Feb. 23, 2026
beTREYal with Jenny Bicks... (S3 E16 "Frenemies")
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RSS Feed It’s time to really talk “SEX” with writer Jenny Bicks as Kristin and Jenny go deep in to Charlotte and Trey’s intimacy issues and the BIG O.
Kristin reveals why she was especially nervous during a certain scene in this episode and Jenny shares the storyline based on her own love life.
Plus, a mysterious cell phone number.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:01
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Kristin Davis, and I want to know are you a Charlotte? Hi? Everybody, welcome to Are You a Charlotte Today? Fun Fun guest. She is returning the fantastic writer Jenny Viggs. She wrote the incredible episode Frenemies, which aired on October first in the year two thousand. So we're gonna rewatch with Jenny and hear all of her reminiscing and talk about the process in the writer's room. So enjoy everyone, Thanks for joining us. We're here. We're talking to Jenny Biggs about your Frenemies.
00:00:42
Speaker 2: Good. We're talking about Frenemies.
00:00:44
Speaker 1: Enemies, which is like such an incredible episode. I'm so thrilled that I have you to talk to about it.
00:00:49
Speaker 2: I can't believe, Like I was so pleased to rewatch it because I'm really proud of it, like it's amazing, a really good episode. But let's talk about you and that I was dying.
00:01:02
Speaker 1: I did not remember that that was this episode at all.
00:01:06
Speaker 2: I hadn't remembered that either. I was like, yes, girl, you go.
00:01:12
Speaker 1: But also you wrote it, so yes girl, you go.
00:01:15
Speaker 2: Okay, let's both go. But I did not have to do a scene on camera.
00:01:22
Speaker 1: Oh, I was panicked, so panicked, so nervous about that scene rastickly, thank you. I am happy. It's one of those ones, thank goodness. And I mean it lives on in memes and whatnot, right, but it is really great within the episode, you know, to see it in its full context, and also watching them in order, and because I couldn't really remember what happened with Trey, I mean I vaguely knew, but like seeing every episode again is super fascinating because of course, you know, they're so hampered by the fact that they won't talk it out. That's like their central problem really is that they aren't open to you know, he's really not open to discussing and going to therapy and doing all the things you would do. So she's got to like, what if I do this? What if I do that? And it's not exactly Charlot, Charlotte's forte to discuss difficult things.
00:02:15
Speaker 2: You know, No, that's she's got a lot of strengths, but that that's.
00:02:19
Speaker 1: Not totally totally totally, So it's perfect in a way to watch them, like it's the perfect conflict that you guys created, because of course he is so incredible and gorgeous and all of the things, and then who is just frustrating to watch so and then I was like, wait, is this also I didn't remember that? This is when I am the Samantha of my old you know, sorority group. I didn't remember. Friend of Mees is packed with action.
00:02:46
Speaker 2: Packed with action, packed with theme. Every character has such a like I here's why I kind of really love it is the real Like we really explore the relationships between the girls, like we put them up against each other, which is rare, really rare, or part of why we use that title. And it's like, wow, they're really having to They're they're not messing around, like that coffee shop scene where you and Samantha getting and then you know, carry Miranda. Some of the best I work by so.
00:03:24
Speaker 1: Great that I worked incredible, incredible guys there. Also, I was dying. I wanted to cover my face when I was watching it. Who I didn't remember that either. But then, okay, so I have so many questions. First of all, where did the was frenemies in the cultural lexicon at this point or no?
00:03:43
Speaker 2: No, So here's what's interesting. I was trying to figure out discern whether we there's a version of this where we came up with that word, right, But I don't know. Never. What I do remember for sure is when I think Darren walked in and said this word and we're like, this is a brilliant word. We none of us have heard the word before, so we certainly had never heard it. So I don't know where it came from, but it was not in the universe, right. Ye, it's a great.
00:04:12
Speaker 1: Word, right, it's a great word.
00:04:14
Speaker 2: Part of all of our lexicon. But at the time it was a word we'd never heard in the writer's room. And so anytime you bring a word like that to writers or like yes.
00:04:23
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, it's a great, great word.
00:04:26
Speaker 2: It never we had never heard the word amazing.
00:04:28
Speaker 1: That's amazing. I mean, I wonder we'd have to ask Darren where he heard it or if you just like came up with it. But I mean, it's such a good word, you know what it reminds me of. Do you remember it would have already happened, I think, or maybe it's coming. Do you remember when we say, did you google him?
00:04:42
Speaker 2: Right?
00:04:43
Speaker 1: Right? And I don't think it was you know, commonly said at that point, I don't know if we coined it exactly, but we definitely put it out there, get it out there. Yeah, yeah, I feel like it's like that it might be hard to find the act actual route.
00:05:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I can absolutely promise you that when that word was brought up in the writer's room, we were stunt. We're like, yeah, brilliant, brilliant word, and it became the basis of it. Just it fed so fantastically into the stories that we wanted to tell for each of the characters at that point and in their journey that season.
00:05:21
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Now is this the episode? This is what I remember, And I don't know if it's accurate that when the Miranda carry storyline came up where they were kind of, you know, hashing out should Miranda date someone that Carrie had previously dated and they discuss it very much head on. Was that something that HBO had something to say about? Do you remember this?
00:05:46
Speaker 2: No?
00:05:46
Speaker 1: Okay, because it's either this episode or when before where we kind of cut it, But there was something where at some point they were supposed to kind of argue about a guy, and Carolyn Strauss, I believe, said, you know, we cannot argue about a guy. We can discuss a guy, right, like, but they need to be on the same team.
00:06:06
Speaker 2: That's interesting. I wonder it rings more of a bell for me when they were fighting about Bryshnikov there sitting on the street, that that was a very intense moment because we hadn't had them fight, and that that was a discussion that we did have with HBO.
00:06:24
Speaker 1: Got it. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of just later though that is much later. Yeah. Interesting.
00:06:31
Speaker 2: So I don't remember having that specific discussion, but I know that we often were aware that we didn't want we did not want this to be a show about I want this guy to want this guy, you know, right, No, you know there was no show about cock blocking, no, or whatever the opposite.
