Carrie
Carrie has been working very hard, but not, as you might have guessed by her clothes, as a stewardess. (I can call them that because this was the '80s, see.)
George
And of course, Carrie has a meet-cute with the boss's son (or something) -- a cutie named George whose pretensions she meets with bluntness and a smile. She is basically 100 percent comfortable and confident here. I both like that about Carrie -- it tracks with who she becomes -- and wonder if having her be born self-assured (even when she says she isn't) gives her nowhere to grow. Anyway, Carrie's crabby boss, it turns out, has a great relationship with George, who -- stymied by her moxie -- asks Carrie to join him at his parents' big society party. George reminds me a little of Dean from Gilmore, back in the day, and also probably could trip into a boy band and not look out of place.
Sigh
Of course, Carrie says no, because she's still hung up on Sebastian. Besides, Mouse put on her best beige houndstooth today, so it's good to let her dole out some advice in it. That advice, by the way, is to suck it up and go for it and make Sebastian jealous. Maggie thinks getting over Walt is what made him come back to her. She will be startled when she learns it's because it's raining men and he's afraid of weather.
Dadshaw's friend
"And you know what they say about the size of a man's cellular telephone..."
Dadshaw
Dadshaw lost his wedding ring. Dadshaw's man-whore friend thinks Dadshaw should have taken it off ages ago and made the rounds, but Dadshaw is too sad and virtuous for such monkey business.
Carrie and the DMV
Carrie is in the middle of her driver's test at what appears to be a DMV situated in a really old country house.
Castlebury
Or at least, this is the establishing shot they keep using. I'm sure that's generic "town center," but the car was also in front of either this building or another one like it, with LOTS of ruralness around it, and... you know, I've never been to Connecticut, so what do I know? But given all that....
Donna and Sebastian
... it seems really strange that Donna and Sebastian then walk BEHIND her car -- WHILE SHE IS PARALLEL PARKING BETWEEN THE CONES -- and start making out in full view of her rearview. This is absurd to me. Where IS this DMV? Nobody walks past a driving test unless he or she is GOING to the DMV, and if these two have a date there then I really don't understand Kids Today.
Donna and Sebastian
Naturally, Carrie floors it and jumps the curb, rattled. This almost kills Donna and Sebastian, or at least, in Donna's words that is what happens. I am including a shot of her shoes here because Chloe Bridges specifically said that the footwear never seems to make it on-camera. I think every single person in the world in 1984 wanted to own those boots (I had a red suede pixie boot that was the best thing in the entire universe, although that wasn't until 1986). One thing about this show: The characters you're not supposed to love right away are the only ones who are allowed to go full glam '80s (Donna, Larissa). Mouse is permitted to look cheesy geek '80s, but only because her name is Mouse, and there's built-in sympathy there.
Carrie
Looking totally adorable and current in her jacket and necklace, and having a VERY good wig day, Carrie pretends she's not devastated that Sebastian is now shoving his tongue in Donna's mouth, then lies that she's got somebody in HER life TOO and beats it out of there. Sebastian is all, "I didn't want you to find out this way," as if this is the oldest story in the world, and he has frequently macked on his new fling while his ex was trying to get her driver's license. Sebastian Kydd: DMV Tongue Bandit.
Carrie
On her lunch break, Carrie tries on dresses at Century 21 -- it's a jewel-toned party and she has been assigned "sapphire" -- and they are all the most benign cocktail dresses you have ever seen, which... not at THAT time, missy. A girl in 1984 would be like, "Give me the PUFFIEST SLEEVES YOU HAVE EVER SEEN." But her shoes are cute.
Carrie and Boss Lady
This outfit ALSO seems incredibly 2013. Because of course it is. Anyway, Carrie runs into her boss, who admits she's rooting for Carrie and George because George needs someone level-headed to foster all his good qualities. So she helps Carrie pick out an outfit, and if you were hoping for 1980s formalwear gloriousness here, well, go do a shot and then come back.
Carrie
Sigh. I am sure the CW is terrified of having people presented as looking good when in fact they look 1984-good, which is "parade float" by today's standards. But this whole thing, at the time it's supposed to be, would be more skintight and have a giant ring of poof right at her knees.
Mouse
Meanwhile, Seth is visiting Mouse that night, and -- presumably because she's been so busy trying to find shirts that make her look like Laura Ingalls Wilder -- they haven't had sex since the summer. She's paranoid that she's bad at it; Maggie brags that she and Walt have an INCREDIBLY engaging sex life. So, later, Walt quietly tells Mouse that he has something that might help her. I was hoping that something might be his male sex doll, but -- SPOILER -- it is not.
The Donnas
But LO, Donna and her cronies decide to come sit in the diner. OUT, DAMN SPOTS. This is The Carrie Diner-ies! But Donna won't budge. Maggie knows that Donna just wants to flaunt Sebastian in front of Carrie, so she decides to stay there and stake out the place. Oh -- and if you're wondering, so far there is also a neon index: If there's a lot of it on somebody, you're staring into the face of EVIL. (Or, in Larissa's case, shallow pretentiousness.)
Dadshaw
Let's pause and clear the deck here: Dadshaw accidentally hits this lady with his car, which is exactly what he watched Carrie ALMOST do to somebody, and they talk and she gives him her number so that maybe someday they can date a little. The end. Thanks for coming, Dadshaw!
