Donna
This episode was Dorrit, Larissa, and the Jens' turn to get benched. Even Donna barely does anything, but she does at least open the hour by strutting past the camera in a tiny tight dress and heels, to herald the arrival of spring. You know what they say: In like a lion, out like DAAAAAMN.
Walkin' On Bunshine
This wasn't meant to be a screengrab of Donna's butt, nor an up-close and personal study of whether her dress actually covers it. But, it was my passport to a group shot, and this is the only one I got that wasn't blurry. I'm pleased to report that Carrie's outfit is appropriately ridiculous. Spring has not sprung the way Wig has.
Pantshaw
WHAT ARE THOSE PANTS. Estelle Getty is up in Heaven somewhere going, "THEY STOLE FROM MY ESTATE."
Mombastian
So, Mombastian arrives at school to have a completely inappropriate meltdown, while wearing a DELICIOUSLY '80s coat that is SO perfectly ridiculous, Joan Collins just got chills and doesn't know why.
Kyddcest
So, Mombastian starts stroking on her son's face in a way that is both too needy and ardent for a normal person. Sebastian does have the good grace to look horrified by it, especially when she starts squawking about how his father is being so cruel to her, "AND AFTER [they] MADE LOOOOOVE." Other students who hear this seem hilarioiusly skeeved by this also. Sebastian's storyline in this episode is 10 percent family, 90 percent "Grown-Ups Have Sex Too And It's Grody."
Interview With A Campire
So, Carrie is having a very "I HAVE CONFIDENCE In MEEEEEEEE" kind of day, all dipped in cheerful pink and rolled in blossoms. But Larissa is M.I.A., and Carrie has absently promised Andy Warhol's assistant that Larissa will pick up a package at a boutique and deliver it that evening to Andy. WHAT TO DO. Bennett blah-blahs something about Carrie getting fired and losing out on a summer job at Interview, and Carrie trots around looking pink and horrified in yet another of her unending cabal of business-appropriate outfits that make it clear she is abusing Dadshaw's gift of a credit card.
Material Girl
Naturally, a snobby boutique worker turns away Carrie because she doesn't LOOK like the almighty and powerful Larissa, who is simultaneously being presented like the Anna Wintour of Interview and yet also someone who makes deliveries to appease weird artists. But OF COURSE the girl lets slip that she's never MET Larissa, so OF COURSE Carrie decides to act pretentious and kind of bitchy to sell that SHE is Larissa (amusingly), and OF COURSE it works (abetted by the mention of "goat foreskin moisturizer" which they'd been sent earlier in the day, which was actually funny). Let's now take a look at the extras in the background, who are really giving '80s fashion their all. Those are some horrible boots, and the high-waisted jeans are a thing of archival messitude.
Centerfold
This is part of Carrie's rumination on Becoming A New Woman -- or in this case, impersonating one -- and I am showing you this so we can all talk about how far magazine layouts have come since 1985. I wonder if his was archival, or a recreation. Either way, it's hideous and hilarious. It's hidarious.
Geekitude Killed The Basketball Star
Mouse is taking her job as team manager too seriously, including dragging them in during Spring Break and giving overhead projector presentations about their individual failings, so they can remain undefeated. Naturally, this pisses everyone off and causes rifts, and West Thomas West tells Mouse she has to FIX IT or else the team will lose. Mouse is allergic to losing. If I had thought to get a screen grab of her, you would see her get brain hives.
Dadshaw
Dadshaw's Expendable Story of the Week: He goes to yoga, and the busty lady next to him smacks her gum the entire time and it makes him mental. So he snaps. Completely goes off on her. Makes an Ass-shaw of himself in the middle of class.
*smack* *smack* *smack* *smack* *smack* KISSSSSSS
You knew that story was heading to a place of disturbing screen grabs. You KNEW IT.
POP! GOES MY HEART (in a bad way)
This pretty much says it all.
These Boots Are Made For Walking
Maggie also gets a fake ID from Sebastian and lets him talk about how he wishes his parents would stay divorced, because they're manipulative and gross and have a lot of sex. See? His story really is all about adults getting it on. Also, Maggie is wearing some frumpy boots that you probably needed to see, because even though I'm not sold that anyone wore boots over pants back then in this manner, they DID wear heels that low.
