Sex and the City - Season 5, Episode 6

"I don't think we should see each other anymore."

"Critical Condition"
Original airdate: 8/25/2002

Episode summary: Carrie is upset when Nina Katz, a woman who dated Aidan after their breakup, implies that she's a bad breaker-upper. Miranda is at the end of her tether when Brady won't stop mewling. Charlotte gets legal custody of her apartment...and meets her future husband, Harry.

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Recap: Carrie and Stanford are out at a club, watching Marcus perform as a chorus boy behind a singer belting out All That Jazz. Carrie moans to Stanford about how worried she is about her upcoming book review by the notoriously tough New York Times literacy critic Michiko Kakutani. It's hard to believe that someone of her calibre would be wasting her time reviewing Carrie's schlock. When All That Jazz mercifully concludes, everyone woots and cheers, and Carrie excuses herself to go to the ladies room.

A woman using the ladies room (Nina Katz) is lamenting to her friend in one of the stalls the lack of straight men at this club, suggests cruising the Village Market Square for cute pretzel guys, then wonders aloud, "Is that as sad as that just sounded?" Carrie interjects herself into the conversation by jokingly admitting a weakness for the Amish guys who make hairbrushes, and Nina stares over at her with a funny look of bewildered disdain and says, "You're Carrie Bradshaw", says she recognizes her from her column, then adds,  "And I went out with Aidan right after you." As she mulls that over, she contorts her bottom lip to make a dramatic yeeeeech face, and exits the ladies room with her friend, leaving a startled Carrie staring after her.

"I'm Carrie. Fabulous fashionista and successful author."

"I've only ever heard about your skankitude."

Carrie tells the gigolas about the interaction she had with Nina Katz, and describes her yeeeeech expression as "a face and run". Charlotte suggests that maybe Nina just had a facial spasm at that exact moment, but Carrie rejects that theory and is pretty sure Nina was implying that she really screwed Aidan up good...then left the ladies room before she could retort. Miranda stares dully at her friends and complains that she hasn't slept for days 'cause Brady is crying non-stop. She also feels disgusting 'cause she has no time to shower, wash her barf-stained clothes, or get a haircut. That last thing reminds Samantha to confirm her hair appointment with John Mandy at the fancy John Mandy Salon...so she pulls out her cell phone, chats with the salon's receptionist, and happily chirps, "Crisis averted!" Charlotte tells the gals she's meeting with her divorce lawyer, Matthew Blume, on Monday and asks Miranda what she knows about him...and Miranda says he's smart and tough. After Charlotte and Miranda leave, Carrie mutters to Samantha about how Nina's yeeeeech face is really bugging her - but Samantha tells her to chillax and says, "If I worried what every bitch in New York [or snide Internet recapper] said about me, I'd never leave the house."

Charlotte meets with Matthew Blume and finds herself oddly dismayed by his hotness 'cause she doesn't think she can appear attractive and ladylike while railing about Bunny. Matthew informs her that Bunny has been busy hiding assets to make sure she doesn't get anything - even though it shouldn't be necessary considering Charlotte signed a prenup, but OK - and Charlotte politely replies, "I really just want what was promised." Matthew tells her that Bunny took great pains to make sure that her name was never on the deed of the apartment, and Charlotte blurts out, "Trey gave me that apartment!" [even though it was established in the previous episode that the apartment wasn't Trey's to legally give away] then quickly apologizes and assures him that she's usually a very refined person. Matthew's partner Harry suddenly enters the room [spoiler: future husband alert!!], gets introduced to Charlotte, and helps himself to a bagel from the snack table. He tells Charlotte she's in good hands with Matthew 'cause of what "a killer" he is...then bites into a bagel, spits it back onto his napkin and retches for a few seconds, then snaps, "Who the hell ordered blueberry bagels?" Charlotte stares at him as if she's intrigued by how repulsed by him she is and asks Matthew, "Is he a killer too?" I'm guessing he says yes, 'cause in the next scene, Charlotte is being represented by Harry so she can act as mean and crass about Bunny as she wants to without it being a turnoff to the hot lawyer...who she never sees again anyway, so the whole 'switching of the lawyers' was a completely pointless exercise.

