231: On And Just Like That: Present Tense

Summary

Episode Summary: Every Outfit Podcast – Episode 231: "On And Just Like That: Present Tense"

Release Date: July 26, 2025

In Episode 231 of the Every Outfit podcast, hosts Chelsea Fairless and Lauren Garrone delve deep into the latest season of HBO's revival, And Just Like That: Present Tense. Drawing comparisons to its predecessor, Sex and the City, the hosts offer a comprehensive analysis of character developments, plot progressions, and the show's overall direction. This episode is structured into several key sections, each highlighting critical discussions, insights, and notable quotes from the conversation.

---

1. Introduction and Season Overview

The episode kicks off with Chelsea expressing excitement about the show's progression, particularly highlighting that a significant character, Aiden, is no longer part of the narrative.

Chelsea Fairless [01:44]: "It's good to be back and I'm just so happy today. Guys, we did it. Aiden's gone."

Lauren immediately builds on this by questioning the pacing and storytelling of the current season compared to Sex and the City.

Lauren Garrone [01:58]: "I would really love to discuss how we are nine episodes into a 12-episode season and I don't feel like much story has happened."

---

2. Comparative Analysis: And Just Like That vs. Sex and the City

Lauren contrasts the narrative density of Sex and the City Season 3 with the current pacing of And Just Like That. She enumerates the multiple plotlines in just nine episodes of the original series, emphasizing the rapid character development and story arcs achieved within a shorter timeframe.

Lauren Garrone [01:58]: "In the first nine episodes of Sex and the City season three, we get Carrie. She meets, dates, and almost outs the politician for his pee fetish... And for Samantha, we get a boyfriend of the week per episode..."

Chelsea responds by pointing out the minimal progress in the current season.

Chelsea Fairless [04:09]: "So that's how far we got in nine episodes."

Lauren then highlights what has transpired in the current season, which she finds lackluster compared to the original series.

Lauren Garrone [04:20]: "And what do we get in this season of And Just Like That? Charlotte's dog did get canceled... Also, our girl has vertigo now."

---

3. Episode Structure and Pacing Concerns

A caller named Emily shares her frustrations with the show's pacing, suggesting that episodes are being unnaturally split to extend the season length.

Caller [04:36]: "I have a theory about why last week and this week were so damn short. It's because they split what was supposed to be one very long episode into two."

Chelsea and Lauren confirm this theory, discussing how the split impacts the storytelling and character development.

Chelsea Fairless [05:04]: "You're correct, they did do that... We've heard this from multiple sources."

Lauren adds insights on how this splitting disrupts the show's rhythm.

Lauren Garrone [05:25]: "It's just odd. And I don't. To this caller's point, I actually don't think it was a higher up being like, we need 12 weeks of this. I think truly they delivered the episode. From what we've heard, it was too long and the studio forced them to split up the episode."

---

4. In-Depth Character Analysis: Carrie and Aiden

A significant portion of the episode focuses on the relationship dynamics between Carrie, Aiden, and Duncan. The hosts dissect scenes where Carrie grapples with her emotional affair with Duncan while maintaining her relationship with Aiden.

Chelsea Fairless [07:25]: "It was like, we are never getting back together."

Lauren references their "writers' room podcast" to provide behind-the-scenes insights into writers' intentions regarding Carrie's relationships.

Lauren Garrone [08:37]: "They believe she isn't having an emotional affair with Duncan. Like, they believe Carrie isn't having an emotional affair with Duncan."

Chelsea challenges this perspective, arguing that Carrie's reactions indicate deeper emotions.

Chelsea Fairless [09:29]: "She is kind of gaslighting him a little bit about this."

The discussion further explores Aiden's frustrations and insecurities, punctuated by notable quotes from the episode's transcript.

Aiden [15:32]: "It might be late."

Lauren Garrone [10:08]: "I'm an Aiden defender in this episode."

---

5. Supporting Characters and Subplots

Beyond the central Carrie-Aiden-Duncan triangle, the hosts touch upon other characters like Charlotte, Miranda, Seema, and LTW, discussing their respective storylines and how they interweave with the main narrative.

Charlotte:

Charlotte grapples with vertigo, a subplot that the hosts find minimal compared to previous character developments.

Lauren Garrone [47:45]: "Charlotte has vertigo still."

Miranda and Joy:

Miranda's struggle with alcohol and her relationship with Joy are briefly discussed, with the hosts noting a lack of depth in the current portrayal.

Lauren Garrone [50:11]: "Joy was like, 'Oh, I don't have a problem with it because I'll just, I'll just drink twice as much.'"

Seema:

Seema's deodorant debacle is analyzed humorously, highlighting unrealistic plot points.

Chelsea Fairless [42:07]: "She's like, 'I'm not this person.'"

LTW:

The hosts express frustration over LTW's underdeveloped storyline.

Lauren Garrone [52:27]: "They are just dangled in front of us like a carrot."

---

6. Pop Culture Commentary

Interspersed with their primary analysis, Chelsea and Lauren delve into contemporary pop culture events, including discussions on South Park, celebrity weddings, and fashion trends.

South Park Merger and Controversies:

The recent merger between Paramount and Skydance, and its political ramifications involving Stephen Colbert and Donald Trump, are dissected with a mix of humor and critique.

Lauren Garrone [63:15]: "So this was a bribe. I mean, it’s clear to see so much so that early last week, Colbert called out this Paramount settlement to Trump, calling it a big fat bribe."

Celebrity Fashion News:

The hosts discuss Charli XCX's wedding dress similarities to their own favorite designs and the ensuing social media frenzy.

Chelsea Fairless [60:12]: "So Charli XCX got married in a wedding dress very similar to your own."

Harry Styles' Sexual Wellness Products:

A humorous take on Harry Styles launching sexual wellness products is provided, highlighting the hosts' witty banter.

Lauren Garrone [78:10]: "So they were selling a double-sided vibrator for $68, which, I mean, come on."

---

7. Upcoming Projects and Nostalgia

The hosts share their excitement for upcoming documentaries and retrospectives, emphasizing the importance of nostalgia in their discussions.

Marc Jacobs Documentary:

A Sofia Coppola-directed documentary titled Mark by Sophia is anticipated, with Chelsea expressing eagerness to see Marc Jacobs' evolution.

Lauren Garrone [86:25]: "This documentary is directed by a fellow Canadian, Ali Pankyu, who did the film I Used to Be Funny with Rachel Senate."

Lilith Fair Documentary:

Dan Levy's upcoming documentary Lilith Building a Mystery is highlighted as a significant nostalgic project.

Chelsea Fairless [90:05]: "As someone who went to two Lilith Fairs when I was in middle school and found it to be a life-changing experience, I truly cannot wait for whatever this is."

---

8. Fashion Segment: Devil Wears Prada 2 Set Photos

The episode briefly touches upon the new Devil Wears Prada sequel, with hosts debating the fashion choices of Anne Hathaway and other characters, expressing both admiration and confusion over costume designs.

Lauren Garrone [75:22]: "They have two outfits. No one else is offering two outfits."

---

9. Conclusion and Teasers for Next Episode

As the episode wraps up, Chelsea and Lauren hint at upcoming topics, including their thoughts on And Just Like That future episodes and other pop culture events, ensuring listeners remain engaged for future discussions.

Lauren Garrone [91:48]: "We have 12 episodes left of And Just Like That."

Chelsea Fairless [91:53]: "We will be back next week to discuss yet another episode of And Just Like That."

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Chelsea Fairless [01:44]: "It's good to be back and I'm just so happy today. Guys, we did it. Aiden's gone."

• Lauren Garrone [04:20]: "And what do we get in this season of And Just Like That? Charlotte's dog did get canceled... Also, our girl has vertigo now."

• Aiden [15:32]: "It might be late."

• Lauren Garrone [08:37]: "They believe she isn't having an emotional affair with Duncan. Like, they believe Carrie isn't having an emotional affair with Duncan."

• Lauren Garrone [78:10]: "So they were selling a double-sided vibrator for $68, which, I mean, come on."

---

Final Thoughts

In this episode of Every Outfit, Chelsea Fairless and Lauren Garrone provide a thorough and engaging analysis of And Just Like That: Present Tense, juxtaposing it against the beloved Sex and the City series. Their entertaining banter, combined with insightful critiques and humorous pop culture commentary, offers listeners both fans and newcomers a comprehensive understanding of the show's current trajectory and its impact on the broader media landscape.

Transcript

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[Nephew]

I'm gonna put you on, nephew.

[Lauren Garrone]

All right.

[Unk]

Unk.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Welcome to McDonald's.

[Lauren Garrone]

Can I take your order, miss?

[Nephew]

I've been hitting up McDonald's. Now it's back. We need snack wraps. What's a snack wrap? It's the return of something great. Snack wrap is back.

[Lauren Garrone]

We called it off again last night, but ooh, ooh.

[Chelsea Fairless]

This time I'm telling you, I'm telling you. We are never, ever, ever getting back together.

[Lauren Garrone]

We are never, ever. Hi, I'm Lauren Garrone.

[Chelsea Fairless]

And I'm Chelsea Fairless.

[Lauren Garrone]

And welcome back to the Every Outfit podcast. Chelsea, lovely to have you.

[Chelsea Fairless]

It's good to be back and I'm just so happy today. Guys, we did it. Aiden's gone. It did take us 12 episodes of end just like that to get here, but we got there.

[Lauren Garrone]

Speaking of which, I would really love to discuss how we are nine episodes into a 12 episode episode season and I don't feel like much story has happened. But that's only my feeling, Chelsea. And we've been talking a lot about our feelings about it. And just like that, a lot of negative feelings. And I was wondering, is there any empirical way I could show that not a lot of story has been told? And there is. I went back to season three of Sex and the City and I just want to juxtapose how much they were able to do in half the time. Right. I mean, we'll get into yet another short episode. But what they were able to do in nine 26 minute episodes 20 years ago versus what they're able to do now. I think it might shock you. Ciao. So in the first nine episodes of Sex and the City season three, we get Carrie. She meets, dates, and almost outs the politician for his pee fetish. She dates a bisexual and kisses Alanis Morissette. She meets, dates and cheats on Aiden. Yes, the big affair begins in episode nine of season three. Charlotte decides to get married. Dates a hot photographer who makes her into a drag king, remember that? Dates the bad kisser who rapes her face. Dates the fucking bitch. You fucking whore. Guy meets and is engaged to Trey McDougal by the end of episode nine. And we are introduced to the consequential side character Bunny McDougal. Miranda gets back together with Steve, hires Magda, who shames her for her single lifestyle, moves in with Steve, discovers she has chlamydia, decides to get a puppy with Steve instead of having a baby, and breaks up with Steve. And for Samantha, we get a boyfriend of the week per episode we have the firefighter, the short guy, the masseuse at the Helena Rubenstein spa, her young male assistant DeShawn. There is even a montage of Samantha's conquest in Are We Sluts. The doctor who gives her Viagra, her old hippie neighbor who she bleeds all over. And the funky tasting spunk guy is in episode nine of season three.

