Sex and the City - Season 6, Episode 3

"If I had made better use of these in Season 4, we wouldn't be suffering through this baby storyline right now."

"The Perfect Present"
Original airdate: 7/6/2003

Episode summary: Carrie tries to avoid hearing about Jack's ex-girlfriend. Samantha re-hooks up with Smith, and Charlotte becomes a Jew.

---

Recap: Carrie flounces into Jack's building decked out in a red cleavage baring dress and voice-overs about how it's the first time she's ever been to her new boyfriend's place. When she enters his apartment, she glances around, phews with relief that it's not a messy disaster, and says one never knows what to expect from a bachelor's pad. She compliments his choice of wall color, and he says he has to give credit to Lauren (his ex) for picking it out...and Carrie looks visibly uncomfortable as she tries to shake off the mention of his ex.

At bedtime, Jack turns on a sound machine that plays Frogs in the Rain Forest...and when Carrie looks startled by the croaking noises, Jack explains that he's a troubled sleeper and needlessly mentions that the machine was a gift from Lauren. Carrie once again looks visibly uncomfortable at the mention of his ex. 

The following evening, the gals attend a party for a friend we've never heard of - hey, it's Stiffler's Mom from American Pie! - who recently suffered a horrible breakup and tried to kill herself by swallowing six Advils on an empty stomach. Stiffler's Mom giddily greets the SATC gals, tells them she has a newly discovered talent for designing handbags, and squeals, "It's a purse party!" and the gals look faux excited about spending the evening pretending to be enamored of her handmade concoctions. 

"Surprise! You've been unwittingly roped into attending my purse party!"

"Oh. Hurray!"

As the gals browse the fugly purses, Samantha disdainfully mutters that someone should tell crazy that owning a glue gun doesn't automatically make her a hot purse designer. She perks up when she notices that the hot waiter from Raw (Smith!) is working as a waiter for the caterer, then cackles that this dull-as-fuck party suddenly got a lot more interesting. Miranda reminds them that they have dinner reservations, and Charlotte says she can't stay out too late 'cause she has Jewish conversion class in the morning, then needlessly explains that she got special permission from the rabbi to accelerate her studies. 

Stiffler's Mom goes to the kitchen to tell the caterers that the guests need more tuna tartlets...and while she's there she hears a banging noise coming from the back room. When she investigates, she finds Smith boning Samantha, the sight of which wigs her out to the point that she cries, "I'm way too fucking fragile to see this!", fires Smith, then storms back to the living room where she throws her purses around and shrieks at everyone to leave. Awesome. 

​During conversion class, Charlotte quickly proves herself to be the smartest pupil with the quickest answers to all of the rabbi's questions. As the class wraps up, the rabbi reminds the Jews-in-training that they're going to have to let go of every aspect of their Christian traditions...and that people often find Christmas the hardest to give up. Charlotte's like, "Egads!" and scrunches her face concernedly.

Steve is twenty minutes late picking up Brady and explains that his girlfriend Debbie had car trouble, and Miranda gets all snarky-bitchy at the mention of her arch rival's name and warns him to not be late again.

After class, Charlotte asks the rabbi if new Jews really really have to give up Christmas, and he's like, "Well d'yuh" and sternly tells her that the whole point to converting to Judaism is to embrace new traditions and let go of past attachments. She mulls that over and asks if she could still put up a Christmas tree, and he sighs and says there can be no tree, presents, caroling, or anything else that resembles Christmas. 

Late that night Carrie gets a call from Mr. Big, and the two engage in their usual obnoxious flirty banter. He asks about a red dress she once wore, then coos about how much it once turned him on...and from there the conversation degenerates into phone sex, which eww 'cause I've always thought that these two make a horrible, horrible couple.

At the next brunch summit, Carrie tells the gigolas she has accidental phone sex with Big, and that she couldn't come up with a polite excuse to hang up. Samantha perks up at the mention of phone sex and cackles, "Brunch is suddenly looking up!" while Charlotte scrunches her face in disapproval and tells Carrie she needs to tell Big she's in a relationship and not drag her stupid Big baggage (aka Biggage) into her short lived relationship with Jack. Carrie breezily insists (a little too breezily, in my opinion) that it's all in the past and that Big isn't a threat to Jack any more than Lauren is to her...which seemed like a weird thing to say considering how bugged she gets every time Jack mentions Lauren's name. When Brady suddenly starts fussing, Miranda reaches into her diaper bag for a pacifier and is shocked when she pulls out a string of condoms that Steve must have slipped into the bag. She stares at them in annoyance as the other three giggle with delight. 

