate: 6/17/2001

Episode summary: Carrie continues to date jazz musician Ray King, but breaks things off when his ADD gets too annoying. Samantha hits the sheets with Maria and gets schooled in the ways of lesbian lovemaking. Charlotte agrees to move back in with Trey.

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Recap: Carrie is on her second date with Ray King, a frenetic jazz musician who resides in Queens. The two have just been to three jazz clubs, and yet Ray still can't seem to shut up about how much he looooooves jazz...and flits about the apartment as he puts a vinyl jazz record on his turntable while grooving to the non-beat. Carrie says that this is probably as good a time as any to tell him she can't stand jazz 'cause of how screechy and "all over the place" it is. I would tend to agree. Ray pretends to collapse at the shock of someone not liking the kind of music he's obsessed with, and urges Carrie to do her best to appreciate jazz for what it is. Carrie glances around the apartment and remarks on all the instruments he has laying around, so he explains that his attention span is so short that he can only handle playing a few notes on one instrument before moving onto the next. Yikes. Carrie completely ignores that weird red flag as he looms behind her as if she's a giant cello and suggestively offers to "play" her...and the two start going at it in earnest.

While having drinks the next evening, Miranda asks Carrie what she did last night, and Carrie says she listened to jazz...then blushes and starts giggling like a schoolgirl. The puzzled gals ask her why that's funny, so she explains that while she was riding Ray's baloney pony she experienced the most earth-shattering orgasm in the history of earth-shattering orgasms. Samantha clutches her chest and gushes about how awesome that is, while Miranda wryly retorts, "That's nice. I did my laundry." Carrie muses about how odd it is that her clitoris reacted like that, since usually she has to know the guy for more than ten minutes to enjoy such a high level of orgasmic pleasure. Charlotte giddily suggests that maybe Ray is the one - but Carrie thinks it's far more likely that the super satisfying orgasm was some kind of a fluke, but then saucily adds, "I'm going back tomorrow night to find out for sure." Miranda, meanwhile, reports that she's launched a sex strike until conditions improve, then wails about how she'd rather sit home alone than go out on dates with the shitty caliber type men she tends to attract. After that, Samantha turns the focus on herself as she breaks the news that she's currently dating someone...and by someone she means Maria, the Brazilian artist she met during the previous episode. The other three stare at her in bewilderment and are all, "Wha-a-a?" so Samantha proudly declares, "Yes ladies. I'm a lesbian." She then promptly asks them to please get those WTF? expressions off of their faces asap 'cause Maria has just entered the bar and is on her way over to their table.

"Last night I had the most intense orgasm of any orgasm anyone has ever had."

"I can definitely top that news."

Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte are ambling along the street, dishing about Samantha's out-of-left-field lesbianism that seems suspiciously like a story arc the writers wanted to check off before the series concludes its six season course. Charlotte jokes (sort of) that since Samantha has worked her way sexually through every man in the tri-state area, she's had no choice but to direct her rabid sex cravings toward the female population. Carrie says she's kinda miffed 'cause she was supposed to be the one with the big news tonight, then grumbles about how Samantha managed to upsex her.

Charlotte and Trey are standing in their bedroom, staring ominously at the bed on which Trey's dick has had a limp track record. He gives Charlotte a long smooch...and a few seconds later, the two fall atop the bed in slo-mo and start going at it.

Miranda is at a bakery, staring hungrily at a chocolate eclair. In the next scene, she's in her living room, scarfing down the eclair while watching The Daily Show...which made me sad 'cause damn it I really miss Jon Stewart being on the air.  

Charlotte and Trey are enjoying some post-coital canoodling...and Trey is basking in the joy of being able to get it up, pretty much on command now. Charlotte breathes a sigh of relief that they're able to doink like regular couples do...and we learn from Carrie's voice-over that she's now directing all of her anxiety towards hoping that Trey will invite her to move back into the apartment. But of course, when Trey comes right out and asks her what she's thinking, she just smiles passively and hopes he's able to mind-read...but Trey hornily suggests they enjoy another romp.

Samantha calls Carrie while she's getting dressed for her date with Ray and asks her if she and the other gals were dishing about her behind her back the other night. Carrie's like, "Well d'yuh" and says she totally caught them off guard with her I'm suddenly gay announcement - and Samantha gets all defensive, then gushes about how she wants her first time with Maria to be special, blah blah...just as Ray arrives at Carrie's apartment with a bottle of bourbon. He tells her he wants to drink bourbon and go down on her - or go down on her and then drink bourbon - and the two start making out. Somehow Samantha fails to get a clue that Carrie is barely engaged in their conversation anymore and is still on the other end of the line, prattling about her sudden foray into lesbianism. For some equally inane reason, Carrie doesn't just end the call so that she can focus 100% of her attention on her imminent cunnilingus situation.

"I want there to be candles and soft music...and maybe some fresh strawberries and cream."

Slurrrrp

The next day, Carrie sits at her desk and puffs on her cigarette while pondering the irony of Samantha having a relationship without sex, while she's having sex without a relationship. She wonders which of their hookups will have a better shot of survival (my guess is that neither 'multi-night stand' will survive past the next episode) and "can't help but wonder" what comes first, the chicken or the sex? Considering it's this show, I'm going to go with the sex comes first...second, third, fourth, fifth, and so on.

Later that night, Carrie makes it her mission to "catch the relationship up to the sex" and try to get to know Ray on a human level, which she might have accomplished by not jumping in the sack with him on their second date. She makes a half-hearted effort to ask him where he grew up...but when he remains mute and starts tonguing her, she throws in the towel on anything deeper than experiencing another mind-blowing orgasm.