[Chelsea Fairless]

So that's how far we got in nine episodes.

[Lauren Garrone]

Yes, of season three of Sex and the City. All of that happens. And what do we get in this season of and just like that?

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, Charlotte's dog did get cancelled. Lest we forget.

[Lauren Garrone]

A short lived storyline.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Also, our girl has vertigo now. We'll get into that, but I think we should address something that we got several calls about.

[Caller]

Hey, nobody in my life watches this dumpster fire show. So thank you for having a recap every week to reaffirm my feelings on this. I have a theory about why last week and this week were so damn short. And it's because I think that they split what was supposed to be one very long episode into two. So they could say they had 12 episodes instead of 11 like last season. What are your thoughts?

[Chelsea Fairless]

You're correct, they did do that. And we've heard this from multiple sources.

[Lauren Garrone]

Which is so puzzling to me because it's not even like this show is on HBO, it's on the streaming service HBO. Max. Who cares if you have one 60 minute long episode to versus a 45 minute long episode?

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, true. I mean, I personally don't feel gypped. Like I'm not mad that this was 29 minutes personally, but obviously it's unusual. We're used to a certain rhythm and consistency within just like that.

[Lauren Garrone]

Well, I think even breaking up this hour long episode does show how out of pace it is with contemporary Streaming shows. Because this current season of the Bear, I know you're not watching it, but it has varying runtimes. There are episodes that are an hour. There are episodes that are much shorter than that. The studio has done a similar thing. It's just odd. And I don't. To this caller's point, I actually don't think it was a higher up being like, we need 12 weeks of this. I think truly they delivered the episode. From what we've heard, it was too long and the studio forced them to split up the episode.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Which is why we get multiple plot lines across both of these episodes. Charlotte's Vertigo, Miranda's Djinn drama, Seema's deodorant debacle. These are all things that normally would not extend beyond one episode. An exception being Carrie's table drama.

[Lauren Garrone]

Yeah, I know that. I highlighted a few minutes ago how much they were able to do in Sex and the City season three versus in Just like that, Season three. I don't think it's a knock in splitting up these two episodes. Like if you think about these two episodes as a whole, it makes a lot more sense. So I won't knock them for like, really we're going to extend Charlotte's Vertigo storyline over two episodes? Or like. That also explains why Charlotte appears in a singular scene in this episode.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah.

[Lauren Garrone]

All right. Shall we dive in?

[Chelsea Fairless]

Sure.

[Lauren Garrone]

We're far from the shallow now, Chell.

[Chelsea Fairless]

As Bitsy Von Muffling once said in.

[Lauren Garrone]

An episode that honestly, I wish we could get back to. We didn't know how good we had it with the party episode from a few weeks ago.

[Chelsea Fairless]

See, I didn't mind this episode in the sense that it was short and sweet. Yes, I may not be that invested in the gin, the Vertigo or the deodorant. However, shit did go down with Aiden finally. So to me, this was a better episode than we've had. But anywho, this episode starts with Carrie in another Heidi esque ensemble interrupting Duncan and Aiden who are having a little Kiki in the garden.

[Lauren Garrone]

But really Aiden is on a fact finding mission. It goes without saying, but I feel like I should mention it. The writers of this episode and the director, same as the previous episode because this was all supposed to be one episode. Anyway, back to Duncan and Aiden. Is anything interesting happening in this scene? God, I wish there was.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, it's kind of interesting because Carrie is obviously horrified. She's been trying to keep her emotional affair with Duncan separate from Aiden for obvious reasons. Right.

[Lauren Garrone]

Yes. I feel like here's where we should invoke the writer's room podcast, which we both listen to at twice the speed. So you guys don't have to so.

[Chelsea Fairless]

You guys don't have to listen to Michael Patrick King sound like a literal chipmunk. Because that's how we choose to listen to this 30 minutes before we record every single week.

[Lauren Garrone]

So you're saying that Carrie wants to hide her emotional affair, but it has become very clear to us through listening to the writers room podcast that just like Carrie, who seems oblivious to her feelings to Duncan and their obvious chemistry, that is not what they're trying to do at all. Like, they believe Carrie isn't having an emotional affair with Duncan.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yes, they believe she is completely innocent in all of this, which I take issue with, if for no other reason, because of her reaction to what Miranda said to her in the kitchen, where she was like, hey, it seemed like I caught a vibe with you guys. And her very defensive, psychotic reaction to that is what tells me that there is something more with Duncan. So I think it's bizarre to act as if that did not happen. But anyway, the other thing that the.

[Lauren Garrone]

Writers are very confident about, which I feel like is worth mentioning, is they keep saying over these past two podcasts, she couldn't have been clearer with her boundaries, which they literally have Carrie say in a scene later in the episode to Seema, and it's like, I don't know. She's simply like, hey, man, don't bother our neighbor. Like, that's not a clear boundary. That's not like, hey, man, do not see this person. It is more. I don't know. I guess I'm an Aiden defender in this episode.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Me too. And that felt really bizarre to be put in that situation. But I think this scene is here to highlight the differences between Duncan and Aiden. Duncan says, oh, thank God I didn't have kids with my ex wife. Aiden's like, having kids was the best decision I ever made.

[Lauren Garrone]

Just ask Carrie. Which is like, fucking what?

[Chelsea Fairless]

Also, the smoking. He's like, why do you smoke that pipe? Duncan's like, because I'm so invested in this Margaret Thatcher biography that I'm writing that I've taken up smoking.

[Lauren Garrone]

I've taken up smoking a pipe because I'm a method biography writer, which to me is like, carrie, run.

[Chelsea Fairless]

I know. It's like, bitch, you're not even in England right now. What's going on?

[Lauren Garrone]

Yeah, none of his reasoning makes sense. And again, I brought this up last week when I was doing the podcast with Paul, where it's like, why isn't Aiden. Like, I'm sorry, why does this man live in our house? Like, let's get a lawsuit going. Like, I need Aiden to start, I don't know, smoking up some steaks as a way to, like, get Duncan out of this basement apartment that he's renting, I assume at below market value, I'm sure. Not that Carrie needs the money.

[Chelsea Fairless]

No, she clearly doesn't.

[Lauren Garrone]

Did you notice that when Carrie leaves, which she could not get out of this scene fast enough. Another thing that the writers note in the podcast is that Duncan seems very uncomfortable, which I didn't really get from this scene. It seems like the actor portraying Duncan is kind of gamely answering all of these questions.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, he seemed very at ease to me. But that's what's fun about the writers room podcast, because I feel like it's about a show that I don't actually watch. You know what I mean? It must be like the people that listen to this podcast without watching and.

[Lauren Garrone]

Just like that, they are describing a different show than what we are watching.

[Chelsea Fairless]

But it is fascinating and I'm really glad I had it this week for additional perspective about why certain decisions were made.

[Lauren Garrone]

Did you notice that when Carrie leaves this scene, Aidan tries to kiss her and she dodges it?

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, she doesn't want Duncan to see that she's trying to fuck. I'm sorry. Like, this is literally so crazy.

[Lauren Garrone]

Also, what are the writers. Why am I even asking? What are the writers trying to do? I've listened to the podcast. I still don't know what they're trying to do. But in creating Duncan as a potential love interest for Carrie, whether they want to admit that or not, they are creating another Big like figure, in the sense that this is a man like Big, who was married, now divorced, indulges in vices like smoking and drinking whiskey, and doesn't have children. Which is, you know, in direct juxtaposition to Aiden.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Exactly.

[Lauren Garrone]

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[Chelsea Fairless]

So later that night, Duncan and Carrie are having their little writing sesh.

[Lauren Garrone]

Which by the way, I did not clock this until the. The second viewing of this episode. They are reviewing his novel. Not even her novel, because she explains this to Aiden of like, sorry I couldn't get away earlier because you know, if. If we were just working on my novel, I would have left earlier. It's like, wait, hold on. So you're yet again minimizing yourself for a man to make his work better and also ignoring the boyfriend that you've been longing to spend more than a day with for like the last six months?

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, actually, I'm kind of on Aiden's side with this because I do think that he deserved a more finite time frame than whenever or late. Because that could mean a lot of different things, right?

[Lauren Garrone]

He simply wants to cook them some dinner.

[Chelsea Fairless]

He doesn't even want to have the steak with them. He's like, I'll bring it down.

[Lauren Garrone]

Well, let's play the clip. He has to negotiate some things.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Hey.

[Unk]

Hey. I got steaks. Should I start the broiler? It's almost 8:30.

[Aiden]

No, I. We're working. We never talked about dinner.

[Unk]

Yeah, but you guys gotta eat. I mean, I got more than enough food for the three of us.

[Aiden]

Aiden, I don't think you get it. It's.

[Chelsea Fairless]

It's not that kind of a thing.

[Unk]

No, I. I get it. It's just you and me then. What time are you coming up?

[Aiden]

I'm not sure, so you better start without me.

[Unk]

No, I'll wait for you.

[Aiden]

But it might be late.

[Unk]

I'll wait. Okay. It's, you know, it's fine. I don't want to eat alone.

[Lauren Garrone]

I don't want to eat alone. I'm sorry, Eden, didn't you say in the previous episode you had a whole ass life in New York? Go to fucking Coney island and have a beer with Steve. Remember your buddy Steve? The one that you are constantly Silently investing in his businesses.

[Chelsea Fairless]

I know. And when Carrie says it's not that kind of thing, it's like, no, you guys do eat meals together. Duncan makes you what, mutton or something?

[Lauren Garrone]

Some gross stew that you need to spend weeks eating Tums afterwards.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, and then you went to that restaurant that one time. Like, it's not as if you guys just work together and never share meals again. This is sus as fuck. And I do not blame Aiden for picking up on the fact that this is sus as fuck, Even if it wasn't intentionally written with the intent of it being incredibly sus. That's how I metabolized it.

[Lauren Garrone]

Right, because you're a normal human being who can read emotional cues, which seemingly neither of them can. Or both Carrie and Eden reject each other's vibes, essentially because it's very clear that he's, like, getting increasingly desperate. But he also doesn't want to pick up on Carrie being like, it's not happening tonight.

