Carrie

We begin with Carrie walking through the streets in a party dress, self-assured and fashionable... again, very much the way Jane By Design began. I'm not trying to say that they copied that show or anything, especially as that show was not very widely seen. It's more that I'm worried I already spent 20 episodes with a show that featured an exhausting double-life scenario and all it bought them were some cheap act-outs and LOTS of head-scratching about the lead's clothing budget.

Speaking of clothes: You will note throughout this episode that the clothes are both appropriately '80s and also not that far off from what anyone would wear today. Well, in some parts. Specifically, this part.

Carrie and Dorrit

Carrie wears girly pink nightgowns to sleep -- okay, it IS relevant to flash forward sometimes, and the time Adult Carrie slept in men's Jockeys (or at least cavorted around her apartment in them) just came to mind -- and Dorrit is a rebel so she wears eyeliner. However, to be totally period-accurate, those jeans wouldn't have been that long. I don't remember ANYONE in the '80s selling jeans that long. They'd have either had a zipper up the side, been pegged, or -- and here is the key -- been stirrup pants.

Carrie

Carrie is nervous to go back to school because her mother died three months ago, and everyone is staring at her like she's a freak. She can't find her mom's purse that she inherited, so her dad allows her in Mom's sacred closet and gives her some sunglasses. Was her mother Anna Wintour? Anyway, Carrie puts them on, and they give her the courage to wear a lavender hoodie. This seemed awfully boring, until I remembered that it's only the pilot, and City Carrie has to have SOME room to influence Country Carrie.

Mean Girls

The lady in the center is Donna, presumably the resident queen bee, who insincerely -- in the sense that she merely wants to appear like a sensitive angel -- offers to be there for Carrie by supplying the most generous thing she can imagine in Carrie's time of need: a mascara wand. The fact that neon is Having A Moment right now must make Eric Daman's job so much easier on this show. When in doubt, Forever 21 is going to sell everything you see above. It should be called Forever 1981.

The Gang

Here, we have the friends: Charlotte is on the left, and her name here is Mouse, and she's all serious and earnest about boys (although her "I just had an internship in DC" wardrobe is more Miranda). Which she did. Samantha is the one in the middle, Maggie, who drinks a lot and -- we learn later -- has had SEX. Shh. I guess that makes her boyfriend Walt our Miranda, which works because Cynthia Nixon's hair when SATC started was unfortunately not styled all that differently than his. Walt wears things that he saw on Rob Lowe in Interview magazine (and his preppyness might actually give him a touch of the Charlottes), and -- we learn later -- probably also would like to sleep with a man named Steve. Shh.

Mr. Big

And in comes Sebastian Kydd, in the form of Austin Butler, a.k.a. Mr. Vanessa Hudgens, looking pretty much exactly the way he does when he's loafing around town with our Fug Madness champ. I mean, for all we know, they shot this guerilla-style because they needed a pickup.

Carrie and Sebastian

Sebastian is the new boy at school -- having been thrown out of several others -- but GUESS WHAT: He and Carrie, in her hilariously period-appropriate dowdy brown low-heeled slingbacks, talk easily to each other about Going Through Major Things and we find out that's because know each other.

Carrie and Sebastian

In a salivary way.

Apparently Carrie swims a lot (but her hair quality tells a very different tale). And Sebastian went to the pool occasionally while his father was installing theirs. So they splashed around and then made out, and then he sputtered something about how he wouldn't be coming there much anymore and that was that. I DID read enough of the book to know that Carrie had what was, to her, a more mortifying Sebastian Kydd story, and one that did not involve kissing. This scene was steamy and all, but mortification might have been more fun.

Carrie

So, Carrie's Dad decides that what with things being so sad and all, she needs... an internship in Manhattan that pulls her out of school once a week. Yes, Carrie's father is the coolest parent alive. It's a dull job at a law firm in a windowless filing room, but it has a phone, so there's that. Carrie here is wearing a Marc by Marc Jacobs shirt that is actually something I almost bought when I found it on sale somewhere. It really DOES pass as '80s. Carrie's rebellious sister Dorrit is still wearing eyeliner. She also stole a bunch of stuff from... we don't know... and stuffed it into her giant teddy bear, including Carrie's special purse from their mom. Only it has nail polish all over the bottom. It's ruined. RUINED, I TELL YOU. NOT EVEN A MONTAGE CAN SOLVE THIS.

