One of the best things about being in a great relationship
is feeling comfortable enough to leave it for an evening.
So what exactly do you gals do when you get together?
Oh, the usual stuff.
-Braid each other's hair. -Hmm.
-Crank calls. -Ah!
Oh, and that Wiccan stuff that's big now.
You don't talk about the boys?
Well, I can't lie. Sometimes there is talk of the boys.
Men's greatest fear.
I thought it was hair loss.
No problem here.
Yeah, I can tell.
-Feel free to pass that on to the gals.
I'll try to work that into the conversation.
Good-bye.
-Good-bye. -Bye.
E.B. White once said that no one should come to New York
unless they are very lucky.
I was.
I had an amazing boyfriend who had all his hair,
good friends to talk about him with...
And a married ex-boyfriend I had slept with a week ago.
May I just say... Wow.
What can I say? I've arrived!
Samantha had invited us over to celebrate her new Downtown apartment,
three new Uptown clients,
and her general fabulousness.
And who knew all this existed in the Meatpacking District?
Yes, just yards away from dumpsters full of decaying cow.
Homemade baby quiche?
-You made these? -Oh, hell no, I had them delivered.
Along with the dinner, the wine,
and a DVD of An Affair To Remember that we're watching later, drunk.
You can get DVDs delivered?
I use this hot new home delivery service.
You call them, anything you want they bring you within an hour.
-Anything? -Mmm.
Last night I ordered condoms.
Please tell me you didn't fuck the delivery guy.
No, John, the hot guy from the gym.
And let me just say that the condoms came a lot faster than he did.
Now there's an ad slogan.
Oh, ladies, let's just say it. We have it all.
Great apartments, great jobs, great friends, great sex.
We can have our baby quiche delivered and eat it, too.
Exactly, at my age,
my mother was saddled with three kids and a drunk husband.
You just have three drunk friends.
- By choice!
Well, I think that having it all
really means having someone special to share it with.
Oh, please, that's so Barney.
Well, I'm sorry. My life wasn't really complete until I met Trey.
And Trey's mom is so great.
Wait till you all meet her at this engagement party she's throwing for us.
You will love her.
You see us, Manhattan? We have it all!
Fuck you!
You wish!
Carrie, go home, I can take care of this.
Three hours later,
Deborah Kerr had revealed her awful secret to Cary Grant,
and I'd still told no one mine.
I slept with Big last week.
You're having an affair?
No, no. No affair.
It was one night, and it is not happening again.
Okay.
Please don't tell Charlotte or Miranda.
Okay.
Oh, God, I'm awful. I'm awful! I have this great boyfriend.
I don't know what I was doing.
Nothing men haven't been doing for centuries.
Was it good?
It was great, and it's not happening again.
Got it.
Plates.
How could it feel so good when it's so bad?
Oh, honey, they design it that way.
It's like Big and I, we have this...
thing.
It's all about the pheromones.
We're all just animals reacting to each other's smell.
But I have this non-married, wonderful boyfriend, with all his hair,
waiting for me, who smells great.
Don't beat yourself up.
Aidan hasn't said "I love you" yet. Until he does, you're a free agent.
What is that, "the rules according to Samantha"?
See? I'm more old-fashioned than you think.
I don't want to be a free agent.
Don't you want to judge me, just a little bit?
Not my style.
Yeah.
Hang on.
-Hang on.
-Hey. -Hi.
Hi. Oh, God, I missed you.
You got to go see the gals more often.
Hmm.
Come on.
Suddenly I felt safe again.
It had all just been a big bad dream.
As long as I was near Aidan, it would all be okay.
Until the morning.
Why do you have to go to Pennsylvania today?
See that chair?
It's got owners that miss it very much.
Go tomorrow. Come on, stay.
I'll make you cookies.
You don't cook.
I'll buy you cookies. Come on, stay?
It's just for a couple of days.
You've got to have some stuff that you want to do.