[Chelsea Fairless]

So he leaves two perfectly good T bone stakes out out of spite.

[Lauren Garrone]

The raw steak. So we are led to believe that it is late into the night, very early morning, Carrie comes up to her very tiny kitchen and sees the steaks, the raw steaks left out to rot on the counter in this economy.

[Chelsea Fairless]

I know.

[Lauren Garrone]

So Carrie comes back to the bedroom. Aiden is still up, which means he could have put the stakes away.

[Chelsea Fairless]

No, he left them out as a fuck you.

[Lauren Garrone]

This is where Carrie says, like, oh, sorry, I would have come up earlier if we were working on my novel. And she tries to make things better by snuggling with her man, and it doesn't go well. And I would tell you what Aiden says, but for those of you who are not watching the episode, I need you to hear the words that come out of Aiden's mouth.

[Unk]

No. Get. Get away from me. You. You smell like smoke. Come on, go take a shower.

[Lauren Garrone]

Go take a shower, you filthy fucking whore. Is the tone that John Corbin is delivering.

[Chelsea Fairless]

This is like, oh, that's how I received it as well.

[Lauren Garrone]

Like, there's nothing overtly slut shaming about what he's saying, but the tone feels very. Slut shaming.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, because it's like you fucked Mr. Big and you're about to fuck Sherlock Holmes downstairs.

[Lauren Garrone]

I don't know, there's something about that line delivery that unlocks some, like, Sicilian ancestral anger that bubbled up in me because I wanted to be Carrie, and I wanted Carrie to be like, get the fuck out of my bed with the mismatched missoni. Bed sheets and get the fuck out of here. Which by the way, could have led to an interesting argument where Aiden goes. Well, actually this isn't your house. You only have this house because of Big.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Okay, which would have been extremely fucked up. Look, Carrie felt ashamed in that moment and triggered because of their history together, of course.

[Lauren Garrone]

But this is also not about Duncan really. It's about Big and how they've never resolved the elephant in their relationship.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, can we also just talk about the smoking for a bit? Because I understand that this is part of Aiden's lore. Right? He didn't like that Carrie smoked cigarettes. But he did smoke a cigar outside of Scout that one time. So how disgusted by the smell of smoke can he actually be? I understand if it's like you don't want to marry someone that is a smoker or whatever, but.

[Lauren Garrone]

Well, also, isn't Aiden just one floor above them in the kitchen? Like wouldn't that pipe smoke rise through the townhouse already? Because if not, then what is the problem? She is not smoking. He is a table length away from her smoking. Which by the way, is he smoking a pipe. He has a pipe in his mouth a lot.

[Chelsea Fairless]

He's definitely smoking a pipe.

[Lauren Garrone]

It's puff. Puffin. Anyway, so Carrie takes a shower and goes into not her bedroom, not their bedroom, but Shu's bedroom and goes to sleep.

[Chelsea Fairless]

We know this is Shu's bedroom from the recent Architectural Digest tour of the set that came out. If you guys haven't watched this, definitely check it out. It's fascinating. If for no other reason than it completely reveals her decorated apartment before it appears on the show. Which I thought was interesting.

[Lauren Garrone]

Yeah. If we couldn't tell that Aiden was gonna be 86 from the series. This Architectural Digest tour certainly leads you to believe that because she's fully decorated and you're like, oh, okay, well then.

[Chelsea Fairless]

But one thing I couldn't figure out about that is that the table is gone. In this Architectural Digest tour, the glass mid century table that caused so much drama that made me assume that like Aiden was gonna like break the table or something like that. Like there's gonna be some reason to get it out of there. But I don't know, maybe it's just never seen or heard from again.

[Lauren Garrone]

I mean, I would love to think that Duncan and Carrie christen that table and the glass breaks, by the way. I would believe that Carrie and Duncan would have. I lost track of time Sex, not Carrie and Aiden. Which is what happened last week. So like a horror film, Aiden appears in the doorway and he's like, what, are you just going to sleep in this other room? And she's like, yes, you made it clear you didn't want me in that bed, so I'm going to sleep now.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, it's like you called me a fudgeing whore and then you made me take like a whore shower.

[Lauren Garrone]

Well, also, if you were, maybe I'm revealing too much about my own relationship. But like in an actual relationship, that would open the door for like a two hour fight.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, she's just too like exhausted at that point. Clearly they're holding off on the fight until the next day. And they come together in the kitchen and we have another clip, right?

[Lauren Garrone]

Oh yeah. Because guys, there are times where I'll say it. Sometimes hearing what happens in these episodes better described by us. Other times, specifically what's going on with Carrie and Eden. You just have to hear it.

[Unk]

Were you still mad?

[Aiden]

I have no reason not to be.

[Unk]

Okay, it. I'll stay mad too. Is this because I talked to him?

[Aiden]

I distinctly asked you not to.

[Unk]

I'm standing on the terrace. The guy comes out. It would be weird not to say hello.

[Aiden]

Why were you on the terrace?

[Unk]

What?

[Aiden]

I'm asking why were you on the terrace?

[Unk]

I was getting some air.

[Aiden]

No, no, sorry. You were there waiting for him to come out so you could talk to him.

[Unk]

Oh, really? Why the fuck would I do that?

[Aiden]

To figure out if there's something going on between us.

[Unk]

This is such bullshit, Carrie.

[Aiden]

Aiden, you're worried about me and another man. That's what all the neighbor business is about.

[Unk]

Okay, now I'm going for a walk.

[Aiden]

No, I'm going for a walk.

[Unk]

Go for a fucking walk. You know, I hate the smell of smoke.

[Lauren Garrone]

The worst vibes.

[Chelsea Fairless]

This is bullshit, Carrie, and you know it.

[Lauren Garrone]

That is certainly what it felt like. I mean the, the no, I'm going for a walk, I have to assume is a reference from the Season 4 Good Fight episode. It did feel good. And nostalgic. And I know they've been diving into a lot of nostalgia this season of like, ah, get that reference from Sex and the City. But you know, we've discussed this before and other people have called in. Sarah Jessica Parker's line reading choices this season have been interesting. It's led to some confusion between you and I, but to hear that old school Carrie, she's pissed off. It felt good. Yeah, she's kind of been an emotional robot. It made me realize for the last couple of seasons.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yes, because she has had these incredibly sedate, compassionate responses to Things that are actually quite fucked up. Whether it's Aiden telling her that she has to wait five years or Aiden telling her that he fucked Kathy or everything she's had to deal with with his family.

[Lauren Garrone]

That's right. She's saving those responses for Miranda.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, exactly. But she's kept that all in up until this point. I was actually surprised to see her push back in this episode because we've gotten so used to her being so complacent in all of this, for sure.

[Lauren Garrone]

And she walks 30 blocks, I assume, as she says, she's going for a walk. She walks from her Gramercy apartment, I assume, 30 blocks up to 57th street and goes to Bergdorf's.

[Chelsea Fairless]

And who is working at Bergdorf's now? Andy motherfucking Cohen.

[Lauren Garrone]

The whiplash of unjust like that. Usually horrifying. This was whiplash in a good way. But to go from like that fight to Andy Cohen having a cameo reprising his role as the shoe salesman from.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Season six, formerly at Barney's, currently at Bergdorf's.

[Lauren Garrone]

I mean, not even the shoe manager of Bergdorfs.

[Chelsea Fairless]

He might have been the manager for all we know.

[Lauren Garrone]

This I really loved, of course, because it's fun.

[Chelsea Fairless]

It's fun. It took up all of 10 seconds in this episode. But it was a nice callback.

[Lauren Garrone]

Absolutely. Do you think Carrie bought those sparkly Manolo flats? Didn't love those that she was picking up?

[Chelsea Fairless]

No, she didn't buy them. She was too sad to, like, actually shop.

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[Nephew]

I'm gonna put you on, nephew.

[Lauren Garrone]

All right, unk.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Welcome to McDonald's.

[Lauren Garrone]

Can I take your order, miss?

[Nephew]

I've been hitting up McDonald's for years. Now it's back. We need snack wraps. What's a snack wrap? It's the return of something great. Snack Wrap is back.

[Lauren Garrone]

Should we talk about Carrie's outfit? This Vivian Westwood, very Pirates era.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah.

[Lauren Garrone]

Luminous top.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, I think it was cute. I think she was costumed in this way to sort of show that she is this wild, eccentric person that can't be tamed, much like Vivienne Westwood herself.

[Lauren Garrone]

I texted this to you because I now Kelly Wearstler, the interior designer, has a TikTok channel. And I sent this video to you of her because I was like, oh, this is actually what Carrie style would be as a 50 something year old woman.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, I would argue that her and Big's apartment in Sex in the City too is very much of that Kelly Wearstler style, you know?

[Lauren Garrone]

Indeed. Perhaps they hired her. She goes from Gramercy uptown, Aiden texter. She goes all the way backtown below Gramercy to the West Village to Tartine.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Who would thought they would break up.

[Lauren Garrone]

There for their breakup to come about because of present versus past tense, which by the way, this episode is called present tense.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, also, it's just kind of sad because we never loved Aiden, but a lot of people do love Aiden. A lot of people were always team Aiden. And the portrayal of Aiden on this show, I think has really sullied that character's legacy in a lot of ways. Because even the official HBO Max account.

[Lauren Garrone]

Oh.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Is trolling him now, which is like totally crazy.

[Lauren Garrone]

I think the HBO Max social media people, they've been pushed to the brink.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah.

[Lauren Garrone]

And like us, they're like, I have to make 12 weeks of content for this. All right.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah. They recently posted a reel that cut together various Aiden moments from this season and made it look like a trailer for a horror movie, which is kind of an established trope.

[Lauren Garrone]

Yeah. There is a creator, Chelsea Javier, that's been doing these. And just like that, cuts as if they're American Horror Story episodes.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Wait, so did the HBO Max account get shit for.

[Lauren Garrone]

I mean, why I would say they. They heavily borrowed from this creator's concept is the fact that she colors it the way that American Horror Story is colored that like gray green. And that's what they did for that Aiden video. But I also, I don't know if you notice this on Sunset Boulevard, there's that giant video billboard and a couple of days ago it had an image of Aquaman and it was just saying Trisha, question mark, which you have to be so chronically online to understand that reference, which is Trisha Paytas had a baby boy.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Congrats to our girl.

[Lauren Garrone]

And she named it Aquaman.

[Chelsea Fairless]

I love her.

