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Previous episode: “The Great Unknown”
You guys! This was such a good episode. I think I might actually be sold, finally.
It’s Carrie’s seventeenth birthday, so she still thinks that awesome things happen on birthdays. To pre-celebrate her birth, she’s making out with Sebastian in all the corners of school. Good job Carrie!
Her birthday is on Friday and she only has a few requests. She wants all four of them to be together — which could be tricky since Walt and Maggie have yet to talk about that whole cheating thing. Maggie suggests she lose her virginity to Sebastian as a birthday treat, Carrie doesn’t necessarily agree. But Carrie is pretty blissful right now because she has everything she wants.
But a wrench comes into Carrie’s birthday plans, a really fabulous wrench. Interview is hosting the book party for Brett Easton Ellis’ Less Than Zero and Carrie has to go. However, she can bring a plus one and asks Sebastian, who apparently went to boarding school with a bunch of people who inspired the book.
My new hope now is that BEE will now live tweet The Carrie Diaries since he was mentioned on it. Can you even imagine?!
- “The Carrie Diaries is post-Empire” (It’s actually probably empire. Too earnest for BEE sensibilities)
- “The actual book launch party had much more cocaine.”
- “Austin Butler is the second sexiest man on television after Adam Driver.”
Thanks for indulging me you all. Before they can party alongside, BEE, Sebastian finds out that his mother is allegedly going to come visit him. Carrie takes Walt instead and wears an incredible dress. Seriously, someone find me that dress. They discuss how BEE is basically writing their lives with better cars and more drugs. Larissa overhears and says:
Larissa: “You should get to work on that.”
Carrie: “The writing or the drugs?”
Larissa: “Ideally both.”
Larissa you are perfect. Walt is impressed by how much Carrie is actually doing at Interview. Apparently Donna thought Carrie just was making coffee for cool people. When they get to the party, Larissa steers Carrie toward Trip Ramsey, a book publisher who is very into discovering young voices. I really love how enthusiastic Larissa is to mentor Carrie. She ends up charming him with anecdotes from her journals (remember the hot dog/keyhole thing?) and he’s interested in speaking more about her writing, until she sees that Sebastian has shown up.
Walt, elsewhere at the party, saw Bennett who he kissed at the Halloween party and freaks out. But he manages to go talk to Bennett and they both apologize — Walt for calling him a fag and Bennett for not knowing Walt was in high school. Bennett talks about his experiences coming out basically wanting to wish away being gay while he was in high school and college until he kissed someone he really liked. He does say that in retrospect it made all the “Steve McQueen posters” make sense. They talk for most of the night (which Carrie has a mild realization about) and Walt asks Bennett if they can hang out again.
Obviously, something happened with Sebastian’s mom, hence why he’s shown up to the party. Trip excuses himself since Carrie seems busy. She in vain goes to look around for him and while she’s gone Sebastian decides to get hammered. And he gets DRUNK. He kinda embarrasses Carrie in front of Walt and Bennett and when Larissa mentions Trip’s location, Sebastian is determined for them to go speak to him. Carrie shuts this down.
I think we can all agree that having to take care of drunk, sloppy boyfriends is the fucking worst.
Carrie drives them back to Sebastian’s where we learn that his mom never showed up and that conveniently his dad is out of town. Carrie is prepared to stay at Sebastian’s using the “I’m staying at my friend’s place” classic excuse. But guess who shows up?
Sebastian’s mom! And she’s AWFUL. But so glamourous–she’s in this full-length fur coat and a jumpsuit. Carrie tells Sebastian he should spend time with his mother who is blathering about some dude. Oh and Carrie quotes Robert Frost but I’m trying to forget about that. They all end up having a brunch at the diner and all is well.
And in her final birthday act of generosity, she gives Donna a purse. Backstory: Donna begins coveting a Coach red leather bag that’s sold out everywhere. She puts her minions on it, who are completely useless. She asks Carrie about the bag which they just got in at Interview. I think after Carrie’s mild realization about Walt, she understands why he continues to hang out with Donna. So, she gives her the bag for being a good friend to Walt.
