Everyone knows Taylor Swift fans love a conspiracy theory. And while I personally cannot keep up with the speculation on when Reputation (Taylor’s Version) will actually come out, I’ve recently been formulating my own hypothesis about Miss Swift: that like many (white) millennial women, her understanding of life, love, and relationships was quite possibly shaped by none other than Carrie Bradshaw and Sex and the City.
While we don’t know whether Taylor is a Sex and the City fan (she’s never named a cat after a character, at least), once you start looking, you’ll see the parallels everywhere … like your ex’s “profile and smile on unsuspecting waiters.” If you don’t believe me, you’re in luck. Sex and the City arrived on Netflix in April, and we all need something to occupy our time while we wait with bated breath for The Tortured Poets Department (or the next Tayvis vacation pics) to drop.
Whether they match up in exact lyrics, major themes, corresponding imagery, or specific plotlines, there really is a relevant Taylor Swift song for all 94 Sex and the City episodes. A “pathological people pleaser,” I’ve painstakingly gone through the entire series to find the perfect companion tune for whatever is going on with Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha as they gallivant around Manhattan.
So whether you’re a Taylor stan who’s just meeting Carrie, you’re a SATC superfan who doesn’t yet consider yourself a Swiftie, or—like me—you’re in the overlapping portion of the Venn diagram between the two fandoms, my hope is that by reading this you’ll appreciate both Sex and the City and Taylor’s amazing lyricism and music more. Think of these as wine pairings that’ll enhance your overall experience.
Similar to the dilemma Taylor faced when creating the Eras setlist, I was inevitably forced to leave some iconic songs out. You won’t find “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” on here, and several other personal favorites, including “You Belong With Me,” “Look What You Made Me Do,” and “Red,” didn’t make the cut. That said, I did my best to pull in the most pertinent songs, even if some are a bit more obscure (which is hilarious to say given that everything Taylor does is analyzed and discussed endlessly). You may have to squint to see some of the links, while others will be hard to miss, but if you’re “… Ready for It,” join me as I highlight the connections, or shall I say the “invisible string,” between every episode of Sex and the City and a Taylor Swift song.
Season 1
Episode 1, “Sex and the City” | Taylor Song, “Welcome to New York”
Was there any other way to start this? In the series premiere we meet Carrie, her three best friends, and the other main character of the show: Manhattan. While welcoming viewers to New York, Carrie explains the “end of love in Manhattan.” With toxic bachelors like Capote Duncan running around, it’s clear single women may need to put their broken hearts in a drawer. Despite this, you get the sense that Carrie—like Taylor—wouldn’t change anything, anything, anything, about the city.
“Models and Mortals” | “Clara Bow”
The second episode starts at a dinner party, with Miranda’s date posing an important question to the other guests: “Old movie stars you would’ve liked to fuck when they were young?” While we haven’t heard Taylor’s song “Clara Bow” on TTPS yet, when I hear this line I instantly think of the 1920s-era starlet she’s reignited interest in. Sadly, none of the men at the dinner party name her—opting for more familiar bombshells like Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren—but in true Carrie Bradshaw fashion, “I couldn’t help but wonder,” if Taylor’s song had come out a few decades earlier, would one of the men at the table have named Clara?
“Bay of Married Pigs” | “Epiphany”
While it feels wrong to compare Taylor’s ethereal tribute to frontline workers during COVID to any Sex and the City episode, let alone one in which a drunken Samantha shouts, “I heard about you! Big peppermill dick!” … stay with me for a moment.
The song contains imagery of war—soldiers in helmets on a beach—and in this episode, Carrie likens the dynamic between single and married people to war, with hostility coming from both sides. And if she is fighting in the war between married and singles, she is surely happy to serve, to fall down, alongside her three best friends.
“Valley of the Twenty-Something Guys” | “Don’t Blame Me”
After a night of making out with 20-something guy Sam (who, sidenote, totally seems like someone who would have worked at a yogurt shop), Carrie immediately finds herself craving more of him and wonders, “Are men in their 20s the new designer drug?” She seems to be slipping into a full-blown addiction—and she’d be using for the rest of her life. Thankfully, waking up in Sam’s toilet-paper-less apartment is enough to get Carrie to quit this designer drug cold turkey.
“The Power of Female Sex” | “Gorgeous”
In this episode Carrie meets a gorgeous French architect, Gilles, and she does make fun of the way he talks throughout the 24 hours that they know each other. After they spend an amazing night together, Gilles leaves for an early flight. Carrie is hoping he left her his phone number, but instead she finds a note on the nightstand with $1,000 in cash. Understandably, this leaves Carrie furious, especially since she can’t say anything to his face about the implication of the cash payment.
As Miranda says, “He paid in full; what more is there to talk about?” Whether there are any parallels here to Karlie Kloss having worse seats than me at the Eras Tour I cannot say, but I have wondered.
“Secret Sex” | “Cruel Summer”
This episode marks the first time Carrie ever sleeps with Mr. Big. The shape of her body in the “naked dress” is new, and Big “looks up, grinnin’ like a devil.” However, Carrie quickly begins to worry that he’s ashamed to be seen with her and is keeping their relationship a secret. She drunkenly confronts him, essentially saying, “I don’t want to keep secrets just to keep you!” Turns out it was a misunderstanding, and Big just really likes the Chinese food at that specific restaurant, and what doesn’t kill her makes her want him more.
“The Monogamists” | “End Game”
Carrie has fallen hard and fast for Mr. Big. During a night out with the girls, however, she sees him having dinner with another woman and realizes he’s still dating around. While they hadn’t discussed exclusivity, Carrie is crestfallen.
Big reputation, big reputation, the episode ends with Carrie and Big having a big conversation. She says to him, “I’ve done the merry-go-round; I’ve been through the revolving door. I feel like I met somebody I can stand still with for a minute and ... don’t you want to stand still with me?” Pretty sure that was Future’s verse? But anyway, if that’s not another way of saying, “I want to be your end game,” I don’t know what is.
“Three’s a Crowd” | “Getaway Car”
In “Getaway Car,” Taylor sings, “But with three of us, honey, it’s a sideshow.” That’s certainly the case in this episode, when Charlotte considers having a threesome at the request of her new boyfriend and Samantha gets solicited, to her horror, for a threesome by the wife of a married man she’s been sleeping with. Most importantly, however, Carrie finds herself in the midst of a somewhat imaginary love triangle after learning Big was previously married, putting a strain on their blossoming relationship. As Taylor would say, “A circus ain’t a love story.”
“The Turtle and the Hare” | “Wonderland”
Known to many as the “vibrator episode” and credited with creating a market for luxury sex toys, the “Turtle and the Hare” episode is when Miranda introduces Charlotte, and by extension the American public, to “the Rabbit.”
And boy, does Charlotte fall down the rabbit hole hard. She becomes so enamored of her new toy—spinning out of control, lost in it—that she starts canceling plans to stay home with the high-end vibrator, forcing the other girls to stage an intervention. “It’s all fun and games till somebody loses their mind.”
“The Baby Shower” | “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”
The girls are invited to the baby shower of Laney, who used to be a good friend. Before getting married and leaving the city, Laney was a wild party girl—definitely someone who would have been comfortable at big parties and jumping into the pool from the balcony, with everyone swimming in a Champagne sea and a bass beat rattling the chandelier.