Mmm.
What I needed to do was not be alone.
Be good.
Downtown, Samantha woke up to discover she did have it all.
Including the flu.
Oh!
Shit.
Samantha never wanted a man around in the morning,
until she needed one.
John?
Hey, it's Samantha.
Jones.
From the gym.
Yeah, right.
Listen, I was wondering if you might be able to drop by
on your way to work this morning?
Honey, I can hardly blow my nose, let alone blow you.
Yeah, well, I wouldn't want you to get sick either.
Later that day,
in the bridal registry department at Bergdorf Goodman,
Charlotte discovered she wanted it all, and more.
$1,300?
Yes.
And we do very well with it.
It's really beautiful.
Yes.
And it'll look lovely under the ramen noodles
we'll be forced to eat due to my outstanding china loans.
Oh, no.
No, not that face.
All right, if it's what you want.
I'm too crazy about you to say no.
I've got to get back to the hospital. I've got a two o'clock angioplasty.
Did you do your guest list for the party?
Oh, right, right.
Here.
Almost forgot.
- Sweetie? -Hmm?
What's this?
Oh, prenuptial agreements, totally standard.
Everyone in the family has one.
I think you sign on page four or something.
Feel free to have your lawyer look it over if you want.
I'll call you later.
Well, this all looks pretty normal.
Charlotte wasted no time having a lawyer look over the papers.
Normal? We haven't even gotten married yet,
and already we're talking about divorce.
Sweetie, a lot of people do prenups these days.
Marriage is supposed to be about love and happiness.
And the merging and protection of assets.
That is so unromantic.
And necessary. 50% of marriages end in divorce.
See? There it is again, divorce.
I'm sure you'll live happily ever after. But I got to tell you,
I wouldn't get married without one of these to protect myself.
See, I'm safe. I mean, what's he gonna take from me, shoes?
Wait a minute, maybe I do need one.
-Hmm! -What?
Okay, this is a little unusual. He has you on a vesting schedule.
For every five years that you're married,
you get a percentage of $500,000.
I'm only worth $500,000?
Over 30 years.
Well, maybe that's your wholesale price.
And if you have any boys,
you'll get another 100 grand, free and clear.
Well, how much for girls?
Um...
-Nada. -Well, that is just bad business.
I can't sign that.
I can't marry someone knowing they feel this way.
Listen, this is just their opening offer.
It's totally standard to go back in and negotiate.
Negotiate? I can't even buy stuff on sale.
Talk to Trey.
I'm sure his lawyers will be able to take care of all of this.
Working over lunch?
They're right, the New York office is tougher than ours.
George, this is Carrie and Charlotte.
George works in our Chicago office.
Hi. I'm here all week taking depositions.
And restaurant recommendations from hip and trendy New Yorkers.
-You're hip and trendy? -George is from Chicago.
-So, it was good, huh? -It was fantastic.
I hope the place I take you tomorrow night
lives up to your standards.
Oh, I'm sure it'll be great.
I'll drop by your office later.
-Okay. -Nice meeting you, ladies.
Bye.
Well, well, well. They sure do grow them cute in the Midwest.
I know, we have a date.
You'd better find out how much he pays for boys before you get attached.
Twenty-four hours, three degrees of fever,
and two pages of her black book later,
Samantha was no closer to closing her deal.
Why don't you go fuck yourself, because I won't be doing it again!
Ever!
Samantha was discovering it was much easier to find a guy to screw her
than one who'd screw in her curtain rod.
She wasn't the only one who needed a fix.
That day I did everything I could to keep busy until Aidan came back.
I rearranged my sweaters, I defrosted my fridge...
I broke into my emergency hidden stash.
And I thought about choices.
Since birth, modern women have been told we can do and be anything we want.
Be an astronaut, the head of an Internet company,
a stay-at-home mom.
There aren't any rules anymore, and the choices are endless,
and apparently they can all be delivered right to your door.
