Back in Manhattan, Miranda is enjoying world’s best tonic water at a sexy lounge with Joy from the BBC while mining her for those allegedly necessary on-air performance tips. Joy says what Miranda really must do is breathe better. This is what my swim teacher told me at the YMCA before I stopped going to Swim Lessons because they wouldn’t graduate me from Tadpole to Guppie and it was getting embarrassing.

Joy puts Miranda’s hand right on her chest and warms her clavicle so Miranda can feel how to breathe up close.

So, we’re gonna try a breathing exercise, okay? When I breathe, you breathe.

Miranda adores the breathing demonstration. The moment the heat of Joy’s palm makes contact with her breastbone, Miranda is floating at the very edge of climax, deeply aroused and wholly prepared for future on-camera invitations.

Do you feel this, Shane? Most people don’t have this. This is rare.

Miranda, more than any of her tragically heterosexual friends this episode, is truly leaning in to the possibility of a romance that challenges her and meets her where she’s at, intellectually. Miranda tends to date adults with child-like energy who pull her out of her own self-seriousness, but she could actually go toe-to-toe with Joy in a real way. she’s also intimidated by Joy, which provides just enough sexual tension to keep her on her toes. Lesbianism is healing.

Once the demonstration is over, Joy instructs: “Now — imagine doing that while talking about famine.”

Charlotte and Harry’s Big Night Out is going well insofar as they are, in fact, out, and it is seemingly quite late. Everybody’s doing cocaine and buzzing about after-after-parties. Despite their exhaustion, Charlotte and Harry are determined to continue hanging and hopefully selling a painting to this Dutch man who looks like he would play a Secret Service member in a low-budget movie about aliens invading the Pentagon. Also Lela wants to have sexual intercourse with the Dutch man.

You know Charlotte York was always my favorite character

Charlotte feels just moments away from selling art to Dutch and thus plans to attend the after-after-after-party. But when Harry goes to the little boys room for a pre-location-change pee, he can’t get his fancy stiff jeans off and he pees his pants. That’s ok, this happened to me in elementary school when we were eating graham crackers with frosting and I was so excited about eating frosting that I didn’t want to go to the bathroom and then I peed everywhere and then tried to cover it up myself by cleaning it off the chair with those awful brown paper towels they always had in school and it didn’t work so they had to call my Mom to bring me a change of clothes but they didn’t tell her I peed my pants so she didn’t bring fresh underwear, she just brought me my Brownie pants, and I had to wear pants without underwear for the rest of the day and to Brownies and probably that’s why I have mental health issues now.

Harry, it’s okay, you’ll survive, one time Riese peed in her pants and had to wear Brownie pants all day with no underwear

Charlotte’s not sure how she’ll make it through the evening without Harry but after a few Espresso Martinis she is an aggressively delighted version of Charlotte and it’s really cute actually!

Charlotte, high on her own success, thinks she’s got a shot at selling art to Dutch and at getting him to hook up with Lela, who’s crushing hard. Dutch misreads Charlotte and tries to kiss her on the mouth. She screams like a bunch of rats just invaded her garden and tells him that she is a wife and a mother! Charlotte attempts to recapture her youth and succeed in a space where she no longer belongs has backfired, and she ends up re-affirming the identities she resented earlier, embracing them anew.

Ultimately it’s genuine connections, not forced ones, that snag Charlotte the sale — a fellow wife and mother beelines directly for hungover Charlotte at the show the next morning and says she’s ready to drop some coin on the art Charlotte didn’t sell Dutch.

Worry no more my exhausted friend, I’ve got a baggie of cocaine stuffed inside me like a tampon

Let’s do a line!!!!!!

It’s suddenly Grace’s last day even though merely 24 hours have passed since she announced her job offer, and LTW issues a formal apology, admitting she’s not sure if she can do the project without her.

I’ve filled this bag with every statement necklace you ever wore to work, and I hope you can look at them all together and remember how much you love them, and also me

Grace says she’s confident LTW can do it and you know what — so am I. And so is Herbert, I bet! Maybe she will hire me to be her editor.

Meanwhile in Virginia, Carrie’s managed to reserve a rental car despite lacking the required paperwork, and must be sadly informed at the desk that her drivers license expired in 2017 and she will not be driving off the lot today.

I have it on good authority that the last time you had access to a motor vehicle you used it to drive to a Frozen Cup drive-through and ordered a strawberry shake, a cheeseburger, fries and a Cosmpolitan, is this true?

Who told you that? Samantha Jones?

Luckily, Seema’s drivers license is current and the ladies hit the road for Aidenville Poundtown Party of Two. Seema’s still deciding whether or not she should start her own agency or keep working for Ryan with the tiny hat. She really needs a sign!

Speak of the devil — Ryan calls! Carrie asks Seema to pull over to take the FaceTime because I personally will die if the point of this Adderall subplot is for Carrie to get arrested with a sandwich bag of pills she could’ve easily stashed in an actual pill bottle. Unfortunately, when it comes time to pull out of the parking lot post-call, Seema backs up over a row of “Don’t Back Up” spikes, and the rental car is donezo, leaving Carrie and Seema stranded across the street from a 24-Hour Fitness in Virginia.

The good news is that the “Don’t Back Up” sign was the sign Seema needed — she’s gonna change her path and move forward and start her own firm! This honestly seems like a lot of work but I think Seema can do anything. For example, just earlier in this episode she said she would never go to Virginia and now she’s in Virginia.

Never fear — AIDAN IS HERE!!!

Pardon me, do you have any Grey Popoun?

I thought you’d never ask!!!

Just as Carrie hoped he would, Aidan invites her to spend the night — the kind of agenda-change only a woman of Carrie’s leisurely lifestyle could adjust to at such short notice, but okay!

Thus, Seema goes to the airport, ready to start all over at the age of her age, and Carrie drives back to Aidan’s farmhouse estate in rural Virginia, ready to sleep alone in the guesthouse ’cause he’s not yet told her kids that she’s in town. Probably if he explained that she’d just come on a casual girl’s trip with her friend Seema to be on a memoirist panel in Willamsburg and also hand-deliver a key, they would understand. Actually probably if she told Wyatt she had 25 Adderall XRs in her bra, he’d be pretty relieved to see her.

You know what I could’ve sold these for at NYU, Big Man?

Judging by Aidan’s underwhelm regarding Carrie’s triumphant drug score, I get the feeling Aidan and his ex-wife aren’t aligned about Wyatt taking medication — something unspoken is afoot. Anyhow, the episode ends with Carrie alone in the guest house on her laptop, just like Lizzie Borden’s maid, Bridget Sullivan.

Oh, if you were worried about Anthony’s Hottie Tottie Bakery, worry no more!!! Guiseppe caved and donned his tiny outfit so Anthony can sell more eclairs.

Nothing gets me in the mood for a hot bagel like a hot man holding a basket of hot bagels

Pages: 1 2See entire article on one page

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!