The girls drive all the way to Connecticut for the shower. Then Laney stabs Charlotte in the back while shaking her hand, revealing she plans to use the baby name Charlotte made up as an 11-year-old and was saving for her own daughter someday.
Here’s a toast to real friends, the ones who would never rain on your parade by using “Shayla” before you could.
“The Drought” | “I Think He Knows”
“Was that you?” Big asks Carrie—laughing hysterically—after she farts in bed. Carrie is beyond mortified. She ain’t gotta tell him, but she thinks he knows that, yes, it was her who passed gas under his $500 sheets.
Their sex life then slips into a bit of a lull, and Carrie panics that he now “thinks of her as one of the boys” and will break up with her because she’s not perfect. She wants him, bless her soul, and thankfully, by the end of the episode she and Big have reconciled so that she can stop talking to Miranda about the “fucking fart.”
“Oh Come All Ye Faithful” | “Hoax”
The last scene of the Season 1 finale is eerily reminiscent of “Hoax.” While Taylor “stood on the cliffside / Screaming, ‘Give me a reason,’” Carrie stood outside her apartment, luggage in hand, and asked Big to give her a sign before pleading, “Just tell me I’m the one.” It’s clear his faithless love is the only hoax she believes in.
Big ends up driving off to catch their flight to St. Barts alone, with Carrie left on the stoop in tears. It truly is a winless fight. But still, as we’d learn: “No other sadness in the world would do.”
Season 2
“Take Me Out to the Ballgame” | “Is It Over Now?”
Season 2 starts with Carrie in mourning after her Big breakup. Similar to how Taylor spots a very tall someone’s profile as he smiles on unsuspecting waiters (ahem, Harry), Carrie constantly thinks she sees Big in the New York City crowds. She eventually does bump into him while on a date with the newest member of the Yankees.
Is it over now between Carrie and Big? Not a chance.
“The Awful Truth” | “Mean”
This episode starts as Carrie informs us that a few years earlier, her friend Susan Sharon had “married a very mean man.” In the next scene, he berates his wife and screams at Carrie to “get the FUCK out of my house!”
Words like knives and a voice like nails on a chalkboard, indeed! He might just be mean, but at least Carrie is livin’ in a big ole city.
“The Freak Show” | “Lavender Haze”
Charlotte is dating a guy who is renowned for certain oral abilities that have nothing to do with speaking. Most of the time Charlotte is with the guy, she’s actually staring at the ceiling, and he never says too much, if you catch my drift.
Initially, she believes she is deep in a lavender haze, telling the girls how happy her new man makes her and that she thinks they have a real future together. She soon realizes, however, that she was actually in what Carrie calls the “sex haze. … You know, where the sex is really great, you start acting like a crazy person, and you start to imagine the relationship is something it’s not.” Who can blame her? All this shit was new to her, after all.
“They Shoot Single People, Don’t They?” | “Question …?”
Can I ask you a question? Has your hungover face ever been published on the cover of New York magazine with the headline “Single & Fabulous?”
If you’re Carrie Bradshaw, the answer to this question is yes. Talk about a bad surprise. Discussing the magazine hit job with the girls at brunch, Carrie laments, “That question mark is hostile!” She probably shouldn’t have stayed out dancing all night before the photo shoot. Big city, wrong choice.
“Four Women and a Funeral” | “Better Than Revenge”
In this episode, Samantha—who is undoubtedly best known for the things she does on the mattress—messes with the wrong woman: a socialite named Sandy Cranwell.
While Taylor may have learned a lesson about slut-shaming, changing the lyrics on “Better Than Revenge (Taylor’s Version),” Sandy is not as forgiving: After walking in on her husband and Samantha in a compromising position, Sandy effectively blacklists Sam all over Manhattan. Overnight, she becomes persona non grata—her name no longer on any guest list and her credit card declined at every restaurant. Samantha should learn that stealing other people’s toys on the playground won’t make you many friends.
“The Cheating Curve” | “Glitch”
After casually rekindling things with Big in the previous episode, Carrie has now fastened herself to him with a stitch. Now they’re “officially” seeing each other again, making their breakup seem like a mere glitch, just a brief interruption or a slight malfunction.
When Carrie finally comes clean to her friends, it’s clear they disapprove. Charlotte says, “Even I am not that naive,” but for Carrie, “That’s romance; let’s dance.”
“The Chicken Dance” | “The Moment I Knew”
“It was like slow motion.”
As Carrie reads the poem she wrote for the whirlwind wedding between two acquaintances, in the crowd, she sees Big get up to take a phone call. In that moment, she has a realization about her relationship with Big—similar to the one Taylor has at her birthday party in “The Moment I Knew.”
What do you do when tears are streaming down your face in front of an entire wedding? Pass the tears off as tears of joy for the happy couple, of course.
“The Man, the Myth, the Viagra” | “Everything Has Changed”
Following a night of amazing sex, Miranda assumes the charming bartender she took home, Steve, will be a one-night stand. She’s perplexed when he shows up at her apartment to ask her out again, and she later shouts at him, incensed, “What? What do you want?!” Steve replies earnestly, “I just want to get to know you better!”
Dust off your highest hopes, because a few minutes later, Miranda is kissing Steve in the pouring rain, and everything has changed.
“Old Dogs, New Dicks” | “The Great War”
Carrie’s knuckles are bruised like violets when she sucker punches Big after he accidentally knocks her off the bed in the middle of the night. Their battle went underground for a few days—Big understandably needed some space after she gave him a shiner—and Carrie really thought she’d lost him.
Eventually, however, they draw up some good-faith treaties: Big would stay over at her apartment for a change, she would stop eating oranges in his bed, and they survived the great war.
“The Caste System” | “You’re Losing Me”
At the episode’s start, Carrie tells Mr. Big, “I love you,” and he doesn’t say it back. Ouch! A few days later, they end up at a cocktail party on the Upper East Side where the uptight hostess doesn’t serve brown food or drinks.
Carrie is quickly banished to the balcony for smoking a cigarette, and Big—not a gentleman—leaves her by herself. There’s a misunderstanding when Carrie looks at the tattoo of the waiter, a.k.a. old friend and performance artist Jeremiah. Ultimately, the whole scene is giving “Don’t you ignore me; I’m the best thing at this party” energy to the max.
“Evolution” | “Vigilante Shit”
Out one night with the girls, Samantha runs into an ex who broke her heart when he dumped her for an Icelandic supermodel, and she’s hell-bent on revenge. They say looks can kill, and she might try, telling Carrie that she plans to teach Dominic a lesson for what he did to her, quipping, “[I have] not only a plan—I have a dress!”
She’s not dressing for women; she’s not dressing for men—she’s dressing for revenge on the night of her date. Sadly for Samantha, she starts shit, but she can’t tell you how it ends. Her plan ultimately backfires when Dominic tells her he’s getting back together with the model. Guess we can’t all end up thick as thieves with the ex-wife.
“La Douleur Exquise!” | “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever”
Naturally, the song where Taylor teamed up with Zayn for the Fifty Shades Darker soundtrack goes with the episode that starts at an S&M-themed restaurant. But it’s not just that. Carrie comes to the realization that she’s in an S&M relationship with Mr. Big when he announces out of the blue that he’ll need to move to Paris for work. When Carrie breaks it off with Big for the second time in as many seasons, it’s clear she’s wondering whether she dodged a bullet or just lost the love of her life.