But is it possible that we've gotten so spoiled by choices
that we've become unable to make one?
That a part of us knows that once you choose something,
one man, one great apartment, one amazing job,
another option goes away?
Are we a generation of women who can't choose just one from column A?
Did we all have too much to handle, or was Samantha right?
Can we have it all?
Two hours later, I had filed every article I'd ever written,
but I still couldn't file away what had happened with Big.
And so I made a choice.
I called him.
-Yeah.
Hey, it's me, Carrie.
Jesus, Carrie.
How are you?
I'm good. Fine. Um, okay.
Listen, uh, we need to talk about what happened with us.
-Right now? -Yes, rationally, and right now.
Apparently you're the boss.
Okay, the thing is,
it was just a physical thing that happened.
We gave in to our baser instincts, shit happens, blah, blah, blah.
Are you wearing glasses?
-No. -You sound like you're wearing glasses.
It can't happen again, you're married.
I'm aware of that.
But come on.
It was pretty fucking amazing, wasn't it?
That is so not the point.
We're intelligent human beings here.
We have to learn to rise above the physical stuff.
You can learn to do that?
Apparently we couldn't.
Next time we're going to a hotel.
I can smell the guy on your sheets.
Wood chips and Paco Rabanne.
He doesn't wear cologne.
Maybe he should.
And, by the way?
There'll be no next time.
This is gonna be like The Bridges of Madison Avenue,
a very brief affair I'll write about in sappy letters to my grandchildren.
Can I have a beard in the book version?
Huh?
I've always wanted a beard.
Maybe a goatee.
It all felt so easy and so good.
I was like the moth to the old flame.
Meanwhile, that night, Miranda was enjoying her new flame.
I can't fucking believe I have to catch an eleven o'clock flight.
But it was fun.
I swear to God, if I weren't going back to Chicago,
I would definitely be trying to sleep with you right now.
And I'm drunk enough, I might have let you.
Oh, damn.
I'll have to wait till next time.
So there will be a next time?
Of course, I come back and forth a lot.
And in the meantime, there's always the phone.
I have one of those.
I'll call you tomorrow night.
Damn.
The next night,
Miranda was pleasantly surprised to hear from George.
I knew you were a middle child! I love it when I'm right.
-Yeah, spoken like a true only child.
They talked for two hours about everything,
favorite foods, their families.
It was one of the best dates Miranda had ever been on.
Tell me what you're wearing.
And then the date got even better.
-Nothing. -Mmm.
I wish I were there.
Really? What would you do?
I'd start by kissing your neck, slowly.
Mmm-hmm.
And then I'd work my way down and start licking your nipples.
Where's your hand?
On your dick.
Put the other one on you.
That night, Miranda started sleeping with George regularly.
She felt like she had it all.
Her own independent life,
and a great boyfriend she could count on.
He always called and she always came to the phone.
While Miranda was cumming,
-I was busy preparing...
...for Aidan to come back.
I had slept in Big's and my sex sheets for two days.
And like any good junkie, I knew how to hide the evidence.
-Hey, you. -Come on.
- Hi.
Ah, look at you.
I was sure he could see the scarlet "A" burned into my chest.
If Big could smell him, could he smell Big on me?
God, I missed you so much.
Wow.
I should send you to Pennsylvania more often.
You should.
I realized something while I was gone.
Oh, you did, did you?
Yeah.
I love you, Carrie.
That too much?
Around Trenton, I thought I shouldn't say it--
No, no.
I love you, too.
Mmm.
Not only was my secret safe, but apparently I had become lovable.
I felt awful, and so good.
-Wait, no sheets. -Fuck the sheets.
So you're bent over and I'm playing with you.
And your dick is in my mouth.
Oh, Jesus. Oh, I think I'm going to cum.
The next night, Miranda was going to third with George when...
-...her second line beeped in.
Damn it, hold on.
Hello!
