“I’ve been dating since I was 15, I’m exhausted! Where is he?” – Charlotte
It’s nice that the new season starts on a optimistic note for Carrie, as she meets a charming politician (Mad Men’s Roger Sterling) and ends this first episode riding off into the moonlight with him. But I remember only too well what road that relationship goes down, so the moment feels somewhat … soiled.
They meet in the most unlikely of settings – the FDNY annual calendar competition on Staten Island – due to their respective statuses as minor celebrities. These days I’d give John Slattery at least a 7 out of 10, but I’m pretty sure as a twentysomething I thought him far too old for Carrie. Her reluctance to be wooed by him isn’t really due to his grey hair, or his divorced status, or his habit of giving thumbs up. She says he’s too full of himself, but that’s never been a turn-off in the past…
“You’re terrified of getting hurt again,” observes Miranda, and Carrie’s voiceover notes this is something that “independent women in their thirties are never supposed to think, let alone say out loud”. Another such snippet pops out of Charlotte’s mouth during an innocent chat about the appeal of firemen. Women just want to be rescued, don’t they? Miranda’s face is a picture. Carrie has a half-hearted response about being your own white knight, but no-one seems convinced.
So determined is Miranda to prove her independent status that when Carrie bails on chumming her home from laser eye surgery (due to a looming deadline, apparently, as if the Sex & The City column is in any sense topical and couldn’t have simply been bashed out the night before), she declines to arrange a substitute. But Carrie gives Steve the heads-up and of course he steps in. He manages not to do anything objectionable for the entire episode. Well done Steve.
Meanwhile, Samantha’s fireman fantasy doesn’t quite go as planned, and Charlotte thinks she’s found her white knight when a banker rescues her from some cheesy chat-up lines … but, as ever, things nosedive very quickly. Poor Charlotte.
Carrie’s column: Do women just wanna be rescued?
Fashion: Everyone looks terrible on Staten Island, with their mumsy separates and tacky little handbags, but Carrie rocks a fur coat and eccentric boots combo as she’s pursued by the politician.
Puns: None as such, but there is this dialogue:
Samantha, regarding a fireman from lower Manhattan: “I’d like to show him my lower Manhattan”
Charlotte: “Eugh”
Sex and the City Revisited 