Episode 2: Models and Mortals

Watch Date: 2/2/2011

Miranda goes to a dinner date with some guy named Nick who she has frequently rode the elevator with at work. (Who gets a date in the elevator?) She thinks the date is going well until she discovers how delighted his friends are at her presence. It seems this man supposedly only dates models even though he looks like a total toad himself. His friends are tired of him bringing home beautiful girls with no ability to have lively discussion and give him an ultimatum to find a woman who can carry on a conversation. Miranda is completely appalled, asking if she was to be his “intellectual beard for the night. He cops to it but still leans in for the kiss as he drops her off afterward. Yuck. Toad.

The girls do a pow-wow dinner with some take out and discuss the world of modeling and unattainable beauty. (And here I must cattily say that some things ARE attainable…like decent clothing. Here Miranda is wearing these atrocious shiny athletic pants that look like a draw string garbage bag along with your basic white mom sneakers. I assume her vagina remains full of dust.) Beauty (and possibly fashion sense?), according to the girls, seems to inversely correspond to intelligence. Samantha says she’s a model who has taken a high road by being gainfully employed. In further discussing impossible standards of beauty they all share something they hate about themselves. Charlotte hates her thighs. Miranda hates her chin. Carrie hates her nose. Samantha…well Samantha loves herself. Carrie pulls out Glamour and asks if it’s intimidating. How powerful is beauty?

For the answer, they go to the street. Cut to a shot of the toady Nick guy saying, “Why fuck the girl in the skirt, when you can fuck the girl in the AD for the skirt.” WHAT? That doesn’t even make sense to me! They interview runway models who say there are two types of guys who fall for models – they either want you b/c they purely want to have sex with you, or b/c they are in love with you instantly and say that it’s creepy. The one model says that the men she dates all assume she is not intelligent. She then calls herself very “literary” and claims to read entire magazines cover to cover. Okay – I won’t deny there aren’t women like this in the world (men too) but what’s SATC’s beef with lampooning the models?

Carrie visits her friend Barkley at his art studio. She calls him a notorious modelizer and so she asks him about the allure of having sex with models. He says that for him it’s all about beauty. He then shows her his “real art” and plops her in front of about 15 screens where he cues up clips of him having sex with various models that he’s taped without their knowledge. Eeeeeeew.

Meanwhile, poor poor Skippy is hot for Miranda. He admits to Carrie that they made out. This is information Miranda hasn’t even shared yet. He wants to know how come she hasn’t called him back after he’s called her 100 times. Ouch. Sensitive Guy Rookie Mistake #1. He asks Carrie if he’s cute enough. SGRM#2 – GROW SOME BALLS. Carrie says he’s adorable. (Um – hello Carrie! You still have not advised him to cut his hair. NOT adorable.) He then asks if she’ll call Miranda herself to see if he’s got a shot. Says he can take it. When Miranda doesn’t pick up the Zach Morris style cell phone Carrie pulls out, Skippy grabs it from her and leaves yet another PAINFUL message on her machine admitting he’s out with Carrie and claiming this means Miranda now HAS to call him back. SGRM #3. You’re out.

Carrie decides the best place to observe models is on their own turf so she goes to a fashion show with Stanford. Here we are introduced to Stanford’s lone client (he’s a talent agent I guess.) Derek is an underwear model who Stanford is obsessed with. Samantha is also there and ends up meeting Barkley. She gets the ol’ slutbag glint in her eye that tells you we know they will end up doin’ it.
At the after party for the fashion show, Carrie runs into Mr. Big while she’s stuffing her face with appetizers. He admits to having read her column and calls it “cute.” Ouch. She tells him she’s currently working on a piece on modelizers. This doesn’t seem as cute to him and it turns out he’s there with a model from the show. Well played Mr. Big!

Sam asks Carrie for more deets about Barkley and learns about how he video tapes models. She creepily grooms herself in the mirror before heading out in hot pursuit.

Carrie exits the party with a woe is me attitude and says she’s never felt more alone. Just then Derek the underwear model departs and asks if he can go home with her. My reaction as they get in the cab: “What is happening right now?” Oh wait – I ALWAYS go home with the underwear models I meet at parties. I forgot. Back at Carrie’s place, they are drinking wine and talking on her bed. Derek says he never dates models because he thinks they are stupid. He seems very impressed with Carrie’s ability to write because he can never keep all of his own thoughts in his head long enough to write them down and he often gets distracted. When she asks what is distracting him at the moment, he says he’s distracted by her nose and calls it cute. He admits some of his own insecurities to her. He seems very child-like and even asks her what she wants to do when she grows up. He then asks if they can just lie there because he always feels so alone in the city. SURPRISE CARRIE! Beautiful people are lonely too!

Speaking of lonely people, Miranda buys cat food and runs into Skipper at the store. She tries to tell him she doesn’t want to see him anymore because he should date someone his own age. Nice cop out. He tells her he thinks she’s “luminous.” Smitten with the concept of being able to see herself through his eyes, she says they can go home together. Well, ahoy there Skipper. I guess you’re not out of the game.

Samantha does, in fact, sleep with Barkley. She asks where the video cameras are, which is yet another grimace moment for the viewer (how embarrassing). When he says he only tapes models (sorry slutbag!) she says she wouldn’t mind and so he says he’ll make an exception and turns on the cameras. She watches herself on screen in a way that’s slightly reminiscent of Christian Bale in American Psycho.
Nothing happens between Carrie and Derek.

She goes to the coffee shop to work on her article. She said she feels like being beautiful is like having a loft apartment overlooking the city – happens to people who don’t deserve it. What? Why? Why are some people undeserving of beauty? Sounds just like jealousy talking to me. Mr. Big comes in. He tells her he’s been thinking about her article and how there are all these beautiful girls in the city but in the end it’s the one that makes you laugh that you want to be with. Areyl insists it’s a cute comment but I am pressed at this point to remember him laughing in Carrie’s presence in the few times they’ve interacted so it doesn’t really hit home to me here.

Roll credits.

On the one hand, I am happy to report that Miranda did not keep things going with that toady modelizer because he was such a tool. But, had he NOT been a tool, my initial instinct would have been to tell Miranda to quit being so friggin’ sensitive. His friends were trying to pay her a compliment but she couldn’t take it. Much like Skipper in Ep 1. Sounds to me like she needs to stop overcompensating at work for her lack of self esteem and start owning that she’s a pretty amazing person, despite not being a model. Of course, that goes for all of them. I realize this show is all about love and sex and these characters finding their Mr. Right – but I sincerely hope they are okay with themselves to start with. You can’t be happy in love if you’re not happy with yourself.

Oh, and since I haven’t mentioned it before, I am keeping a tally of how many men they all sleep with (or reference sleeping with). That should be entertaining.