[Lauren Garrone]

All right. Anyway, so you think, or at least I thought, that Carrie and Aiden would, you know, there would be some resolution. And he does gamely admit, like, yeah, I am jealous. You are right.

[Unk]

But I do have trust issues with you around other men. And last night, it didn't help it.

[Lauren Garrone]

We were both.

[Aiden]

Wait, wait, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Have or had.

[Unk]

Huh?

[Aiden]

You said you have trust issues when it comes to me and men have. You should have said had you had trust issues. Past tense.

[Unk]

Okay, what's your point? It's just a word.

[Aiden]

No, it's not just a word. It's revealing of how you feel.

[Unk]

Sorry, I'm not a writer like you.

[Aiden]

And Sherlock Holmes have done nothing to.

[Lauren Garrone]

Be fair, Aiden is having trust issues and that is fine. However, for him to be like, yeah, I have trust issues with you and men, it's one man and that man is dead.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, it's two men, because now there's Duncan. I don't know. I think that Carrie deserves to have her little flirtation with Duncan because of what happened with Kathy, because of the fact that he's made it very clear that he has no intention of seeing her for five years at the end of last season. That, of course, has changed a bit, but she's put up with so much that I think that she deserves to be able to have an emotional affair with her downstairs neighbor. I don't fault Carrie for that, but it is very much happening. And it's not all in Aiden's head. And she is kind of gaslighting him a little bit about this.

[Lauren Garrone]

But as we've learned, the writer's intention is that, no, she is this sort of pure woman waiting for her husband to come back from the war or something.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Then why did she almost murder Miranda two episodes ago for even suggesting. She's like, I can sip scotch, bitch, or whatever. She said, I'm allowed to laugh and sip scotch.

[Lauren Garrone]

I thought she was saying it sarcastically. You thought she was saying it as a question or earnestly. I could have fun, can't I? It's like, I don't know, Carrie. I don't think you can.

[Chelsea Fairless]

So that obviously touched a nerve because she knew that there was truth to that.

[Lauren Garrone]

It's just so bizarre because, again, the way that the show is running along, it makes it seem this way. And that's interesting. I mean, we're saying, like, we're on Carrie's side. She should be able to have an emotional affair and be messy. And I don't know if it's the Sarah Jessica Parkerification of Carrie. If this is Daddy MPK's intention with the character, but there's a need to be so moral. That feels very foreign to Carrie Bradshaw.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Right. And I get it. She's evolved. They want to show that she's not the same person in round three of this relationship as opposed to round one or round two. Although I also think it's important to note that the reason why they ultimately broke up wasn't the infidelity with Mr. Big. It was the fact that she did not want to marry him. That was the number one reason why it ended.

[Lauren Garrone]

Well, the. The first time, if you remember, he's like, I. I know myself, and I can't get over this. Which maybe she should have taken that to heart 25 years ago. This man will never give this up. And then, yes, the. The second time was that she really couldn't see herself marrying him.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah.

[Lauren Garrone]

As Big says, you're not the marrying kinds. All right, there's more to this argument. Carrie gets very upset. She does her little Carrie kind of walk run. Aiden catches up with her, and we get a public Carrie, Aiden fight, which we've never gotten before, which I loved.

[Aiden]

No, really? How dare you? How is it possible that I haven't earned your trust by now? I have done everything to show you how fully committed I am to you. I have moved mountains and apartments. I. I have agreed to arrangements. Arrangements that even you yourself could live up to. I was 100% in. 100% in. And still you.

[Unk]

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

[Lauren Garrone]

Stop.

[Unk]

You. No. Was or are? Because you just said I was 100% in. So is it was or are you still 100% in?

[Chelsea Fairless]

Was.

[Lauren Garrone]

Spoiler alert, guys. She's not 100% in. Although, to be fair, for the first time in Carrie's life, she is thinking about herself because she needs 100% too. And I have to say, the first time I watched this episode, because I watched the episodes twice because I'm a masochist, I got really sad, which is actually what Aiden says in the scene. And we learned the writers room podcast that when Daddy Mpk had to break this to John Corbett, that it was like, actually, no, you're not ending up together, and your employment with us does have an end date. We will be breaking them up. He said, wow, this is really sad. I thought they were going to make it this time. Which Daddy mpk just directly put in the episode, which. The second time I watch this and Aiden says that line, I'm like, why? Why did you think you would make it this time. Oh no. Did your part time, long distance, low commitment relationship not work out? I wonder why?

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, I think that him and Carrie very much had that optimism despite everything that tore them apart. I think in this scene the writers were really trying to show us that neither of them are bad people, but their individual circumstances are making it impossible for this relationship to continue in a normal and health healthy way. Which I get. Neither of them are bad people.

[Lauren Garrone]

No. And I guess when you listen to the writers Room podcast and I do have to give this to the writers, if you are indeed going to break them up for the third time, you do have to add some new dimension to it. And this is. You really do see both sides of the argument. And I guess they had a much more heated ending to this and they decided not to go that way. And the scene ends the way it does because they didn't want to show one person walking away versus the other. So there you go. And Chelsea, you know how this relationship is really over because we see Carrie taking those stupid Virginia postcards off her.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Refrigerator while listening to Taylor Swift's How Did It End? A pretty obscure Taylor song from the expanded edition of the Tortured Poets Department.

[Lauren Garrone]

Do you think Daddy MPK just like went through how much it was to license Taylor Swift songs?

[Chelsea Fairless]

I don't think it's any less expensive to license that versus we are never.

[Lauren Garrone]

Ever getting back together.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, I don't know. Look, it wouldn't have been my choice if I was going to go for that tone. I would have gone with something from folklore perhaps like a song like the One or My Tears Ricochet could be about this Aiden situation potentially. But you know, I always appreciate a Taylor needle drop, although I think the one in Too Much was better. But we'll get into that later.

[Lauren Garrone]

Well, I think we thought that we are never getting back together was would be the perfect needle drop and hopefully you heard that at the beginning of the episode. If not, then our episode got flagged and we weren't able to upload it. With that needle drop, which has happened to us before.

[Chelsea Fairless]

It has.

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[Nephew]

I' ma put you on, nephew.

[Lauren Garrone]

All right.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Welcome to McDonald's.

[Lauren Garrone]

Can I take your order, miss?

[Nephew]

I've been hitting up McDonald's for years now. It's back. We need snack wraps. What's a snack wrap? It's the return of something great. Snack wrap is back.

[Lauren Garrone]

So here's my question. Does Carrie feel like an idiot? Because I kind of think she should. I would say that her behavior is more embarrassing with this go around with Aiden than that time that she was running around Manhattan in a beret getting Big Le, Big Mac.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, but I think that when you're really in love with someone, you do humiliating shit.

[Lauren Garrone]

Of course. I just.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Hence Carrie's now viral dominatrix outfit that has been making the rounds on Twitter recently.

[Lauren Garrone]

Oh, God, yeah. Yeah. Speaking to the hopes with a show like it just like that. I think part of the aspirational element of the show should be that a woman is not doing this embarrassing shit into her late 50s.

[Chelsea Fairless]

She believes in love, and I understand why she wouldn't want to start dating again at this particular point in her life. I totally get it.

[Lauren Garrone]

We'll run through the other storylines, of which there's not much, but the episode ends with Carrie in a very Carrie esque outfit. Was that Simone Rocha?

[Chelsea Fairless]

Simone Rocha with some sort of cardigan from someone else, but actually a very Taylor Swift type outfit.

[Lauren Garrone]

A very Taylor Swift verging into Blake Lively territory. Although Carrie did do it first, right when she goes to. What is it? The opening of Tao. And she wears my favorite outfit, the Stella McCartney Chloe horses dress. In a later scene, you see that she's wearing like kind of an old man cardig over that dress.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, that's always been part of her look.

[Lauren Garrone]

But anyway, Carrie goes into a restaurant and I was like, great. She's gonna tell the girls what happened. She's gonna be embarrassed for her actions. No. The camera just starts pulling away. And I visit, like I verbally out loud in my living room was like, no, no, no, no. Go back there. I want to. That's where I want to be. I want to be with them while they're having cocktails.

[Chelsea Fairless]

I know.

[Lauren Garrone]

Give me a little reward.

[Chelsea Fairless]

I know. At night, not during the day. For once, I Know, I felt that too. And also I realized, like, wow, we're never going to get a scene where she tells any of the girls about the fact that Aiden fucked Kathy. I thought at the very least she was going to tell Seema, because Seema is, like, more outside of the situation because she doesn't know the history with Aiden as much as the other girls do.

[Lauren Garrone]

So should we get into Seema's storyline? Because I feel like the realest scene of the episode is when Carrie goes to visit Seema's office and reveals to her why Aiden would be jealous is because she cheated on him with John. Which always out of context, I'm like, wait, who's John?

[Chelsea Fairless]

I liked that. I thought that was satisfying.

[Lauren Garrone]

Certainly the most interesting thing with Seema because the rest of her storyline is a conclusion of the crystal deodorant drama. Yeah. So it begins with Adam kissing Seema, and he tastes awful, which it took me the second viewing to understand what was going on, which is, he put her aluminum deodorant in his mouth. I presume to kiss her with it to prove to her how disgusting it was.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Wait, what?

[Lauren Garrone]

Yes, they kiss and she goes, oh, what is that taste? And he's like, you know, freezy, arctic blue. And she's like, you didn't. And it took me the second watch to be like, oh, my God, is that her deodorant?

[Chelsea Fairless]

See, I didn't even get that. I trust you. And then he's like, here's this hippie crystal shit.

[Lauren Garrone]

There is a special place in hell for people who do not use real deodorant during the summer in New York City.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Okay, but here's the thing. You fully can use hippie deodorant that doesn't have aluminum, but you can't go from aluminum to that overnight. It's a thing you have to, like, transition off of. Like, you're weaning yourself off of SSRIs or something.

[Lauren Garrone]

Your Arcata is showing, Chow.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, it's true. It just. It doesn't work like that. Exactly. I think it's believable that someone could use natural deodorant and not stink, but I don't think it's realistic that it would work on Seema, like, to the extent that her previous deodorant had worked.

[Lauren Garrone]

Anyway, Seema has a new office, which she drained her savings to get, but it was also dirt cheap because people stopped going into the office. Which makes me go like, hold on a second. A real estate agent definitely does not need to have this fully fledged Office. At this point, what you do need is a driver and a nice car to pick up your clients. But again, it's 2025. They'll be signing paperwork, like through PDF and like a docusign. Like, I doubt anyone is coming physically to your office.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, also, she has one employee who she poached from Ravi. I actually appreciated that because it was too random that that guy was there for one episode. He pulled too much focus at the time for that to fully make sense. Because of the Birkin.

