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Previous episode: “Identity Crisis”
The dudes in this episode were so completely ridiculous. Hilariously ridiculous. I’m almost hoping that it’s parody of dude archetypes we’ve slept with, but I’m guessing that’s not the case.
Carrie and Sebastian are playing Trivial Pursuit together which is insane because it’s the hardest game ever unless you are playing the pop culture edition which didn’t exist then. Board games usually incite all the feelings–so after an exchange of longing looks — Sebastian declares his love for Carrie and she tells him she wants to have sex with him. I mean HIS FACE. I can’t believe she hasn’t told him this yet.
Warning to everyone, this Madonna theme is BEYOND heavy handed. Seriously. I kinda want to apologize to The Carrie Diaries for making this comparison but I’m gonna do it. If any of you have been blessed (or stupid enough) to have seen the cinematic gem I Know Who Killed Me starring our gurl Lindsay Lohan, you’ll know how heavy handed a theme can get. And this was just about at that point for me. So I’ll boil it down. Innocence. Virginity. Sex. etc.
Carrie keeps harping about wanting everything with Sebastian to be perfect–she’s mad she messed up the “I Love You” thing. But at Interview, she gets invited by Larissa (who is wearing AMAZING sequined pants) to Madonna’s tour kickoff party. Larissa also gives her specific instructions: “Bring that gorgeous boy of yours if you want, Madonna loves eye candy.” Carrie now has a virginity loss plan! She tells Sebastian about it who is going to get them a fancy hotel room at the St. Regis. GD these high school boys with skrilla. Of course they start making out in the hallway. Then this chick walks by who I imagined as a teen Liz Lemon–tells them to get a room. It was so good.
Also good was Sebastian’s sexy “Don’t worry I am” response. Teen Liz Lemon obviously didn’t hear that.
They take the train to Manhattan, where Carrie is in her best Madonna drag. She keeps getting chances where she’s about to tell Sebastian she loves him, but she gets interrupted. The moment has to be perfect so she clearly can’t say it.
When they get to the party, Carrie was promised that they would get into the VIP section but she’s the only one on the list and without a plus one. She tries fighting with the bitchy bouncer dude but homegirl is out of her league. She’s determined to get them in as Sebastian looks exhausted about the whole scenario. This does however, as Carrie goes into VIP to figure out how to get Sebastian in, the best Carrie voiceover in sometime.
Carrie: “Like Sebastian, I had this awful feeling that the perfect night was disappearing too.”
Carrie asks Bennett how she should get Sebastian into the VIP area. His helpful advice is to tell her to basically hit on some dude and ask him for his wristband. However, they need someone with a big wrist because Sebastian has big wrists? Really? So she goes up to the biggest guy in the place and spills her whole story about the “perfect night.”
The adorable bear dudes response: “Me and my boyfriend kissed to Madonna’s “Burning Up” for the first time. I’m a sucker for a love story.” AW. And his boyfriend runs the VIP area. Sebastian is clearly pissed even though he won’t say anything–he’s just sulking around and drinking whiskey and keeps saying “I’m not afraid to be on my own.” MOM ISSUES. She finally gets him into VIP so they can spend time together.
But Bennett has just found out that Madonna is leaving the party in about 4-6 minutes which means the party will be nonexistent in that timeframe. And he needs quotes. He promises Carrie a byline, so she goes for it. When she tells Sebastian when he comes back with drinks, you can tell from the look on his face how he feels about it. Carrie gets the quote, not without the writer of “Like A Virgin” making a gross pun on the song: “Go get touched like it’s the first time.” Ew.
When Carrie and Sebastian are outside the St. Regis everything blows up. She’s mad that he wouldn’t just tell her he was pissed. He pissed she made the night entirely about her. And beyond all else, Sebastian’s hurt that Carrie never told him she loved him. He’s also frustrated that she wants things to be so perfect/thinks so much that he thinks it gets in the way of things being real for her (he’s right).
So Carrie does what any rational person would do. She breaks up with him. This whole scene reminded me SO much of SATC and all the reasons why I can’t stand Carrie at times. It was spot on and not necessarily in a good way.
Everyone else also had heavy handed Madonna themes running throughout their story lines. Our girl Mouse is still attempting to forget that West likes her after this week. She’s convinced he’s only doing it to distract her and ruin her Harvard chances. She’s correct in that West is “annoyingly good looking” but in order to distract herself from that and to up college admission chances–she ran for the president position of eight different clubs in one week. Mouse is completely insane.
