Like so many before it, The Carrie Diaries promises to drive doe-eyed girls clacking their heels with determination to destroy something beautiful, namely our city. Sometimes the best strategy is to get behind enemy lines to figure out why shows like this make New York so appealing to this particularly impressionable demographic. I am here to take one for the team in the hopes of putting an end to this.
Here we go.
It’s 1984. The show opens and we see flashes of Times Square (natch); the lights, the bustling, the beautiful. Carrie is narrating about a glitzy life she can only dream of. We come out of the dream sequence to see Carrie lying in bed, before school, shaking a snow globe of New York City. We are accosted with several hundred 80s references before the first commercial break.
We learn within three minutes of the opening sequence that Carrie’s younger sister, Dorrit, is the dramaz of the family. We also know that their mom passed away, so the “single dad raising two kids” card is a recurring theme that probably won’t die any time soon (see what I did there?). Carrie confronts Dorrit while looking for her dead mom’s purse, but instead finds pot in her sister’s bureau. No one is surprised, given the skull stickers and Joy Division posters on Dorrit’s wall and the scowl on her face. Carrie eventually finds the purse in a hollowed out teddy bear, but her sister has spilled nail polish on it. Carrie is pissed, but decides to get super 80s and splatter more neon polish all over it, thus defying her sister and embracing the unique, creative creature that she aspires to be. Vom. She also paints her name in giant letters on it. As if!