Samantha decides to treat herself to a masturbation marathon with her vibrator - but when she presses the on button, it makes a sad little grinding noise and conks out. She bangs it on her nightstand a few times as if doing that could possibly help, then shrieks loudly in frustration.

At 2:30am, Miranda's neighbor storms over to complain about Brady's non-stop crying. She bitchily introduces herself as Kendall, says her baby's name is Alika, and snarks, "And if you ever bothered to say hello in the elevator, you'd know that." OK...but so too could you have said hello to Miranda in the elevator and learned hers and Brady's names.

Carrie's decked out in a baggy white dress that I strongly suspect is a nightgown (but who can tell with her weird wardrobe?) to buy a copy of The New York Times. She reads the review of her book over the phone to Miranda, which somehow is mostly positive...but gets upset when Michiko Kakutani implies that the men in the world of Carrie Bradshaw are disposable. She suddenly worries that Aidan thinks she threw him away, natters about that some more, then asks Miranda if Steve has ever said anything to her 'bout that. Miranda snappishly tells her to call up Samantha 'cause she has all kinds of time to listen to her babble about herself, then rails about how Samantha has never once acknowledged that she had a baby. She then quickly back pedals and self-piteously chides herself for alienating her neighbors and her friends, but Carrie coos that she's not alienating anyone and that she's just having a bad week.

Carrie ponders why people tend to fixate disproportionately on the negative things people say about them, then taps out on her laptop: why do we believe our worst reviews?

After work, Miranda faces all the disapproving moms who live in her building as she struggles to get Brady's stroller down the front steps and out of the main doors. It's interesting that none of the sanctimonious turds, Kendall included, offered to hold the door open for her and instead chose to stare at her like she's something stuck to their shoe.

At a lunch place, Carrie offers to buy Samantha a brownie if she pretends to show an interest in Miranda's new life as a mother. Samantha makes a blech face and says her mewling baby sounds like an asshole...and when Carrie bewilderedly tells her she can't call a baby an asshole and says that Miranda is struggling, she agrees to pretend to be supportive and promises to stop by her apartment tomorrow. As they pay for their food, Carrie runs into her friend Julia who works at Vogue, and then Julia waves at the friend she's meeting, who happens to be Nina Katz. Carrie and Nina share awkward hellos...and once they're out of earshot, Samantha remarks that Nina Katz is the booker for SNL and asks Carrie how she knows her. Carrie says she's the "face girl" and Samantha is all, "Wha-a-a-a?!"

Samantha flounces to Sharper Image to return her broken vibrator that's still under warranty. The humorless store manager tells her the store doesn't sell vibrators, and that the thing she's holding is a neck massager. Samantha laughs incredulously at the idea of a woman using the thing for neck massaging, but goes along with that and says, "OK, then I'm returning this neck massager", and says the battery just suddenly died on her. The manager tells her to pick out something else and bring it to the counter...so she begins wandering around the store, noticing that several women are shopping for massagers they clearly want to repurpose as vibrators. Samantha glances at the devices they're holding and offers her in-depth expertise on each of them: "too many bells and whistles...that one actually works against you...that one will burn your clit off".

"I'd like to return this electronic dildo please."

"Excuse me while I go put on my hazmat suit so I can safely discard it."

Miranda is desperately trying to get Brady to stop crying when Kendall comes over - not to bitch at her a second time, but to deliver an oscillating chair that helps soothe crying babies. Miranda invites her in, straps Brady into the chair, and is thrilled when the vibrating motion stops his mewling. As the two share a moment of female bonding, Kendall assures her she's not a bad mother, then quips, "You just didn't have the chair."

The next day, Samantha drops by Miranda's apartment and offers to babysit while she takes her place at the fancy John Mandy Salon. Miranda eagerly takes her up on the offer and rushes out...and Samantha struts over to where Brady is oscillating, looks him over, and says, "Well. You don't look so bad." Suddenly, the oscillating chair stops vibrating, and Brady starts up with his mewling again. Samantha stares back at him in horror.