00:06:55
Speaker 1: I don't I don't even know what the proper term is.
00:06:58
Speaker 2: I don't know.
00:06:58
Speaker 1: I totally know what you mean, but I mean, and I think that was an important thing because we are dealing with relationships, and anytime a show's dealing with the relationships, you can kind of slide into the soap operatness of it, and we didn't. We didn't want that, and we wanted the women to be, even if they might disagree, united in terms of we're on each other's side. We're never going to fight over a guy, meaning who gets the guy right.
00:07:22
Speaker 2: We can have a pinion about whether a guy and certainly we had those fights all the time about big right, and there were some of the characters who were pro big and some that weren't, and some that were pro at certain times. Whatever, right, right, right right, We're ever going to be I want this guy right.
00:07:40
Speaker 1: Thank goodness, thank goodness. I mean it's funny too, like this is one of those episodes where if you had said to me, frenemies, I would have thought I remembered the whole thing, but I never would have placed these different scenes together all in one episode. It's so many important scenes and all of us the worries.
00:07:59
Speaker 2: It's interesting. When I was rewatching it, I was reminded that Carrie's main storyline, which is that she's going to do the talk to the single women and how that goes and are we getting older and wiser or just older, is quite different than the Frenemi's theme that we're dealing with throughout the rest of the episode. So true, but sometimes we would be able to do that, which makes it more fun. Like you launch a story where you have Miranda you know, they're trying to figure out where this guy is and turns out he's dead, which is crazy and funny and bizarre, but it becomes about her being a single one, Carrie being a single woman, and trying to explain that at the same time that we're dealing with, you know, her Miranda not knowing where her date is and what is it like to get older and not know how to deal with being stood up? Which is really where that storyline started from, because we were talking in the room about like how different ways that people get stood up. And I do remember Cindy Shuepack was telling this story and I don't mean to take her story, but I give her all of this crazy New York stories about how she was waiting for her date to come pick her up in a New York apartment building with a doorman, and the doorman rang up to say like, oh, your date's you know, coming to pick you up. And the doorman called up and said, your date's not coming up. She said, oh, I'll come down, and she said no, he said, no, your date's not ever coming up. I had used the doorman to stand Cyndy up, Oh my god, which was fantastic. And by the way, this was what was great about writing on a show like this when we were single, which is what a shitty story, but it becomes like a great jumping as.
00:09:49
Speaker 1: Incredible but also like what was going on with that man then he thought I'm going to go to her address and have a conversation with the doorman. Really odd, really.
00:09:59
Speaker 2: Also I remember this was before cell phones were like a really big thing. Right. Also, rewatching this episode is the first time and only time, so Miranda says when she meets the apshole, right, here's or no, I'm sorry she has she she says to someone, my cell phone numbers on the back of my card.
00:10:19
Speaker 1: It's the guy. Yeah, it's the guy. Yeah at the wake, right, so she has a cell phone, like what I know, but we've never seen it. Oh my god, I didn't even think of that. And she's also so giggly and kind of like weirdly needy. We're just like, that's my cell phone and my email and like such a funny moment, such a phone.
00:10:37
Speaker 2: Because she's been stood up.
00:10:40
Speaker 1: Guy.
00:10:40
Speaker 2: But what we determined in that room discussion was the only time it would be okay to be stood up that way would be if your date literally had died. I mean yes, and that became the story of.
00:10:51
Speaker 1: Which I love so much. But when they're walking up and Carrie says, it's an open casket, I've never seen his dead body. I mean there's like there's there's so much subtext and like death and darkness and I it was deep. It was deep.
00:11:07
Speaker 2: And it's also about rebirth. I mean it's about you know, Shakespeare called the orgasm the little death, you know. And we are to assume that Charlotte achieved what she wanted.
00:11:22
Speaker 1: Oh no, come on in a minute and a half or when when she's trying to entice him, I don't. I don't think she did any.
00:11:31
Speaker 2: Conversation with Samantha. Samantha at the very end, you can see she's like, she says, did you did you come?
00:11:38
Speaker 1: It's true, you know, I giggle.
00:11:41
Speaker 2: She got was positive?
00:11:42
Speaker 1: Really? I mean, look, I think it's a huge accomplishment because at this point, the fact that it is ongoingly not happening for them is horrible awful. I didn't really remember this, I I don't. I mean, obviously I was trying to do it well in every but like I also just don't have a ton of experience with this, and certainly I've never been married, right, so like that's the next level. And I've never been so focused on getting married like Charlotte was, and like obviously really gonna try. But then on the other hand, that man won't talk at all, like, oh my gosh.
00:12:17
Speaker 2: And he talked in I had a good time writing the because I grew up sailing, and so I had a good time writing all of the metaphors that he had for sailing as it applies to sex.
00:12:27
Speaker 1: Yes, he enjoys that. Also, I think Kyle he gets a twinkle in his eye when he has them two.
00:12:32
Speaker 2: We're so adorable as a couple, Like that's kind of I was reminded of. And that was part of the problem, right, is that Charlotte saw them as this perfect cup. They looked like the perfect couple. They appeared in essence to be right for each other. But in the basic point in.
00:12:47
Speaker 1: The bedroom, no, which is awful, he.
00:12:50
Speaker 2: Would not talk about it. And so for her to get up there and really say what she says to him, the physicality aside, like that's a really big deal for Charlotte.
00:13:00
Speaker 1: To he Oh, I agree, I agree, And I was very scared, like scared and stressed, and I remember being so stressed about what I was going to wear, and I'd forgotten about the scene that I'm shopping with Carrie at like kind of Attacky's shop and I'm holding up those crazy things and she's trying to make jokes about it, you know, but obviously I'm quite tense, you know, about the whole thing, and I'm trying to say, no, this is important. I have to show him that I'm not the Madonna. And then she's like, but you don't want to be the hard you know, she's making jokes, but like it's it's so serious for Charlotte.
