The thing about rich people problems is that I am open to them! I am open to the soapy scandals and the endless themed fundraiser galas. I love Beverly Hills 90210, The O.C., Bel-Air, Succession, Big Little Lies, Pretty Little Liars, White Lotus. The copious wealth of the characters in these universes and the scenarios this wealth affords them can certainly be interesting, and their freedom from the slings and arrows of financial restraint opens up their calendar to entertain all kinds of activities the rest of us cannot. The original series was made possible entirely by Carrie Bradshaw’s ability to spend all her time dating and eating brunch and only a few hours a week working (writing a column about dating). How lovely! For her, and for us!
Her current storyline with Aidan is also enabled by unspoken wealth — she can chill in their shared mansion, waiting for him to be ready for her while he, on his own Virginia estate, can devote himself completely to his son’s well-being. They are not encumbered by work or by the need to make concrete plans for the future, like people who need to split rent and maintain stable employment are. There are many things about Carrie and Aidan’s relationship that confuses me, but that aspect of it I have simply accepted, like so many other things we accept in the world of “gay men playing with female paper dolls” known as Sex and the City / And Just Like That.
Which brings me, at long last, to this week’s episode.
This week’s episode was chock-full of tedious rich people problems but ones that were not interesting or exciting, just annoying and un-relatable! The episode’s A Plot, bafflingly enough, concerns Carrie’s downstairs neighbor — a novelist who writes at night and sleeps during the day — requesting she stop walking around her home alone all day in high heels. Why is a 55-year-old woman walking around her own home in high heels to begin with? Has she not considered the musculoskeletal repercussions of this behavior!!?
I KNOW you’re making multiple hot dogs a day because the HOT DOG WATER is leaking through the floor onto my face!
Mister, if you wanted a hot dog you could’ve just said so
When Duncan first arrives on her doorstep to register this complaint, Carrie explains that she’s yet to find a rug that truly speaks to her, but as soon as she does, the noise of her indoor heels will surely be sufficiently muffled. Duncan explains his own privileged situation: he spends half the year in London, enjoying life, and the other half in New York City, writing. It is bold to expect your neighbors to abide your unnecessarily nocturnal work schedule BUT, Carrie’s position is far bolder!
If she was a musician who had to practice sometimes, or perhaps a person who wants to do some aerobic exercises for 25 minutes in the afternoon a few times a week, or a person who sometimes has loud sex, or a person who has a party once a month — these are the machinations of everyday life. These are the things we must sometimes endure, as humans living in crowded cities with other humans. The things I have endured!
But nobody needs to walk around their home alone in high heels by themselves all day long! At brunch, Carrie’s friend’s are more entertained by her situation than I am.
Carrie: “He asked me to take off my heels.”
Charlotte: “To play devil’s advocate, taking your shoes off at home is more sanitary.”
Carrie: “To play the Devil Wears Prada’s advocate, I have rights, a woman’s right to shoes.”
The conversational tide turns when it’s revealed that he’s the novelist who wrote a very long book about one of the King Henrys that Miranda read in one weekend and Harry has been reading for three years. Miranda boldly encourages Carrie to compromise so that Duncan can finish his next book so she can read it.
You know I really do feel like this soda water might have a little bit of poison in it
Miranda says that “according to Goodreads,” Duncan has writer’s block. I’m sorry but what Goodreads is this? Anyhow, Miranda can relate to Duncan ’cause in her West Village AirBnB she has a neighbor who plays loud music.
Also, Carrie tells her friends that she has let go of expectations with Aidan, probably because she is afraid that Aidan’s son is going to murder her with a pickaxe in her sleep if Duncan doesn’t do it first. Then Charlotte says she doesn’t know what she’d do without having Harry there with her in her life every single minute. After she said that, I was emotionally prepared, when we transitioned into a scene of Charlotte and Harry going for a walk at night, for a grand piano to fall off a crane and smash him into a million pieces outside the Getty Center while their dog howled at the moon, but instead what happens is that Harry reveals that he has prostate cancer but that they caught it early so everything will be okay and he will survive. He asks Charlotte to keep it a secret from everybody which will obviously push Charlotte over the edge!
He didn’t say the entire idea of putting a little picture of your dog on a leather purse was inherently flawed, just that it’s not what they’re ready to bring to market at this time
Let’s go back to Carrie’s dilemma, however, as it eventually intersects with Miranda’s, and Miranda is the lesbian we’re all here to discuss. Carrie brings Duncan a ‘welcome wagon’ basket, curated from her favorite local merchants. He’s uninterested in the neighborhood because he is brooding and can afford to live in New York despite not wanting to enjoy all the city has to offer. He gives Carrie a present too: slippers from Amazon Prime. It’s so cute!
It is I, a messenger from Prince Harry and King David
Miranda’s Air BnB host refuses to help Miranda with the noisy neighbor situation due to him violating his lease by Air BnBing it to begin with. Miranda finds a temporary fix after slipping a written request for a volume lowering under her neighbor’s door, but soon enough he’s back at it.
