Kyddshaw
This is still happening. These two have had to kiss a LOT on the show, and I have to say, they are not getting any better at it. They are REALLY AWKWARD on-screen kissers. Almost as awkward as Carrie's outfit. Still, the good news is, Sebastian managed to be in a room without any slow-motion shenanigans.
Jens and the Donnagram
Stephanie Savage joints really enjoy minions. Often in twos.
Yet again, these three are bravely, and alone, carrying the '80s fashion torch. We keep being told that Donna is the top of the social totem pole, but we never see her interacting with anyone at all except these two, nor doing anything at all except sashay. I am starting to dispute her popularity.
Donna
Oh, don't be like that, Donna. You know it's true. But maybe your popularity will go up as your hair has. Finally, some HEIGHT in this joint.
Donna
Anyway, Donna is crabby. She wants a fancy red limited-edition Coach bag, but it's sold out everywhere. So she orders the Jens to get her one. And those that skirt is UTTERLY PERFECT. Not in a real way, but in an acid-flashback way. It's SO Esprit 1985. If anywhere in the world is selling one like it now, they must be stopped before someone hurts herself.
The Jens
The Jens are understandably concerned and curious about how they're going to get such a rare item in their day-glo hands. They have far too much to do, like matching their outfits and giving each other groovy home perms.
Coach
I am assuming this might have been a real, archival ad from 1985. If so, it just goes to show how far advertising has come since this day. Don Draper would be so appalled if he knew this was his 1985 future.
Mouse
Let's get this over with: Mouse is sucking up to a Castlebury alum who went to Harvard so she can get a rec, because I guess they're going with the idea that only one person at this school will get in and it's going to be West Thomas West and his almighty chock-a-block transcript. Maybe Mouse and WTW should save themselves some time and flip a coin -- one gets Harvard, one gets all the other Ivies and Florida State.
West Thomas West
Naturally, West Thomas West, who I suspect may have recently celebrated his 31st birthday, comes along and sweeps Mouse's connection off her feet. Let's skip ahead: Mouse ends up telling off the girl for sucking up to a bunch of high school jocks, then impresses her by rallying the basketball team for a photo. They are like, "Dude, we're disorganized and stuff, let's hire her as team manager," and Mouse brightens because this would add sports to her transcript. WTW seems upset by this, because he doesn't know yet that they're going to end up making out in the ball closet, or whatever, because WTW has way too much going on and obviously watches no TV except You Can't Do That On Television.
Maggie and Walt
Let's dispense with this also: It's Carrie's birthday, and she wants her pals back, so Maggie apologizes to Walt for cheating. Walt is super cool and mature, taking responsibility for being an inattentive boyfriend and inadvertently pushing her to someone else. Maggie later decides this means they're going to get back together, and despite the fact that EVERYONE is like, "SAY WHAT?", she tells Walt that she's ready when he is. Walt is like, "Thanks but no thanks," and Maggie is dumbfounded. Only three other guys at her school have ever opened their mouths, and one of them does so chiefly to accept Carrie's tongue in it. So she's going to have to broaden her dating horizons considerably.
Dorrit
Dorrit has anarchy socks. This is perfect. However, if she's such a charred rebel, wouldn't she have tossed the pink quilt and the stickers on the wall in favor of some skulls and something black? Did she have a twin that she absorbed in the womb, or something, and occasionally that one controls the interior design?
Interview
We must pause and genuflect to this extra's use of hairspray.
Larissa
So, guess who has the Coach bag? Bingo. Larissa is awful about it -- Bennett, the coworker who kissed Walt on Halloween, covets it deeply and so then Larissa decides SHE has to have it, because she is The Worst. Also, she went from being a stylst at Interview to, by all appearances, running the place. That is quite a promotion. And when did Carrie get those honkin' high heels? If she's raiding the Interview closet already, then Dadshaw will need to buy her a shed for her birthday.
Braydd
Carrie and Sebastian continue to move at such an unheard-of regular-person pace -- blazingly blurry by his standards -- that neither of them notices how ugly her skirts is.
D-D-D-Donna and the Jens
Donna remembers that Carrie has a cool job, and tries to finagle the Coach bag from her. Sebastian shuts her down, because this is absurd and everyone knows it. The important news is: I need to see the Jens in action at the mall. If they find something they like, do they have meltdows if it's not available in multiple colors?
Dorrit
Dorrit Break: Dadshaw forces her to go buy Carrie an album for her birthday, so Dorrit picks the worst one she can find: Phil Collins' "No Jacket Required." You guys, secretly Phil Collins kind of knew his stuff. "Take Me Home" is a good song. "One More Night" was very dramatic when I learned to play it on the piano (although of course "Separate Lives" was better for a melodramatic kid like me). And the cover looks like an early rendering of a Satanic South Park character, so wouldn't Dorrit have seen the value in that?