“Games People Play” | “Anti-Hero”
Carrie has this thing where she gets older but just never wiser. After she spends weeks obsessing about breakup no. 2 with Big, her friends finally convince her it’s time to see a shrink. Her new therapist, Dr. G, observes that Carrie “picks the wrong men,” which Carrie dismisses.
Soon after, Carrie starts dating Seth, a fellow Dr. G patient she meets in the waiting room. After they sleep together, Seth reveals that he’s in therapy because he is “really fucked up about women” and completely loses interest once he has sex with someone. This is when Carrie has her “It’s me. Hi! I’m the problem. It’s me” realization, with her voice-over informing us, “I believe, in therapy, this moment is called the breakthrough.”
“The Fuck Buddy” | “It’s Nice to Have a Friend”
In this episode, the girls discuss the necessity of having a “fuck buddy,” or a guy that you call just for sex. Now that she’s single again, Carrie is back in touch with her long-standing fuck buddy, and their conversations essentially go like this: “‘Wanna hang out?’ Yeah, sounds like fun.”
When she tries to talk to him about more, it becomes clear pretty quickly that there’s not much between them besides physical chemistry. Still, it’s nice to have a friend (with benefits).
“Shortcomings” | “Long Story Short”
Short story short, in this episode, Carrie dates a short story writer, Vaughn, who struggles with premature ejaculation and has an extremely charismatic family. Clinging to the nearest lips, Carrie tries to pick her battles till the battle picks her. Vaughn refuses to talk about his problem, and his mother attempts to discuss it with Carrie—which is even worse.
Long story short, it was the wrong guy.
“Was It Good for You?” | “This Is Me Trying”
In this episode, Carrie dates a guy recovering from alcoholism who has seemingly replaced booze with her. All of his cages were mental, and he unfortunately relapses, getting wasted like all his potential. He shows up one night, and it’s safe to say he did pour the whiskey, as he drunkenly pours his heart out, shouting up to her from the street.
Carrie’s voice-over tells us that she later gets a letter from him apologizing for his booze-fueled outburst. At least he’s trying.
“Twenty-Something Girls Vs. Thirty-Something Women” | “Hits Different”
In “Hits Different,” Taylor sings, “I pictured you with other girls in love / Then threw up on the street.” Carrie embodies this scene to a tee in this episode, except she doesn’t picture Big with other girls in love; she runs into him at the Hamptons Hoedown with his new girlfriend, 20-something Natasha, in tow.
And she throws up on the beach instead of the street, but, you know, same same.
“Ex and the City” | “Don’t You”
In this episode, Carrie gets a friendly lunch with Mr. Big. Things are going well enough until Big reveals that he and Natasha are engaged. Carrie proceeds to make a bit of a scene at the restaurant, which is what I imagine would happen in “Don’t You” if Taylor were a little less articulate and a little more drunk (as Carrie is on cosmopolitans, naturally).
So Carrie walks out of the restaurant and tries to go on with her life. He can say they’re still friends, but she doesn’t want to pretend. Still, she really wishes she could hate him; she’s tried, but that’s just something she can’t do, even when he invites her to his engagement party at the Plaza. And, I’m sorry, but isn’t that a wild move, even if you’re trying to be on friendly terms with an ex?!
Season 3
“Where There’s Smoke” | “White Horse”
In the Season 3 premiere, Charlotte gets wasted on Staten Island iced teas at the fire department’s calendar competition. The next day at brunch, wildly hungover, she bursts out, “I’ve been dating since I was 15. I’m exhausted. Where is he?” Miranda asks whom she’s expecting—the white knight? Charlotte essentially admits as much before telling the girls, “My hair hurts”—a line I’ve thought about often after hitting 30, as the severity of my hangovers has multiplied by a factor of a million.
But she’s not a princess, and this ain’t a fairy tale. Stupid girl, she should have known—women are the white knights, and we’re the ones who have to ride in on white horses and save ourselves.
“Politically Erect” | “I Did Something Bad”
Everything is going well between Carrie and politician Bill Kelley, but as Taylor would say, “Never trust a narcissist.” When Carrie tells him she can’t get on board with his bathroom-adjacent bedroom request, he dumps her, explaining that some people in his campaign think it’s bad for his image to date a sex columnist. He talked shit, so Carrie owes him nothing, detailing his private peccadilloes in her next column.
Maybe it was bad to out Bill in print, but it feels so good.
“Attack of the Five Foot Ten Woman” | “I Bet You Think About Me”
Carrie and the girls come across a full-page story on Big and Natasha’s wedding in the Sunday Times. While Carrie insists she’s fine, that she was prepared for this—they had an engagement party at the Plaza, remember?—everyone realizes this must be gut-wrenching for her.
When reading the puff piece highlighting the details of the “intimate wedding,” which featured a New York Times reporter and took place at Natasha’s parents’ Southampton estate, Carrie finally breaks down. The girl in Big’s bed has a fine pedigree, and while Carrie tried to fit into his upper-crust circles (see “The Caste System”), she never really did. As she explains, “It’s her, her, HER. She’s shiny-hair, style-section Vera Wang, and I’m the sex column they run next to ads for penile implants.”
Despite this, we’ll see later in Season 3 that Carrie was harder for Big to forget than she was to leave …
“Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl …” | “You Need to Calm Down”
Carrie really needs to calm down in this episode. The new guy she’s dating tells her he’s bisexual, and she simply cannot fathom this fact—or that bisexuality even exists. Especially odd considering she’s a sex columnist, but I digress.
But seriously, she needs to control her urges to ask him whether he’s checking out the guy or the girl at the bar, “’cause shade never made anybody less gay”—or bi, for that matter.
“No Ifs, Ands or Butts” | “Mastermind”
Let’s bypass the stereotype-ridden and terribly cringe story line in which Samantha dates a Black man in this episode and instead focus on how Carrie manufactures a meeting with Aidan.
Carrie and Aidan end up in the same room at the same time—not because the planets, the fates, and all the stars aligned, but because Stanford saw a profile on Aidan in The New York Times style section, and he and Carrie then go to his showroom. What if I told you none of it was accidental and it was all orchestrated by mastermind Carrie Bradshaw, Carrie Bradshaw Designs? Gotta get that designer discount. ;)
“Are We Sluts?” | “Slut!”
Oh, Aidan: a gentleman in a world of boys. In this episode, Carrie questions whether she and Aidan are “just friends who kiss occasionally” since it’s been a week and a half and Aidan hasn’t tried to sleep with her.
By the end of the episode, our favorite slut has prevailed, finally seducing the first nice guy we’ve seen her date through two and a half seasons.
“Drama Queens” | “The Way I Loved You”
Carrie freaks out when she realizes that she’s in a relationship where there is absolutely nothing wrong.
Aidan is sensible and so incredible—and it’s like she couldn’t ask for anything better. He respects her space and never makes her wait, and he calls exactly when he says he will. He’s charming and endearing, and she’s comfortable …
But Carrie misses the “stomach flip”—a.k.a. screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain, and feeling so in love that you act insane. It’s a roller-coaster kind of rush, and that’s the way she loved Big.
“The Big Time” | “Girl at Home”
“No. Go home to your wife,” Carrie replies to a drunk and disheveled Big when he shows up at her apartment.