Once again Miranda felt that the glass of water in her hand potentially contained something far more sinister than the actual water she’d been promised
Carrie invites Miranda to come shack up with her at her 17-room Gramercy Park mansion, currently only occupied by a small cat, several hat-boxes, a bed, a tiny kitchen table, and Carrie herself, walking around in stilettos composing texts to Aidan she will never send. Miranda declines, attesting she’s an old lady who needs her own space. (Which technically seems available, even at Carrie’s, due to its expansive nature.) Miranda asks Carrie if she can ask Seema to find her a new apartment because Miranda’s real estate agent is “lame” (???!) but Carrie doesn’t want to mix friends and business, although Seema is Carrie’s real estate agent. I suspect there are other Air BnBs in the world but who am I but a writer who wasn’t hired to write this, or any, television show.
Miranda once again traverses the wasteland of her building to slip her neighbor a note, but this time he cannot abide:
WOULD YOU LIKE TO BORROW MY VERY SHARP KNIFE
Heavens that’s the most glorious sharp knife i have ever seen
Thus, Miranda agrees to move in temporarily with Carrie, just like when they were freewheeling twentysomethings on Bond Street. As Miranda moves in, so does a special gift from Aidan: the table Carrie wanted! Turns out he’d bought it himself before sending the thumbs-down emoji, and that’s why it wasn’t available. This is actually cute.
Miranda borrows a scarf from Carrie and goes to Joy’s for their “first sleepover” which begins with them standing facing each other kissing like middle schoolers playing spin the bottle except slightly less erotic. Joy’s greyhounds are leering at them so Joy puts them out of the room so the makeout can continue. This scene lasts about 45 seconds because the episode needed as much room as possible for Carrie’s shoes.
Admit it, you want to see my wild cunt
Due to Joy’s dogs, Miranda ends up not sleeping over, which we learn because Carrie’s shocked to run into a naked Miranda in her mansion later that evening. That’s all we end up hearing about that!
In the morning, Carrie’s appalled to see Miranda sitting at her tiny breakfast table, eating Carrie’s yogurt and Carrie’s banana, which is honestly also very bold roommate behavior! Go to the bodega and get your own yogurt and banana you absolute weirdo! This is like a Seinfeld episode but not funny.
Carrie don’t look now but there’s a man in your backyard with a foot-long hot dog and a jar of sauerkraut and he looks absolutely furious
Their blissful cohabitation is further disturbed when Miranda does her work all over the new table from Aidan while drinking Carrie’s last Mexican Coke (Which why would she do that? Get your own Coke when you ordered your food? Everybody knows not to take the last of anything from someone else’s fridge?) which of course spills, which then Miranda mops up with Carrie’s expensive scarf, and again, what and why and howforth what are we doing with our wild and precious lives on this earth!
You told me Samantha moved to London but it says here she just didn’t want to be on the show!!
Seema is present for the Table Incident which’s my opportunity to tell you that this episode her storyline is that she needs a loan to start her real estate empire, insists that a Mercedes and a personal driver are necessary elements of her business plan, and believes the low-level bank employee who she submits her paperwork to should somehow assure loan approval because she is a woman and Seema is a woman and isn’t this, ultimately, what our foremothers burned their bras for? So Seema could get a loan to start her real estate empire?!?!!
Anyhow, great news: Seema will be Miranda’s real estate agent because Carrie and Miranda agree that living together isn’t working out. Seema’s first sale is already in the pipeline!
And Just Like That, Seema wished Carrie had a sofa so she could lie down
Down in the garden, Seema smokes a cigarette with Adam Gardens who asks her if she’s ever tried yoga. So that’s neat!
Speaking of women, let me tell you about what Charlotte and Lisa are up to this episode: GLAMPING at Collective Governors Island, a private six-acre retreat encircled by private, car-free parkland, where 29 upscale tents and private suites open to skyline views and harbor breezes, offering visitors a chance to unplug with wood-grilled flavors, luxurious spa experiences and sunset cocktails.
Unfortunately nobody seems to actually want to go glamping, especially Lily. “Lily you are spending the weekend with your family end of story,” Charlotte tells her heartbroken daughter. “I am sure you can make up this time with your polyamorous polysexual boyfriend some other weekend.” Charlotte insists Harry’s the one itching to glamp because she is worried that he will die and they will regret not spending the weekend together as a family:
Ok I don’t want to be weird but do you guys all have a group chat without me?
[typing]
Everybody say “CHEESE PLATE!”
Furthermore, he’s upset that Lisa’s new editor is a Hotty McDreamypants. Fortunately they are married with children and even though LTW admits to Charlotte that she’s got a little crush, it will be okay. Just like Harry I hope ’cause they can’t kill anyone else on this show! Immediately upon arrival at the Glamping Site, Herbert busts out the s’mores equipment. It is three in the afternoon! Too early for s’mores. Nobody understands anything.
“There’s chocolate in the gift shop!” Charlotte yells. “It’s chocolate, not cancer!”
FACT: Black bears can smell a salami from five miles away.
Also Rock is a vegan now but she misses cheese.
In conclusion, Carrie texts Samantha Jones who says Duncan is supposed to be a lot of fun, which Carrie is not so sure about. She goes to the garden to tell Adam Gardens what a good job he is doing and then Duncan lights his house on fire and Carrie puts it out with her heels and says, “aren’t you glad I’m wearing heels?” There were multiple ways to put out the fire but ok.
Only she can prevent basement fires
Thus Carrie and Duncan head out for a little bite to eat and they finally bond as writers — because he’s out of his comfort zone writing a book about a woman, and she’s out of her comfort zone writing historical fiction. When it’s all said and done, everyone has food, shelter, and the love and support of their dearest friends. And I don’t know, maybe we had more fun at the comedy concert?
