'The Carrie Diaries' Eighties Decoder: A cosmopolitan in the limelight

Sarah D. Bunting



Nothing like shoving plots forward, eh? Not that we're complaining; why drag out the Sebastian/Carrie pairing? No doubt some other wrinkle will come up, but for now, Sebastian has dumped Donna, gone looking for Carrie at Limelight (trailed by the Mouse, who in turn is trailed by a cloud of SAT-study synonyms), and ended up across from her at "her" diner booth.

Donna, meanwhile, asked Sebastian to keep the dumping a secret so she could save face – then leveraged the school lock-in/sleepover she's presiding over to 1) tell him Maggie cheated on him with Deputy Ick and 2) claim Walt as her boyfriend. The…next day. So high school, we love it. (We also love that Donna's favorite movie is "Rocky III." "Mr. T? Yes please!" We totally agree.) Maggie is devastated – too devastated to point out to the writers that Walt is supposed to be questioning his sexuality.

Elsewhere, Dad lets himself get talked into a double date with Harlan, and the date ends up…at Limelight, where Carrie and Dad spot each other bugging out on the big screens and Carrie's carefully constructed "secret life" blows up in her face. Larissa, far from being horrified that Carrie is only 16, congratulates herself for having the youngest intern in the Big Apple. We were horrified that she thought Harlan was cute, and that we the viewers had to endure yet another "Carrie, it's like I don't even know you anymore because you did this typical teenage thing" lecture from Pops.

Not a bad episode, but no Dorrit, and can we just say that the Jens both look old enough to have worn those neon fashions the first time around? Pretty ladies, buuuut not passing for 17.

Totally Awesome '80s


"Interview" photo editor Bennett sputters about computers being a fad, and doesn't know what a floppy disk is.

Many references to then-recent films like "Sixteen Candles," "The Flamingo Kid," and "Tender Mercies," plus we find out that Maggie's favorite song is "Our Lips Are Sealed." Barbara, Carrie's direct boss at the law firm, is covering for her on the internship front, so she's deemed "Bodacious Barbara" for helping out. Later, when Maggie has just gotten dumped by Walt and wants to break out of the lock-in, she yells at someone that her freakout is about to get "gnarly." The Limelight scenes, of course, and Larissa grumbling that, to use the ladies', she had to wait in line "to do a line."

Carrie is wearing acid-wash jeans with a French cuff.

As Dad yells Carrie on the streets of Manhattan (where there's always ample parking and nobody's getting their hubcaps pinched…okay, show), there's a Mercedes SL class convertible parked in the background. Classic status car of the era.

Anachronisms


Mouse tells Sebastian to "Use your words."

Twitter's take:



"Sex and the City" references


Carrie gets to model shoes for an "Interview" photo shoot. After voice-overing, "Who needed Sebastian when I had these?", she finds out she gets to keep them, and is all naïve about not only what magazines do with samples, but who made the shoe: "They're Blue-nick somebody's." …Geddit? "Blahnik"?

At the diner, Maggie and Mouse convince Sebastian that, to win Carrie back over, he needs a grand gesture. Shades of Miranda telling Mr. Big to "go get our girl" in Paris. A guy at Limelight orders Carrie a Cosmopolitan. "I think this is going to be my drink!" This and the Manolos references in one episode was a little much, we thought. What'd you think? Talk to us about the Maggie/Walt bust-up, that awful cover of the Smiths, and anything else about the show in the comments!

Austin "Sebastian" Butler on what buys happiness:



"The Carrie Diaries" airs Mondays at 8 PM on the CW.