Who's ready to go to a christening? You are? Well, aren't you in luck, because off to a christening we shall soon be! But not before we get some angsty stuff about The Hopelessness of Existence and The Bleakness of Life in first. Le sigh. Why must you smother every ray of sunshine with a dark cloud, writers? Why, I ask thee--why???
Anyway. The beginning of the episode finds Carrie, as she tells us, "one bad date away from bitter." She is feeling rather hopeless about her love life, fed up with the overall mid-thirties dating scene, and generally full of Gloom, and its close friend and companion, Doom.
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Her task now becomes the writing of a preface, which will set the overall tone of her pending book--is the book hopeful about love? Not hopeful? Semi-hopeful? Demi-hopeful? Carrie is not sure, and keeps finding herself totally stuck whenever she tries to hash that out.
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So what was all that which I just said about wee Baby Brady getting himself baptized? Miranda is not religious at all, and Steve is a distinctly lapsed Catholic... but lapsed or not, he makes a big push to get their wee lad baptized, nonetheless. When Miranda brushes this off as a patently ludicrous notion, Steve sensibly points out that it's a nice ceremony, will give their friends and family a chance to gather to celebrate the bundle of adorableness that is Brady, will score said adorable Brady bucketloads of presents, and is also an opportunity to have CAKE. So... baptism it is!
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Charlotte, meanwhile, has fallen under the spell of a creepy self-help guru, who is some kind of unpleasant blend between Suze Orman, and that nutty woman who wrote The Secret. (For the record, I have nothing against Orman's books or ideas--I value someone telling me in words of one syllable what the Sam Hill to do with my meager cash as much as the next clueless, math-is-my-doom humanities person does--they just made this episode's creepy guru look like her is all.)
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After Charlotte tentatively asks the guru why it is that even though she believes in love and hopes for love, she has not yet found love, and the guru nastily shuts her down by saying that she just must not be trying hard enough, Carrie sticks up for her. Charlotte is doing all in her power, Carrie notes, but sometimes, even that is not enough.
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Samantha, meanwhile, is back with Richard. (As Charlotte puts it, "Richard whose death we've been plotting?") He fed her some rubbish line about how he got scared of their emotional closeness, and as such went running off to sleep with other ladies. (Of course, I am told this is a very common reaction to any form of masculine emotional discomfort.) He says he loves her, and will do his best not to cheat on her anymore. Samantha: buys this line. Her friends: do not. I: side with her friends.
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The Analysis:
Radically Inappropriate Garments to Wear to Religious Ceremonies Watch: So Carrie wears a very low-cut black dress to Brady's christening (black? As someone who has worn black dresses to weddings because Vogue said I could and I have a couple of really nice black dresses, okay?, I will let that one slide, but very low-cut? Must we? You are going to be in all the christening pictures, missy, I do not need to see acres of your flesh in said family snaps.) She also wears a cracked-out fascinator, however, which gave me pleasant flashbacks to the Royal Wedding. Le sigh. No one does cracked-out pseudo-hats like the British do cracked-out pseudo-hats.
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Given the ways in which the show has, in the past, sailed perilously close to actually endorsing a biological-determinism-style "men are just different, sometimes they simply cannot help their manly selves!" permissiveness when it comes to radical male misbehavior... I am glad to see the writers clearly showing us that Richard is a jerk, Sam is being naive and rather foolhardy to trust him again, and that her friends are quite right to think he is an unpleasant gent she would be better off without. I do like to see a spade called a spade/a cheater called a cheater!
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However. Putting one's praise for Ms. Meara to one side, I will take a moment to sourly note (I do love me some sour noting!) that there does seem to be something rather troubling, in the ways in which her Queens-based self is represented. For one thing, the fact that she is, in fact, from Queens, is the source of much bemused comment and not a few jokes, and Queens itself treated as an alien and bizarre landscape by our leading ladies. Please, my friends. Manhattan is splendid, but from what I've heard, it's dizzyingly pricey self is not the beginning and end of the known universe. Give the anti-Borough thing a rest. (Not that they will, brace yourself for some potent anti-Brooklyn rhetoric anon!)
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Notable Quotables:
Carrie: "Maybe it's not advisable to be an optimist past the age of 30." (Fie on that, missy, I turn 30 in a few short days, and I'll be darned if I'll give up my Pollyanna-like, sunshiny attitude for love or money. I will cling to it with both of my increasingly withered hands--cling to it, I say!)
Miranda, on what Steve's mother is like: "Imagine Steve... in a wig... drunk!" She is also a redhead, I feel compelled to note, and therefore that much more AWESOME.
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Miranda: "...When I get scared, I hide under the covers- not between someone's legs!"
ReplyDeleteDEFINITELY my favorite line of the entire episode. I also enjoyed how Miranda just went along with the baptism, but wasn't...ahem, "transformed" by it.
-Alex
Ah, that is indeed a great one! That definitely should have made my notable quotables... Miranda is always good for those, bless her!
ReplyDeleteI thought the way that they handled the baptism was very sweet--Miranda definitely doesn't have a massive religious conversion, as you say, but she nonetheless sees something moving and significant about gathering her family and friends to welcome Brady into their community, and to give him good wishes for the future... it is all very touching, I thought. Also--I wish to have a piece of the cake served at said event--so yummy-looking!
Yes, the cake was well worth it!
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, Miranda clearly did it with only the baby in mind. Well...the Brady and the cake.
-Alex
And I appreciate that she kind of does it for Steve, too--trying to negotiate this weird, tricky balance of having her in her life, while not letting him take over that life. I think the show did a really good and interesting job of thinking through how Miranda and Steve could be co-parents while still not being a couple--until, of course, the show inevitably made them a couple!
ReplyDelete