[Lauren Garrone]

I was gonna say he brought the Birkin with him, but none of this matters. But it's like, hold on. If you are a PA To a director, like, you have committed to a life of film and filmmaking to abruptly make a 180, and you're like, you know what? I want to get into the world of luxury real estate.

[Chelsea Fairless]

To be fair, a lot of people do that pivot.

[Lauren Garrone]

That's true. Real estate agent, often many people's second careers.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, I know multiple people who have done that.

[Lauren Garrone]

I do, too. I just want to highlight a line that Seema says, which she goes from we work to she work, which is a joke that would truly be from a decade ago. And while I'm shading that line, to be fair, if I were a writer and on. And just like that, I'd be like, this would be a line in. And just like that. Okay, so you're probably wondering, those who don't watch the show anymore, what is the thrilling conclusion of Seema transitioning to this non Deodorant. Deodorant? So her assistant doesn't know New York very well. Chelsea. And oh, my goodness, he made a meeting for all the way uptown in 45 minutes. And so she arrives very sweaty because she was running to this meeting. And her potential client makes a remark about the waiter having terrible bo. But we know it's actually Seema, so she runs to the bathroom. And we. We learned in the previous episode, Seema loves her deodorant so much, she actually has a bottle of it in her purse. So she runs to the bathroom to put on her emergency deodorant. To which I thought, oh, Adam, knowing this, will have taken that out of the purse. And then we'll get this really funny. And I put that in quotes. Tensions between her and her potential client. Maybe she'll lose that client. Maybe she'll stand up for herself and, you know, her boyfriend's preference. No, she just puts on the deodorant and says to a stranger coming out of the bathroom, I'm not this kind of person.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, I loved the fact that, like, she clearly reeks. She didn't do the thing that you have to do in those situations, which is go into the bathroom, wet a paper towel, give yourself a little bath, and then reapply the deodorant. She's like, no, I'm just gonna put it over my stench again.

[Lauren Garrone]

So much humor that could have been mined. Not good humor, but like in any other show, they would do this right. She gets too much water on her blouse. They don't have paper towels. The client passing to go to the bathroom. The door opens and he sees her trying to dry her. Her armpit in a Dyson or something.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Like, okay, I don't think that any of these suggestions are necessarily better than that, but I get it. They were trying to show, like, that she had become the woman that she had judged. Although, again, maybe not the biggest comedic payoff there, but.

[Lauren Garrone]

But she's still.

[Chelsea Fairless]

I believe that was the intention, but.

[Lauren Garrone]

She'S still judging that woman because she goes, I'm not this person.

[Advertiser]

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[Nephew]

I'm gonna put you on, nephew.

[Lauren Garrone]

All right, unk.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Welcome to McDonald's.

[Lauren Garrone]

Can I take your order, miss?

[Nephew]

I've been hitting up McDonald's. Now it's back. We need snack wraps. What's a snack wrap? It's the return of something great. Snack wrap is back.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Okay, so that happened. Charlotte has vertigo still.

[Lauren Garrone]

Yeah. Meanwhile, Harry and Charlotte are in an I Love Lucy episode, evidently happening completely in silo from any other character.

[Chelsea Fairless]

We got a funny call about this.

[Caller]

Hi, this is Emily, and I am a nurse, and I was calling to address the comments about Charlotte's vertigo, and that vertigo isn't a real thing. It is a real thing, and it's usually from inner ear problems. But the whole Idea of Charlotte having Vertigo really reminded me of when Liza Minnelli was on Arrested Development and her character was constantly falling over from Vertigo. I love the podcast. I love you guys. Thanks, Bye.

[Lauren Garrone]

I mean, thank you, caller. But now you're just invoking a much funnier television show.

[Chelsea Fairless]

I know Liza Minnelli having Vertigo un Arrested Development is one of the most important things that's happened on American television in the last quarter of a century.

[Lauren Garrone]

For those who have not watched this episode, truly all that happens is Harry is able to pee without a catheter. Charlotte is so excited about this, she falls over. That's it. They're out of the rest of the episode.

[Chelsea Fairless]

But we get why that is.

[Lauren Garrone]

Speaking of one and done, LTW's storyline is reduced to her having to listen to her husband bitch and moan about the fact that he's getting fat.

[Chelsea Fairless]

I honestly don't even want to talk about this. Can we just completely move on?

[Lauren Garrone]

There's literally nothing more to say. There's nothing I can even, like, joke about. I have no witty remarks about this storyline.

[Chelsea Fairless]

But to your point about being ripped away from the restaurant scene at the end, it's like, this is what we get instead of the restaurant scene.

[Lauren Garrone]

Yeah, that's a tough pill to swallow. Well, at least we get a semi meaningful storyline. Conclusion to the Miranda Joy gin bottle debacle.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, she's basically like, miranda, where's my gin?

[Lauren Garrone]

Where Miranda blames her new cleaning lady at first. So messed up.

[Chelsea Fairless]

I know. And then she was like, actually, it wasn't my cleaning lady. I threw it away because I can't have gin in my house. Not because I drink sometimes or I stop drinking, but because I'm a full fledged alcoholic and am likely to relapse if this gin continues to be in here.

[Lauren Garrone]

And you think that Joy is going to have a problem with this because she begins speaking about, you know, I really need this. And you're like, okay, some dramatic tension happening. And then just like that. And ultimately she's like, no, I'll just need to drink more in front of you to not feel guilty about this.

[Chelsea Fairless]

That's not really what she says. She's basically like, if I drink in front of you, it will make me feel bad and then I will want to drink. And then Miranda's basically just like, you know what? I have some baggage. You have baggage. Let's just like, work it out. And they kind of do. It's kind of an all over the place conversation.

[Lauren Garrone]

Oh, I took that to mean she was. Joy was like, oh, I don't have a problem with it because I'll just, I'll just drink twice as much. Hahaha.

[Chelsea Fairless]

No, I think she was like, actually this is going to be hard for me, but let's work it out.

[Lauren Garrone]

Oh, all right.

[Chelsea Fairless]

This one is a little tough because they've been together for over a month at this point. Right. Probably more like six weeks. And they've already gone to parties and gone to dinners and the drinking thing hasn't really been an issue. So they've kind of already figured it out, if that makes any sense.

[Lauren Garrone]

Well, yeah, I think what you're trying to say, or at least what I'm picking up, is at this point you would understand the level of drinking that Joy enjoys. Pun intended. And the level of drinking that Miranda doesn't do. Whether it's due to alcoholism or she's just not drinking, or there's a some people who are neither alcoholics but just choose not to drink. Like Donald J. Trump.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Exactly.

[Lauren Garrone]

Isn't that crazy? He's a teetotaler.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Look, the reality of the situation is they're both kind of boring. So they're perfect together. Not that you have to drink to be not boring. Not saying that at all. Just it seems like they are very compatible in terms of lifestyle. So there's not a lot of tension around this situation. There was more tension around the idea that Miranda was going to re left lapse, which they just dangled in front of us like a carrot.

[Lauren Garrone]

A far more interesting storyline. Yeah. I think also what you're trying to get at is this sense that it's boring because this is something that could be a real problem and bring about a lot of tension that they immediately drop because thank God Miranda has that second bedroom for all their baggage. Screw you, Brady. I guess you're gonna have to keep sleeping at the loft with your dad.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Okay. Speaking of New York apartments, can we transition to Anthony's story in this episode, which I kind of actually thought was the most interesting. Apart from the Carrie and Aiden stuff.

[Lauren Garrone]

Yeah. But even with it in that it does employ the end just like that kind of opera logic.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, let's play this one call.

[Caller]

Hey ladies. All I have to say is thank God Aiden's gone. Fuck that guy. And since when is Anthony low class? Like he does not have that apartment. They're trying to make us think that, that that's he. That he's been that way the whole time. And he has his bakery. I don't know. I can't. I just can't.

[Chelsea Fairless]

I I too was shocked by the apartment reveal. Were you?

[Lauren Garrone]

I don't know. I could see a reality where Anthony is at a smaller apartment because he sold his former apartment and he's invested everything in the brick and mortar of hot fellas.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Okay. But if a gay man has taste, his financial situation is irrelevant because a gay man with taste can furnish, like, the shittiest apartment, make it look amazing solely with pieces from Target, Ikea, Facebook, Marketplace, and, you know, like, yard sales or flea markets and stuff.

[Lauren Garrone]

Yeah, they didn't need to go this cartoonish. In the juxtaposition of Patti LuPone yet again returns as. As Gia, who drops even more lore that Giuseppe and their family is incredibly wealthy because he didn't just grow up in a villa, they have villas. Three actually. It actually would be more interesting if Anthony had a pretty nice apartment and Gia still thought it wasn't good enough.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Right.

[Lauren Garrone]

He doesn't need to live in the apartment that, like, Nicolas Cage has in Moonstruck or something.

[Chelsea Fairless]

But yeah, I, I liked this scene because Patti LuPone's basically like, you know what? I was in this age gap relationship. I ended up taking care of this old man at the height of my sexual powers, at the height of, like, what should have been the height of my career, basically. And I don't want that for my son, which I get. But although she did seem very triggered by the Tom of Finland salt and.

[Lauren Garrone]

Pepper shakers, I was going to bring this up as well because it's like, you, you have a gay son. Like, what. What do you expect from a gay household?

[Chelsea Fairless]

I would be like, not an age.

[Lauren Garrone]

Gap relationship or Tom of Finland paraphernalia. Here's the thing, if I go to a gay man's house, I want to see some Tom of Finland paraphernalia somewhere.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, every gay man's house has some form Tom of Finland paraphernalia, because Tom of Finland has actually been really genius when it comes to making merch. There's a whole store here in LA called Culture Edit that's basically just Tom of Finland merch. And then they have like JW Anderson, Walter Vin Beer Dunk brands like that. But truly, it's like I have Tom of Finland coasters and tea towels and shit like that. However, I looked at their website, they do not make salt and pepper shakers. I believe this was a custom for. And just like that.

[Lauren Garrone]

Interesting, because Gia needed to pick up the. The pepper shaker for the risotto she was having. So anyway, Anthony calls Gia out, Gia drops the accent, which we did have questions about for multiple episodes. And she cuts things down to brass tacks. She's like, how much can I pay you to get away from my son? And he's like, no, even though I obviously live in this hovel, I'm not gonna take your money. And then she gets so mad that she goes completely Teresa Giudice from Real Housewives of New Jersey and like flips the table and flips the food, but then is like immediately horrified at her behavior in a way that I'm like, again, of course this wouldn't happen. But it's just like opera logic and like, like there are times wherein just like that feels like a soap opera where it's like, are we gonna learn that she has a split personality?