00:13:35
Speaker 2: Oh, it's hugely so she's trying so hard. And I like also that we didn't shy away from the fact that it wasn't just that she felt rejected by Trey, but also that she was a sexual human being, so that absolutely he deserved to have pleasure and she deserved to have that attention. So that's a whole other level of story about a couple who's not getting it on. Yes, I'm annoyed by this. It's like I feel sexually rejected and I deserve and I want more. Absolutely, absolutely it's kind of a watershed moment for her.
00:14:10
Speaker 1: Oh it's incredible. It's incredible, and I mean I was so happy to see it again in the whole episode. I mean, obviously, I also have so much else that is going on, like I go to the brunch with the sorority girls because I fought with Smith, Like I didn't remember that this was literally one episode. It is amazing how much you guys could do in one episode.
00:14:31
Speaker 2: Totally forgot about the sorority sisters, like honestly, and I wrote it and I forgot it.
00:14:37
Speaker 1: The thing I love about it, I love so many things. But do you know the brand Jacques Mousse? Yes, so Simon, who is that? Someone who is the designer asked me to do this little video for his fashion show, I guess a year ago, year and a half ago, and the scene with the sorority girls, the outfit was the inspiration for this whole video and they had a picture of me. They wanted me to wear a tiny tank top. This is, of course, twenty five years later, a tiny tank top with a sweater folded just perfectly. They had a picture and we had to call them on the FaceTime in France to make sure that we had folded it correctly. It was like to the detail, and he made a sweater and embroidered my invitation on it that I opened in the in the video, and it was all inspired by that one outfit in that one scene in your episode would amazing.
00:15:27
Speaker 2: I have never heard that, and that is crazy and fantastic exactly.
00:15:34
Speaker 1: And also I was like, I'm sorry, can I please have my arms covering me in this twenty five years like I can't live up to this. I also remember filming that scene because we see them together and you've set it up so brilliantly from the coffee shop with all of us where Samantha and I fight, which you know, I hadn't really remembered that, and when I watched it, I was concerned that I did it, and do it well enough, like deep enough. I don't know. I was worried. The whole thing made me nervous watching it.
00:16:07
Speaker 2: You know that's so interesting because you know, obviously we each look at our old material in different ways and in the ways that we came into the material, right, So you're looking at it as the actor thinking did I portray this? I'm looking at this writer thinking why did I need that extra joke. We didn't need that much. Why did? Why didn't we cut that? But I don't. I feel like you did a terrific job. You were threading so many needles in this.
00:16:37
Speaker 1: It's true, it's true that that part did I did. Really. I was like, oh, okay, you did well.
00:16:44
Speaker 2: You gave yourself some silent Yeah.
00:16:46
Speaker 1: Totally totally. And I'm very very happy with the with the tray scene, right, which I had remembered being happy with it, but now I see it in so many tiny splits, you know, tiny memes that I hadn't seen the whole thing, and I was like, no, no, it's really good. It's really good. Of course, course because he's also really really good with He has very little to say, but we're just so connected that that's kind of the good on the bat of it, right. All right, So my Hyundai hot take from this episode called Frenemies. I'm gonna have to go with Charlotte's storyline, partly because I'd forgotten about how many different things Charlotte gets to do and say and feel in this episode, between seeing her sorority sisters, trying to show her husband Trey that she's a sexual being which was just such a beautifully written scene, and then fighting with Samantha and then making up with Samantha. I've forgotten most of this except for the trey, which I do love. It is embarrassing, but I do love it. So I'm just I'm gonna have to say Charlotte's overall storyline, I love it. I love what they wrote, and it was really fun to watch it. That was my Hyundai hot take, celebrating iconic moments, bold moves, and unforgettable style, just like Hyundai. So I have the scene with there's I mean, I mean, it's a lot for Charlotte, you know, even like eh, but fighting with Samantha always scary, you know what I'm saying, Like any of us disagreeing about anything, to me was always scary, but it had been coming right because she does have just the opposite point of view about sex then Charlotte, which has been true since day one, and now that Charlotte is married and it's not working out, of course, it brings up all of her deeper things about the meaning of sex and the meaning of all of it, which is really what she says, like, don't talk about it like that way. And I think that, you know, it's so fantastic that then you have me go off into like my past to see the sorority sisters, thinking I'm going to feel comfort, but in what I feel is discomfort because I'm now the Samantha and they're now very like shut down to honest conversation about sex. So then I become kind of like I act out. And I remember filming that because I had to be slightly drunk, so I was always nervous about that. And I remember the reason that I put the money in the glass is because I had to storm off and then like say something over my shoulder and I would throw the money and I threw the money one time and it landed, and then yeah, remember this.
00:19:31
Speaker 2: It was the perfect I mean, couldn't have been better. It was so good scripted it, we wouldn't have been able to do.
00:19:37
Speaker 1: It, but I know it's so good. It was so good. So I enjoyed that scene a lot, but I did not realize it was all in one thing. And I think traditionally what we would have had would be Charlotte like a pressure cooker, right, like she's not expressing your feeling, not expressing your feeling and then there would have been like a type of a thing, you know, But instead we have the Kyle scene and then she calls Samantha, which is so nice.
00:20:02
Speaker 2: It's so nice, and I think, I think what we did so well, if I might say so myself, yes, is we took each of these because Samantha has that same journey, right, So she's sexual with this guy and she's waking them all the time and who cares, it's just for fun. But then she meets kind of her doppelganger and it turns out that she's more Charlotte than she thought, so she she also we pushed the boundaries of these women so that they can recognize that they have more in common than they think. And I think that's what happens. Like you make friends in your thirties, if you're lucky, your forties, your fifties, whatever, and you know they're not one hundred percent of who you are, but they represent a part of who you are, and in this case, getting Samantha and Charlotte to recognize that they that they have more in common than they think, and that there are boundaries that they're old selves maybe don't want to go to. And that's been because they're impacted by this other person who's you know, they could not be more opposite, but they're really sharing a lot more than they realized. And absolutely such a cool thing to look at with friendships. And it was fun. I mean that, you know, that blowjob scene is so kind of crazy and like over the top, and the table going up and down restaurant is really noticing.