For one brief moment, Carrie wasn’t a stupid girl when it came to Big and actually told him to go back to his girl at home. We’ll see how long her resolve lasts …
“Easy Come, Easy Go” | “The Archer”
In “The Archer,” Taylor sings, “I say I don’t want that, but what if I do?”
This mirrors the end of the episode, when Big shows up at the hotel Carrie is working out of and confesses his love for her, despite his seven-month marriage to Natasha. Carrie tries to tell him to get out, but they end up in bed together. Villain and victim, the archer and the prey.
Easy they come, easy they go—Carrie never grows up when it comes to Big. It’s getting so old.
“All or Nothing” | “Treacherous”
Carrie knows she’s playing with fire after her encounter with Big. When Aidan leaves town for a couple of days, she once again finds herself on a treacherous slope. Is it a choice, getting swept away?
After she and Big sleep together again, this time at her apartment, she acknowledges how good the affair feels, saying, “I was like the moth to the old flame.” This path is reckless, but she likes it.
“Running With Scissors” | “Illicit Affairs”
Confession: This episode-song pairing is what sparked the idea for this ridiculous ingenious list. The parallels between the two are obvious and plentiful.
At the episode’s start, we see how Carrie and Big’s affair, like their hotel rooms, went from “elegant with crystal to seedy with plastic cups.” It’s similar to how the illicit affair from Taylor’s song started in beautiful rooms and ended with meetings in parking lots. Then, similar to how Taylor sings, “Make sure nobody sees you leave / Hood over your head, keep your eyes down,” we learn that Carrie picked the hotel for her and Big’s rendezvous because “no one knows us on 56th and Eighth—56th and Eighth is safe.”
That is until Carrie and Big’s next meeting, when—mid-argument—they run into Charlotte outside the hotel lobby. Carrie is clearly mortified and tries to explain herself to Charlotte later, to little avail. The episode (and affair) finally ends as Natasha catches Carrie in Big and Natasha’s home. Natasha falls down the stairs while trying to chase Carrie, losing a tooth in the process. Big thanks Carrie for getting his wife to the hospital and says he’ll call her before Carrie replies, “For what? We’re so over, we need a new word for over.” She might as well be saying, “Don’t call me ‘kid,’ don’t call me ‘baby,’ look at the godforsaken mess that you made me.”
That’s the thing about illicit affairs: They die and they lie a million little times.
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” | “Speak Now”
“And she is yelling at a bridesmaid / Somewhere back inside a room / Wearing a gown shaped like a pastry” could have been written about Charlotte York in this episode.
The organ and the bagpipes start to play a song that sounds like a death march. At this moment, Charlotte chooses to speak now, yelling for Carrie. She confesses that when she drunkenly surprised Trey the night before, he wasn’t able to get it up.
“I should have just slept with him on the first date!” she confides. Charlotte ultimately decides to go through with the wedding. As Carrie said, “Charlotte was 34, single, and standing in a $14,000 dress. She was getting married.”
“Escape From New York” | “The Lucky One”
In this episode, Carrie, Miranda, and Samantha head to L.A., the angel’s city, chasing fortune and fame. Carrie has some meetings with a production studio that’s interested in optioning her column into a movie. She should feel like the lucky one when she meets with Matthew McConaughey, who’s interested in the project, but she doesn’t feel pretty, she just feels used, like her secrets are splashed on the news front page.
Carrie ultimately takes her dignity and gets the hell out, ditching her last meeting with the studio to discuss what goes wrong with “Carrie” (as if she’s the movie’s hypothetical character) and all her relationships.
“Sex and Another City” | “Wildest Dreams”
Still in L.A., Carrie meets a “tall drink of water” (played by Vince Vaughn) while out one night. He’s tall and handsome as hell, and he claims to represent Matt Damon. While Carrie knows nothing lasts forever, this is getting good now. When he whisks her into a VIP after-party and takes her to tour a $3.4 million home he’s looking at in the Hills, Carrie feels like she’s in the middle of her wildest dreams.
This dream ends abruptly when Carrie Fisher walks in on the two of them while they’re naked in bed and says, “I told you, no prostitutes when you’re house-sitting!” It seems the guy who’s been showing our Carrie around all week is, in fact, not an agent but a lowly personal assistant to Leia Organa.
“Hot Child in the City” | “22”
Between Taylor’s Eras Tour and multiple album rereleases, the Barbie phenomenon, Y2K fashion’s return, and more, much was made about the fact that 2023 was a big year for “teenage girls in their 20s” (and 30s). This episode reminds me of that theme—and one of Taylor’s most iconic songs, “22.”
In “22,” Taylor sings about the “miserable and magical” transition from being a teenager to an adult. Turns out, this transition can extend well past a person’s 22nd birthday, as Carrie shows us when she regresses back to her teens while dating the owner of a comic book store (alias: Power Lad). This includes accepting homemade cookies from Power Lad’s mom (whom he lives with), sneakily smoking pot, and going to an arcade for a date. By the end of the episode, Carrie has dumped Power Lad and instead smokes his leftover pot with the girls. They’re happy, free, confused, and lonely in the best way.
“Frenemies” | “Bad Blood”
“Baby, now we’ve got bad blood.”
This episode sees a few conflicts reminiscent of Taylor’s frenemy anthem. First, Miranda meets a long-ago ex of Carrie’s. Carrie warns her that he’s a huge asshole, but Miranda decides to go out with him anyway. Carrie hates loves being able to say “I told you so” when the guy does prove to be the worst.
Second, Charlotte—who’s still struggling to ignite her sex life with Trey—has a brief falling-out with Samantha over her cavalier attitude about sex. It was definitely hitting Charlotte where she was weak. Thankfully, by the end of the episode, Charlotte has (finally) successfully slept with Trey, and she and Samantha have patched up the bullet holes in their friendship.
“What Goes Around Comes Around” | “Karma”
Don’t think this one requires a ton of explanation. In this episode, Carrie confronts her karma for breaking up Big and Natasha’s marriage. She’s definitely envious that, for her, karma isn’t a relaxing thought.
Maybe now she’ll keep her side of the street clean.
“Cock a Doodle Do” | “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”
This episode marks a bit of a turning point between Carrie and Big, and between Carrie and Miranda for that matter. By now, we’ve seen Carrie and Big go through three separate breakups. Still, when Big calls and asks Carrie whether she’d get lunch with him, she agrees.
Miranda tells Carrie it’s a huge mistake, resulting in a giant fight. Right before the lunch, however, the two friends smooth things over, and Miranda gives Carrie some final advice: “Just don’t let him kiss you. That seems to be where you get in trouble.”
Carrie takes these words to heart and tries to dodge Big’s friendly kiss when they meet on the dock of the Central Park Boathouse, sending them both into the lake. After they shower (separately) at Big’s apartment, they have an interesting conversation sitting in Big’s newly painted red bedroom.
While decidedly more subdued than Taylor in “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” and perhaps a bit more eloquent in this specific instance, Carrie has come to accept that she and Big aren’t meant to be, saying to him, “Sweet friend, you and I are like that red wall. It’s a good idea in theory, but somehow … it doesn’t quite work” because … “I just, I mean, this is exhausting, you know? Like, we are never getting back together, like, ever.”
Or will they?
