Rightly or wrongly, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) has taken a lot of flak over the years for her behavior in Sex and the City and its sequel, And Just Like That. I have defended Carrie in the past, but I think I have found my line, and that line is being a bad neighbor.
Even before Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) suggested that Carrie “take your damn shoes off” in this week’s episode, I was already yelling similar things at the screen as Carrie’s clackety-clack montage lasted for what felt like five minutes—the rustling clothes was a great touch to up the ante. Don’t get me wrong, I will always take a fashion parade from Carrie’s eclectic closet, but wow, that repetitive noise is enough to drive anyone to complain.
Despite this sequence and Carrie’s war with her downstairs neighbor pushing me to a Carrie breaking point, a week without any Aidan (John Corbett) drama is welcome. I’ll put it on the record that I will take stilettos on floorboards over the continued attempt to make this romance work. Not to mention, Carrie, your new downstairs nemesis is a hot writer, whom you should definitely sleep with.
I’m not alone in this thinking. Thanks to paparazzi photos, viewers have been calling for this even before Jonathan Cake (married to the Julianne Nicholson IRL) made his AJLT debut as ornery Brit biographer Duncan Reeves this week. No matter how irritating, we do have to thank Carrie’s high heels on wooden floorboards for the rom-com-worthy introduction when Duncan can no longer stand to hear the sound from above.
Sure, Duncan is a little gruff when he knocks on Carrie’s back door to ask her to remove said noise-makers, but the art of a meet-cute comes as much from frustration as it does flirting.
You might be wondering where this handsome basement resident materialized from. Carrie asks Seema (Sarita Choudhury) the same question, who insists she told Carrie about Duncan when she bought the house. It sounds like a retcon addition to the Gramercy Park living arrangement, but it is also incredibly believable that Carrie wouldn’t retain this downstairs neighbor detail.
In a home that she still forgets has as many rooms as it does (yeah, that comment is more tone-deaf than the heels), Carrie struts about the place in her top-to-toe curated looks. Yes, Carrie has a right to shoes, but if she is going to insist on wearing them indoors (as Charlotte points out, it is more sanitary to remove them) then she doesn’t need to be an unreasonable a-----e about it.
Even her friends think she is taking it too far. While I have sided with Carrie on past footwear-related debates (particularly when someone took her Manolos from a shoes-off party in Season 6 of SATC), this initial inflexibility and stubbornness are inexcusable. Only two seasons ago, Carrie was annoyed to be kept up by her noisy neighbor (now friend Lisette). You would think she would have more sympathy, considering Duncan is a writer and his process means he works all night and sleeps during the day. Instead, she makes bad jokes about walking and is surprised when Duncan doesn’t crack a smile.
Okay, her gift basket is a nice gesture, even if she welcomes him to a neighborhood where he has already lived. It quickly becomes antagonistic when Carrie rejects the Amazon-purchased pink slipper solution (OK, that one I get), and waves off Duncan’s complaints about the garden renovations: “This is New York City. There’s noise.” Again, Carrie would be equally cranky if the roles were reversed.
To reduce the floorboard orchestra, she asks visitors to take their heels off or to walk on the runners she has laid down. But really there is only one solution: take the damn heels off.
Carrie is long accused of being selfish, and it is very easy to find countless think pieces charting Carrie’s wrongs over the years. Parker recently discussed the double standard to HuffPost UK about the amount of s--- Carrie gets for the mistakes she has made. I am sympathetic to Parker here; however, in the case of the heels inside, Carrie’s lack of compromise showcases why this character is often a punching bag. Yes, there is growth, but the lead-up is Carrie at her most insufferable. But where Carrie wins me back is that it turns out that Miranda is equally nightmarish this week.
Sure, Carrie can’t take off her heels, but Miranda assumes everything in Carrie’s poorly stocked fridge is fair game. Miranda has moved in temporarily because she was dealing with a nightmare neighbor (a naked man threatening her with a meat cleaver is not ideal), but she doesn’t come armed with groceries like any good guest—a detail that feels out of character. Instead, she takes the last yogurt. The days when Carrie had a cigarette for breakfast are long gone.
In the grand scheme, all of this is a very minor problem, yet AJLT has tapped into those petty gripes we face when living with or in the vicinity of others. Miranda and Carrie quickly realize they are not right to be roommates (no matter how temporary), and Carrie ends up having dinner with Duncan, trading their current writing anxieties. After they find common ground, Carrie does the impossible when she gets home: she takes off her high heels. It might be wishful thinking, but if that isn’t the start of a love story, I don’t know what is.