Fabshaw
So, the boutique lets "Larissa" -- I wish I could call her Clarissa and hen talk about her explaining things, but that is too wordy a tangent -- try on a bunch of clothes, and then offers to let her take them home for free in exchange for putting some on the cover. So Carrie is super nervous. She calls Sebastian and talks to him about drinking coffee and wearing a hat that looks like a sneeze at a funeral, and those shoes that I kind of want. My bigger issue here is with the set dressing. They couldn't come up with ANY more psychedelic outfits to put in the background? More neon, more sparkles, more shoulder pads? I don't believe they sell ANY of those things.
867-5309
We do need to discuss this phone. My grandparents had it in olive, and I was OBSESSED WITH IT. Whenever we would fly over to visit, I would hang out in the room where it was and play that I was very busy and making a lot of phone calls, just so I could hold it. I kind of want it again, right now. WHY didn't we hold onto it? You guys, THIS IS WHY PEOPLE BECOME HOARDERS.
Moms Just Wanna Have Fun
Sebastian, meanwhile, is stuck at home while his parents have vigorous sex on top of him. Well, they're in the room above him and shaking the ceiling fan, but you know. Same thing.
Maneater
Mouse learns that Donna once split up the team as well, so she asks for tips. Donna proudly says that her sexual tomfoolery once put them on a three-game losing streak, but when she dumped the boys, they made up and everything was fine because they bonded over having a common enemy. So Mouse goads the guys into firing her. Wait, does this team not have a coach, or a faculty advisor, who would be dealing with this? Are they a rogue student-run band of vigilante basketball misfits? Donna also looks like a Sears commercial that I saw two days ago, which is disappointing, because I was hoping she would remain more gloriously over the top.
Toupe Me In The Morning
Long story short: Carrie admits to her fraud because of stupid hijinks involving yet another tired, tiresome reference to Larissa being a big ol' ho, and hightails it out of there -- in purloined clothes -- and then they open the package and it's Andy's wig. So now Carrie wants to deliver it, and these two come along, because Walt is pretending he wants to have lunch with Carrie as an excuse to snack on Bennett.
Mombastian
So, Mombastian tries to cry on Sebastian's shoulder again about how his father likes to sleep with her and then fight, and he lectures her on what terrible parenting this is because he's her child, not her therapist, and he shouldn't have to prop her up all the time and he REALLY should not have to hear about other people, er, propping her up.
Kyddcest II
She also gropes at him again, so here's hoping this is the last we see of her, because it makes me very uncomfortable when she paws his face and says she looooooves him and then puts her hands all over his chest. Do very many teen boys even let their mothers stand that close to them for more than 10 seconds?
Waltshaw
Carrie notices that Walt acts jealous when Bennett talks to other guys, so she gently gets him to admit he's scared he's gay and that he doesn't want to be because people say it's wrong. Carrie is supportive and sweet but not overly pushy about making him decide anything, and Walt remains the most interesting part of this show -- seriously, the story of a gay teen trying to come to terms with it in a less tolerant age is actually quite important. But nobody knows that story is happening because they don't actually market this show, because there is nothing supernatural about it except for Carrie's wigs.
Great Ball of Fire
When he expresses admiration for her scheme to bring the team together, Mouse realizes that her loins might be hot for West Thomas West. And that his rather muscular ones might be warm for her form as well. I'm sure next episode we'll get a redux of how Girls Can't Be Smart And Have Boyfriends, but maybe it will just be Having a Long-Distance Boyfriend Sucks But I Can Totally Hook Up With A Cute Boy In My Own Area Code And Still Get A 4.0.
Carrie
And then we end the episode with Carrie being all Neon French and SLOW-MOTION RUNNING, because some dude mistook her for a native Manhattanite and asked her for directions, and she smugly gave them before realizing they're wrong. I love that coat. Also, I have noticed them doing a lot of flower pins on her lately, as an obvious homage to Pat Field's take on Carrie Bradshaw. That Carrie Bradshaw and Carrie Diaries.