00:21:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a lot. That was a lot, but you have to go a lot to Samantha, Samantha.
00:21:32
Speaker 2: You have to. And even Samantha says, Okay, that's more than I can handle. And so that's her moment where a little bit of Charlotte has gotten into her. And as I'm sure we've you've talked about on this podcast, but we've talked about all the time, is kind of you know, how much of you as Charlotte, how much of you as Samantha. Each person has different levels of who they which character they are, case they both have parts of each other in them and absolutely really sweet.
00:21:59
Speaker 1: I think it's so it was so so sweet and also so I think people forget about that because people still say to me like, would you and you know, Charlotte and Samantha would ever be friends. I'm like, sure they would. You can't just be friends with people like yourselves exactly or whatever. It's boring.
00:22:16
Speaker 2: Like what you grow up and you a different of your life. You collect people who are more like what you need at that time in your life. And I think this is exactly who Charlotte needed, yes in them, like, because look, Carrie was hiding behind her menu. You know she's definitely straight ahead sex talk, right. You needed to hear from Samantha the hard truth, and you know it is hard. It's hard when the girls fight.
00:22:45
Speaker 1: It is it's scary when the girls fight. But I think that's also it makes the relationship so much more real because there are conflicts. If you stay in those relationships, there's going to be conflicts and then you're going to get over it. Let's talk about Carrie and Miranda because also they fight more than I realize when I'm rewatching right and fights the wrong word. They disagree more than I realize, and they'll have weird like in the first season, is it the first season or the second where Carrie stands her up, you know, stands Miranda up for big and then and then she calls someone and you think she's calling Big, but she calls Miranda and you go and she's sitting there and they make up and it's so sweet, Like there's so right. There's so many like kind of ups and downs and hills, and you know, they're walking. Talks are always so fascinating. I love their relationship more than I even ever realized that I love their relationship, and I love the complexities of it, you know, and that they really like Miranda tells it like it is to Carrie more so than anyone else, you know, which I love so much. And I love this one because I don't remember another time where Carrie is like I mean, obviously Carrie has dated the guy before eight years ago, and now they meet him at the wake and Miranda is feeling all rejected because she was stood up by the dead guy. I mean, it's so much. It's it's so much to even retell. It's a lot, it is. It's incredible, like and so it go, it moves so quick, like you guys just did such a tremendous job, as you know. But then and Carrie's like, no, no, don't go out with him, like it's so rare for her to even like it's a very rare thing. Usually she's like yeah, you know, you know, see what it is or whatever, you know what I'm saying. She's usually more kind of casual, happy, go lucky or whatever about it. But since she's gone out with this guy and he was mean to her, like belittling, as we see later, like a very kind of like belittling, you know, misogynistic. Yeah, call exactly, but it's super fascinating. Then I just love the scene where they find so Miranda likes him because of course she's just wanting to feel, you know, good and whatnot. And they go out and she talks Carrie into going for drinks, and they go for drinks, and then of course it doesn't take much for that asshole to come out. And then right away, like maybe the third comments like, well, you know, Carrie's not at what does he say she is? It was something that she was.
00:25:06
Speaker 2: Oh god, I I just rewatched her.
00:25:08
Speaker 1: We just rewatched it, and I can't remember now. But it's so well written because there Miranda is trying to make the best of it right, and Carrie's like trying to reserve judgment, like I'm just gonna sit here, and he starts out okay. Like there's a couple little things like, oh, she loves her shoes, you know, and oh, Miranda says, did you go see his band? And she's like, no, I never did. And he goes, well, she was too busy buying shoes. That's the first little dig, right, And she goes, oh, I do I love my shoes and you could just see her like what is he doing? And then he just keeps going. And then Marna's like, well you are so and I just love when they're back together, you know what I'm saying.
00:25:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they it doesn't take much, it doesn't.
00:25:45
Speaker 1: No, no, and that was good. That's as it should.
00:25:47
Speaker 2: Be, as it should be. Yeah, she had to have that little journey. She had to have the moment of it. And by the way, that's the thing with these kind of vessels. And this guy was kind of based on a guy that I had dated. I was wondering who was an a told and continues kind of to be an actult. Those guys can be very charming. And so she goes on a day with him and it's a lovely date, like they close the bar, you know, he kisses her good night. It's romantic. The whole thing, and she's like, you know, as an audience, you're thinking, maybe the guy has changed, like yeah, great, right, but Carrie knows better, or at least in this case, she knew better. And and I think what's good too, is that you think maybe for a second, oh, she doesn't want her to date him because she dated him, and you realize, no, no, no, she was right. He's just an adult because people absolutely certain people like that don't change.
00:26:41
Speaker 1: Like agree, He's very recognizable to me.
00:26:46
Speaker 2: We've all had one or two of these people in our life. Hopefully people are no longer in our lives like that, but most definitely. Yeah, but that is a type. And it's certainly a guy that he uses his charm, you know. It's farm offensive, yes, and it's just offensive, which by that would have been a line we would have written in this episode.
00:27:07
Speaker 1: So good, So good? Can you take me through? I don't think I've ever asked you. I've had Cindy on, I've had Michael on. I don't think I ever asked like, I would love to just give everyone in myself too. Sometimes I wonder in the past a breakdown of how it went for the process of you, like, how did you get assigned which episodes within the season and how much advance did you know, like, oh, okay, I'm running that one and this is the theme or you know, breaking the stories, how what's the process like or what was it like for sext and City.