Maggie patches things up with Walt. She’s pretty surprised by the results of their conversation mainly because Walt also apologizes because Maggie wasn’t feeling loved in the way she wanted. Maggie takes this and ignores Donna’s warning “to move on while she can” to mean that her and Walt are going to get back together. Then she tells him as much and Walt says he loves her but only as a friend.
Mouse gets another school based storyline this week. She meets with a former graduate who ended up going to Harvard. The two get along marvelously until she meets, hot jock West from last week (first name: Thomas). And they are weirdly flirting. Homegirl needs to slow her roll, she went to Harvard and he’s in high school. When she finds out Mouse is #2 in the class, she crushes Mouse’s dreams (well as Carrie accurately assesses Mouse’s parents dreams) of Harvard. And then just keeps really crushing those dreams saying,” You are just a smart Asian girl. You need a hook.” After West invites her to Spirit Day, Mouse makes sure to join. Mouse becomes super frustrated seeing this smart, Harvard educated girl catering to these jocks, so since Mouse is the best, she calls her out on it. And you can tell immediately Mouse just proved herself as Harvard material or whatever that is. Her organization skills also got her noticed by the basketball team and she’s probably going to be their team manager! I’m still hoping for Mouse and West to get together.
The dad, who praise be, isn’t getting illicit BJs this week, has to remind Dorrit that it’s Carrie’s birthday. He’s giving Carrie her first credit card. UM WHAT? Does he just realized he has set up Carrie’s irresponsible spending for the rest of her life?! Anyways, he gives Dorrit some money to go get Carrie an album of what the youths are listening to.
Dorrit goes to the record store and there’s obviously a dreamboat anti-authority type working there. Swoon. Also, side note. Thanks to the casting directors of this show for casting super cute dudes. They clearly understand our interests/needs. She’s embarrassed to buy a Phil Collins record for Carrie and tries to steal some Dead Kennedys tapes for herself. Hot anti-authority dude catches her and locks her in the backroom to teach her a lesson.
He doesn’t call the cops on Dorrit only because at least what she was trying to steal proved her good taste in music. Record store bros, am I right? Dorrit bolts without picking up Carrie’s album that she paid for and she has to go back and pick it up. When she goes back, just a warning this guy says all the most ridiculous things that we know recognize as terribly insufferable, but at least for me during my “punk” phase would have been the swooniest. (Ugh, realtalk, I probably still would.)
Miller: “I’m a true nihilist, you’re just a terrible shoplifter.”
Miller: “Your eyes are really pretty.”
Miller: “I could go to college—pretty much any college I wanted but for what?” (PERSONAL FAVORITE)
He then teaches Dorrit the proper way to shoplift and gives her the tapes she had tried to steal. Later, they are talking and he asks Dorrit if anyone has ever kissed her and if he can be the first. So we’ve established he’s probably 18, so this is a little weird. But there’s a lot of consent happening. And dang does that kiss escalate quickly.
I’m totally hoping we see this guy again, could you imagine the freakout the dad would have?! Dorrit ends up making Carrie a mixtape, Carrie’s first, of all of their mom’s favorite songs. Dorrit obviously tells Carrie that their mom had much better taste in music, but it’s a really sweet gift.
Things of Note/Hilarity/WTF
- Carrie has chin burn from making out with Sebastian. Totally the worst.
- Sebastian talks about how “interesting things” happen by the coat check. Is he trying to kill all of us?
- “Of all people that narcissist Larissa should understand a birthday” Mouse on Carrie not divulging birthday info.
- “Fresh is yummy. Old is, well…old.” Larissa, philosopher of life.
- “I had no idea it was this easy to order jocks around.” Life lessons learned by Mouse.
- I love Donna. A lot. She’s hilarious.
Next week: Carrie pretends to be Larissa. This will totally go over really well.
About the Contributor:
Kerensa Cadenas is a writer living in Los Angeles. She grew up on binge reading Sweet Valley High and watching Saved by the Bell at a very young age. Hence, she is now unable to grow out of this life-long phase. She loves terrible teen television, young adult novels and probably listens to One Direction more than she should. She also enjoys more adult things like margaritas on patios and dance parties. A Marcus Flutie/Nate Archibald man-hybrid remains her ideal.