Season 4
“The Agony and the ‘Ex’-Tacy” | “Nothing New”
In the Season 4 premiere, Carrie turns 35, making the Taylor Swift and Phoebe Bridgers collaboration on aging, “Nothing New,” a fitting match. Throughout the episode, we see Carrie struggle with the question “What will become of me once I’ve lost my novelty?”
When she’s unintentionally stood up at her own birthday dinner, it’s like Carrie can feel time moving. How did she go from growing up to breaking down, and how long will it be cute, all this crying in her room, when you can’t blame it on her youth? “She looks like she’s been through it.”
“The Real Me” | “Style”
In this episode, Carrie walks in the New York Style fashion show, which features a mix of real people and models. Unfortunately for Carrie, she goes crashing down on the runway, tripping over the super-high heels she insisted on wearing. Her tumble on the catwalk elicits one of the most iconic lines of the series from Stanford when Heidi Klum unceremoniously steps over her: “Oh my God! She’s fashion roadkill!” Despite the embarrassment, Carrie comes back every time. Because that’s what real people do when they fall down—they get right back up and keep on walking.
“Defining Moments” | “SuperStar”
While she’s in the front row at a jazz club with Big, the bass player can’t take his eyes off Carrie. Just a wide-eyed girl, Carrie is charmed by him, despite the awkwardness with Big as the third wheel. She knew from the first note he played that she’d be breaking all her rules to see him.
So dim that spotlight: Carrie likes a jazzzzzz musician.
“What’s Sex Got to Do With It?” | “Betty”
While it’s not central to this episode, I’m going to focus on the story line in which Miranda goes “on strike” and replaces sex with chocolate. Whomst among us hasn’t used baked goods as a substitute for love?!
Miranda’s plotline gets even more relatable when one night she keeps going back for another sliver of her Betty Crocker chocolate cake until she throws it into the garbage. While still sitting at the top of the trash—“above the rim,” as George Costanza would say—Miranda goes back for yet another bite before finally dousing it in dish soap (a move I have since personally employed). She then leaves Carrie a voicemail, stating, “Your good friend Miranda Hobbes has just taken a piece of cake out of the garbage and eaten it. You’ll probably need this information when you check me into the Betty Crocker clinic.”
Miranda, I won’t make assumptions about why you ate the cake out of the trash, but I think it’s because you’re horny.
“Ghost Town” | “Haunted”
In this episode both Carrie and Miranda are haunted by the spirits of relationships past when they’re invited to the opening of Scout, the new bar that their respective ex-boyfriends Aidan and Steve are opening together.
Miranda is haunted by the knowledge that she always encouraged Steve to open his own bar but that he didn’t do it until they were no longer in a relationship. She says, “Why couldn’t he have been this ambitious when he was with me?” Carrie, on the other hand, fears that the way she treated Aidan will haunt her for the rest of her life. When she sees him at the opening, however, she realizes that her feelings for Aidan are not in the past, but very much still present.
Something keeps her holding on to nothing; she can’t turn back now, she’s haunted.
“Baby, Talk Is Cheap” | “Foolish One”
Carrie haltingly pursues her feelings for Aidan by calling and hanging up before he can answer. When she comes clean to the girls about wanting him back, Miranda suggests a “safe approach”—email, in case he rejects her. Like a foolish one, she keeps checking her (AOL) mailbox for confessions of love.
She eventually sets up a double whatever with Miranda, Steve, and Aidan. During the not-date, Aidan gives her just enough attention to keep her hopes high. He’s initially hesitant, but by the end of the episode, they’ve officially decided to give it another shot.
“Time and Punishment” | “Breathe”
In Season 3, we had the incredibly cringe back-to-back combo of Carrie not believing in bisexuality and Samantha saying, “And your okra wasn’t all that!” to a Black man she dated. But this is another of the cringiest moments in the series, and one of my least favorite episodes to rewatch. Why?
Well, a lot of reasons, but mostly because of the scene when Carrie repeats, “You have to forgive me, you have to forgive me” to Aidan with increasing urgency. It makes me sad and uncomfortable and annoyed all at once. Luckily for Carrie, her imitation of Taylor and Colbie Caillat’s incessant “I’m sorry” during the “Breathe” outro is effective. Aidan forgives her, and she doesn’t have to breathe without him.
“My Motherboard, My Self” | “Marjorie”
In this episode, Miranda’s mom dies unexpectedly. While Miranda wasn’t particularly close with her mother, it’s a very emotional episode; whenever I watch it, I reflect on mother-daughter relationships (or grandmother-granddaughter relationships, in the case of Taylor and Marjorie Finlay).
“I should’ve asked you questions / I should have asked you how to be / Asked you to write it down for me / Should’ve kept every grocery store receipt / ’Cause every scrap of you would be taken from me” are some of Taylor’s most heartbreaking lyrics, and they fit the episode, as it’s one of Sex and the City’s most emotional.
(P.S., I love you, Mom, a.k.a. Donna.)
“Sex and the Country” | “You All Over Me”
“The way the tires turn stones on old county roads / They leave ’em muddy underneath” reminds me of this episode, in which Carrie reluctantly leaves Manhattan for Aidan’s country cabin. Not only does she end up covered in mud while trying to help Aidan in one scene, but she also lives, learns, and gets burned when a squirrel startles her as she’s taking a hot pie crust out of the oven. After that, Carrie wastes time, loses tears, and swears that she’ll get out of there, but she and Aidan eventually settle on a compromise: She’ll come to the country house just on weekends.
“Belles of the Balls” | “The Man”
This episode explores the double standard that all women live with daily—but especially a woman like Taylor Swift. Similar to Taylor, Samantha is frustrated when a prospective client, hotel magnate Richard Wright, says he can’t hire her because he wants to hire a businessMAN—you know, someone less emotional. At drinks with the girls, Samantha explains, “A guy gets angry in a meeting, he’s a pistol. A woman? She’s emotional. What does he think I’m going to do—get my period and ruin his empire?”
The next time she sees Mr. Wright, he admits that Samantha is the best person for the job but explains he won’t hire her because she slept with the hotel’s architect. “If I was a guy, you would have shaken my hand, bought me Scotch, and given me a key to an office,” she replies.
Preach, Samantha. Aren’t we all so sick and tired of running as fast as we can, wondering if we’d get there faster if we were men?
“Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda” | “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve”
The nearly identical titles make these an easy pairing. I struggled with whether or not to put these two together, however, because there’s not much else connecting them, other than that they’re both about pretty intense subjects. In this episode, Miranda contemplates getting an abortion following a one-time romantic rekindling with Steve. This is all made more fraught by Charlotte’s ongoing struggles with fertility. In the song “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve,” Taylor sings about a relationship from her youth with an older man (presumably John Mayer) that left her deeply scarred. Miranda, at least, won’t be left wondering since she ultimately decides to have the baby.
“Just Say Yes” | “Love Story”
When Carrie discovers an (unfortunate-looking) engagement ring in Aidan’s gym bag, she throws up. She tells the girls about the discovery, asking what she should do, and Charlotte insists, “Just say ‘Yes.’”
Later, while walking Pete, Aidan kneels to the ground and pulls out a (different, much better) ring. Despite her uncertainty about whether she’s the “marrying kind,” in that moment Carrie embraces her and Aidan’s love story and just says “Yes.”