00:27:52
Speaker 2: So it pretty much stayed this same season a season, even as we got one or two more writers. But what we would do is we would talk at the bigning of the season about what we really wanted the arcs of each of these characters to be. So we knew where we were starting them and we knew where we were ending them. Things could change within that, but we knew, you know, Charlotte was going to go from here to here, so by the end of the season, we want X to have happened. And then we would start to break down within it. We would talk about ideas and kind of themes that were important to touch on for each character, and then it would depend on the episode. So sometimes someone walk in which just a great story, like like, for instance, a woman's right to shoes. Okay, so I went to a party, I had to take my shoes off and it really was upsetting to me and it got me thinking about what would happen if someone took my shoes because also when you're a small person, your shoes are very important part of your outfit. And I wish I had known I was gonna take my shoes off, I would have worn something different. Okay, but that when sometimes you walk in with something like that, you go, that's a great thing to have happened. How can we use that to tell a story we want to tell, which case was Carrie and her choice to be single and to spend her money how she wants to write. Yeah, so it became a bigger episode around that. And in that case, because I came up with it was my idea, I will write that episode. Sometimes it has to do with order of you know, we would kind of start with sometimes with seniority, you know, Michael, my first episode, I would write the second episode, and then sometimes there'd be an episode that you just knew a person had to write. Cindy had done her crazy trampoline not trampoline.
00:29:44
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, high wire what was it called?
00:29:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, she'd not on the Hudson River, and so she wanted to write about that, you know, about taking chances and putting yourself up in the air. Figuratively, and so sometimes it would be the thing that you knew that this person had to write because the thing that they really cared about thematically or it, or sometimes it was hey, it's your turn to write an episode. But nobody would ever write an episode they didn't feel really attached to. No important to us that people write what they what they could feel. Right, when Miranda buys her house, I wrote that because I had bought my house and had gone through the exact same things.
00:30:33
Speaker 1: Such a good one.
00:30:34
Speaker 2: I love that episode. Still so great, So thrilling too that women now single women now outrank single men. I'm buying houses no way. Twenty five years later, now the little women are buying more houses more than men. Incredible, incredible, And then you think about what Miranda went through to which is what I went through. She had keep checking the boxes as single women and single woman.
00:30:58
Speaker 1: Yes, this is my life. I know all about it.
00:31:01
Speaker 2: So it's just it's still happening. But we are we have outpaced men, not of pay. So that's a long description of kind of how how it works. Sometimes we will will break a lot of the episode in the room. We'll go through it and outline it and talk about what, because you also want to make sure that each of these characters are hitting certain points in each episode that they need to hit right. So it might be that the episode is primarily about Charlotte not having sex with her husband and what that means, But how does that fit in with our other characters and stories we need to tell for them at the same time, And then we takes a place of fun theme on top. And also the question right, Yeah, it was interesting because the question doesn't necessarily apply as specifically as some sometimes it does. Because the question was are we getting older and wiser or just just older? Right?
00:31:55
Speaker 1: A really good question which applies.
00:31:57
Speaker 2: In a lot of ways, in a subliminal way to like friendships and learning what you have to do in a relationship. But it was really more about applied literally to Carrie giving that speech to these women and them saying like, well, you're still single and you're oh my god, yes, Like what do you have to teach us? I know you don't seem any wiser, oh god, seem older and single.
00:32:25
Speaker 1: That was scary too. There was the whole episode. There were so many times where I was like, oh, you know.
00:32:31
Speaker 2: I know, and I'm sure you noticed that Sarah Jessica's stand in was in the scene.
00:32:39
Speaker 1: That's who it was. I was trying to figure that out.
00:32:42
Speaker 2: And she asked a question. We had to give our stand ins were terrific a chance to do on camera work, and that was a case where she she got to ask a question.
00:32:53
Speaker 1: That's so nice. So wait, let's go back to the writer's room. Okay, So when when you so you would get like you might know at the beginning of the season, like just have it marked out, I'll do episode number four, episode number eight or whatever, like theoretically, and you would know the arcs as you said, which also we were so wonderfully shared you know that information at the beginning, and as you said, sometimes it would change. But Michael Patrick, would you know, sit us down and say, like, this is the plan just so that we could also kind of try to, you know, plan it out in our mind somewhat, and then sometimes when you got the scripted would be different or you know, interesting new twist or whatever. But then in terms of writing, so if you're in the room with everyone, would you do a rough draft and then take it in the room for them to read, like how did that part work?
00:33:42
Speaker 2: You would go away for all are part of a couple of days. Usually, you know, some episodes famously we wrote had to write very quickly because we just didn't have as much time. Splatt was one of those where Cindy and I wrote it together and we wrote it in five days, oh which but we loved every minute of it because it was fun to write it together and also we knew exactly what we wanted to do. But yes, you go away from the room, you tippy type at home. This is how we tippy type. It's just like a pterodactyl. Love it and then you bring it back in and the room will read it and give thoughts, and then you'll go away again, and then it would go to HBO. But you know the thing, It's funny now looking back, we got very few notes from HBO. They were hosingly supportive, and I wish the world were set up the same way to tase writers a bit more to know what they're doing. There's a lot of second guessing that happens, and so people end up giving I think a little more notes than they need to.
00:34:50
Speaker 1: I agree from what I know, and I'm not a writer, right, but I feel like because of the way that HBO was structured with Chris and Carolyn. Really there weren't that many people, and Carolyn had the good sense to just hire the right writers and let you guys do your thing, which is just so rare.
00:35:10
Speaker 2: You know, you don't really don't find it anymore.
00:35:13
Speaker 1: You really don't. And I talked to her. I had lunch with her last week because we did the event for Sir Juskain. It was so nice to see her, and we talked a little bit about like just the you know, fear in the industry, you know, and fear just breeds everybody being so nervous and like overthinking everything, and it's hard to create or have these kind of breakout hits like how we were and heated rivalry. Heated rivalry because they went to Canada where they had no budget, but they got to do what they wanted. And then luckily Casey was like, yes, oh, by that good call on Casey's part, right, but you know, it probably wouldn't have gotten made in the way that it did if it were here with all the different tinkering.
00:35:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, I also I am I'm so respectful of the fact that there are a lot of executives scared for their jobs and things. Of course, the time and things are certainly not the way they were. Is this sense like I need to show my worth, but it has kind of beaten down the creative process. And it was such nirvana to be I mean, in so many ways to be in the room we were in, to be working with the actors we were working with, to be telling the stories we were telling, but to be left alone to do that, it was really it made the show better.