She tries to get people involved in her groups–one that is selling candy bars to raise money for children in Africa but teens don’t want to help anyone, so that backfires. Guess who does want to help? WEST.
He likes Mouse for all the reasons we love Mouse — her academics, her inability to flirt, her competitive streak. She still thinks he’s trying to sabotage her. But that doesn’t stop her from grabbing him and just going for it! In the classroom! Go Mouse! Also, Carrie needs to take some tutorials from her. I love that the hot jock dude likes Mouse for all her nerdy things and that she can be both attractive and geeky. This NEVER happens.
Afterwards West, shirtless, looks like Mouse just destroyed him. She gathers her clothes and just leaves — telling him she doesn’t want to talk or hang out. West seems pretty bewildered by this.
West finds Mouse at her astronomy club meeting, where she’s the only member. She tells him she feels like she can’t control herself around him and that’s the feeling she had with Seth that made her lose everything. He shows up for her gardening meeting the next morning where Mouse finds out from the teacher that’s there that West wrote minutes down for their meetings last night. This teacher is super impressed with their scholarly commitment and promises them both awesome recommendations. West says this proves that they can be together and not have it effect their college goals. He bugs Mouse until she finally says yes to going on a date with him, which better happen in the next episode.
Ick, so let’s get this Dad storyline out of the way. The dad is still with the FACE. And since they are both single parents they are having trouble scheduling a “nightcap.” The dad doesn’t understand what a “nightcap” means and has to have notorious creep Harlan explain it to him. Things come together and the nightcap happens. After the sex, the dad walks to the bathroom naked, running into the FACE’s son.
He flips out and BECAUSE AS YOU OBVIOUSLY SHOULD–slut-shames the FACE–asking her if this kind of thing “happens all the time?” She yells at him, telling him he should be more sympathetic since he too is in a similar situation and kicks him out. They end up seeing each other at the diner where the dad apologizes and the FACE forgives him. But UGH. Do not want the dad sex scenes. Also, the dad is such an asshole.
Speaking of slightly more appealing assholes, Dorrit is still seeing the record store dude. His name is Miller because of course it is and he’s unbelievably condescending. Before we get into full discussion, let’s get some of my favorite quotes from him. Mostly because we’ve all dated some version of this guy and he’s always the worst! I went out with a Miller-type last year, I mean apparently I just don’t learn.
Favorite Miller quotes (not in order of condescension or wanting to have sex with):
- On 1984: “Think about it–it’s not that far off with Reagan in the White House. Wants to control everything.”
- On Dorrit’s pain: “You know pain. You’re deep. That’s why you wear that make-up and those clothes.”
- On Dorrit’s reading skills: “You read faster than I do. I don’t know anyone who reads faster than me.”
- On having sex with Dorrit: “You are vulnerable. And I don’t want to hurt you by taking advantage of that. You don’t know what you want.”
THIS GUY. I really should have taken a Vine of my reactions to it — it was just so much screaming at the television.
Miller’s acting like he’s trying to “awaken” Dorrit or something annoying like that. He’s giving her books to read–1984, Tropic of Cancer. I’m guess in the next episode Dorrit will be reading Portnoy’s Complaint because Miller is CLEARLY a Philip Roth fan. He questions her punk ensembles — basically giving her some SLC Punk-esque advice about rebelling by infiltrating the system.
Dorrit begins dressing normally again to the surprise of literally everyone around her. Carrie knows it’s about a guy and urges her to not change for one. Dorrit doesn’t want to take advice from someone who took “47 years to kiss a guy.” Fair enough.
She gets advice from Donna of all people who tells her the opposite of what Carrie said. That it’s about taking control, sex is fun and that you’ll basically have all of the power. We also learn that Donna went through a 3 week goth phase for a dude which I am dying to see.
She tells Miller she wants to have sex with him (guess which condescending quote is his response!). He attempts to refuse, but not really. Also, real talk, Miller probably hasn’t had any sex at all. He’s just reading a lot of Henry Miller in preparation. Later Dorrit sneaks him up to her room where they look and joke about her Cabbage Patch dolls, but we don’t know if they have sex or not.
Things of Note/Hilarity/WTF
- “She makes a wedding dress look positively perverted.” Larissa on Madonna.
- “Virginity is so over.” Larissa on virginity.
- “Boobs and an Army jacket don’t work.” Donna on her goth look.
- Mention of Waterbeds LOL.
Next week on the finale: Sebastian’s drunk! Maggie finds out about Walt! Carrie’s sad!
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.
