Ah, the episode with the basically see-through dress. Carrie wears it on her first official date with Big and shock of shocks she immediately sleeps with him. Before dinner. Which, to be clear, doesn’t make her awful. There was no way she wasn’t sleeping with him.
But this is the first episode where she starts changing the subject back to herself when her friends are trying to talk, in addition to just…not considering other people. Which brings me to the reasons why she’s the worst:
#1 – Carrie is getting her picture taken of promotional photos for the ad that winds up on the side of the bus we see in the intro throughout the series. In her voiceover, she says that she has misgivings but those were “mollified’ when they told her she could keep the dress.
#2 – She decides to wear this dress for her first official date with Big. Charlotte calls it the Naked Dress. To be clear, wearing the dress on her first date with Big is not the issue. The issue is her friends are giving her terrible advice as they hang out at her apartment before Big picks her up and that leads to a lot of overanalyzing.
CHARLOTTE: Let’s just say it, it’s the naked dress. I mean you’re obviously going to have sex with him tonight.
MIRANDA: She’s not going to have sex, she’s just gonna look like sex.
CHARLOTTE: Wait a second…I thought you’re serious about this guy, you can’t sleep with him on the first date.
SAMANTHA: Oh god.
MIRANDA: Here she goes again with the rules.
SAMANTHA: The women who wrote that book, they wrote it because they couldn’t get laid. So they constructed this whole bullshit theory to get women who can get laid feel bad.
The point, I guess (?) is that no one can agree if Carrie should sleep with Big or not.
SPOILER:
#3 – After she and Big have sex, he takes her to his favorite Szechuan place, where she sees her good friend (that we never see again), Mike, who is on a date with a lady he seems hesitant to introduce to Carrie. Her name is Libby, and Mike wants Carrie to skedaddle before they can have any type of conversation.
SIDEBAR MIRANDA KICKS SOME DUDE IN THE HEAD: At gym class. Then he asks her out. Awwww.
#4 – When Miranda is telling Carrie about kicked-in-the-head Ted, she seems a bit freaked out that he has already called her and that it is too quick. Carrie points out that what is actually too quick is sleeping with someone on the first date. Way to bring the conversation back to yourself.
#4 – Turns out Mike met his gal Libby while grocery shopping – she was handing out cheese samples and he was vulnerable due to a recent breakup. While he explains to Carrie that this is the best sex he’s ever had, Libby is not a long-term option, so he keeps her a secret. His reasons are also terrible: “She’s not beautiful. And we don’t have a lot in common. Most of her friends are in dairy.” Thanks a lot, MIKE. Those completely dumbass reasons allow Carrie to jump in to a BIG dysfunctional volcano.
SIDEBAR CHARLOTTE’S SECRET SEX: Carrie is on a mission to ask her firends about secret sex but starts with Samantha, which is futile. When she asks Charlotte, she hits pay dirt. Her secret sex was with a Hasidic folk artist and she tells Carrie and Samantha that she couldn’t tell anyone because “what would people think?”
Charlotte makes Carrie pinkie swear that she won’t put this story in her column
#5 – Big finally calls Carrie and insists they go on a proper first date. Carrie is releaved that she escaped “Sex on the First Date Curse.” While they are walking down whatever street, Carrie tells Big her column ad will be on the M2 bus and he should join her and her friends to watch it go by the next day. Before he can answer, some dude comes out of nowhere to shake Big’s hand, and Big clearly has no idea who he is. As a result, he does not introduce Carrie, which brings her back to Mike and Libby in Dysfunction Junction.
#6 – Big brings her back to the same restaurant they went to after the first time they had sex. He also informs her that he can’t make her “party” the next day (AKA watching the M2 bus drive by with her ad on it). Carrie panics, ends the date early, and then calls Mike, for whatever reason. She wants to know why Mike took Libby to that same restaurant. Mike says it is obscure, and there is a small chance of encountering anyone he knows. He then confirms Carrie’s thought that it is the perfect place for men to take women they don’t want to be seen with in public. Even though the restaurant is IN PUBLIC. THANKS AGAIN, MIKE. F—-
SIDEBAR OH MIRANDA THIS IS A BAD IDEA: Ted has to leave early for a flight to DC, but tells Miranda she should stay at his place. Naturally, she decides to snoop around for pictures of old girlfriends (why??), but instead finds out he is in to spanking porn. THEN she brings the porn over to Carrie’s so they can discuss.
#7 – That same day, all the gals (minus Miranda for whatever reason) gather with some champagne to watch Carrie’s M2 bus ad drive by. Charlotte assumes that Big is not there because Carrie slept with him too quickly. Who does show up, though? Mike! Without Libby, because Libs realized she could do better and met someone who did not have Mike’s issues. Carrie’s ad then shows up with an inappropriate graffiti included.
SIDEBAR OOPS: Miranda casually reveals to Ted she knows about his fetish, which does not go over well at all.
#8 – Carrie takes her drunk ass over to Big’s to tell him that they can’t see each other anymore if he’s embarrassed to see her in public. He, of course, has no idea what she’s talking about. He loves the Chinese restaurant he took her to, he couldn’t remember the name of that dude they met on the sidewalk, and as for her penis bus reveal, he had courtside Knicks tickets. When Carrie asks if they could be for real, he’s all, maybe.
UGGGH. This should be fun.
Carrie Bradshaw is the Worst 
I know your blog is dedicated to Carrie Bradshaw, and I love your commentary, but, in this episode, Miranda’s behavior is reprehensible.
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Having read this I believed it was extremely enlightening. I appreciate you taking the time and energy to put this content together. I once again find myself spending a lot of time both reading and leaving comments. But so what, it was still worthwhile!
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I completely agree! I’m in it for the long haul.
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