00:36:26
Speaker 1: It just is absolutely absolutely.
00:36:29
Speaker 2: When Carolyn did have notes, they were really smart, right, and they were never about I'm scared to do something right, like do we want to do that? Okay, tell me why? Right?
00:36:42
Speaker 1: Right? Right? That sounds just like her. Yeah, that's good. That's really good. You guys, this is so much fun that we're going to have to have a part two, So join us later in the week on Are You a Charlotte
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Kristin Davis, and I want to know are you a Charlotte? Hi? Everybody, welcome to Are You a Charlotte Today? Fun Fun guest. She is returning the fantastic writer Jenny Viggs. She wrote the incredible episode Frenemies, which aired on October first in the year two thousand. So we're gonna rewatch with Jenny and hear all of her reminiscing and talk about the process in the writer's room. So enjoy everyone, Thanks for joining us. We're here. We're talking to Jenny Biggs about your Frenemies.
00:00:42
Speaker 2: Good. We're talking about Frenemies.
00:00:44
Speaker 1: Enemies, which is like such an incredible episode. I'm so thrilled that I have you to talk to about it.
00:00:49
Speaker 2: I can't believe, Like I was so pleased to rewatch it because I'm really proud of it, like it's amazing, a really good episode. But let's talk about you and that I was dying.
00:01:02
Speaker 1: I did not remember that that was this episode at all.
00:01:06
Speaker 2: I hadn't remembered that either. I was like, yes, girl, you go.
00:01:12
Speaker 1: But also you wrote it, so yes girl, you go.
00:01:15
Speaker 2: Okay, let's both go. But I did not have to do a scene on camera.
00:01:22
Speaker 1: Oh, I was panicked, so panicked, so nervous about that scene rastickly, thank you. I am happy. It's one of those ones, thank goodness. And I mean it lives on in memes and whatnot, right, but it is really great within the episode, you know, to see it in its full context, and also watching them in order, and because I couldn't really remember what happened with Trey, I mean I vaguely knew, but like seeing every episode again is super fascinating because of course, you know, they're so hampered by the fact that they won't talk it out. That's like their central problem really is that they aren't open to you know, he's really not open to discussing and going to therapy and doing all the things you would do. So she's got to like, what if I do this? What if I do that? And it's not exactly Charlot, Charlotte's forte to discuss difficult things.
00:02:15
Speaker 2: You know, No, that's she's got a lot of strengths, but that that's.
00:02:19
Speaker 1: Not totally totally totally, So it's perfect in a way to watch them, like it's the perfect conflict that you guys created, because of course he is so incredible and gorgeous and all of the things, and then who is just frustrating to watch so and then I was like, wait, is this also I didn't remember that? This is when I am the Samantha of my old you know, sorority group. I didn't remember. Friend of Mees is packed with action.
00:02:46
Speaker 2: Packed with action, packed with theme. Every character has such a like I here's why I kind of really love it is the real Like we really explore the relationships between the girls, like we put them up against each other, which is rare, really rare, or part of why we use that title. And it's like, wow, they're really having to They're they're not messing around, like that coffee shop scene where you and Samantha getting and then you know, carry Miranda. Some of the best I work by so.
00:03:24
Speaker 1: Great that I worked incredible, incredible guys there. Also, I was dying. I wanted to cover my face when I was watching it. Who I didn't remember that either. But then, okay, so I have so many questions. First of all, where did the was frenemies in the cultural lexicon at this point or no?
00:03:43
Speaker 2: No, So here's what's interesting. I was trying to figure out discern whether we there's a version of this where we came up with that word, right, But I don't know. Never. What I do remember for sure is when I think Darren walked in and said this word and we're like, this is a brilliant word. We none of us have heard the word before, so we certainly had never heard it. So I don't know where it came from, but it was not in the universe, right. Ye, it's a great.
00:04:12
Speaker 1: Word, right, it's a great word.
00:04:14
Speaker 2: Part of all of our lexicon. But at the time it was a word we'd never heard in the writer's room. And so anytime you bring a word like that to writers or like yes.
00:04:23
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, it's a great, great word.
00:04:26
Speaker 2: It never we had never heard the word amazing.
00:04:28
Speaker 1: That's amazing. I mean, I wonder we'd have to ask Darren where he heard it or if you just like came up with it. But I mean, it's such a good word, you know what it reminds me of. Do you remember it would have already happened, I think, or maybe it's coming. Do you remember when we say, did you google him?
00:04:42
Speaker 2: Right?
00:04:43
Speaker 1: Right? And I don't think it was you know, commonly said at that point, I don't know if we coined it exactly, but we definitely put it out there, get it out there. Yeah, yeah, I feel like it's like that it might be hard to find the act actual route.
00:05:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I can absolutely promise you that when that word was brought up in the writer's room, we were stunt. We're like, yeah, brilliant, brilliant word, and it became the basis of it. Just it fed so fantastically into the stories that we wanted to tell for each of the characters at that point and in their journey that season.
00:05:21
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Now is this the episode? This is what I remember, And I don't know if it's accurate that when the Miranda carry storyline came up where they were kind of, you know, hashing out should Miranda date someone that Carrie had previously dated and they discuss it very much head on. Was that something that HBO had something to say about? Do you remember this?
00:05:46
Speaker 2: No?
00:05:46
Speaker 1: Okay, because it's either this episode or when before where we kind of cut it, But there was something where at some point they were supposed to kind of argue about a guy, and Carolyn Strauss, I believe, said, you know, we cannot argue about a guy. We can discuss a guy, right, like, but they need to be on the same team.
00:06:06
Speaker 2: That's interesting. I wonder it rings more of a bell for me when they were fighting about Bryshnikov there sitting on the street, that that was a very intense moment because we hadn't had them fight, and that that was a discussion that we did have with HBO.
00:06:24
Speaker 1: Got it. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of just later though that is much later. Yeah. Interesting.