Carrie is at home, watching the end credits for SNL, and sees Nina Katz credited as the talent executive. She calls Samantha on her cell phone to ask her if she thinks Nina might actually be telling celebrities she's a bad breakup girlfriend...OMFG...and Samantha scrunches her face in annoyance and tells her she's too busy taking care of Miranda's asshole baby to talk, and that maybe Charlotte has time to listen to her self-absorbed horseshit. Haha!

Miranda returns home with a shorter 'do, though it doesn't look like much of an improvement over her earlier disheveled look. Samantha informs her that the oscillating chair broke, so she improvised by putting her new "neck massager" in the chair next to Brady. Miranda stares at her contented son and wryly tells Samantha, "That better be brand new."

"Goo goo!"

"I'd be grossed out if I weren't so delighted he's no longer mewling."

Charlotte and her divorce lawyer, Harry, are in conference with Bunny and her old man lawyer. The current offer on the table is for Charlotte to get Trey's coin collection, and an irked Harry snaps, "Can we get off the coin collection?" and says there's no way Charlotte is settling for anything less than the luxury apartment that she, in no way, deserves. Bunny angrily chastises Charlotte for bringing so much heartache and shame to her son...and a beaten down looking Charlotte is about to give up the fight when one of Harry's flunkies delivers a telegram that Trey just sent from Scotland. Harry reads it aloud: "Charlotte York was a wonderful wife. Stop. She did nothing wrong. Stop. Give her everything she wants. Stop. Seriously, mother. Stop." He hands it to Bunny so she can read it for herself...and after exchanging a few words with her lawyer, he grunts, "Just the apartment" and tells Harry they'll sort out the paperwork to turn the deed over to his client. As a grim looking Bunny makes her way out of the room, Charlotte tries to apologize for things not working out better, but Bunny ignores her and stalks out. Harry leans in and jokingly says, "Ding dong, the witch is dead."

Carrie meets up with Steve to ask whassup with Aidan, and he's all, "Ack! You're not going to try to get back together him with, are you?" She's like, "Ouch" and assures him she's not, then asks him if Aidan hates her (as he'd have every right to). Steve says he doesn't, but that he was so devastated after their breakup he couldn't get out of bed for a month. Yikes, Aidan. Carrie is definitely not worth that long a period of inertia. Steve adds that Nina Katz had confided in him that Aidan lost his ability to open up and trust women...and Carrie scrunches her horsey face into a mournful expression.

Carrie drags Stanford to the Village Market Square on the off-chance that Nina is seeking out cute pretzel guys so she can needlessly explain her side of the breakup with Aidan. After endlessly nattering to Stanford about the demise of hers/Aidan's relationship, he asks her what she thinks of Marcus, and she goes, "Nice" then obliviously resumes talking about herself. Stanford gets fed up, says he's done being her sounding board, and that it'd be nice if she showed an interest in his life once in a while...'cause for some reason her opinion means a lot to him. Carrie throws him a bone and gives him her assessment of Marcus...but that gets interrupted when they run into Nina Katz, who's out strolling with Heather Graham. Stanford's like, "OMG! You're Heather Graham!" and offers to buy her a pretzel so that Carrie can have a completely unnecessary heart-to-heart with Nina. Carrie tells Nina she gets the sense she has "a sort of feeling" about what happened with Aidan - but explains that what happened between them was private, and that she would never deliberately hurt him. Nina just shrugs as if she had nothing to do with stirring up this whole hornet's nest with her stupid yeeeeech face, and goes, "OK" ... and it suddenly dawns on Carrie that the critic she was most afraid of was herself. 

"The wonderment of love that Aidan and I shared could not possibly be understood by anyone outside of the relationship."

"I'll blink once for OK whatever."

Carries says, "Bye" and struts off toward Stanford, who realized about three seconds into his conversation with Heather Graham that he had absolutely no idea what to converse with her about.

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