The Goodbye Diaries
It's the Castlebury High School Class of 1986. In this year. My oldest sister also graduated from high school in this year, and none of her friends looked anything like this. There were no flowered heels over black tights. There was only big hair and lots of pants with suspiciously bad tapering -- not their fault; it's ALL WE HAD -- and bangs that were teased up and sprayed and ruining the ozone layer. All they had in common with this photo were the smiles.
I will also tell you right now that nothing happens with Walt, except that he's happy, and nothing is the matter. Which is great for him PERSONALLY, if he were real, but a shame considering his storyline always promised to be the most interesting and emotionally rich and they had this adorable actor giving him all of the feelings, and in turn giving US all of the feelings, and they only really scratched the surface. The perils of being a cheery teen show is that the mandate probably has to be, "Don't get too heavy." Except that's when things get meaty and people start to invest and care, so... that's the rub.
The Adios Diaries
The resurgence of crop-tops helps a little, but not much. Carrie is leaving home to live with Sebastian until she finds her own place -- which in most worlds means "live with Sebastian until we break up because otherwise why would I want to pay for a place and then only shlep to it to change clothes" -- and we blow through that milestone AND graduation without so much as a mention of her dead mother. She has also fit almost all her clothes in one suitcase, which HA HA HA HA.
The Au Revoir Diaries
Larissa is being celebrated in the New York Times as a force in the art world, and Aspiring Writer Carrie Bradshaw reads this thing with NARY A MENTION of how badly copy-edited it is. Click here and behold its glories. The second sentence is a fragment and spells "anointing" as "annointing." It doesn't capitalize "Lower East Side" or the "street" in "23rd Street." And the theater review all the way on the right begins with the sentence, "The King and I is a musical," which everyone knows BECAUSE IT WAS FIRST PERFORMED IN 1951. AND THEN IT WAS A 1956 MOVIE. THEY HAVE HEARD OF IT.
The Ciao Diaries
Andy Warhol apparently resents that Larissa got a whole article to herself and didn't mention him ONCE, so he fired her immediately, and that means her pet project Carrie Bradshaw gets canned also. Carrie is wearing a dress for this moment whose pattern encapsulates what I think ALL our intestines would be doing in this devastating, painful moment.
The Auf Wiedersehen Diaries
Whenever I see characters eating with chopsticks as a casual piece of stage business, it reminds me how pathetic I am at that. Like, I HAVE stabbed things with the chopstick as a way of picking it up, out of desperation. I am that moron.
Anyway, Sebastian has decided this is a sign -- he needs to move to California, and now Carrie can come with him and start fresh there. She's torn about what to do, but Samantha thinks it sounds great and easy. It DOES have merit. Plenty of good schools out there in Cali she could apply to after a while, and also her hot rational boyfriend. As rash decisions go, there are worse ones.
The Farvel Diaries
Larissa and Harlan are getting married and embarking on a career as traveling art pimps, or whatever, and they randomly run into Dadshaw in a strangely staged scene and that's how he finds out Carrie has been fired. Whoops. Kid, always call home, even when -- no, ESPECIALLY when -- you have bad news that your parent knew was going to happen, because then you can't SEE the "I told you so."
The Búcsú Diaries
So Dadshaw goes to see Carrie, and she tells him she's moving to L.A., because NYU can't take her now or even in January. He is newly enraged -- really, there is no way any of this was going to make him happy, short of NYU crawling back to her -- but he's really quite cold to her in a way that doesn't feel wholly like Dadshaw. And Carrie is wearing a cute stiletto t-shirt and then baggy jeans that must be Sebastian's, right? I mean, in 1986, her pants would've been high-waisted and tapered and had zippers on the outside of the ankles.
The до свидания Diaries
I thought this was Carrie getting dressed up for Larissa's wedding, but it's not. She just got totted up to see Weaver, and she looks VERY Older Carrie Bradshaw indeed in this outfit. The whole thing felt like her future. I love that coat, too. I hope AnnaSophia stole it from wardrobe.
The Hwyl Fawr Diaries
Anyway, she goes to see Weaveer and perches on his stoop and tells him what happened. He's supportive and wistful and basically hopes she won't forget about him. He also thinks she was born to be a writer blah blah blah go live your life and have experiences. Which is not bad advice but it's also the advice that didn't work for her the last time. Carrie points out that he's both her first, and the first person who took her seriously as a writer and helped her grow (lies -- that was Larissa, technically, and also plenty of other people, including her father, who got her into that writing program that nobody remembers she was doing so why did we even bother if we were never going to see it?). I feel like the writers are setting him up as her escape valve on the EXTREME OFFCHANCE the CW decides it needs thirteen more episodes. It's weird that suddenly Weaver is the person she's listening to so much, and whose assurance she wants. All these are psychologically interesting things that we're not going to touch on, ever.