00:06:31
Speaker 2: So I don't remember having that specific discussion, but I know that we often were aware that we didn't want we did not want this to be a show about I want this guy to want this guy, you know, right, No, you know there was no show about cock blocking, no, or whatever the opposite.
00:06:55
Speaker 1: I don't I don't even know what the proper term is.
00:06:58
Speaker 2: I don't know.
00:06:58
Speaker 1: I totally know what you mean, but I mean, and I think that was an important thing because we are dealing with relationships, and anytime a show's dealing with the relationships, you can kind of slide into the soap operatness of it, and we didn't. We didn't want that, and we wanted the women to be, even if they might disagree, united in terms of we're on each other's side. We're never going to fight over a guy, meaning who gets the guy right.
00:07:22
Speaker 2: We can have a pinion about whether a guy and certainly we had those fights all the time about big right, and there were some of the characters who were pro big and some that weren't, and some that were pro at certain times. Whatever, right, right, right right, We're ever going to be I want this guy right.
00:07:40
Speaker 1: Thank goodness, thank goodness. I mean it's funny too, like this is one of those episodes where if you had said to me, frenemies, I would have thought I remembered the whole thing, but I never would have placed these different scenes together all in one episode. It's so many important scenes and all of us the worries.
00:07:59
Speaker 2: It's interesting. When I was rewatching it, I was reminded that Carrie's main storyline, which is that she's going to do the talk to the single women and how that goes and are we getting older and wiser or just older, is quite different than the Frenemi's theme that we're dealing with throughout the rest of the episode. So true, but sometimes we would be able to do that, which makes it more fun. Like you launch a story where you have Miranda you know, they're trying to figure out where this guy is and turns out he's dead, which is crazy and funny and bizarre, but it becomes about her being a single one, Carrie being a single woman, and trying to explain that at the same time that we're dealing with, you know, her Miranda not knowing where her date is and what is it like to get older and not know how to deal with being stood up? Which is really where that storyline started from, because we were talking in the room about like how different ways that people get stood up. And I do remember Cindy Shuepack was telling this story and I don't mean to take her story, but I give her all of this crazy New York stories about how she was waiting for her date to come pick her up in a New York apartment building with a doorman, and the doorman rang up to say like, oh, your date's you know, coming to pick you up. And the doorman called up and said, your date's not coming up. She said, oh, I'll come down, and she said no, he said, no, your date's not ever coming up. I had used the doorman to stand Cyndy up, Oh my god, which was fantastic. And by the way, this was what was great about writing on a show like this when we were single, which is what a shitty story, but it becomes like a great jumping as.
00:09:49
Speaker 1: Incredible but also like what was going on with that man then he thought I'm going to go to her address and have a conversation with the doorman. Really odd, really.
00:09:59
Speaker 2: Also I remember this was before cell phones were like a really big thing. Right. Also, rewatching this episode is the first time and only time, so Miranda says when she meets the apshole, right, here's or no, I'm sorry she has she she says to someone, my cell phone numbers on the back of my card.
00:10:19
Speaker 1: It's the guy. Yeah, it's the guy. Yeah at the wake, right, so she has a cell phone, like what I know, but we've never seen it. Oh my god, I didn't even think of that. And she's also so giggly and kind of like weirdly needy. We're just like, that's my cell phone and my email and like such a funny moment, such a phone.
00:10:37
Speaker 2: Because she's been stood up.
00:10:40
Speaker 1: Guy.
00:10:40
Speaker 2: But what we determined in that room discussion was the only time it would be okay to be stood up that way would be if your date literally had died. I mean yes, and that became the story of.
00:10:51
Speaker 1: Which I love so much. But when they're walking up and Carrie says, it's an open casket, I've never seen his dead body. I mean there's like there's there's so much subtext and like death and darkness and I it was deep. It was deep.
00:11:07
Speaker 2: And it's also about rebirth. I mean it's about you know, Shakespeare called the orgasm the little death, you know. And we are to assume that Charlotte achieved what she wanted.
00:11:22
Speaker 1: Oh no, come on in a minute and a half or when when she's trying to entice him, I don't. I don't think she did any.
00:11:31
Speaker 2: Conversation with Samantha. Samantha at the very end, you can see she's like, she says, did you did you come?
00:11:38
Speaker 1: It's true, you know, I giggle.
00:11:41
Speaker 2: She got was positive?
00:11:42
Speaker 1: Really? I mean, look, I think it's a huge accomplishment because at this point, the fact that it is ongoingly not happening for them is horrible awful. I didn't really remember this, I I don't. I mean, obviously I was trying to do it well in every but like I also just don't have a ton of experience with this, and certainly I've never been married, right, so like that's the next level. And I've never been so focused on getting married like Charlotte was, and like obviously really gonna try. But then on the other hand, that man won't talk at all, like, oh my gosh.
00:12:17
Speaker 2: And he talked in I had a good time writing the because I grew up sailing, and so I had a good time writing all of the metaphors that he had for sailing as it applies to sex.
00:12:27
Speaker 1: Yes, he enjoys that. Also, I think Kyle he gets a twinkle in his eye when he has them two.
00:12:32
Speaker 2: We're so adorable as a couple, Like that's kind of I was reminded of. And that was part of the problem, right, is that Charlotte saw them as this perfect cup. They looked like the perfect couple. They appeared in essence to be right for each other. But in the basic point in.
00:12:47
Speaker 1: The bedroom, no, which is awful, he.
00:12:50
Speaker 2: Would not talk about it. And so for her to get up there and really say what she says to him, the physicality aside, like that's a really big deal for Charlotte.
00:13:00
Speaker 1: To he Oh, I agree, I agree, And I was very scared, like scared and stressed, and I remember being so stressed about what I was going to wear, and I'd forgotten about the scene that I'm shopping with Carrie at like kind of Attacky's shop and I'm holding up those crazy things and she's trying to make jokes about it, you know, but obviously I'm quite tense, you know, about the whole thing, and I'm trying to say, no, this is important. I have to show him that I'm not the Madonna. And then she's like, but you don't want to be the hard you know, she's making jokes, but like it's it's so serious for Charlotte.
