Season 3, Episode 5: No Ifs, Ands, or Butts

Oh gosh. The first Aidan episode. The first of many where Carrie is the liar with the fiery pants, a hypocrite, a monster, a person who deserves all the bad karma that comes to her at the end of the season. This is when my material for reasons why she is the worst will increase four million fold. Other story lines in this episode include: Charlotte’s date is a bad kisser, Samantha has to deal with racism, blah blah.

Let’s all watch this initial encounter with Aidan together so we can jump in to why Carrie Bradshaw is the worst:

Alright, now that we’ve all seen her shenanigans, let’s enumerate the reasons she sucks:

#1 – Agreeing to go to Aidan’s store in the first place because of the shit storm she brings into his life.

#2 – Calling Aidan a “lowly craftsman” but then flirting with him 45 seconds later. (When Mrs. Big insults his furniture in a future episode, when Carrie is his Booth Bitch, she is all self righteous about it. Sit down Karen)

#3 – Calling Pete, Aidan’s dog, overkill. DOGS ARE AMAZING AND YOU ARE A MONSTER.

#4 – Telling Aidan she had no idea it was his store (Lie #1)

#5 – SHE IS MOST CERTAINLY NOT CARRIE BRADSHAW OF CARRIE BRADSHAW DESIGNS (Lie #2). Also, way to rip off Grace Adler.

#6 – When telling Miranda about Aidan, her “crush”, she mentions she bought a chair she couldn’t afford just because he made it. WHY DON’T YOU TRY THE CONCEPT OF BUYING SOMETHING YOU CAN AFFORD???

#7 – At the end of their first date, she and Aidan are sitting on her stoop when she decides to confess that she is not a designer.  She tells him that he shouldn’t worry, because she only lies about furniture (Lie #3), as she lights up a cigarette. When Aidan is all “eww you smoke”, she says “just a little.” (Lie #4) She immediately puts out the cigarette but when he kisses her, that is all he can taste, and tells her that he can’t date a smoker. She’s crushed. Let me get out the world’s tiniest violin.

#8 – Carrie informs her friends that it’s too bad Aidan had a problem with her smoking but that he should accept her for who she is. She calls smoking “a little thing” and all her friends tell her that she’s insane and smoking is killing her. Smoking and drinking with Stanford in her apartment later, Carrie exclaims that this is “all total bullshit.” Yeah, bullshit that people actually care about her. I agree. BECAUSE SHE IS THE WORST.

#9 – Carrie goes back to Aidan’s store and tells him she will quit smoking because she has been thinking about it anyway (Lie #5). When he asks her if she can really do that, she says he must think she is more of a smoker than she actually is, since she only smokes when she has cocktails (Lie #6). 

#10 – Aidan takes her to coffee, which turns into a movie and then dinner. Carrie is in withdrawal hell and finally ditches Aidan by faking a deadline when he is about to order dessert (Lie #7), so she can smoke her emergency cigarette. In her haste to suck on nicotine, she leaves her sweater at the restaurant and Aidan catches her kneeling over a puddle, smoking half a cigarette she was able to salvage from dropping it into said puddle. Amazingly he is still willing to see her after this. That’s on you, dude. But she dumps the cigs and gets herself a patch, which as we will learn, does not stick.

SIDEBAR: I always love a good Miranda/Steve conflict where he calls her out on her bullshit and she has to put in more effort. Steve is the best.