Carrie gets woken up at noon on a Saturday by Walt, who brings fresh coffee and a reminder that she promised her dad she would come home that weekend. He doesn’t have to worry about that, since his parents will be at the Cape until August, and the two commiserate over what’s been going on back in Castlebury since they’ve been away – he frets on people snickering about him being gay and she inquires about what he learned from Donna about Sebastian. Walt assures her that she’s the winner before informing her that Maggie got a job at the country club.
But it’s not all hot boys and free booze at the club, not when she has to serve the likes of Donna Ladonna and her posse virgin strawberry daiquiris and observe the fun rather than participate in it. As she’s learning about what color umbrellas Donna and her friends want in their drinks, Maggie sees Sebastian emerge from the pool and walks over to talk to him, despite how obviously uncomfortable it makes him. He doesn’t want Carrie to get the wrong idea about them or to get word from the rest of the town that he and Maggie are a thing; no matter how many times Maggie’s apologized and tried to excuse her behavior, she’s still lost one of her best friends since kindergarten and can’t seem to figure out a way to get her life back.
Carrie eventually does make it home, bringing Tom and Dorrit bagels and lox to boot. Talk turns to boys and while it’s too gross a topic for Carrie to get into with her father, she inadvertently lets him know that Dorrit is seeing someone. Later, Carrie has Mouse upstairs in her room and learns that West has been a good thing for her friend, as her GPA is up, she’s taken on additional extracurriculars, and the two are engaging in two courses together. All of this, of course, means that her parents actually like him, but Mouse is still upset with Maggie over the thing with Sebastian and swears off the club’s annual 4th of July barbecue – even the red, white, and blue sheet cake and the fireworks. However, Carrie urges her to go, saying that Mouse should get to go even if she isn’t going herself due to Sebastian. Once Carrie returns to Manhattan, she talks with Walt about going out to a bar Donna’s cousin works at later that night and asks him about how things are with Bennet; as Walt has yet to turn 18, they’re the same as they ever were, although he’s beginning to climb the walls due to the frustration of not being able to be with Bennet. The excitement for the evening, which will find them altering their rotation of the same three clubs, dulls considerably once Donna arrives with the wine coolers and Sebastian in tow.
While Walt admonishes Donna for bringing him along, even though she doesn’t do public transportation and wanted a chance to go for a ride in the Porsche, Sebastian tries to get Carrie to talk to him in her bedroom. She’s preoccupied with shoving stuff into her purse and comes off as being very cold and dismissive, feigning as if she doesn’t know the real reason he came and stressing that she has been busy with her life in the city. She also fills the group in on the fact that she won’t be accompanying them to the bar that night; she’s going to one of the clubs she and Walt usually hit up, citing a work thing that she has to attend to. Meanwhile, Tom tries to play chicken with Dorrit about a sleepover she’s supposedly having with Audrey. He gives her every opportunity to tell him the truth before calling Audrey’s mother to confirm whether or not it’s okay for her to be over that often. Funnily enough, it turns out that Audrey’s mother is okay with it, causing him to just blurt out that he knows Dorrit is seeing someone once he gets off the phone. She blames Carrie, but he threatens to forbid her from seeing Miller again unless he meets her boyfriend and tells her that he’ll be driving her to Audrey’s. Before she leaves, Dorrit calls Miller and tells him that Tom knows about them, that they’ll never be alone again, and that she has to bring him around in order to continue their relationship. While Miller seems receptive to the idea, Dorrit doesn’t want it to happen and is now forced to stay with Audrey all night, since Tom didn’t talk to Audrey’s mother – he talked to Audrey impersonating her mother on the phone.