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, I love that she's immediately like, oh, my God, what do I do? I thought that line was quite funny when Anthony was like, you need psychiatric help, basically. Do you know someone or something to that effect?

[Lauren Garrone]

Yeah, do you know a good therapist? Actually, you're right. That's the line that makes her flip out. As I said, she's horrified by, by her actions. So she goes to pick up, up this knife, I assume a bread knife. I didn't notice if there were any hot fellows bread on the table. But she picks up this knife just as, oh my God, guys, Giuseppe walks through the door. And so it looks like she is holding a knife to Anthony.

[Chelsea Fairless]

And Anthony's like, this bitch is trying to kill me. And you know, Patti LuPone exits. She speaks Italian. She's like, babes, I'm cutting you off.

[Lauren Garrone]

Which I thought the reveal was going to be that Giuseppe is like, oh, fuck, I'm cut off. Like, like, bye, I'm going with my mom.

[Chelsea Fairless]

No, he wouldn't do that.

[Lauren Garrone]

Evidently not. I do feel like knowing that Giuseppe comes from a very wealthy family, explains how he's able to write poetry as a full time job for sure without.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Also being like, you know, a professor or something. So that's that. And just like that, we have three more episodes.

[Lauren Garrone]

So, I mean, what is possibly going to happen? Is it possible we're gonna get a torrid love affair between her and Duncan in three episodes?

[Chelsea Fairless]

So shall we get into the teaser.

[Lauren Garrone]

Which we learned from the writers room? Next week's episode is called Better than Sex. Although I have my doubts that Duncan and Carrie will be having sex, because yet again, a friend is asking Carrie, like, wait, is there something more than writing going on between you and Duncan?

[Chelsea Fairless]

No shit, Sherlock. Also, Steve's back. I think that's the most exciting thing.

[Lauren Garrone]

Yes. And Brady has some big news that makes Steve go, oh, my God. Oh. Oh, no.

[Chelsea Fairless]

He's also poly and non binary.

[Lauren Garrone]

What else? Oh. LTW is yet again getting razzed by her children for just not being around them enough. It's like, let us land this. She's doing too much storyline, which, again, I don't think it's going to culminate in an affair.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, I've said this before, but I continue to think that LTW is less a character and more the physical embodiment of the struggle of mothers that have to juggle work and taking care of their kids. And I get that. And I get that that's a very common and relatable thing, but the way it's written for her feels like, I don't know, there's something a little uncanny about it, I think, for sure.

[Lauren Garrone]

And what else do we get? Seema visits Adam's apartment, which looks quite lovely, and then he reveals that his mother d to breast cancer. And of course, because she can't just enjoy a good thing going on in her life, she's like, that's the problem. He's got mommy issues. That's why this will never work out.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Or maybe that's why it will. And just like that, he found his new mommy. Shall we not talk about him? Just like that.

[Lauren Garrone]

Oh, my goodness gracious. Some pop culture news to dissect. Let's get into it.

[Chelsea Fairless]

So Charli XCX got married in a wedding dress very similar to your own.

[Lauren Garrone]

I know my texts and DMs were flooded with messages that were like, is this the same dress? Isn't this your wedding dress? And, yes, it's the Nova Cora mini dress. Demi Lovato also wore this dress at her wedding, which was one of five looks. We never talked about Demi Lovato's wedding.

[Chelsea Fairless]

But all of the five dresses were, like, kind of the same. That's why it was so iconic.

[Lauren Garrone]

Iconic?

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, it was just, like, interesting to choose so many similar gowns, or at least that's my recollection of it.

[Lauren Garrone]

And the fact that we are all wearing this wedding dress says to me, Vivienne Westwood needs to design an additional short wedding dress option because there's clearly an appetite for it.

[Chelsea Fairless]

But yours had a train, though, and Charlie's didn't.

[Lauren Garrone]

Well, yes. So you can buy this dress off the rack. You can also go into their wedding boutiques. I found it very funny when I was reading the Demi Lovato article where it's like, like it's a custom Vivian Westwood dress, which makes it seem like Vivienne Westwood or like Couture. Yeah, that it was designed for her. But if you can go into. If there's a Vivian Westwood store in your city, a bridal boutique. And they made that dress for me, but just because I have a wonky body and the bottom had to be ordered in several sizes up from the. The top portion. And yes, I chose to have a.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Have a train, but Couture, no, because they don't even do the alterations on site, which I was surprised by. Like, they'll take your measurements and they'll order the dress for you, but then you go in and they're like, okay, well, you need to take it to the tailor and say this or that. Which is pretty fucking crazy.

[Lauren Garrone]

That was crazy also because it was delayed for like almost a month and did not arrive until very close to the wedding.

[Chelsea Fairless]

This is a first world problem, but I still find it fascinating.

[Lauren Garrone]

Very much so. I do wonder if Charlie XCX bought this off the rack because many people noted that Maddie Healy wasn't at the wedding, who is a bandmate of her husband from the band 1975. I wonder if this was a civil ceremony of sorts and they're going to have a much bigger party at a later point.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, they're supposedly having a big wedding in Sicily, so this makes a lot of sense.

[Lauren Garrone]

Damn.

[Chelsea Fairless]

As a courthouse wedding look for her. And yet she could have ordered it from Essence. You know they sell them on Essence now.

[Lauren Garrone]

And according to the Twitter account XCX source searches for Vivienne Westwood wedding dress were up 271%. Wedding mini dress searches were exploding up 397%. And off the shoulder, bridal dress searches have shot up 270.

[Chelsea Fairless]

So her impact.

[Lauren Garrone]

So I'm sure, Chelsea, by now you've heard there's a lot of drama going around having to do with Paramount, the Trump administration, Stephen Colbert, and now south park is involved.

[Chelsea Fairless]

I have heard. But can you succinctly explain it to the. Because I feel incapable of doing such things.

[Lauren Garrone]

Yeah, there is. There's a lot to unpack, so I will start with this. Paramount is currently in the process of merging with Skydance, or really? Skydance is buying Paramount Global for $8 billion. What or who is a Skydance?

[Chelsea Fairless]

Chelsea, I was going to ask you that.

[Lauren Garrone]

It is the media, financing and production company owned by David Ellison, who is the son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, who has a net worth of $283 billion. He is the second richest man in the world. The dad.

[Chelsea Fairless]

The dad of the lesbian.

[Lauren Garrone]

I was going to say, if the Ellison last name sounds familiar to you, it would be because he has a celesbian daughter named Megan Ellison who founded Annapurna Films.

[Chelsea Fairless]

You know, there's only so many billionaire lesbians in this world.

[Lauren Garrone]

That is true, but she is not involved in any of this. She's got her own company. So under Paramount global, they have CBS, MTV, VH1, as well as Comedy Central. Keep that in the back of your mind, Chelsea. They own Comedy Central as well. So this merger has been very protracted. There's a lot of legal stuff going on, and this merger needs to be approved by the fcc, which is currently headed by the Trump loyalist Brandon Carr and Chell. What? Does Trump not like being made fun of? He also hates, quote, the fake news. If you remember, last October, he sued Paramount for $10 billion over what he claimed was a misleading editing of a pre election interview with Kamala Harris that aired on 60 Minutes. So early last week, they settled for 16 million, which was to be donated to Trump's future library or an other cause, but not to him directly.

[Chelsea Fairless]

And this was because 60 Minutes edited an interview with Kamala Harris they thought hurt his chances of winning the election. Is that the logic?

[Lauren Garrone]

Yes.

[Chelsea Fairless]

I didn't actually watch it, so it.

[Lauren Garrone]

Doesn'T matter what it is because CBS also thought that the lawsuit was baseless. They probably would have won in court, but clearly this is a payoff to, you know, they're paying fealty to Trump so that he will approve this merger.

[Chelsea Fairless]

When I hear Skydance, all I think of is those inflatable, like, dancing people.

[Lauren Garrone]

In front of car dealerships. Yeah, yeah. So clearly this was a bribe. I mean, it's clear to see so much so that early last week, Colbert called out this Paramount settlement to Trump, calling it a big fat bribe. And four days after that. So at the end of last week, Colbert announced that the Late show with Stephen Colbert would be canceled. And the entire show. It's not like he's just leaving. The entire franchise will be shuttered in May 2026. Paramount insisted that this was a purely financial decision, although it was reported that the Late show was losing $40 million a year.

[Chelsea Fairless]

That is a lot. That's not nothing. I'm not saying that this wasn't politically motivated. I'm just saying it seems like that is a lot of money.

[Lauren Garrone]

Especially to your point about being politically motivated. In a truth social post, Trump made it clear that Paramount had indeed paid him out the 16 million and also indicated that the new owners would be giving him an additional 20 million in advertising, PSAs or similar programming. Again, Chell, keep Comedy Central keep PSA in the back of your mind here. So it's hard to see that this decision was purely financial, because a few days ago Paramount completed a $1.5 billion deal with the south park creators to stream south park on Paramount for the next five years. This deal included 10 new episodes of South Park. Probably wondering why didn't Paramount plus have South park to begin with? It is because their streaming service wasn't ready in 2019 and they had licensed it to HBO Max, who didn't want to give it back, Right? And so this contentious negotiation had delayed the release of the new season of south park. And Wednesday night South park premiered with a scorched earth episode that featured Trump in bed with the devil mentions of the Epstein List, and culminated in a PSA with an AI Trump walking through the desert undressing until he's nude, where there's very little left to the imagination. I should also say that there is a through line throughout this entire episode about how teeny tiny Trump's penises.

[Chelsea Fairless]

What did you actually think of the episode though?

[Lauren Garrone]

Well, you're the much bigger south park fan than I am, so I only dive into the show when there is something in the news. So I think a better question is what did you think of the episode?

[Chelsea Fairless]

I appreciate the fact that Trey Parker and Matt Stone do not give a fuck in a way that very few, I don't know, television show creators do at this point. Usually people with that much money are a little more careful than they are. I don't think this is the best episode of south park necessarily. I think there are parts of it that were really funny. I loved Cartman's whole journey about the fact that now that everyone is sort of anti woke and people feel like they can say gay slurs or say the R word, that he's not unique anymore. Like, I loved that, but I don't know. I'm not someone that watches south park religiously now. Although when I do check in with it and when I do see the newer episodes, I still think that they know what the fuck is up, you know, I still think they have it.

