First of all, I am so sorry for my lack of posts. I started AJLT, it was terrible, I got really busy at work, and then an unexpected addiction to Hell’s Kitchen derailed me. The plan is to finish the original series, the terrible spinoff, and then tackle the movies. However, I was honored to recently be a guest on the City Girls Pod, so please give it a listen!
Anyway. Back to work. The episode opens with Carrie going to meet Candie Berg, AKA Enid, AKA her former editor at Vogue, for lunch. Enid asked to meet, so Carrie is naturally curious. Let’s hop into the reasons why she’s the worst.
#1 – Enid tells Carrie she needs a favor and Carrie just looks so fucking smug about it.
The favor is for Carrie to attend a party Enid is throwing in a week for some amazing couple that makes documentary films. Since there will be a lot of couples from the art world, Enid wants Carrie to bring The Russian. Great, now Enid is a star fucker too.
After Carrie guarantees their attendance, Enid asks for an additional favor, which is to set her up with someone from AP’s crowd. She doesn’t want to be the only single person at her own dinner party. Carrie says setting people up is not AP’s thing but Enid bullies her into it (she did get her that $4.50 a word job after all.)
#2 – Later that night, Carrie and The Russian are prepping for a dinner party for all of her friends. He is cooking, but I see people working in the background. Like you need to hire a staff for a ten-person dinner party? Whatever.
Anyway. Carrie asks AP if he has any single, male friends and he says he does; a food critic. Carrie thinks this will be perfect for Enid. (It turns out the single friend is Mr. Hall from Clueless.)
P.S. I love the dress SJP is wearing, she looks amazing.
#3 – AP then tells Carrie he has a question for her. He’s going to be in Paris for a while due to his upcoming art exhibition. He’s going the next week and is not sure when he’s coming back. This, of course, gives Carrie BIG PTSD issues. But then…AP asks Carrie if she will come with him. She agrees and says she will come for the opening and maybe another weekend. He says she misunderstood him, and he wants her to come live with him. Okay he’s going NEXT WEEK and is just now asking her? And she doesn’t IMMEDIATELY point this out, like thanks for the notice dickhead?
Before she can answer, the doorbell rings and it is apparently the caviar he ordered.
#4 – Cut to the dinner party couples: AP & Carrie; Steve & Miranda; Smith & Samantha; Charlotte & Harry; Marcus & Stanford. It is super awkward. Carrie is nervous and fidgety. Samantha has just informed the table that she thinks her maid is using her vibrator.
Since AP appears to have a vibrator stuck up his ass, he doesn’t find this amusing. Instead of Carrie saying, “lighten up, Bob,” she just continues to not eat and defer to his reactions.
When the subject of AP’s show in Paris comes up, he takes this as his cue to tell everyone Carrie has agreed to live with him there. We have reactions.
Don’t let your boyfriend of what, FIVE MONTHS, announce a major life decision before you’ve even agreed to it. That’s actually very controlling on his part. Like, no dude.
#5 – After dinner, Carrie and the gals are upstairs in AP’s bedroom while they grill her about Paris. She has no answers. Once everyone leaves, Carrie tells AP her girlfriends have a lot of questions about Paris. First of all, shouldn’t SHE have questions about Paris? Let’s go through these in order:
- How would this work? Would she get her own place? (Translation: are you paying for me?)
- Are we talking a year? Indefinitely? (There is a pretty big gap between those two options, yes?)
- Does she need to learn French?
- Can she work there?
- Would her cell phone work there?
Yes, these are reasonable questions to ask considering she’s been given a week’s notice but…she’s been given a week’s notice! Why is she considering this? Oh, that’s right. Because she’s the worst.
#6 – Her final question is: “what about my apartment? would I sublet it?” Of course, AP tells her he will pay for it. Great. Another person bailing her ass out for no reason.
#7 – We next see Carrie at brunch with the gals explaining why it is a great idea for her to move to Paris. They continue to grill her, and she eventually flips her shit at them about how she got all THEIR questions answered and shouldn’t they be happy for her when she has ALWAYS been happy for them. (Has she, though?)
Does anyone else think she’s getting way too defensive? This is a big decision to make in less than seven days, so skepticism is natural.
SIDEBAR GRANDMA CHARLOTTE: Elizabeth Taylor is knocked up. Remember when she got gang banged at the dog park? Well, Charlotte doesn’t take it very well, 1) because Elizabeth Taylor got pregnant on her first try and 2) now Charlotte and Harry have to “raise her whole trampy, unpedigreed family.”
#8 – Carrie is shopping with Samantha (for once not for clothes, some sort of French language audio tutorial) and is bitching about how Miranda doesn’t like AP and is being unsupportive of the potential move to Paris. I am no psychologist, but could she possibly be projecting her doubt onto Miranda? Who’s to say?
#9 – Carrie is finishing getting ready for Candy Berg’s party when AP asks if she’s coming. She assumes he means the party. He actually means Paris. She is faltering and trying to compromise. Can they stay in NYC and just go to Paris for a few months? No. Could they do long distance for a while? It has never worked for him. AP says he’s done with NYC. Carrie isn’t. So now we’re on Ultimatum Island.
Let’s all remind ourselves what happened when she invited herself to live in Paris with Big and he was like, I guess?
