Diary of a Sex and the City Virgin: Season Four

I’ve taken a bit of a Sex and the City break since seeing the better-than-you-may-have-heard movie version last month, but the vacation’s finally over and I’m back to finish off the last three seasons and then bid a fond farewell to Carrie and her pals.  And it will be a fond farewell, because against the odds, I grew to really likely the series by the end of its run.
During the course of this project, I realized that a lot of my misconceptions about SATC as a series were based on the first two seasons, when the show really was just a string of one-dimensional, albeit pretty funny, sexual misadventures.  But when Michael Patrick King took over as showrunner in the third season, he started pushing the characters in a more–gasp!–mature direction and by the final season, the constant bed-hopping gave way to a serious look at the various problems confronting contemporary male/female relationships.   The writers tackled everything from abortion, to impotence to emotional abuse with a clear-eyed objectivity I frankly didn’t expect.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Before my SATC hiatus, I watched Carrie fall hard for hunky furniture maker Aidan until she blew that relationship to smithereens by falling back into the arms of a married Big.  Meanwhile, Charlotte married her dream man Trey, only to discover that he couldn’t deliver where it counted.  Miranda and Steve continued their on-and-off again ways and Samantha…well, she’s managed to remain no man’s woman.  The fourth season picks up with Carrie still dealing with the fallout from the Big/Aidan fiasco, a situation that eventually leads her back to the guy whose heart she broke.  The new Aidan isn’t so quick to fall back in love with her though and kudos to the writers for penning this storyline in a way that makes us sympathetic to both individuals.  Equally believable is the way the relationship comes to its end yet again–this time because of a looming wedding (an idea that’s echoed in the movie actually).  As Carrie bids farewell to Aidan for good, Charlotte also decides that marriage (at least this particular one) just isn’t for her and kicks Trey to the curb.  In a twist on the show’s usual M.O., Samantha is the only one of the quartet who actually winds up in a good relationship with a guy, wealthy hotel operator Richard Wright…until his caddishness inevitably floats to the surface.  The big news, of course, is that Miranda gets knocked up after sympathy sex with Steve and, to everyone’s surprise, decides to keep the baby.  The season ends with the arrival of this new man in the woman’s lives, as the ones they’ve known fade away, either into other relationships (Steve) or into semi-retirement in Napa (Big).

Season Four Rundown

Best Episode:”Change of a Dress”, where Carrie breaks things off with Aidan in one of the best-written and best-acted moments in the entire run of the series.

Worst Episode: “A Vogue Idea”, sends Carrie off into a new gig at Vogue magazine, where she experiences a completely unrealistic compromising situtation with her editor.