Montage

Oh, wait. Never mind.

Carrie and her dad

So, Dad drops off Carrie for work (it is the easiest drive to New York from Connecticut that has ever been experienced by man or beast), and she's wearing one of the most tepid '80s outfits ever -- you can tell The CW was nervous that going TOO period-accurate with the clothes would frighten These Kids Today and/or just take them out of the story. Possibly that's true; these are also all issues that Schwartz and Savage have dealt with before, because they attempted the '80s-set Gossip Girl spinoff that was set in L.A. So far this one looks much better.

Larissa

Larissa here sees Carrie's purse when Carrie is out buying a replacement pair of nylons, and immediately decides to become her best friend. Larissa is Carrie's gateway drug: She works for Interview, she's into style, she shoplifts the entire outfit she's wearing just because she feels like it, and she dresses like Grace Jones' mild-mannered cousin. She wants Carrie to hang out with her in the city, and of course, Carrie lets her think that "works at a law firm" is her full-time gig with a grown-up paycheck. Larissa is not very observant. There is NO WAY Carrie can pass as someone who has been educated for long enough to hold down any manner of job at a law firm.

Mouse

Mouse, who of course talks on a Mickey phone, has had sex with her summer boyfriend and describes it as putting "a hot dog in a keyhole." Given that level of enthusiasm, she should not be that shocked that said summer boyfriend is not returning her calls. Her many, many, many calls. (Maggie confesses elsewhere that she has had sex too but then begs them not to tell Walt that she said so, implying it would embarrass him.) Also, Ellen Wong is 28. When she played neon-bobbed Knives in Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World year ago, I thought she would've made a good Max McCormack from our books Spoiled and Messy. The rate she's aging, we have until she's 38 before we have to write off THAT idea.

Carrie

Larissa sends Carrie a hot pink dress at work (purloined from their style closet at Interview, which I have never read, so I have no idea if they would actually have such a thing, but these days it feels like everyone has one somewhere, even if there is also a mop bucket and some Mr. Clean in there too), and an invitation to Indochine. Carrie has a school dance that night, which she had hoped to ask Sebastian to attend with her. (Too late for that, kid.) WHAT TO DO. You know, it's right here that I realized it's really refreshing to watch a show where the plot cannot turn on texts and e-mails.

Carrie and Larissa

Naturally, Carrie decides to go to the grown-up party, although given that Larissa has obviously just doodled on her blazer with paint pens, I would not be surprised if she is ALSO a 16-year old liar.

The Grown-Up Gang

And these are the resident Children of the '80s. That woman in David Silver's blouse is cracking me UP.

PARTYYY

So, Carrie of course dances until after midnight and meets GAY PEOPLE!!!! and shares air space with a dude who looks kind of like Gallagher, and that made her fall in love with Manhattan, because I guess drinking champagne with people who made fun of her for talking about her sister and her dad was life-affirming. Actually, though, it was really cute; she just sort of shrugged it off as a personality quirk rather than acting horrified, or it turning into one of those excruciating scenes where the main character babbles endlessly and digs a larger hole for herself (see: everyone on Bunheads). Robb is just so natural, she was able to play it off like she's a girl who simply can't entirely wipe away who she truly is, and is okay with that.

Carrie

Walt picks up Carrie at the train station, and then... they walk home? Sure. And of course they pass Sebastian's sports car, where he's smoking a joint with Popular Donna, who scooped him up at the dance. "It's not what you think," he tells her. She is not convinced and wishes him a nice evening. He asks her if that's all, and she gives him a half-smile and says, "Yeah, for now." He and Walt are stupefied by her moxie, even though she never seemed moxie-deficient before. Walt makes small talk about how he's not sure if Maggie is The One for him and reveals that they have NOT had sex, so now Carrie knows Maggie is a big cheater (but at least now that she's MET some gays she can be prepared to HAVE her first gay). And then Carrie goes home and Dorrit is missing, and it turns out she just ran away for a night and hates everyone and Carrie resents having to mother her AND be her sister and OH THE TEARS and the resentful eyeliner.