I know we are at the end of the series and this was season two but I can’t not mention the parallels here in situation and how she reacts in complete opposite ways. Big doesn’t invite her to live in Paris and she throws a Big Mac at his head. AP invites her and she’s apprehensive.
SIDEBAR: Carrie and AP bring Mr. Hall to Candy Berg’s party. She is furious that Carrie couldn’t find anyone better. Then Carrie catches the eye of Lexi Featherston, party girl, who still seems to be enjoying the coke life she lived in the 80s.
SIDEBAR YES MIRANDA HATES AP: She bitches to Steve as they’re about to go to bed. He reassures her it will be okay if Carrie moves to Paris.
#10 – Carrie ends up spending her time chatting with Mr. Hall, while Enid is trying to get AP to stick it in. When Carrie comes over to interrupt their flirt sesh, AP goes to get Enid another drink. She stares wistfully in his direction asking why they can’t be together. Carrie is offended, of course, because she’s the girlfriend, but hello, THIS IS YOUR OUT. Enid would go to Paris in a second and you can stay in NYC and pretend you aren’t waiting around for Big.
SIDEBAR INDOOR SKIING: Carrie excuses herself from her uncomfortable encounter with Enid only to encounter Lexi doing coke in the bathroom.
SIDEBAR AND THEN ELIZABETH TAYLOR GIVES BIRTH: Charlotte managed to pull it together for this occasion.
#11 – The couple Enid threw the party for are long distance between Los Angeles and India and seem blissfully. Carrie tries to use this to once again pitch AP on long distance but he’s still not budging. And again, before she can answer him, this happens:
Is that even physically or architecturally possible? Also, Kristen Johnston is the best.
#11 – Anyway, this is the push that Carrie decides she needs to agree to go to Paris. At Lexi’s funeral, Carrie announces she is moving to Paris and quit her job. (Also, I know it was Candy Berg’s party so it would make sense for her to go and allow Mr. Hall to escort her but AP is a no-show? REALLY?)
Then post-funeral, we have this one last fight:
I just…cannot with her. Especially knowing what happens next. I mean. I get the writers had to do this to get us to the Big finale, but a part of me is, why even bother?
I am going to most likely combine the two-part finale into one post, and I promise it won’t take as long as this one did!
Carrie Bradshaw is the Worst 
Everybody is super right to be skeptical as hell. NYC has long been Carrie’s whole identity, so to just up and move with one week’s notice is something any decent friend would raise alarm bells at. The only redeeming factor in it all is that AP is a legitimate person in her life because everything else about it is deserving of all the side-eye it gets. Samantha is ordinarily the most supportive of even Carrie’s most cockamamie schemes and plans, and even she’s like “how about you think this through though” and somehow that’s offensive. If Carrie could put herself in any of the other girls’ shoes for just a second and think about how she’d react if one of their new boyfriends asked them to move to Europe with them with a week’s notice, maybe she’d understand where they were coming from, but not our Self Centered Worst Girl. It’s not like he asked her to move to LA. This is a country she’s never spoken about wanting to move to, a language she’s never been interested in learning, a culture she knows nothing about, a place where she has absolutely no contacts or support. All her friends were right on the money. And she’s an asshole for giving them hell for looking out for HER BEST INTERESTS because they ARE good friends. UGH!
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This is probably my favorite episode. I think the fight between Miranda and Carrie is so well written and beautifully acted. I can see both of their sides and I think that’s why it works so well. Kristen Johnston absolutely stole the show. And Enid showing up with Mr. Hall was too good. Misha not knowing who Billy Joel was was a great Easter Egg callback to the episode when Big was listening to “New York State of Mind” on a loop. Another indicator that Misha wasn’t for Carrie.
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I know this seems like just a long, random comment, but I have to say that I routinely watch SATC episodes on HBOMax with your blog on my iPad and always follow your truly fantastic commentary and episode recaps on how infuriating Carrie is, as an episode is playing. Thank you! You’re amazing!! “Splat!” is hands down one of my favorite episodes of the entire series. Kristen Johnston – what an amazing, iconic role! She was beyond perfect in this. One thing I MUST get off my chest though. I really, REALLY LOATHE that ridiculously self-important couple Enid threw a party for. I was hoping you would expand on the brief, but highly irritating group conversation with them where the wife, Rama Patel, casually discloses her hatred of Los Angeles in such a self-satisfying manner (“frozen yogurt is not culture” – fuck you, bitch – I say that as a Californian) so her husband is the one who lives in LA and she chooses…Calcutta. No disrespect to Calcutta, but seriously?! Did Calcutta become a cultural beacon, unseating Paris, and none of us heard about it? Then, to top it all off, she utters one of the worst SATC puns EVER concocted in regard to their documentary film making – “but I get final Calcutta.” GAG me to the point of projectile vomiting, to put it mildly, every time I watch this otherwise sterling episode. Ugh, I would pay to see one of the other guests just face slap her after that. This is just slightly above that cringe-worthy statement of Charlotte’s rabbi being referred to as “the Minsch who stole Christmas” when she was told her conversion to Judaism involves giving up Christmas. I feel that the SATC writers had this storyline in mind and came up with the rabbi’s name way beforehand – JUST for this stupid line. Sorry about the digressions here. Anyway, now that I have gotten all of that off my chest – thanks again for the amazing blog. I love it so much!
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Such an immature child at her 38. Quit your job for a guy you barely know and move to another country. Sure! Doormat
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