As Mouse and West make it to the barbecue and discover that Maggie will be their server, prompting the former to cop a major attitude, Carrie makes it to Area, the club she opted to go to instead of Donna’s cousin’s bar. Though she’s not on the list, the bouncer seems to know who she is and allows her in once she produces the confirmation fax that she received earlier that week that secured her a place in the club. However, as she put her purse down once she found the fax, which she had crammed in there while Sebastian talked to her, she soon finds out that it was stolen right out from under her, causing her to panic. Elsewhere, Donna, Walt, and Sebastian 
are doing celebrity spotting at the bar, said to be a favorite of many of rock’s hottest musicians, and Donna doesn’t exactly acclimate herself in a place where the guys where more makeup and have longer hair than her. Walt suggests that they go to Area, home to many a Gucci stockbroker type, where they can hang out with Carrie; he informs the other two that what she said about having an active social calendar was just an embellishment in order to make herself look better to Sebastian, even though he claims she has nothing to prove.
While Carrie walks the 40 blocks from Area to the bar in heels and Miller stops by the Bradshaw residence, Mouse is still worried about having to deal with Maggie, only to find out that she switched tables with another waitress. Mouse then gets upset at Maggie trying to ice her out as if she was the bad guy in this situation and later, makes a scene by calling her over to the table. Mouse then stands up and demands Maggie apologize for doing what she did, which Maggie insists she had and laments the fact that no one seems to care about her feelings; once the subject of a similar situation, this time from 4th grade, gets brought up, Mouse almost backs into the cart carrying the cake and ends up flying into the pool. Carrie makes it to the bar and tries to get inside, except that the girl working the door doesn’t want her to go in and cut in front of so many other people who are waiting. The name “Sam Jones,” Donna’s cousin, gets dropped by Carrie and it turns out that the girl working the door is in fact Sam Jones – Samantha Jones.
Things lighten up once Carrie mentions her connection to Donna; however, her friends have already left and Samantha suggests that she go in and have a drink. Meanwhile, over at Area, Sebastian, Walt, and Donna find out that Carrie had been there and left. They agree that she probably went to the bar looking for them, except Donna gets distracted once good-looking preppy guys enter the bar and decides to stay rather than look for Carrie. Speaking of, Carrie is on the phone with the police inquiring about her purse and gets hung up when Samantha tells her that the boss wasn’t liking the phone being tied up. The two drink Long Island Iced Teas and Samantha agrees to help her get back home, which turns out to mean that Samantha will climb on Carrie’s shoulders in an attempt to reach the fire escape. The cops come and one recognizes Carrie from her phone calls, informing her that the precinct was laughing at her being so torn up over a purse. Samantha then convinces them to give her a boost so that she could reach the fire escape and help Carrie home, as no one should have to deal with the latter, whose emotional response to her purse being stolen may result in tears.
Dorrit arrives home to find that Miller is hanging out on the couch with Tom. Her sleepover with Audrey ended early when her brother short sheeted the bed and put glue on the door knobs, but what might be more annoying to her is finding out that her boyfriend and her father were talking music (they both like the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan) and how they like it when she doesn’t wear a lot of makeup. Tom gives them time alone until midnight and Miller explains that it had to happen sooner or later, so why not go ahead and meet Dorrit’s father when she wasn’t home and save them both the awkwardness? Dorrit reluctantly agrees that it was the right thing to do, while Walt and Sebastian continue wandering the streets looking for Carrie. Neither thinks the other is especially to blame for the relationship carnage that resulted last season and Walt gets reassurance that while Sebastian knew he was gay from the start, he’s perfectly okay with it.
At the country club, Mouse dries her hair and changes into her golf clothes, since the ones she was wearing got soaked. Maggie comes into the changing room and lets her know that she was fired and that the job wasn’t just about boys and booze. It was about saving for college, as there’s no money for her education and she doesn’t want to be stuck in Castlebury for the rest of her life. Though scholarships are out considering how poor her grades are, Mouse suggests financial aid and offers to help her lost friend find a way out of town. Back in Manhattan, the girls make it into Larissa’s apartment and Samantha proceeds to insult the décor before claiming that she only owns enough stuff to fit into a small car. In her mind, the more stuff you own, the more potential for you to be owned yourself; she then comforts Carrie about the loss of her purse and suggests that she move on from Sebastian with a hot guy they’ll meet later at a bar. Carrie might want to be over Sebastian, but as she gets ready, she realizes that hooking up isn’t her thing, not when she’s not over Sebastian. Samantha understands and decides to head back out to the bar, only she goes out the window instead of the front door.