Boy
This boy catches Dorrit shoplifting Dead Kennedys cassettes, and locks her in a closet for a while to scare her. She flees later without the album and then has to go back for it, and when she does, he teaches her the art of stealing. I can't tell if the show will reveal him as a smooth-talking jerk, or if they just wanted SO BADLY for us to swoon, but they wrote him straight out of a movie. He says things about how this night was destined to happen so that THEY were destined to happen, and then says things like, "Has anyone ever kissed you, Dorrit? Can I be the first?" Judd Nelson's character in The Breakfast Club would be horrified.
Dorrit
But Dorrit doesn't mind.
Carrie and Sebastian
So, Interview is having a big party for Bret Easton Ellis, and Carrie has to go. This is a girl who used to beat down the walls for a shot at hanging out in Manhattan, and now she's all crabby about it because it's her birthday. She planned to bring Sebastian, but his mother decided to show an interest in him, so she says she understands, even though she makes this face that clearly says, "My 17th birthday is way more important than your abandonment issues."
Carrie
So Carrie puts on a totally adorable frock and takes Walt to the party instead. Wig is REALLY excited, and there are some sleeves in the background that are pretty stoked too.
Larissa
Larissa relieves Carrie of her coat-taking duties so that she can go mingle with the crowd, because Bret Easton Ellis is young and has a book deal and so should Carrie. I'm unsure what Carrie has written that Larissa saw and found so refreshing, but I guess she's at least... supportive? But it also has an air of her not thinking Carrie is worth anything if she doesn't immediately make herself a wunderkind. Like, go fluff your beret and back off, Larissa. Although I need to applaud the show for not having her say, at any point, "I just talked to Prince and he TOTALLY liked my hat. I think he might write a song about me." I did not trust them to resist.
Carrie
So, Larissa shoves Carrie at B.E.E.'s agent, and Wig wigs out while Carrie tries to act engaging and literary. It's working, until Sebastian shows up as a surprise -- oh, yeah, and because his mother blew him off. The agent immediately loses interest in her when she won't cross the room with him, and this makes him a pretentious asshole, but Carrie just worries that she's lost her big chance. Worse, Sebastian starts drinking his feelings, and those feelings are deep as a bottle of whiskey.
Bennett and Walt
Walt runs into Bennett, and immediately delivers a good apology for his awful behavior. Walt is very articulate. I really love Walt. Bennett gets it, and as the two of them talk it out and bond, Carrie peeks over. She recalls a conversation with Walt where he said he hangs out with Donna still because she's a surprisingly good listener and supportive person, so the wheels start to turn. And Bennett gives Walt his card, so clearly, someone else's crank was being turned as well.
Shawbastian
Carrie drives Sebastian home, grinding his gears in an actual way, but also perhaps prepping to in a euphemistic way. She hears him out on his terrible mother and supports him, and it's very sweet, so they go inside and make plans for her to stay over. Her big plan is to say that she's sleeping at Maggie's. I don't think Dadshaw is the kind of person who would take that at face value without getting George Peterson on the line (which will be Maggie's dad's name until further notice).
Scarecrow and Mrs. Kydd
So, guess who comes home? Sebastian's jerkwad mother, who got stood up by the person she stood up Sebastian to see. She is played by Noelle Beck, whom I always remember from having MOUNDS AND MOUNDS of glorious thick hair on Loving, back when she was Trisha and dated a guy named Trucker who wasn't a trucker. Carrie gracefully exits, and HERE IT IS, Y'ALL: Sebastian closes the door, turns around, and slow-motion walks toward his annoying mother. I KNEW it would be in here somewhere.
Carrie
Carrie plops down in a cute cardigan and opens her birthday card from her father. It's a credit card. Man, she DOES get a clean slate from him, doesn't she? No wonder Dorrit pretends to hate Carrie 75 percent of the time. I just realized that I think Dorrit would work better if she were the older sister -- the rebellious, disinterested one who only occasionally throws Carrie the bone of her attention, and leaves Carrie to be the family's emotional glue. She's really hard to take seriously in her current incarnation.
Dorrit
However, Dorrit does put on a bunny sweater to give Carrie her present: a mix tape full of their mother's favorite songs. I am suspicious of this sweater. I wish she'd turned around and we'd seen that all the bunnies on the back were vicious monsters with nasty big pointy teeth.
Donna
And in a scene that must have been edited for time, we learn that Larissa had given Carrie the coveted red Coach bag. (Why don't the other people at Interview hate Carrie? Bennett should want to stab her over this, for sure, right?) And Carrie immediately brings it to Donna, and tries to communicate her suspicions about Walt by thanking Donna for being there for Walt. Donna gets the message and actually sort of melts a little, which is great, and then she returns to her usual insane self and swans out of there with a freaking expensive purse. Even Dorrit is like, "HELLO?"
Carrie & The Gang
But it doesn't matter, because Carrie gets her birthday cupcakes with her besties and her hung over boyfriend and her sister in the twee sweater. I poke fun at this show, but it's got a good heart and is a nice way to spend 42 minutes -- much like on Hart of Dixie, they've has done a good job making the friendships at the center of it feel real and natural and loving, which is doubly tough because the friendships that come later in Carrie's life are really iconic for her, so you'd want to believe she started out life with a junior gang that was just as tight.