“The Good Fight” | “The Other Side of the Door”
In the heat of the fight, Carrie walked away, leaving Aidan on the other side of the door. They’d had a massive argument while trying to make room for his stuff in the apartment. After the fight, Carrie and her stupid pride sit in Starbucks alone, where she keeps going over things they both said and remembers the slamming door.
She eventually realizes all she really wants is Aidan—even with his shoe-eating dog, five almost-empty deodorants, and Rogaine.
“All That Glitters” | “Bejeweled”
And by the way, Carrie’s going out with the girls tonight.
In this episode, Carrie’s desire to go out on the town and Aidan’s inclination to stay in present a problem. What’s more, Carrie “keeps forgetting she’s engaged,” similar to Taylor, who could still say, “I don’t remember” when the band asks if she has a man.
Best believe both Carrie and Taylor are still bejeweled. When they walk into the room, they “can still make the whole place shimmer.”
“Change of a Dress” | “Midnight Rain”
Taylor sums up the crux of Carrie and Aidan’s relationship pretty succinctly in “Midnight Rain.” Ultimately, Aidan wanted a bride, and Carrie wanted that pain, too afraid to commit to marriage.
They officially end their engagement after Aidan suggests an elopement to an unreceptive Carrie. “If you don’t want to marry me right now, you’ll never want to marry me,” he says.
He was sunshine, she was midnight rain, and Carrie broke his heart (for the second time) ’cause he was nice.
“Ring a Ding Ding” | “Happiness”
This episode starts when Aidan moves out, which is followed by Carrie’s realization that she needs to either buy her apartment somehow or move. Given her penchant for shoes, Carrie doesn’t have enough money for a down payment. The situation is a true double whammy—no apartment, no Aidan. “No one teaches you what to do when a good man hurts you and you know you hurt him, too.”
Later, Carrie and Charlotte get into an argument over money, or rather, the fact that Charlotte isn’t offering to loan her any (after Samantha, Miranda, and even Big do). At the end of the episode, however, Charlotte gives Carrie her old engagement ring for the down payment, turning her painful past into a hopeful future.
Both women are single again, having broken up with quality men for good reasons. All they can hope is that there will be happiness after their exes, even while they know that there was happiness because of their exes. Both of those things can be true.
“A Vogue Idea” | “Cardigan”
Just like Carrie writing for Vogue, Taylor describes quite a few pieces of clothing and accessories in “Cardigan.” Most obviously there’s the titular cardigan, but there’s also the vintage tee, black lipstick, high heels on cobblestones, and someone dancing in Levi’s.
The real reason this song and episode connect goes beyond fashion, however. While working with Julian, an older editor at Vogue, on her first freelance piece, Carrie wonders whether all her problems with men stem from the fact that her father abandoned her when she was young. He left “like a father, running like water,” and her nearly nonexistent relationship with her dad haunts all of her what-ifs.
Unfortunately, Julian is not the sweet father figure he initially portrayed himself to be, eventually hitting on Carrie. “When you are young, they assume you know nothing.”
“I Heart NY” | “Come Back … Be Here”
In the Season 4 finale, Miranda has her baby and Samantha catches a cheating Richard in the act, but the main focus is the surprise revelation that Big is leaving New York. Carrie is shocked by the news and insists that he can’t “slink out of town this way,” saying he owes it to her and New York to have a “proper goodbye.”
The night of their farewell date, Carrie and Big stumble through the long goodbye and one last kiss in a Central Park horse-drawn carriage. Then Carrie gets a call that Miranda is in labor and rushes to the hospital, cutting the romantic evening short. The next day Carrie tries to catch Big before his flight but finds his apartment empty, except for a vinyl record he gifted her and a plane ticket so that she can come visit him.
That’s when the feeling sinks in; she doesn’t wanna miss him like this. But as Carrie says, “People come into your life and people go. But it’s comforting to know the ones you love are always in your heart. And if you’re very lucky, a plane ride away.”
Season 5
“Anchors Away” | “Mad Woman”
There’s nothing like a mad woman, and that’s definitely the case as Samantha copes with the discovery that Richard has been “eating another woman’s sushi.” She throws a dirty martini in his face and papers his neighborhood with flyers to let everyone know that he’s a liar and a cheater, but hey—as Taylor would say, Richard made her like that.
“Unoriginal Sin” | “Innocent”
In this episode, Steve convinces Miranda to get Brady baptized just “in case, so the baby doesn’t end up in limbo.” She agrees only after finding a very accommodating priest who strikes a variety of words from the ceremony, including “Catholic,” “original sin,” “Satan,” and “the devil.”
Miranda tells Carrie how ridiculous she thinks the whole thing is while they’re shopping for the christening gown, saying, “It’s all about cleansing this little baby of his sins when clearly babies come into this world with a clean slate and we’re the ones who fuck ’em up.” Unlike the 32-year-old man who stormed an award stage during someone else’s acceptance speech (ahem, Kanye), Brady is actually still an innocent.
“Luck Be an Old Lady” | “New Year’s Day”
At Carrie’s urging, the girls take an impromptu trip to Atlantic City to celebrate Charlotte’s 35th birthday, the sequel (a.k.a. her 36th). At the casino, there’s glitter on the floor and girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby. The entire time, Carrie is trying to get her friends to take a picture so that they can hold on to the memories, but everyone has different priorities: Miranda wants to gamble, Charlotte is preoccupied, worrying that she’s become an old maid, and Samantha is frantic, as she’s been trying to keep an eye on the cheating Richard since she took him back.
Still, the four girls know it’s gonna be a long road and that they’ll stay when it’s hard or it’s wrong or they’re making mistakes. While it’s not a Polaroid on the hardwood floor, Carrie eventually gets someone to take a picture of them on a disposable camera while they’re on the shuttle back to New York. “The memories, they will hold on to you.”
“Cover Girl” | “I Knew You Were Trouble”
Carrie knows she’s in trouble when she walks in and sees Samantha kneeling on the cold hard ground, giving a blow job to the Worldwide Express guy in her office. After the incident and disagreements about what constitutes a “sexy chic” outfit for Carrie’s book cover, the two women have an argument, and Samantha accuses Carrie of judging her. Later, Samantha insists no apologies are necessary, but Carrie owns up to judging her friend a little, and shame on her—especially after how good Samantha was to Carrie after the whole Big, married man affair.
“Plus One Is the Loneliest Number” | “Enchanted”
In this episode, Carrie meets fellow writer Jack Berger for the first time. She was enchanted to meet him: The playful conversation starts, and she counters all his quick remarks like they’re passing notes in secrecy. As Carrie’s voiceover tells us, “We were having one of those great first dates you can only have when it’s not an actual date.”
When Berger casually mentions his live-in girlfriend, Carrie is beyond bummed to find out he’s in love with someone else. Still, she’s praying that this was the very first page and not where the story line ends for her and Berger.
“Critical Condition” | “Shake It Off”
Carrie struggles with the opinions of others in this episode, including those of the woman who dated Aidan after she did (a.k.a. the “face girl”) and the New York Times book critic. You know, the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, but you’ve just got to shake it off.
It’s like Samantha tells her: “Honey, you have to let it go. If I worried about what every bitch in New York was saying about me, I’d never leave the house.”
“The Big Journey” | “Champagne Problems”
Carrie booked the three-night train for a reason. Bustling crowds (including the Amish in the club car) or the fact that the “deluxe” sleeper is more like a tuna can for her and Samantha to share—she’s not sure which is worse.