Mouse and Maggie watch the fireworks together; Walt and Sebastian arrive to find Carrie safe and asleep, with the latter covering her up; and Dorrit heads out to meet Miller in heavy eye makeup after hearing that Tom liked her without it. The following morning, Carrie and Walt are eating breakfast when Samantha climbs back up the fire escape and throws a bag of her stuff through the open window. She confronted the bar manager for stealing from the waitresses the previous night and since she was shacking up with him, she’s now homeless and needs a place to stay. Carrie agrees to let her crash for a few days.
Additional thoughts and observations:
-“I love being the only girl.”
-“She’s so tiny she barely makes an impression.”
-“Oh, that’s my face. That’s my face.”
-“Hey, handsome.” “I’m gay.” “Sure. Great.”
-Pretty solid premiere overall. Considering that the show was more or less rebooting, as it tips the scale more toward Manhattan and finds Carrie closer to the Carrie we know from Sex and the City (both in terms of how she dresses and AnnaSophia Robb’s performance), this episode had a lot to do and I think it did it about as well as could be expected. There were times it felt like an entirely different show than last season, but as long as the show keeps the balance between Castlebury and Manhattan, I think it could turn into a strong season about choices, purpose, and personal growth.
-I’m not usually a fan of dream sequences opening an episode, but I thought the chess match with Sebastian was cute and played into the episode enough for my liking. Also, Austin Butler’s face.
-I appreciate that the show isn’t trying to paint Maggie as being the bad guy in the Kissgate situation. Yes, she was wrong for doing what she did, but it wasn’t malicious and there were very real emotions guiding her actions, emotions that she’s still not terribly comfortable in facing. Hopefully with Mouse on board to help get her into college, Maggie will be able to work through the hurt inflicted on her by her parents and comes out of high school with a stronger sense of self and the direction that she’s currently lacking.
-So, Lindsey Gort was amazing. Amazing. Amazing. She managed to capture the essence of both Samantha Jones and Kim Cattrall’s way of portraying the character without it coming off as an imitation, though there were times when she eerily reminded me of a young Cattrall. I’m not sure that moving her in with Carrie so quickly will work, and think it could very easily end up feeling forced, but their dynamic together is dead-on with where it was during Sex and the City and I especially adored the final scene of them walking down the street together. Is there such a thing as a callforward (as in callback)? Because that was a well done callforward, as it captured their friendship perfectly and was a nice nod to where they would end up on Sex.
-I still don’t like Dorrit, but I think that’s my own bias against rebellious teenagers than anything about how she’s written or acted. I’m glad the show is keeping up with her, though, and think that her journey toward adulthood could make an interesting parallel for Carrie.
-The next time I go to Wendy’s and they ask me what dipping sauce I want, I’ll be sure to hiss “honey mustard” in the way that Mouse did.
-Ric Ocasek! Except not the actual Ric Ocasek. Sorta Ric Ocasek! It was a minor bummer that his name had to be qualified with “of The Cars,” but then I remember that I’m probably 10 years older than the average Carrie Diaries viewer and I sigh at the realization of my own mortality.
-Interesting that Carrie gets a little nervous when she hears about how many murders a week there are in Manhattan. Perfectly understandable, of course, but I liked that the show continues to keep her growth on a leash. While she may be comfortable in the city, it’s good to keep the character from becoming too settled and the city from becoming too utopian, at least until they’re ready to move the show to Manhattan full-time.
-Sweet scene between Walt and Sebastian about the former’s sexuality. Good pairing that the show hasn’t explored much and anytime they delve into Walt’s identity, it’s been extremely strong.
-Songs included in the episode: Dead or Alive “You Spin Me Round,” The Go-Go’s “Can’t Stop the World,” Brian Page “The Key,” and The Cure “In Between Days”.
-Next week on The Carrie Diaries: Samantha makes herself too comfortable in her new living situation, while Walt tells Bennet how he feels, Sebastian and Maggie run into one another, and Tom invites his girlfriend Deb to stay the weekend.