Trey says his mom won't negotiate.
Hold on.
You sound weird, are you okay?
I'll be right back.
Okay, your dick is in my mouth.
Keep it there.
-So now we know.
The mom's the one holding the cards.
She's the one you're gonna have to go up against.
How do I do that?
Charlotte, this isn't a good time. I'll call you tomorrow.
-But--
Sorry.
So am I.
You got me so hot I just came.
You did, huh?
So, now we have to take care of you.
The next night, I went to take care of Samantha.
More cough syrup.
Which for Samantha meant making her mom's cure-all childhood remedy,
cough syrup and Fanta orange soda over ice.
Mmm.
No offense, but this thing's about to make me sicker than you.
Give me my drink!
Okay, okay.
A frosted martini glass would make that a lot more appetizing.
Why don't you ask the super to fix your window?
Because I don't have one. I own this fucking place, remember?
I should have gotten married.
Then at least I'd have a curtain that closes.
Oh, Carrie.
It doesn't matter how much you have.
If you don't have a guy who cares about you,
it all means shit.
Oh, sweetie, calm down.
-Oh!
Three days of sleep deprivation had turned Samantha
into a whole new woman. Charlotte.
Here, here.
For someone who had it all, she had never felt more alone.
-Good girl. Okay.
I'm gonna tell you something.
There's two types of guys out there.
The ones that hold your hand, and the ones that fuck you.
And I'd slept with both of them in the last 48 hours.
And the guys that fuck you aren't worth a damn.
We're all alone, Carrie.
-Oh, we are not all alone.
We have each other.
Oh, hey.
-Come on. Bed. -Yeah.
Three days of bed rest later,
three healthy girls attended a very Uptown party.
Jesus, it looks like Martha Stewart exploded in here.
Hey, look, headbands are back.
I'm starving, where's the food?
It's amazing what four days of a cough syrup and Fanta diet
will do for the appetite.
They're WASPs, there's never food, only booze.
Fine. One martini, six olives.
I can't believe Charlotte wants to be in this world.
Look at these people. They're like Ken and Barbie cutouts.
-You guys made it! - Hey!
Hi!
Ladies, I see you've found the bar.
We're good that way.
Trey, you have to keep people out of the maid's room.
There are photos of me rowing college crew in there. It's mortifying.
Mum, these are Charlotte's friends. Ladies, this is my mum, Bunny.
-Hi. -Hello.
Pleasure to have you. Oh, there's Reverend Williams.
Maybe we should go say hello before he gets into the Scotch.
I'd say it was about 20 years too late for that.
I haven't signed the prenup.
What are you gonna do?
I don't know, I'm so confused.
I really love him, I do. But I feel like no one cares about me.
I thought that maybe if we could negotiate it'd be okay.
But now, this all feels so wrong.
What does Trey say?
Nothing. He leaves this stuff up to his mother.
A woman named Bunny? Honey, you could take her.
Help me. What should I do?
Oh, sweetie, we can't tell you what to do.
I wasn't one to talk on the subject of marriage,
considering I might be in the process of breaking one up.
You have to do whatever feels right to you.
I guess it just depends how much you want to marry Trey.
Bunny, do you have a minute?
Well, Charlotte, of course.
Charlotte realized if she ever wanted to close the deal with Trey,
she'd have to close the deal with Bunny first.
I haven't signed the prenuptial agreement.
Well, you've been busy.
I have, um...
a little problem with how much I'm worth.
I see.
Well, Charlotte, that is the standard amount.
It's how it's always been done in the MacDougal family.
Right.
Not only would she have to negotiate,
she'd have to play hardball.
Well, you know,
we haven't finalized all of the wedding arrangements.
I know Trey would be disappointed if I backed out,
and The Times announcement would run,
and I guess there would be some questions--
What do you want?
I'm worth a million.
I did it!
I negotiated with Bunny and I signed the prenup.
