A reader has asked what I thought of last night's Sex in the City.
Heavy Sigh.
It was so dumb, dumber than usual, and so ill-informed...
See, Miranda's this chick who's a lawyer. Last season, she had ...uh..mercy sex with her ex-boyfriend Steve the bartender because he'd been diagnosed with testicular cancer, only had one left, and was feeling insecure. So, of course, she got pregnant. Had the baby in the last show of last season, fights over territory with Steve, and in last night's episode, accedes to his request that the baby get baptized, despite her own atheism.
Miranda, Steve and his blowsy mom (in a cameo by Ann Meara) meet with a Catholic priest. The potential humor lay in the fact that Miranda dealt with the baptismal rite like it was a contract up for review, red-lining objectionable points detrimental to her client's interest. I say "potential" because the scene would have been funny if she'd come up against a priest who put her in her place. But no, the priest says nothing and evidently gives in - unheard of, of course, except perhaps in some parishes in Boston, we might assume - supposedly eliminating mentions of "Satan" and so on from the rite because, as Carrie's narration intones, the Catholic Church is as desperate as (I can't remember the exact analogy) a single woman for a date...or something...implying that it will do anything for members in these troubled times.
Coming as it did on the same day a million gathered in Toronto proudly calling themselves "Catholic" and more will probably gather in Mexico and Central America under the same banner, the scene and the comments were not just typical artsy anti-Catholicism. They were just dumb anti-Catholicism. (Oh - is there any other kind? No. Sorry).
I have to say, though, that I found one tiny scene rather moving. Carrie, who is quickly becoming cyncial and bitter about love and the possibility of finding it, is (another ridiculous point) the baby's godmother. As she holds the baby and the water is poured over his head, a bit drips down on her arm. The camera hovers on the water on her arm, then focuses on Carrie's unguarded expression as, once again, her narration intones her surprised hope that perhaps this water might wash away her "unoriginal cynicism."
Three seconds of nice in thirty minutes of insults. Pretty bad ratio, but it also shows some lost potential - when supposed New York sophistication, which evidently results in nothing but unhappiness for four miserable women, is expressed without contrast to anything else meaningful you have a far less interesting show than you would if the same miserable women were offered challenges to their assumptions (which have brought them little but unhappiness) along the way.