By the time they reach Pittsburgh, Carrie and Samantha deeply regret their choice to take a train instead of flying to San Francisco for Carrie’s book reading. And thanks to a massive pimple, Carrie doesn’t even want to see Big while in the Bay Area anymore. Things go from bad to worse when Samantha is rejected by a bachelor party in the club car and ends up drinking an entire bottle of Champagne herself.
“I’m having an existenti—you know, a midlife thing,” she drunkenly tells Carrie before insisting they get another bottle of bubbly to celebrate that Carrie’s popped her pimple.
“Dom Perignon she bought it / They called it Champagne problems.”
“I Love a Charade” | “Electric Touch”
Is this episode the reason I’m having my bachelorette party in the Hamptons? Obviously Perhaps. Anyway, the girls head to the beach for the perplexing wedding of Bobby Fine (whom we can assume is gay), played by the hilarious Nathan Lane, and Bitsy von Muffling.
While there, Carrie runs into Berger, who is now single (!!). Carrie tells herself to just breathe, just relax, it’ll be OK for the first time ever hanging out with him. But they’ve both got a history of stories ending sadly: While commiserating about their past relationships, Carrie is “emotionally slutty,” revealing too much too soon, including details about her painful breakup with Aidan. This spooks Berger, who seems to have his money on things going badly, and he abruptly ends their conversation.
She sees him later that weekend, and he apologizes for how he acted, saying, “I just wasn’t sure if I was up for all that again. And then I thought, maybe we should go out on a date before we break up.” Sounds like her electric touch could either break his heart or bring it back to life.
Season 6
“To Market, to Market” | “Begin Again”
In the Season 6 premiere, Carrie obsesses ahead of her first official date with Berger. She’s spent the past however many months since the Aidan breakup thinking all love ever does is break and burn and end.
Their first date might not be on a Wednesday in a café—it’s actually a Friday at the movies—but she watches it begin again.
“Great Sexpectations” | “Dress”
A few weeks into dating, Carrie and Berger’s chemistry appears to be off the charts. As she says, in those early days, everything is like foreplay … all of this silence and patience, pining and anticipation, desperately waiting, her hands are shaking from all this.
And then they sleep together. The first couple of times it’s a letdown, to say the least. But she doesn’t want him like a best friend and is determined to spice things up between them. She buys lingerie and furry shoes with Samantha so that he can take them off. Thankfully, third time’s the charm, and they finally have good sex by the end of the episode.
“The Perfect Present” | “Closure”
Berger opens the “ex files,” telling Carrie a bit about his former girlfriend Lauren. It’s all fairly innocuous until Berger gives the double finger to his answering machine while Lauren is leaving him a message. Later, Carrie asks him what the deal is, and he explains that his ex broke his heart: It cut deep to know her, right to the bone. Lauren apparently keeps reaching out about getting lunch for “closure,” but Berger’s doing better, knows that it’s over, and doesn’t need her closure.
“Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little” | “Afterglow”
Charlotte has converted to Judaism so that she can be with Harry. For her first official Shabbat, she’s gone all out—making brisket, matzo balls, challah, and more. But when Harry won’t turn off the Mets game for dinner, she loses it. Flying off the handle, she demands that he “set the date” and asks whether he knows how lucky he is to have her and what other people think when they see them together.
He’s understandably taken aback and leaves. Charlotte realizes she blew things out of proportion and now both she and Harry are blue. As Taylor sings, “Fighting with a true love is boxing with no gloves / Chemistry till it blows up, till there’s no us.”
She’s devastated to realize she’s the one who burned them down, but it’s not what she meant. She’s sorry that she hurt him, but it’s too late. Harry won’t meet her in the afterglow. As Carrie says, “Just what New York needs: another single Jewish girl.”
“Lights, Camera, Relationship!” | “Out of the Woods”
Taylor shared that this song was about an anxiety-inducing relationship that never felt like it was on solid ground; day-to-day, she wasn’t sure where it was going. It’s a perfect comparison to Carrie and Berger’s relationship, which is starting to show cracks even though they haven’t been together very long. After each argument, you can tell that Carrie is wondering, “Are we out of the woods yet? Are we in the clear yet?”
There’s so much good between her and Berger, and she wants it to work … but they might just be two paper airplanes flying, flying, flying.
“Hop, Skip, and a Week” | “All You Had to Do Was Stay”
Things continue to be rocky between Carrie and Berger. After dinner one night, he abruptly tells her that he thinks they should take a break and that he’s going to his Hamptons house to think. “What am I? Some horrible job he needs to get away from?” she asks the girls when she informs them of the situation. She goes on to say that things are complicated, and “complicated by the fact that the man had to go all the way to Long Island to think this through.”
Berger eventually comes back to the city and seems like he wants to try to work things out, bringing Carrie a bouquet of pink carnations (more on those later …), which is a little inside joke between them. All he had to do was stay through the night; he had Carrie right in the palm of his hand. But instead, she wakes up to an empty apartment and a Post-it note that reads, “I’m sorry. I can’t. Don’t hate me.”
“The Post-it Always Sticks Twice” | “Maroon”
Ah, the Post-it episode—my favorite episode of all time. While “Illicit Affairs” was the first Taylor Swift song that immediately made me think of a specific Sex and the City episode, the “Maroon” lyric “Carnations you had thought were roses, that’s us” is what convinced me that (1) I could find a connection between every episode and a Taylor song and (2) Taylor must also be a Carrie Bradshaw disciple.
There are so many amazing things that happen in this episode—Smith on TRL, the rant to Berger’s friend, the drunk bachelorette party at the bar, Carrie’s arrest for “smoking a doobie”—but really, the episode is about how Carrie has to come to terms with the fact that Berger is not the man she thought he was and that their relationship isn’t what she thought it was. They were never roses, just “filler flowers.”
“The Catch” | “Jump Then Fall”
Charlotte is lucky enough to have found a man like Harry, who will catch her when the bottom drops out from under her feet and when people say things that bring her to her knees. She loses sight of that momentarily at their wedding, preoccupied by the mishaps that are marring their ceremony. Carrie’s pep talk reminds her of what the day is really about, and she’s able to let go of the day being “perfect” and instead jump then fall into her life with Harry.
“A Woman’s Right to Shoes” | “The Outside”
In this episode, Carrie attends a party to celebrate a friend’s new baby. When she arrives, she learns her shoes will need to stay on the outside because the couple is asking everyone to leave them at the door to avoid dragging in germs. When it’s time for her to leave, Carrie’s shoes have already departed, and she’s naturally devastated about the loss of her Manolos. The hostess initially doesn’t offer to pay for the shoes, then says she will when Carrie follows up in a few days to see whether they’ve turned up. After Carrie tells her how much they cost ($485), the woman makes some snide comments about how she has a “real life” and doesn’t want to pay that much for Carrie’s extravagant lifestyle. If you read between the lines, she’s basically saying that because Carrie is single and childless, her life isn’t “real.”
Carrie is rightfully incensed, especially when she realizes she’s spent thousands of dollars on this woman over the years for engagement, wedding, and baby gifts. Just because she took the road less traveled by doesn’t mean her life isn’t real or that her life choices are less worthy of celebration. To prove her point, Carrie tells the friend she’s marrying herself and registers for the shoes. One giant step for Carrie, one small step for single woman–kind.
