Season 3- Sex in the City recap

I'm running out of time. The movie comes out tomorrow, so I have to get you adequately caught up. Okay, Carrie starts dating a politician. Actually he is running for City Comptroller, and if anyone has any idea what a City Comptroller actually does I will give them a shiny dime. Things are going great until he lets her in on his golden showers fantasy. When she tells him she is just not into that, he suddenly explains to her that his advisors don't think its a great idea for him to be dating a sex columnist, and it is splitsville. She doesn't name names, but she outs his "pee on me" fantasy in her column. Miranda hires a housekeeper, because she is too busy to keep her own apartment clean. Her name is Magda, she is eastern European with a fantastic accent, and she wants to change Miranda's life. She switches her coffee to tea, and her vibrator with a statue of the Virgin Mary. When Magda tells her she will never get a man as long as she "doesn't need one", Miranda threatens to fire her. She doesn't and Magda makes a nice little shrine in Miranda's "goodie drawer." And Carrie makes a big deal about going to this event she doesn't really want to go to just because she knows that Big's wife, Natasha, will be there. But on the day of the event, Carrie looks fab, Samantha on her arm, and Natasha isn't there because she was struck by her own beauty. And everyone talks about how sweet and wonderful Natasha is. All Samantha can dig up is from some old roommate in college who could only say that Natasha gained some weight and was a little promiscuous. Whatever. Oh, Steve and Miranda get back together, and he is moving fast. Like move in fast. But they work it out, for a while.
Okay, so Stanford drags Carrie to a store to meet the most beautiful man. And he was not kidding. Aiden Shaw is a furniture maker who wears denim like Ralph Lauren and keeps his dog Pete with him in the store. He is beautiful, and Carrie gets him to ask her out. So their date is going great until he finds out she smokes. He won't date a smoker. Carrie tries to quit on her own, because suddenly she decides to be an adult, but it doesn't quite go to plan and Aiden catches her picking a cigarette out of the gutter to smoke after she ditches him at a diner. In the end, Aiden and the patch wins. And he is perfect. He rips old leather off of box cars to salvage for his pieces, and he is not rushing in to sleep with Carrie, leaving her very confused. They all start asking if maybe they are slutty, when Charlotte's man calls her horrible names when they are in bed together (and he doesn't even realize it), Miranda finds out she got Chlamydia, and Samantha almost gets kicked out of her co-op for letting in men at all hours of the night which leads to a burglary. After Charlotte accidentally propositions one of her male married friends, she runs out into the street and is almost hit by a cab. Inside that cab is a very handsome doctor named Trey McDougal. This is the beginning of a world-wind romance where Charlotte essentially proposes herself, but she gets the Tiffany diamond- so it's all good. Samantha moves into a new apartment in the trendy meatpacking district (not a euphemism), and Miranda deals with yet another break-up with Steve. Steve wanted a baby, and Miranda wanted him to stop being a baby. Its very sad and he has to help him find a new apartment, and its all very awkward. But the Big news is Big and Natasha run into Carrie and Aiden at some furniture expo. Natasha is practically dragging Big around on a leash. He hits the scotch and catches Carrie alone, where he flat out tells her that the marriage, "It's not working out." He says he's going to leave Natasha. So he starts calling Carrie, and walking down her block, and she tells him to go away, but he won't. In the meantime, Aiden becomes even more perfect by telling Carrie he wants to refinish her floors and make her home really nice. Awww. We love him. So when the noise of all the renovations send Carrie to a hotel to write, Big follows her. She is firm and tells him to leave her alone. He follows her into an elevator where she yells at him and hits him and tells him its not fair what he's doing to her, and its also really hot and they end up sleeping together. But it doesn't stop there. The affair continues for weeks. Carrie tells Samantha that she's been meeting Big at hotels, and Samantha is sympathetic. Carrie eventually she tells Miranda, who tries not to be judgmental, but she can't tell Charlotte who is in the process of planning the perfect wedding . Her wedding planner is the most enthusiastic gay man, Anthony, who becomes one of her closest friends. Carrie is chilling at Big and Natasha's pad when Natasha comes home early from the Hamptons. Natasha chases Carrie down a flight of stairs. Natasha falls and smashes her face. And there is no one to take her to the hospital except Carrie. Big meets them at the emergency room and Carrie tells him they are DONE. Then she tells Aiden about the affair, and he can't forgive her. They break up at Charlotte and Trey's wedding.
Now, all of a sudden Hollywood is calling for Carrie Bradshaw to make a movie out of her column. So the girls, minus Charlotte, head off to California. Charlotte is back at home dealing with her overbearing in-laws and her husband's impotence. Apparently waiting until your wedding night to have sex is a horrible idea. When she can't deal with it anymore, she meets the girls in LA. Carrie mets Matthew McConaughey who wants to play Big in the movie, Samantha dates a sex toy model who writes poetry (gag) and Miranda deals with the insecurities of being Miranda. She should have packed her shrink. Carrie and Samantha end up going to the Valley to purchase some fake Fendi purses out of the back of some guy's car, and suddenly I have a childhood flashback of my mother gluing a Dooney and Burke label on a bag to sell at a flea market. The fake Fendi's become this huge metaphor about how in LA, "Its whats on the outside, not on the inside." The final LA scene lands the girls at the Playboy mansion, and Samantha accuses a Playboy Bunny of stealing her fake Fendi. When the Bunny whips out the label on her real Fendi, the girls are kicked out of the mansion and high tail it back to Manhattan.
Once they are back, it is business as usual, and I never realized this season was so long. Carrie and the girls reclaim their girlhood when Carrie dates a guy who gets high and lives with his parents, Samantha plans a 13 year old's bat mitzvah and the girl is like a little Samantha with all the BJ talk, and Charlotte catches Trey getting his rocks off to a dirty magazine. What? I thought you were impotent. Apparently he has some Mommie issues. Charlotte eventually moves out. And Carrie gets this idea in her head that Karma is paying her back for the affair with Big when someone steals the Manolos off her feet in the middle of the street in broad daylight. She decides she needs to make amends with Natasha, who basically says, I don't owe you anything Carrie Bradshaw- You slept with my husband. So then, Carrie decides she needs to get closure with Big, and Miranda tells her that is a huge mistake. They get in this huge fight where Miranda tells her she is not going to come in and pick up the pieces when Big crushes her again, and Carrie accuses Miranda of giving up on her just like she did Steve. And this is like a friendship killer fight, but they work it out, like they do. And Carrie goes to see Big, and after falling in a lake in Central Park, she tells him that they just don't work.