"After an hour of our usual flirty banter, Big and I graduated to raunchy phone sex."

"I'd like a transcript of all the naughty talk please."

Carrie taps out her shittastic column, pondering aloud if it's possible to get to a future if your past is present. Or some such shit. These scenes with Carrie tapping out her column in every episode seem annoyingly obligatory now that we're in Season 6.

As soon as Samantha finishes doinking Smith, she tells him how badly she feels about getting him fired from his catering gig and offers him the $300 he would have earned if Stiffler's Mom hadn't caught him boning her at the party and fired him. He gives her a funny look, tells her she's out of her mind, and stalks out. 

Carrie's hanging at Jack's apartment as he gets ready to go to a breakfast with "a pretty pathetic bunch" of writer friends. When the phone rings, he assumes it's a telemarketer and lets the machine pick it up...but it ends up being Lauren, who insists she needs to talk to him. Jack glares at the machine, gives it two middle fingers, and shouts, "Fuck you and fuck you!" He then pleasantly says bye to Carrie and heads out, leaving her staring confusedly into space.

"Fuuuuuuuck you."

"Anger management problem much?"

Carrie tells Samantha about the double middle fingers Jack flipped to his answering machine and worries he might have an anger management problem. Samantha doubts it's anything to worry about, then changes the subject to herself and says she got a strange reaction from Smith when she gave him $300, post sex, 'cause she was the reason he got fired from his catering gig. Carrie's like, "Well duh" and reminds her that, as a general rule of thumb, you should probably only ever give money to prostitutes after a doink.

Steve arrives to pick up Brady and proudly points out that he's on time...and Miranda snarkishly tells him she found his condoms in Brady's diaper bag and accuses him of not taking his parental responsibilities seriously enough. She haughtily tells him he can't take his eyes off of little Brady for a moment...and she's saying this as Brady crawls off the couch, falls down and bumps his head, and starts wailing. Oh the irony that was telegraphed a mile away.

Charlotte is at home, decorating a Christmas tree while Christmas music plays in the background when Harry arrives and asks whassup with Christmas in July. She sadly tells him she wanted to put up her tree one last time before becoming a full-fledged Jew...then admires an ornament that was passed down to her by her grandmother. Harry tells her that lots of Jews celebrate Christmas, but Charlotte pooh poohs that idea and says she wants to do Judaism right.  

Samantha is decked out in a French maid's uniform and is pretending to wait on Smith, who's stretched out on her bed, shaking his head and calling her "fucking crazy". As she squirts whipped cream onto his naughties, he confesses that he's not just a waiter, he's an actor...and Samantha makes a blech face and jokes that she just lost her hard on. Smith says it's a good thing he still has his...and the two start going at it.

At bedtime, Carrie has problems falling asleep to the frog noises and tells Jack she would have preferred to skip over the conversation about their exes...but in light of his double fuck yous at Lauren's phone message, she can't help but wonder whassup with his anger. Jack sheepishly says that Lauren has been driving him nuts 'cause she wants them to go to lunch and get closure. He then explains that Lauren cheated on him, broke his heart...and that he was "dead" until he met Carrie, whose skankitude somehow revived him enough to want to leap back into the dating pool. As the two cuddle, Carrie voice-overs that she thinks this relationship might really turn into something great...which I found funny, considering how quickly he dumps her via a post-it.

​Carrie calls up Big while he's hot-tubbing...and when he tries to steer the conversation into phone sex territory, she stops him and decrees that they won't be having anymore of those calls 'cause she's seeing someone and is quasi-serious about him. She says they'll have to leave their naughty calls in the past, but insists that they're still good friends...and firmly nods as she says good friends. Big looks less than thrilled about her new no phone sex policy and cuts the call short. 

Charlotte immerses herself in a ritual bath and is officially reborn a Jew. That was one speedy conversion. 

Carrie presents Jack with the gift of a new sound machine which features many sounds besides frogs in the rain forest. The two fall asleep to the sounds of the ocean...and Carrie remarks via voice-over that she slept more soundly than she has in a long time. 

Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee".

---