“Boy Interrupted” | “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince”
This episode is filled with high school motifs, similar to “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince.” It’s been a long time coming, but Carrie dates her high school boyfriend again and is crazier for him than she was at 16.
Miranda has a crush on her new neighbor, Dr. Robert Leeds (Blair Underwood), and is jealous of a Knicks cheerleader she thinks he likes. He kisses her in their building’s mail room, however, and all the other neighbors whisper in the hallway, “She’s a bad, bad girl.” She’s voted most likely to run away with him, and they start dating.
“The Domino Effect” | “My Tears Ricochet”
In this episode, Big comes to New York for heart surgery. When he tells Carrie about it over dinner, she immediately bursts into tears. She breaks down in tears again when she tells the girls about it a few days later, and then again when she visits him in the hospital.
“Look at how her tears ricochet.”
“One” | “The 1”
Carrie is doing good, she’s on some new shit. She’s been saying “yes” instead of “no”—like when she goes to a bizarre performance art exhibit with Charlotte, where she meets Russian artist Aleksandr Petrovsky. She also says “yes” to going on a date with him.
Meanwhile, Brady turns 1, and at his birthday party Steve and Miranda realize they were something, don’t you think so?
I guess you never know, never know. And it’s all right now that they realized they are the ones for each other and get back together.
“Let There Be Light” | “Lover”
“Uncomfortable with my taking a lover?” Carrie asks Miranda after telling the girls that she intends to pursue a (mainly physical) relationship with Aleksandr. Charlotte asks whether he could be more than a lover, but Carrie insists that the only place this relationship is going is “Loverville.” It’s true that there’s a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about him, and Carrie is highly suspicious that everyone who sees him wants him, even consulting Google to read about all his former girlfriends. After she sleeps with this magnetic force of a man, she realizes she might want a bit more … and swears to be overdramatic and true to her lover.
“The Ick Factor” | “New Romantics”
Carrie is now dating Aleksandr and is thrown off by his romantic gestures—like when he reads her poetry or plays a song he wrote for her on the piano. She feels like she’s time traveled from New York City circa now, a.k.a. the era of the “New Romantics,” into 18th-century Russia.
When he stops in the street and says “Please, take my hand” and “Please, take me dancing,” she can’t take it anymore and faints. She tells him he has to take it down a notch, and he obliges, forgoing their planned trip to the opera to go to McDonald’s. “Baby, they’re the new romantics / The best people in life are free.”
“Catch-38” | “I Know Places”
In this episode, Miranda and Steve know places they can hide, going to a remote cabin for their honeymoon. Much to Miranda’s chagrin, it’s a place they won’t be found; she quickly gets antsy being in such a secluded place with no connection to the outside world and nothing but sex on the itinerary.
“Out of the Frying Pan” | “Soon You’ll Get Better”
Carrie tells the Russian that Samantha is undergoing chemo for breast cancer, and he proceeds to tell her about a friend of his who died from the same disease. This ultimately escalates into their first fight; Carrie feels he’s being insensitive, while the Russian thinks she’s in denial. Carrie knows delusion when she sees it in the mirror, but as she tells the Russian, “Samantha is my friend. She’s my family. My insides. She will be fine because she has to be fine. That’s how important she is to me.”
Soon she’ll get better, she’ll get better soon. ’Cause she has to.
“The Cold War” | “Blank Space”
In this episode, rumors fly about Smith’s sexuality after he’s pictured with Stanford and his boyfriend Marcus. Initially, Samantha isn’t bothered—she knows you’ve heard about her—since she has a long list of ex-lovers and a reputation for having the “hottest sex life in New York City.” When she overhears some young PR girls calling her Smith’s beard in less delicate terms, however, she’s suddenly bothered and resolves to put a sex tape out to set the record straight about her sexual prowess.
Miranda accidentally sees the X-rated film online, leaving her with a nasty scar. Maybe Samantha did take things way too far, but that’s what happens sometimes when you’re young and you’re restless.
“Splat!” | “Run”
In “Run” Taylor sings, “We shouldn’t be in this town / And my so-called friends, they don’t know / I’d drive away before I let you go.” That’s kind of what happens when the Russian invites Carrie to go to Paris with him and the girls (mostly Miranda) aren’t the most supportive. Even though this thing was a shot in the dark and Carrie didn’t expect to get serious with the Russian, she decides she won’t let them tear her and Aleksandr apart. She and Miranda ultimately have a shouting match on the street, and Carrie challenges her to admit that she doesn’t like Aleksandr. When she finally does, Carrie retorts, “Then don’t you go to Paris with him.”
She’s decided she’s going to run, run from it all to be with Aleksandr.
“An American Girl in Paris (Part Une)” | “Paris”
In the penultimate episode of the series, Carrie finally goes to “Paris.” When she arrives, she’s so in love she might stop breathing, thrilled to be back with Alek and taking in the city she’s dreamed about visiting for years.
Romance is not dead if you keep it just yours, but unfortunately, it’s not just Carrie and the Russian. It’s Carrie, the Russian, and the museum: He’s quite busy preparing for his exhibit, and she’s left wandering the streets alone much of the time. But she’s in Paris, my love, and trying to make the most of it.
“An American Girl in Paris (Part Deux)” | “Exile”
Carrie starts the episode still in her self-imposed exile in Paris. There were so many signs that things between her and Aleksandr weren’t going well, and she couldn’t turn things around no matter how hard she tried. It finally blows up when she skips a dinner with new friends for Alek and he abandons her on a museum bench and then, back at the hotel, dismisses her feelings about how things have been going.
Meanwhile, Big—who was encouraged by the girls back in New York—arrives in Paris to tell Carrie how he feels. She can see him staring like the Russian’s just his understudy, like he’d get his knuckles bloody for her.
So now, on their second, third, and hundredth chances, it seems Carrie and Big have finally figured it out and head back to New York together to live happily ever after.
Bonus Track: Final Quote | “You’re on Your Own, Kid”
To end the series, we see how Charlotte’s, Miranda’s, and Samantha’s story lines wrap up while Carrie’s voiceover tells us:
Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging, and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that’s just fabulous.
I can’t help but think it’s eerily reminiscent of the “You’re on Your Own, Kid” bridge, in which Taylor sings:
From sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes
I gave my blood, sweat, and tears for this
I hosted parties and starved my body
Like I’d be saved by a perfect kiss
The jokes weren’t funny, I took the money
My friends from home don’t know what to say
I looked around in a blood-soaked gown
And I saw something they can’t take away
’Cause there were pages turned with the bridges burned
Everything you lose is a step you take
So make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it
You’ve got no reason to be afraid
You’re on your own, kid
Yeah, you can face this
You’re on your own, kid
You always have been
So there you have it: all 94 episodes of Sex and the City as Taylor Swift songs, plus one to grow on! If any of this was confusing to you, don’t worry: Sex and the City has just been added to Netflix in its entirety, and we’ve made this handy Spotify playlist so that you can easily listen to the companion song for each episode.
Grab a cosmo and cozy up on the couch. Looks like you’ve got plans to catch up with Taylor and Carrie. And that’s just fabulous.
Carolyn Linck is a corporate communications professional and occasional writer who enjoys listening to Taylor Swift and napping while her fiancé watches golf. She is based in Chicago.