The Vaarwel Diaries
And of course, because this is TV, she and Sebastian are packing up and leaving right after Larissa's wedding. Like, RIGHT after it. Catching a plane that night. Because there is NO possible way to fly out the next day and enjoy themselves one last night in the city without having to go through a security line at JFK. Also, where are they going to put their luggage at the wedding? Under the seats in front of them?
The Adiaŭ Diaries
We pause to bring you another disappointing story. Samantha had so much promise and they just couldn't ever figure out how to deliver it, which is a shame, because Lindsey Gort was inspired casting. Anyway, she bumps into Open Marriage Dude and he basically stalks her through the city and they have sex and then he confesses that he's in love with her and has left his wife, they kiss, she wears ill-advised tight outfits, and we leave Samantha forever mired in a relationship with someone who isn't interesting. I reject this entire thing. I can't believe nobody had any idea what to do with Samantha freaking Jones and so they just dumped her in a vacuum with this fool.
The Adéu Diaries
Larissa and Harlan's wedding is apparently AT the airport, which at least helps out with the issue of where to put the suitcases. Just check them! SIX HOURS EARLY.
The αντίο Diaries
Larissa is wearing a disappointingly staid white pantsuit that severely misses out on a chance to drink in all the '80s excess that a moneyed, pretentious wedding like this would've had. Bennett is standing in for her father, who is the head of a tribe, which explains his costume. In the show's universe, anyway. I guess he ordained himself real fast, which... guys, could he REALLY have done that in 1986 without the Internet? Does anyone care? Probably not. At least it gave us some final shots of Bennett.
The Slovo Diaries
Mouse and West are the joint valedictorians, and shenanigans with the traditional school gift -- only one set of encyclopedias -- leads to them having sex in the school hallway. A school hallway that the janitor was JUST cruising, by the way. He is either a bad janitor or a really good sex spy. Anyway, they end as friends, and he's going to Princeton. Good for them both. Go forth and be smart -- which started right when they decided the encyclopedias were huge and heavy and they didn't want them. Come about 1999 they're going to be glad they did.
The Ardievas Diaries
At the wedding, during the sermon about home and whatnot, Sebastian and Carrie both realize that her home is New York and that she's not moving to California with him. I hope she kept her luggage tags. The thing is, it's a very affecting scene. Sebastian is, of course, supportive even though he's sad and he knows it's the right decision, and AnnaSophia Robb is appropriately devastated even though she ALSO knows, and she cries in that heartrending way that isn't shrieky or dramatic; just genuine. It's well acted, and also, frankly, I'd be sad too if I knew I wasn't going to get paid to make out with Austin Butler anymore.
The Näkemiin diaries
Dadshaw gets life advice from Harlan, which would seem like a bad idea, except that Harlan tells him Carrie is a good kid. Dorrit has also pointed out that Dadshaw should stop expecting Carrie to be just like him, because he doesn't do that to Dorrit, so why to Carrie? She wins the argument on an overly simplistic point -- and what got missed in all this is the other interpretation of her argument, which is, "You expect nothing out of me," and that's actually rather sad, isn't it? But the show never cared as much about Dorrit, either, and so we leave her just as an agent of Carrie's happiness and end with Carrie and Dadshaw sharing a bittersweet dance of semi-reconciliation, in which she promises to find a way to make ends meet and not give up on her career and her brain.
The Adeus Diaries
Oh, and Maggie gets engaged to Pete, because why not. I wish she'd ended on a note of hope and independence, but I guess marrying Pete doesn't mean she CAN'T also go on and rock college. So let's be optimistic.
The Ayo Diaries
NOW she's wearing stirrups? IN THE FINAL EPISODE? WE WAITED TWO SEASONS FOR STIRRUP ACCURACY? She is also wearing a skirt with cassette tapes all over it. Which SURELY would not have existed because back then cassettes were an item of total utility, and not kitsch. Like, nobody these days would wear a skirt with iPhones or a DVR all over it, would they? WOULD THEY?
The Adjö Diaries
Samantha and her twin bolts of lightning strike Carrie in the idea box, and she invites Sam to be her roommate in Larissa's apartment, which she is subletting for $550 a month, which probably made a lot of New Yorkers cry when they heard it.
The Paalam Na Diaries
And our parting moment with Donna La Donna involves what appears to be a Jumpsuit Ode To Watermelons, which just FEELS right.
The 再见 Diaries
And Carrie is a waitress who looks ripped out of "Cocktail" and FINALLY seems remotely period-accurate with the hair and everything, just in time for the show to go away and never come back. It's very abrupt -- she has the sudden realization that this is the family and the life she wants -- and then it's done. And I get that, but also... it's OKAY to try living somewhere else, kid. You CAN go for a month or two and see how you like California. New York will always be there. Then again, she can't chase the boy. It didn't work out when she ran off with a boy to Paris in the future; Mr. Big had to come chase HER to her her away from Barishnikov's milquetoast clutches. I wish that Carrie had remembered THIS Carrie choosing herself and just, I don't know, gone to the tropics by herself for some soul-searching and a lot of healing rum.