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Spoilers below.
For Carrie and Aidan, life is just about perfect. Season 2, episode 8, “A Hundred Years Ago,” opens with them enjoying life in a hotel room, because Aidan still won't enter Carrie's old apartment, the scene of so much heartbreak. This seems like a glaring sign of unresolved issues waiting to blow up in their faces, but everything else that happens to the new/old couple this episode points to personal growth and potential long term happiness.
For example, when Aidan asks Carrie if she might travel to Norfolk, Virginia, to meet his three boys and their chickens, the Carrie we all know would buck and bolt like a wild horse at the idea of changing her scenery or showing anything like commitment. But this Carrie is older, wiser, and able to see that the only way forward is by actually doing something different. She says yes, leading to yet more hotel sex.
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Later at brunch, she tells Miranda, Charlotte, and Seema all about the red brick farmhouse Aidan lives in and shares some hypothetical pictures that turn out to be from Norfolk, U.K., and possibly the set of Howard's End. While Charlotte is ecstatic to see Carrie in love again, Seema is all silent frowns, and Miranda voices what many might be thinking: Isn't this all a little fast?
For Carrie, it's not. Things with Aidan feel so familiar and at the same time so changed. She drops the tidbit that her orgasms with him are the best she's ever had in her life, even including the first time they were together. And then she admits to Miranda something we've all been tweeting for years: maybe her relationship with Big was actually always a big mistake.
Charlotte is also being influenced by the past this week. She tells Lily, Rock, and Richard Burton the dog that she'll be headed to work as a gallerina, and won't be around as much. They are completely underwhelmed by this news, but Lisa is excited to go shopping for a new work look with Charlotte. They find the perfect outfit, a little black number with a tiny pink belt at the waist. But Charlotte keeps getting stuck on the bit of belly riding the belt up, even though she looks fantastic in the dress. The shop girl tries to fit her in a black potato sack instead, but Charlotte insists that she's going to shed her gut before her first day of work.
The pressure of trying to go back in time to who she was at 25 sends Charlotte down a dark path of bone broth and shapewear, but she shakes it off when she arrives on her first day and sees at least one of her superiors is average-sized. It's actually kind of a confusing attempt at a body positivity moment, but it is still a huge relief to see Charlotte finally just take the damn Spanx off and wear the belt as-is.
Miranda has started a new job as well, stepping in to do grunt work as the very lowliest intern at Humans Rights Watch. However, both her privilege and her 30 years of experience in law see her shooting to the top of the food chain. This pisses off her fellow interns, who text about her right in front of her face and reject the offerings of a garlic chocolate chip cookie (apparently not as bad as they sound). By the end of the episode, she's filling in for an actual lawyer going on maternity leave, which is good for her career but bad for office politics.
Over at the vet's office, Che has a job as promised. Carrie tries to take them to lunch, but money is a still an issue and Che is working overtime. So, Carrie gets right to the point and asks if she and Aidan can stay in their Hudson Yards apartment while Che is at her brownstone to save money on hotel omelettes. Che is on board, but asks the couple to stay on the down-low to avoid issues with their building manager.
Aidan blows up their spot almost immediately and Che goes over to put out fires. While there, they appear to have some sort of epiphany when Carrie answers invasive questions about why things didn't work out with Aidan the first time by admitting to that Big mistake. Did Che perhaps make a mistake with a certain red headed intern?
Anthony is having more fun in his mini spin-off work drama. Giuseppe, the well-endowed poet, tries to seduce his boss by helping him knead the dough Ghost-style. He wraps his arms around the Italian-American and whispers in his ear that he's gay. As a viewer, it's hard not to be hung up on why Anthony is the actual baker at this operation, but he is hung up on just how young and perfect Giuseppe is and how middle-aged he is. So Anthony fires him.
The matter-of-fact Italian from Italy can't be stopped. He's determined to make love to his employer and it seems like he has only been delivering bread with this objective in mind. Giuseppe quits instead of suing for workplace discrimination and kisses Anthony passionately.
Throughout Carrie's rekindled romance with Aidan (and the last few episodes), Seema has been MIA. She's stopped responding to Carrie's texts about a group dinner with Aidan, but things really come to a head at the salon when she tries to sneak past Carrie at the shampoo bowl. It's time for a confrontation. Outside in the rain with wet heads, Seema asks Carrie if she remembers their Hamptons plans.
Most people probably don't, so to remind us, Seema explains how they had agreed to rent a house in the Hamptons for the summer. Now that Carrie is half-living with Aidan, that means Seema will be partly living with a couple. She's canceled the rental and she's asking for space.
“From everything I’ve heard it sounds to me you’ve had these two great loves and I have none,” Seema tells her. “Don’t say I will, because I may not, but I can live with that.”
What she can't live with, or has realized she doesn't have to, is that feeling of being a third wheel with a fake smile on her face. Carrie doesn't want to hear what Seema is saying, but if there's one thing the real estate agent is good at, it's setting boundaries.
There is a hint Seema might be about to find her great love when she gets a new client named Robby Gadore who is in town for nine months to direct a Marvel movie and is looking for an apartment. He's single and straight. But who deserves Seema as a mate? This lady is all class. After taking the space Carrie wanted to deny her, Seema shows up to dinner to be the fifth wheel at dinner with Aidan, Miranda, Charlotte, and Carrie.
And then Carrie went to Aidan’s farm and saw it was even better than Howard’s End.
Aimée Lutkin is the weekend editor at ELLE.com. Her writing has appeared in Jezebel, Glamour, Marie Claire and more. Her first book, The Lonely Hunter, will be released by Dial Press in February 2022.