-Oh! -Oh, that's great, sweetie.
I'm getting married.
Congratulations!
I love him, I really do.
Ladies, may I sweep my bride away?
She's all yours.
It was then that each of us realized that we didn't have it all.
Because we no longer had Charlotte.
And then there were three.
I can't believe she's marrying that guy.
And for about a tenth of what she's worth.
Hey, I thought you were Ms. Pro-marriage these days.
Honey, I was delirious. I also saw plaid spots all over my bathtub.
I can't believe I'm saying this,
but it feels weird without her here.
That's such a Charlotte thing to say.
After a week full of Aidan and no cigarettes,
I felt like I had finally kicked my addiction.
Emu.
What?
Thirty-two across. Rare bird. Emu.
I was getting there.
Not with the wrong word in 15 down, you weren't.
And then my addiction found me.
-Hello. - I need to see you.
Miranda, I'll call you back.
I'm downstairs. If you don't come down, I'm coming up.
Right, I'll call you later.
I told Aidan I was taking Pete for a walk.
And he believed me, which only made it worse.
-Don't ever call me at home again. Walk.
You know, you can't just decide you want to see me and boom, I'm there!
-Is this his dog? -Yes.
Do you know what your problem is? You want it all.
You want the girl you screw, me, and the girl you go home to, her.
That's bullshit, I just want you.
I can't do this anymore, sleep with two people at the same time.
I'm going to tell her tonight.
-What? -What?
No! No, no! You...
Married men don't just leave the...
I have a man who loves me, and you have a wife who loves you.
Don't talk about him and her like it's you and me.
You have no right to do this.
You can't just come back into my life and fuck it all up!
Well, I think there were two people doing the fucking here, Carrie.
-Shit.
Pete? Oh, shit!
-Oh, God! -Where are you going?
-Pete! -Wait, Carrie!
Pete! Pete!
Oh, shit!
Carrie!
Pete!
Excuse me, excuse me.
Pete!
-Pete.
Watch out!
- Pete!
- Whoa! - Hey!
Shit!
No. Go home. Don't tell anyone, don't do anything.
No, I want to help.
It isn't helping. Go home.
Later, back at Miranda's home, things were heating up as well.
Then I unbutton the last button
and slip my hand in and touch your breast.
Mmm, your nipple's so hard...
Uh, I'll be right back.
And I'm thrusting, I'm thrusting,
I'm deep inside of you.
You were touching my breast.
Yeah, yeah, I'm touching your breast and I'm thrusting hard into you.
No, we hadn't gotten to that yet.
Oh.
Are you having phone sex with other people?
Well, Miranda,
I don't think we ever said this was an exclusive thing.
Oh, my God!
And with that, Miranda stopped being hung up on George.
And so she hung up on him.
Three hours later, I still hadn't found Pete.
And I felt as lost as he was.
I had a man who loved me
and a man who wanted to leave his wife for me.
I should have been on top of the world. But I wasn't.
I didn't feel like I had it all. I felt like nothing.
I had lost Pete, and I would probably lose Aidan,
so I decided to come clean.
Hey.
Jesus, I was worried about you.
Look...
Oh, babe.
Oh, my God!
Pete's here?
Oh, my God, I lost him. I...
I lost him and I was... I looked for him and I...
Oh, Pete, come here.
Oh, come here, Pete.
-Oh, God. - Hey.
I'm an awful girlfriend.
-Hey, take it easy. -I'm awful.
He's a dog, he runs away.
He found his way back. Come here.
And so had I.
Carrie, I need to ask you something.
Okay.
I don't want to be paranoid here. Okay?
But you took Pete for a walk
and we both know you're not big on the dog walking.
And I can smell something.
Are you cheating?
I can smell the smoke on you.
Oh.
You're smoking again, aren't you?
Yeah.
Yeah, I am.
It was the truth.
Are you going to quit?
I really want to.
And that was, too.
Come here.