Carrie and George
So, after a dumb kerfuffle about how Carrie's dress needed to be floor-length, she MacGyver's a skirt out of Boss Lady's kid's old ballet tutus. (I wish she had MacGruber'd it instead.) Which are black. Isn't THAT lucky. I think... is Carrie artistic? Is she a writer? Is she into fashion design? This was, again, a very Jane By Design twist from a character who I never realized was supposed to be able to MAKE AN ENTIRE SKIRT out of tutus.
Kick
And this is George's mother, Kick. Yes, Kick. It's a perfect name -- SO cheesy society. Kick looks great in a way that would ALSO pass as today, and which in 1984 would have her removed from the room for being too sedate.
Blythe
And this is George's totally boring -- in style and in personality -- ex-girlfriend Blythe. Where is her crimped hair? Her high side pony? Her Madonna gloves?
Dinner party
In fact, NONE of the youths at this party seem very interestingly coiffed or clad. Except Carrie, of course -- she has on her Party Wig tonight, and it's very full, but she's treated like a complete rube and everyone sucks and eventually Kick pulls George away, so Carrie is stuck there by herself. Poor Party Wig is like, "I did NOT fluff myself for two hours to be mocked for living in a town that requires driving."
Carrie
So, she calls Mouse and cries, using a princess phone that I would have cut a bitch for back in that era.
Walt and Mouse
This was my favorite shot of the show: Walt has a sex how-to tape that he used to study up on how to have heterosexual booty time, and so the two of them study it with anthropological curiosity and fervor. I almost feel bad for poor Seth.They're about to do it like they do on the Discovery Channel, and I'm not sure he's ready for cabletown yet, if you know what I mean.
Mouse and Seth
It works, though -- Mouse and Seth have a very energetic sack-romp, and he can't stop saying "WOW," and rather than give Mouse a complex, she's totally thrilled that she aced the exam. However, ten minutes later, he concludes that she had sex with someone else while they were broken up, and he's RELIEVED because HE ALSO had sex with someone else -- "people" actually -- and now he doesn't have to feel bad. Mouse is embarrassed, so she goes along with it. You can guess where this goes: Seth then gets JEALOUS, there are hijinks where she blurts Walt's name and then when they meet Seth tries to punch Walt, and Mouse has to confess that she never slept with anyone else -- but that if she had, he'd have had to be okay with it, because she is okay with his dalliances and he shouldn't be a dirty hypocrite. And they smile and kiss and WHEEEEEE it's all fine.
Kick and George
Carrie, of course, overhears Kick telling George that Carrie is too REGULAR -- just like her awful husband, whom she is now divorcing, all because he was NORMAL and from NORMAL PLACES and he JUST DIDN'T GET IT and IT'S SO HARD WITH THE NORMALS and whatnot. Carrie thinks she hears George agree, so she spits out something divinely wounded-yet-snarky at him -- I can't remember it, of course, but it doesn't matter; it was about the facial expression anyway -- and she runs off. I guess you do guarantee the last word that way, but I always wish people on TV didn't immediately run away. I say, make the hosebeast repeat that stuff to your FACE and then serve her.
Diner
Meanwhile, after Donna steals Maggie's booth during a bathroom break and then Maggie spills something on Donna to trick her into leaping up and out -- and then a long period of immovable object meeting irresistible force, a.k.a., buttock-to-buttock shoving -- they are at an impasse. An ass impasse.
Maggie
When Sebastian shows up, Maggie tells him that the diner is Carrie's safe place and Donna is deliberately trying to steal it from them. Of course he had no idea about any of this, and Maggie makes him feel awful, so he scolds Donna. He is remarkably decent about this, but I wonder if Carrie would appreciate that -- in her absence, and without her knowledge -- her friends are basically telling her ex that she can't handle being in the same room as him. If I were Carrie, I'd be like, "Tell him I DON'T CARE ABOUT HIS STUPID PERFECT HAIR SWOOP," and start hanging out at the Tim Horton's. Which is in Canada, but whatever.
Donna
And Sebastian tells Donna that she doesn't have to act like a bitch, because he really likes her -- in spite of her bitchyness, not because of it. Donna shoots him this face, which somehow translates to, "Your frankness arouses me." I'm not sure how the Great Ass Impasse of 2013/1984 ended up with her bra hanging out, but whatever. The first rule of Ass Impasse is, you don't talk about Ass Impasse.
Kick
George runs after Carrie and basically chooses her. They go back to his house, and Kick tries to guilt him into ditching Carrie, but it doesn't work -- Carrie sees through the ruse. But in all this, Carrie offhandedly mentions that her mother just died of cancer, and Kick's face falls -- apparently, Carrie's mother Grace was a dear friend of Kick's, from back when Grace lived in, yes, Manhattan. The rest of this storyline was totally by-the-book, but I admit, I didn't see the mom connection coming, and it ended up leading to some really sweet scenes.
Carrie and Kick
They basically have a long talk about Carrie's mother that leads to Carrie feeling like she knows her mother better, and it's fairly emotional and sweet -- AnnaSophia Robb is so natural and lovely in this part. It's just a shame she is the only person with period-appropriate hair right now, because her wig deserves a cohort.
Walt and Maggie
Meanwhile, blah blah blah everyone is fine, Carrie gets her license, the diners is THEIRS, and Maggie finds it really sweet that Walt watched a how-to tape for her. I keep typing it as "ho-to" at first, which is a slip that I find entertaining given the content. And so Carrie is seeing George still, I guess, and Dadshaw has a line on some action, and Mouse and Seth are fine now that she's a sexual gymnast, and Walt is still lying to himself and all his loved ones. Poor Walt. Times were tough back then. You are, or at least will be, the real hero of this piece, sir.