The Bradshaws

So Dadshaw decides to go through the mother's closet with BOTH his daughters, one of whom is clearly in a better mood because she's not wearing kohl pencil, and the other of whom is doing her grieving in an elastic-waist pseudo-denim skirt. And Dadshaw gives Carrie a green dress she'd wanted, but she presents it to Dorrit, who accepts it gratefully and then puts it on as they pack up mom's stuff. It's very sweet. Apparently the show established that it was Dadshaw who ran out on the family, and that works a BIT better as backstory for a woman who basically adapted to adulthood by creating her own family instead of relying on the one she was born into; I'm not sure if the producers or Bushnell changed it, but I can't decide which idea I like better. Grief is good, but then again, everyone loves the stunt-casting and dun-dun-DUNNNN of the "OMG OUR MISSING PARENT IS BACK" episode.

Collages!

Mouse helpfully reminds us all that it's 1984, as she moons over her collage of memories of Seth The Vanishing Virginity Thief.

Rob Lowe

And Rob Lowe gives us the sex eyes.

Walt

And Walt RESENTS IT. Because he doesn't appreciate the temptation.

Maggie

And Maggie runs out to tryst with her cop lover, who says something about what if her dad found out -- so I'm wondering if he's on the force. Or just uses The Force. I don't know.

Sebastian

And Sebastian, like Rob Lowe, has a nipple he'd like to share. Specifically, with Carrie. He has clearly shown up at the pool to reconnect with her, so they laugh and throw each other around in that way where you're pretty sure one of them is going to announce, "I like you. Like, I like-like you."

Minions

And Evil Donna's minions glare down at the would-be lovebirds and comment on how angry Donna is going to be, all the while wearing sunglasses as if they're at the beach and not an indoor community pool. Also, I think I had those sunglasses on the left.

Carrie

I am unclear if this was supposed to be a real moment or a fantasy. If it is her dreams, then I'm psychologically fascinated that she imagined herself being followed by a guy with mutton chops that tremendous. If it's real, where did she get all that? Her mother's closet? WAS her mother Anna Wintour? Or possibly, based on the belt, Rainbow Brite?

Carrie

Well, no matter. She's gone now, and Carrie has inherited her empty journals that were waiting to be filled, and is Doogie Howsering it up in her garret with her loud rainbow sweater that's the type of thing I shouldn't find cute but secretly do. And that's where we leave it: Carrie has a boy on the hook, a job she may or may not actually do in New York City with fancy acquaintances she may or may not ever find again because she doesn't have a cell phone in 1984, writer's cramp, and really great hair. And unless I blacked out, she never once said, "I couldn't help but wonder..." Well played.

Fug the Show: The Carrie Diaries, pilot

There's a lot to like about this show -- AnnaSophia Robb is very natural, and looks fantastic with her Carrie Bradshaw hair; her friends are all good; the clothing is aptly hilarious in parts and nicely restrained at others; and Austin Butler, who is this decade's Chad Michael Murray in terms of how hard teen TV wants to make him happen (except Butler is actually pretty good in everything and doesn't squint)(wait, maybe that's NOT a good thing; I miss Ol' Squinty)(so thank God he's going to be on Southland)(by the way, CHAD MICHAEL MURRAY IS GOING TO BE ON SOUTHLAND)(WITH A MUSTACHE)(!!!!!). But what threw me off during the entire pilot is the realization that I actually don't care that much about the fact that this girl grows up to be THE Carrie Bradshaw. It's a nice touch, and it's a good way to ground the show, but the cast does a nice job making you like them regardless of where they fit in the pantheon. Whenever the show moves to New York City and becomes Jane By Design (internships! A double life! Better dresses! Nobody questioning her age!) and tries to tantalize you with the fact that eventually this is WHERE Carrie will be, it's way less compelling than when she's in Connecticut, struggling emotionally to get where we know she ends up. That stuff is better. Hopefully whatever decisions they make, they'll work out the kinks, because ultimately we can't be that haunted by the shadow of Future Carrie and where this all ends up, or else the journey becomes too beside the point. Important note: I was never that obsessed with Sex and the City -- watched it, enjoyed some of it, don't miss it or watch reruns -- and I made it through three chapters of The Carrie Diaries, the YA prequel Candace Bushnell wrote a few years ago, before abandoning it on my Kindle. And I think these are good things, because if Carrie Diaries is going to succeed on TV, it has to transcend both of those and stand on its own, so it's good that I really am not qualified do any obsessive nitpicking. That, Fug Nation, I will leave to you in the comments. Onward!