[Lauren Garrone]

Yeah. To your point, you rarely see people with fuck you money saying fuck you to the people who give you the fuck you money.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Exactly. And they've always been punk like that. And that's why the show's been successful.

[Lauren Garrone]

One of our favorite bits that they've Ever done is when they took acid and went to the Academy Awards when they were nominated and dressed in fake Gwyneth Paltrow. Gwyneth Paltrow and the Ralph Lauren pink dress from the Oscars and Jennifer Lopez's Versace outfit. Remember that era? It's not really done anymore, I guess, because everything's fast fashion. But I remember that being such a thing of like the week after the Oscars or the Grammys. Kind of down market labels would make versions of popular dresses that were on the red carpet. I feel like that's not done anymore.

[Chelsea Fairless]

No, it definitely is. That's what the point of, like, Shine and Fashion Nova is.

[Lauren Garrone]

I guess everything became. That is my point.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah. I think we grew up in the era where it's like you would see the Gwyneth Paltrow Oscars dress and then you'd look in Seventeen, Magna magazine, like a few months later and there would be a prom dress that was by Jessica McClintock that was basically the same.

[Lauren Garrone]

What did you think of the PSA at the end of the episode? Because we should say, for those who have not seen the episode, there are a couple of things that are different from typical South Park. Right. The Trump who is featured in the episode, it's not an animated version of his head. It is a photo of him. I believe his mugshots is what they used.

[Chelsea Fairless]

And then they used a bunch of different photos of him. I actually really liked the way they animated Trump.

[Lauren Garrone]

So the PSA at the end is not an animation. It is a deep fake of Trump. And it's worth noting that Matt Parker and Trey Stone have an AI entertainment startup called Deep Voodoo, which you might guess is focused on making hyper realistic deep fakes, which leads to a lot of ethical questions that don't sit right with me because AI takes an extraordinary amount of energy. It is horrible for the environment. You can create truly horrifying things with people, you know, I. E. Revenge porn. But they did it to humiliate Donald Trump. So, like.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, I think it's also more ethical here because he himself has released AI caricatures of himself doing all sorts of crazy shit.

[Lauren Garrone]

That's true.

[Chelsea Fairless]

It's not as if this aesthetic, when it comes to Trump, this sort of AI esthetic is like, completely foreign to him. It's what I associate with him. And all of this sort of ugly art that they had in the White House, I think is also falls in line with an AI aesthetic that I now associate with Trump because of the kind of shit that he posts. So because of that. I'm not offended by it necessarily, because it doesn't come out of the blue. Although I was surprised that they did the whole talking dick thing because we just got that in. What was that? Tommy Lee? Pamela.

[Lauren Garrone]

Oh, that's right, the. The Pam and Tommy Hulu series voiced by Jason Mantzoukas.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, but again, I didn't think that was the funniest part of the episode. I thought the funniest part of the episode was when Butters and Cartman tried to kill themselves, but they didn't realize they were in an electric car.

[Lauren Garrone]

The reaction to the episode was overwhelming. No. And you know, it basically were people being like, you know what? This is the greatest form of resistant media, this nuke, the Paramount merger. And it didn't. The merger went through yesterday and it's a bummer all around. Like, this is not going to lead to a better media ecosystem.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, I guess it's just encouraging that south park didn't get pulled in the wake of this Colbert thing, because that would be terrifying.

[Lauren Garrone]

Yeah, but they would go somewhere else. I mean, for sure. David Ellison has talked a lot about optimizing Paramount Studio with utilizing AI. He's in talks to buy Barry Weiss's Free Press, which is an overture that he wants to take CBS in a more right leaning direction. And there was a report the other day that his father's company, Oracle, will most likely get a hundred million dollar year contract to host Paramount Global on its cloud infrastructure.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Icky. It's icky and it's unfortunate about Stephen Colbert. Although to be fair, I never really watched the Late Show. Like obviously I was a huge strangers with candy person and a Colbert rapport person, but I guess I just don't watch any talk show religiously. Although I obviously respect Stephen Colbert and what he's done with that show and how good he is at that job.

[Lauren Garrone]

It's funny people's reactions where it's either like, no, it was purely financial, why can't people see that? Or like, no, it was for political reasons reasons. I kind of think it was a bit of both. Like, people are not watching late night shows on cable anymore. I think you are probably like me, you watch clips the next morning on YouTube. They are losing advertising dollars which used to be a main profit driver for late night shows. They were very low cost to produce and they made a lot of money and that's no longer the case.

[Chelsea Fairless]

So they should be employing the Deborah Vance marketing strategy as outlined in this last last season of Hacks.

[Lauren Garrone]

I know it was Oddly prescient, a.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Clip forward approach to late night.

[Lauren Garrone]

Always difficult to do transitions. But I'm sure people want to hear our thoughts about the initial Devil wears Prada 2 set photos. Chell, what did you think?

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, I think we should also note that it did finally come out in the press or on IMDb that Molly Rogers is the costume designer for Devil Wears Prada. You heard it here first, guys.

[Lauren Garrone]

I was going to say. Look at us. Breaking news. Did we get credit? No, we did not.

[Chelsea Fairless]

But, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. What do you think? What should we talk about first? Miranda or Andy's fits?

[Lauren Garrone]

I think Andy's. Because we first got Anne Hathaway's looks first. Sure. They're fine.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, they're fine.

[Lauren Garrone]

I've heard a lot of people making, like, trying to process this. Of, like. No, no, guys. She doesn't look as fashionable in this. In the scenes we saw. Because, you know, if you remember, in the first film, she was not as fashionable. And once she gets to Runway, she is more of a fashion sense. It's like, I'm already processing and just like that. I can't write fan fiction about why Anne Hathaway as Andy looks this way.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Like, well, it's true that she wasn't fashionable.

[Lauren Garrone]

No. But with every day this week, and there were more said photos, I was like, oh, my God, every day of production is going to be photographed. I cannot handle this.

[Chelsea Fairless]

No, it's true. It's gonna be like the Barbie movie again.

[Lauren Garrone]

And I want to not participate in this conversation. But then I see the outfits and I go, oh, what the fuck?

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, I want to not see any of these outfits until I'm sitting down in the theater. But we don't have that luxury.

[Lauren Garrone]

Absolutely. I mean, again, I'm trying to not have an opinion. And then I see Meryl Streep with the bedazzled Stanley cup or whatever that was, and I'm like, well, she wouldn't have that.

[Chelsea Fairless]

It's not a Stanley Cup. I've heard that it is the Paris Hilton knockoff of the Kalina Strada bedazzled water bottle. And yeah, I mean, I hope to God that that is not part of Miranda Priestley's costuming. That for whatever reason, Meryl Streep just has this water bottle. Or maybe, like, I don't know, the twins. Is one of the twins like a girl?

[Lauren Garrone]

They're both girls.

[Chelsea Fairless]

They're both girls. Okay, so maybe it's one of the. I don't know. I just Hope to God that this isn't a costuming choice for this character.

[Lauren Garrone]

Again, I so don't want to have an opinion about this, but then I see Anne Hathaway in the dress with the bucket hat. She's coming off the Hamptons Jitney with a garment bag with Runway on it. And I'm like, well, okay, wait, does she work for Runway still? What? What's going on?

[Chelsea Fairless]

She must. The dress is actually Gabriella Hurst, which kind of surprised me.

[Lauren Garrone]

Interesting.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah. I don't know if that speaks to me, but again, it's like, it is a movie. I don't know if we're necessarily supposed to think that she looks fab in every single scene. Her character isn't that fashionable. Her character wasn't that fashionable the first time around. But if she's still working at Runway, I guess that is kind of weird.

[Lauren Garrone]

I don't know if you saw this Twitter trend that I completely got fooled by, because it was like, you know, first photos of Anne Hathaway on the Devil Wears Prada set, first photos of Stanley Tucci. And then it started to be like, first photos of Kendall Jenner, Hailey Bieber stuns on the set of Devil Wears Prada. And I was like, wow, okay, they're having a star studded cast. And then it got more and more ridiculous where I was like, oh, this is just a joke, isn't it? And none of these people are in the film.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah. I wonder if any of them actually are, because sometimes I think with a sequel, you can go too far. Like, I feel like the Zoolander seems sequel went way too into having cameos from, like, real people and stuff, and it didn't actually amount to much.

[Lauren Garrone]

I just need to know if Justin Theroux is Anne Hathaway's husband, because I can see that.

[Chelsea Fairless]

What else?

[Lauren Garrone]

Harry Styles launched some sexual wellness products.

[Chelsea Fairless]

And it's already sold out. Did you hear?

[Lauren Garrone]

Oh, no.

[Chelsea Fairless]

So he released a vibrator and a lubricant.

[Lauren Garrone]

Well, you know, this is through his unisex lifestyle brand, Pleasing, but it's under the banner Pleasing Yourself.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, to be fair, Pleasing does sound like a sexual wellness company more than, you know, a unisex nail polish company or whatever it was initially envisioned as.

[Lauren Garrone]

So they were selling a double sided vibrator for $68, which, I mean, come on.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Okay, but is anyone using the other side?

[Lauren Garrone]

Well, that's not even what bothered me. What bothered me is the $68. It's like, come on, just add a dollar, make it 69.

[Chelsea Fairless]

I don't know, like, is anyone inserting the part that you would hold? Because it basically looks like a Hitachi magic wand. Right.

[Lauren Garrone]

It looks like the goop vibrator.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah. Which was the same thing. Which was also a double sided vibrator, apparently. I don't understand. I mean, maybe this is just me. I don't understand why you would want to insert anything vibrating. Call me crazy, maybe some people are into that. But what is the vibrating doing in there?

[Lauren Garrone]

Also, what is the cleaning process on a double, double sided vibrator?

[Chelsea Fairless]

This is genius, though, because, like, the whole thing about Harry Styles and all those One Direction guys is that, like, little children wanted to fuck them.

[Lauren Garrone]

Formerly young girls who are now adult.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Adolescent girls wanted to fudge them.

[Lauren Garrone]

Yes. And they're now grown women with enough.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Money to buy a vibrator and some lube.

[Lauren Garrone]

The lube is $25. I know that Harry Styles fans wanted a new album, but frankly, I'm worried for him to release a new album that he will then go tour on. Follow Me Chelsea. Because instead of people, like, having their cell phones up at. At his concerts, they're just going to have these vibrators. Like his Pleasing yourself vibrators are going to be the new, like, lighter.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Oh, my God. It's so smart because, like, if I, like, really had a crush on any celebrity and they made lube, I'd buy it just because I'd be like, you know what? I know Harry Styles has jerked off with this lube.