Samantha and Maria are canoodling amid lit candles and feeding each other strawberries. Samantha brags about all the rave reviews she's received from various men she's been boned by...but a few seconds into some clitoris action, she gets the tap from Maria, who tells her, "It's not really working for me." She tells Samantha that she needs to make more of an effort to connect...and by connect, she'd like Samantha to put her face right up to her muff and stare thoughtfully at it.

Miranda is at the bakery again, salivating over another chocolate cake...but when she learns it costs $70, she's like, "Never mind" and heads to the nearest grocery store to buy a box of Duncan Hines cake mix.

As Carrie experiences another mind blowing orgasm, Miranda is nibbling at her newly baked chocolate cake, while Samantha is staring with intense fascination at Maria's muff and is all, "Hmm...interesting."

At the next brunch summit, Charlotte complains to Carrie and Miranda that Trey hasn't asked her to move back in yet - despite the fact that they've been having sex everywhere - and that she's reluctant to bring up the topic for fear of scaring the penis. Carrie's like, "OK, whatever" and warns the gals that Samantha is a bit miffed that they don't seem to be taking her relationship with Maria seriously enough and tells them they need to pretend to be at least quasi-supportive of her latest hookup. A few seconds later, Samantha enters the diner, looking especially chipper. Charlotte dutifully obeys Carrie's decree and asks Samantha how her new relationship with Maria is going...but when Samantha goes into grisly detail about how engorged vaginas get during arousal and describes the three holes that they all "have down there", Charlotte begs her to stop talking. Samantha holds up her hands, wiggles her fingers, and cackles about how Maria "has ten dicks" - and that she's getting quite the education about all of the intricacies of the female genitalia.

"Think about it! We all have five slender penises on each hand!"

"I knew I was going to be sorry I asked."

When Carrie arrives at Ray's apartment, he's blending margaritas with no shirt on. Carrie holds up a small shopping bag and tells him she just bought her first jazz CD - and Ray suddenly goes ape-shit cuckoo and grabs it from her, tells her she has to hear the album for the first time on vinyl, then rushes over to his record collection to locate it. An irked Carrie tells him to stop, sit, and try to talk calmly for awhile...but Ray remains frenetic and continues to babble incoherently while he puts the vinyl record onto his turntable. As Carrie studies him for a few seconds, she voice-overs that it suddenly occurred to her that he wasn't so much spontaneous and unpredictable as he was someone who suffers from ADD...which, in turn, means she's probably not going to be able to have any kind of meaningful relationship with him. Before officially ending their hookup, she decides to enjoy one last mind-blowing romp and seductively says, "Ray, wanna play me?" and he perks up, looks totally into it, and rushes over to where she's standing and pretends again that she's a giant cello.   

As Trey and Charlotte canoodle in bed together, Trey waxes on and on about his penis, and how much he'd appreciate it if Charlotte would measure his erection with a ruler. Charlotte shoots him the stink-eye and snaps that she's taking a shower now...and as the water runs over her, she gets angrier and angrier about his one-track horniness. She storms out of the shower without even fully rinsing the shampoo out of her hair and yells at Trey about how tired she is of being married to his penis, and that she's been [passively] waiting for him to invite her to move back into his apartment [instead of just taking the bull by the horns and bringing up the topic herself]. When he just stares back at her in stunned silence so that he can drag out this contrived conflict closer to the end of this episode, she tearfully announces that she's going home.

Miranda is so fed up with herself for bingeing on chocolate cake that she throws it in the trash can...but then returns to the kitchen a few seconds later to reach into the trash can to scarf down another piece. Looking shameful, she dials Carrie's number and reports to her answering machine that she's suffering from an addiction to chocolate cake...then pours dish soap atop the cake inside the trash can to avoid any further temptation.

In the next scene, Miranda finally twigs onto the fact that she's been using chocolate as a substitute for sex...so she pulls out her vibrator for a little self pleasuring.

Samantha achieves the holy grail of lesbian sex: the female ejaculation. Maria stares dreamily into space at the expert pleasuring while Samantha smugly smirks.

Ray canoodles with Carrie in bed before slipping away to get some water. Carrie decides she's just going to just appreciate Ray for what he can offer: mind-blowing sex. She suddenly hears the sound of an instrument playing...and when she gets out of bed and tiptoes around, she finds a naked Ray sitting cross-legged on a chair and strumming a banjo - and something about the way he's doing that reminded me of Kermit the Frog in The Muppet Movie when he performed The Rainbow Connection. Carrie stares at him in bewilderment and voice-overs that it looks like he'd gotten tired of "playing" her and moved on to another instrument.

"Be right back...unless something distracts me on the way to the kitchen."

"Why are there so many
Songs about rainbows.."

The next morning, Trey stops by Charlotte's apartment to drop off her wedding ring, which she "accidentally" left at his place. He then formally invites her to move back in with him, and wants her to get rid of her apartment so they can live together as husband and wife. Until the inevitable divorce. Charlotte beams happily as he slides the ring onto her finger.

Carrie is tottering around Queens in her stilettos, voice-overing about how she's decided to revert back to her original position of disliking jazz...and informs viewers that she broke things off with ADD Ray after three satisfying doinks. Presumably so that she can be free to pursue Aidan again - who makes his Season 4 reappearance in the next episode. Nooooo, Aidan!! Runnnnnn!!

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