[Lauren Garrone]

Oh, my God.

[Chelsea Fairless]

You know what I mean, right? Like, you just would. So I understand, like, how that could have, like, major erotic appeal and therefore serious selling power. Hence why this vibrator and this lube is already sold out.

[Lauren Garrone]

See, this does not work for us. But you know what did work for us? The clueless 30th anniversary. There's no other way to call it but a doll invasion.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Truly, I feel blessed. Who could have foreseen that every major doll manufacturer would simultaneously come out with dolls celebrating the 30th anniversary of. Of Clueless?

[Lauren Garrone]

To be fair. So there is a. A Barbie, an American Girl. There's even a Polly Pocket. There's even an Uno card game that is Clueless themed. And this makes sense because those brands are all owned by Mattel. What I need to understand is how did Bratz get involved? Because that is a whole separate company, which, by the way, the company that makes Bratz Chell, they're headquartered in Chatsworth. We could go there right after we record.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Also, how did Bratz manage to win.

[Lauren Garrone]

With their doll collection. Well, they did the smart thing. As we are learning, we are buying the whole collection of the Bratz Clueless drop, which includes Cher, Amber, and Dion. We will put it in the future Every Outfit Studios. But they did the smart thing where they are dropping each doll separately.

[Chelsea Fairless]

I don't know if it's smart. I wish I could just buy them all simultaneously instead of having to. To set my alarm to wake up to get in the queue to buy these goddamn dolls, which I have been doing. You have not been doing. If I could buy them all in one go, that would be great. Although, to be fair, shipping is free, so it's not at an additional expense to me to have to place three separate orders for three separate Bratz dolls. But anyway, the. The genius thing about the Clueless Bratz dolls is that, for one thing, they have two outfits. No one else is offering two outfits. So in the case of the Clueless Bratz dolls, we get the classic plaid Sharon Dion looks and then Amber in the red sailor outfit, which is a true standout. And then they each have a separate outfit, which is Cher and Amber have their outfits from the Valley party.

[Lauren Garrone]

Well, famously, Cher's Aliyah outfit. Yes. Is recreated in this Bratz collection.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Exactly. And Dion, we get one of her gym looks, which was cute, but I think it's kind of random. It's like, give them all of their party looks. Dion's party look was amazing. I may have to just find some Etsy seller to make a tiny little party outfit for her or something.

[Lauren Garrone]

Yeah. Also, what is unfortunate is you start to notice through most of these collaborations, except for the Polly Pocket one, Ty is not in any of the. Of this.

[Chelsea Fairless]

I know. Because American Girl and Barbie is just Sharon Dion. No other girls.

[Lauren Garrone]

Right. In the. The classic tartan outfits, the opening. The opening outfits that you see them in, which, you know, gets a little tiring. I get why you would want to do the most famous outfits. I think for my own collection, I do need to buy these American Girl doll.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Although, did you see, they're just selling the outfits. So you can buy the outfit for $80 for Cher or for Dion, but you have to buy the doll completely separately, and you just have to buy the doll that most closely physically resembles the character, which I don't know how much that costs. What's an American Girl doll these days? Like, 200 bucks?

[Lauren Garrone]

Oh, that's a great question. It's funny that you're saying that, because in my head, I'm like, I have all of the original dolls that, like, I probably can just match.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, there you go.

[Lauren Garrone]

And you know what? As someone that always resonated with Molly, maybe I want to put Cher's outfit on Molly.

[Chelsea Fairless]

But the Barbies, I think are kind of the most boring, which pains me to say, because I'm a huge Barbie collector.

[Lauren Garrone]

It's tough. It's a lot to buy. The Bratz, the Polly Pocket, the Barbie and the American Girl. Like the American Girls, even though they're all the same outfits. The American Girl I can justify is different enough from the Bratz doll.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah. But also, I think in the case of both, both Barbie and Bratz, it's like you have to order all of them or none of them. Like, you need Cher and Dion or Cher, Dion and Amber. Like, you can't just get one. It, like, doesn't make sense for sure.

[Lauren Garrone]

That's why I'm also gonna get the Polly Pocket. That seems like the perfect thing to put on one's bookshelf.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, it's really cute. I'm so happy that this happened. But I also thought it was really funny that Bratz, like, commented on the official Barbie Instagram account of the Clueless dolls and said, do you prefer fashion victim or ensembly challenged? Which to me, further proof that whoever is doing the social media for Bratz is like one of the great geniuses of our time in terms of online marketing. Social media marketing. They're truly doing God's work over there.

[Lauren Garrone]

Respect again. If there's anyone, like, they've gotten me.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Who didn't even grow up playing with Bratz dolls to get into Bratz Dolls as like a 40 year old woman.

[Lauren Garrone]

Here's what I'm saying. If there is anyone affiliated with MGA Entertainment, which is the company that owns Bratz, they are headquartered in Chatsworth. The future. Every outfit TV would love to do a segment there. Are we buying the UNO set?

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yes.

[Lauren Garrone]

Will this actually make us want to play Uno or are we not even taking the wrapping off?

[Chelsea Fairless]

I love playing uno. I'm so down. I'm so down for all of that. But I think we're going to see more and more licensing when it comes to Clueless. Like I walked into, I think it was Nordstrom. I went to Nordstrom and Bloomingdale's yesterday. So one of them, who knows? But there was a whole, like Clueless inspired fashion collection of some kind. It was really ugly, but it was there. So that makes me think that there's kind of gonna be like a bit of a rollout.

[Lauren Garrone]

Did I hallucinate this or was there a real, real curation that Mona May.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Did that sounds like something they would do.

[Lauren Garrone]

And then also Mona May curated a hotel room in Beverly Hills that is like Clueless themed.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, but see, I always hate that shit because it's always like no one can ever go.

[Lauren Garrone]

No one can ever go. And also it doesn't look like Cher's bedroom. Like, unless you are recreating the like dry cleaner rotation of her closet, I don't want it.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, I'm with you. So we have some exciting documentaries coming out.

[Lauren Garrone]

This is true. We learned this week that a Sofia Coppola directed Marc Jacobs documentary will be premiering at the Venice Film Festival Festival. It is named Mark by Sophia according to Women's Wear Daily. It is a 97 minute film which will retrace the designer's work and the long standing friendship between Sophia Coppola and Marc Jacobs. That promises to feature plenty of archival footage including those tracing to the 1994 guerrilla style sidewalk fashion show Coppola and Spike Jones staged in New York outside of the Marc Jacobs show venue for the Brand X girl. Thank God we can't keep re watching that singular YouTube video, that MTV clip that someone uploaded to YouTube years and years ago.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, I was so excited for this. We have something to live for. Thank God.

[Lauren Garrone]

Yes. It did not say where this documentary was landing and where we can watch it, which is upsetting. This documentary is also.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Well, it's premiering at Venice, right? Is that what you just said?

[Lauren Garrone]

Yes, it's premiering at Venice, but I don't know where we will be able to stream it afterwards. Also, it's interesting, it is premiering at the Venice Film Festival, but out of competition.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Hmm. Yeah, I'm really interested to see it. There was one previous documentary about Marc Jacobs when he was at Louis Vuitton that was like worth watching if you like him and if you care about that shit. But I wouldn't say a perfect documentary by any means. But I'm curious to see what this is going to be like because obviously we're coming off this Galliano doc, which was quite salacious and got really into his drug use and stuff. And obviously Marc Jacobs has had similar dark periods in his life. Although I can completely understand why he would trust Sophia with his story. Not just because they're friends, but because I feel like she is someone that like isn't super interested in salacious things. Even when she's telling the story of Priscilla Presley or Marie Antoinette or whoever, you know, she kind of always takes the high road. I'm curious to what extent this will get into his personal life. Life in his childhood.

[Lauren Garrone]

Yeah. And beyond their personal friendship, they have dovetailed over the years. Professionally.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, for sure. And Sophia, you know, she designed that bag for Louis Vuitton. She was obviously in the Marc Jacobs campaigns. There was that whole Elizabeth Peyton fragrance campaign they did with a portrait of her.

[Lauren Garrone]

Yeah, yeah. And there was some perfume ad where it's like, her, her in a pool.

[Chelsea Fairless]

I just hope we get some BTS footage from those Halloween parties, which seem fun as fuck.

[Lauren Garrone]

There's no way that this can disappoint. The only thing is that it's 97 minutes. I could take five hours of this.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah. Also, I was excited to hear that Dan Levy, who I always appreciate, is producing a new documentary titled Lilith Building a Mystery, which will premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, is based on an oral history of Lilith Fair that Vanity Fair published in 2019.

[Lauren Garrone]

So this documentary, we actually know where it's going. It will stream on Hulu starting September 21st.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Thank God. As someone who went to two Lilith Fairs when I was in middle school and found it to be a life changing experience, I truly cannot wait for whatever this is. And I also hope that this is setting us up for a full fledged Lilith Fair reunion because they've tried to bring it back with, like, different kinds of artists and stuff, but we need that original lineup to come back. Like all of them.

[Lauren Garrone]

It is surprising that, you know, we basically exist in the nostalgia economy that Lilith Ferre has not come back.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah, it's crazy. Like, I would literally kill to see Sarah McLachlan and Erykah Badu and the Indigo Girls right now.

[Lauren Garrone]

Well, that makes me nervous now that you're looking across from me, that you're willing to kill someone for this.

[Chelsea Fairless]

So, yes, those are two things that I'm living for these days.

[Lauren Garrone]

Well, I'm happy to hear that this documentary will premiere a little bit after your birthday. What a wonderful birthday present to you.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Yeah. I also appreciate the fact that Dan Levy, despite being an international star, is still so Canada focused.

[Lauren Garrone]

This is true. I should mention that the documentary is directed by a fellow Canadian, Ali Pankyu, who did the film I Used to Be Funny with Rachel Senate that premiered last year. Huh.

[Chelsea Fairless]

I never saw that. Did you?

[Lauren Garrone]

I have not. I hear it's very good. I believe it's on Netflix at the moment. And speaking of Netflix, I'm sure you're clamoring for our thoughts on Too Much, but we have already talked too much and we are going to save our discussion on the new Lena Dunham series for our after show and just after that, which we hope you will join.

[Chelsea Fairless]

Us and we will be back next week to discuss yet another episode of and Just like that.

[Lauren Garrone]

All right guys, we'll see you next week. Bye bye.

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