00:13:35
Speaker 2: Oh, it's hugely so she's trying so hard. And I like also that we didn't shy away from the fact that it wasn't just that she felt rejected by Trey, but also that she was a sexual human being, so that absolutely he deserved to have pleasure and she deserved to have that attention. So that's a whole other level of story about a couple who's not getting it on. Yes, I'm annoyed by this. It's like I feel sexually rejected and I deserve and I want more. Absolutely, absolutely it's kind of a watershed moment for her.
00:14:10
Speaker 1: Oh it's incredible. It's incredible, and I mean I was so happy to see it again in the whole episode. I mean, obviously, I also have so much else that is going on, like I go to the brunch with the sorority girls because I fought with Smith, Like I didn't remember that this was literally one episode. It is amazing how much you guys could do in one episode.
00:14:31
Speaker 2: Totally forgot about the sorority sisters, like honestly, and I wrote it and I forgot it.
00:14:37
Speaker 1: The thing I love about it, I love so many things. But do you know the brand Jacques Mousse? Yes, so Simon, who is that? Someone who is the designer asked me to do this little video for his fashion show, I guess a year ago, year and a half ago, and the scene with the sorority girls, the outfit was the inspiration for this whole video and they had a picture of me. They wanted me to wear a tiny tank top. This is, of course, twenty five years later, a tiny tank top with a sweater folded just perfectly. They had a picture and we had to call them on the FaceTime in France to make sure that we had folded it correctly. It was like to the detail, and he made a sweater and embroidered my invitation on it that I opened in the in the video, and it was all inspired by that one outfit in that one scene in your episode would amazing.
00:15:27
Speaker 2: I have never heard that, and that is crazy and fantastic exactly.
00:15:34
Speaker 1: And also I was like, I'm sorry, can I please have my arms covering me in this twenty five years like I can't live up to this. I also remember filming that scene because we see them together and you've set it up so brilliantly from the coffee shop with all of us where Samantha and I fight, which you know, I hadn't really remembered that, and when I watched it, I was concerned that I did it, and do it well enough, like deep enough. I don't know. I was worried. The whole thing made me nervous watching it.
00:16:07
Speaker 2: You know that's so interesting because you know, obviously we each look at our old material in different ways and in the ways that we came into the material, right, So you're looking at it as the actor thinking did I portray this? I'm looking at this writer thinking why did I need that extra joke. We didn't need that much. Why did? Why didn't we cut that? But I don't. I feel like you did a terrific job. You were threading so many needles in this.
00:16:37
Speaker 1: It's true, it's true that that part did I did. Really. I was like, oh, okay, you did well.
00:16:44
Speaker 2: You gave yourself some silent Yeah.
00:16:46
Speaker 1: Totally totally. And I'm very very happy with the with the tray scene, right, which I had remembered being happy with it, but now I see it in so many tiny splits, you know, tiny memes that I hadn't seen the whole thing, and I was like, no, no, it's really good. It's really good. Of course, course because he's also really really good with He has very little to say, but we're just so connected that that's kind of the good on the bat of it, right. All right, So my Hyundai hot take from this episode called Frenemies. I'm gonna have to go with Charlotte's storyline, partly because I'd forgotten about how many different things Charlotte gets to do and say and feel in this episode, between seeing her sorority sisters, trying to show her husband Trey that she's a sexual being which was just such a beautifully written scene, and then fighting with Samantha and then making up with Samantha. I've forgotten most of this except for the trey, which I do love. It is embarrassing, but I do love it. So I'm just I'm gonna have to say Charlotte's overall storyline, I love it. I love what they wrote, and it was really fun to watch it. That was my Hyundai hot take, celebrating iconic moments, bold moves, and unforgettable style, just like Hyundai. So I have the scene with there's I mean, I mean, it's a lot for Charlotte, you know, even like eh, but fighting with Samantha always scary, you know what I'm saying, Like any of us disagreeing about anything, to me was always scary, but it had been coming right because she does have just the opposite point of view about sex then Charlotte, which has been true since day one, and now that Charlotte is married and it's not working out, of course, it brings up all of her deeper things about the meaning of sex and the meaning of all of it, which is really what she says, like, don't talk about it like that way. And I think that, you know, it's so fantastic that then you have me go off into like my past to see the sorority sisters, thinking I'm going to feel comfort, but in what I feel is discomfort because I'm now the Samantha and they're now very like shut down to honest conversation about sex. So then I become kind of like I act out. And I remember filming that because I had to be slightly drunk, so I was always nervous about that. And I remember the reason that I put the money in the glass is because I had to storm off and then like say something over my shoulder and I would throw the money and I threw the money one time and it landed, and then yeah, remember this.
00:19:31
Speaker 2: It was the perfect I mean, couldn't have been better. It was so good scripted it, we wouldn't have been able to do.
00:19:37
Speaker 1: It, but I know it's so good. It was so good. So I enjoyed that scene a lot, but I did not realize it was all in one thing. And I think traditionally what we would have had would be Charlotte like a pressure cooker, right, like she's not expressing your feeling, not expressing your feeling and then there would have been like a type of a thing, you know, But instead we have the Kyle scene and then she calls Samantha, which is so nice.
00:20:02
Speaker 2: It's so nice, and I think, I think what we did so well, if I might say so myself, yes, is we took each of these because Samantha has that same journey, right, So she's sexual with this guy and she's waking them all the time and who cares, it's just for fun. But then she meets kind of her doppelganger and it turns out that she's more Charlotte than she thought, so she she also we pushed the boundaries of these women so that they can recognize that they have more in common than they think. And I think that's what happens. Like you make friends in your thirties, if you're lucky, your forties, your fifties, whatever, and you know they're not one hundred percent of who you are, but they represent a part of who you are, and in this case, getting Samantha and Charlotte to recognize that they that they have more in common than they think, and that there are boundaries that they're old selves maybe don't want to go to. And that's been because they're impacted by this other person who's you know, they could not be more opposite, but they're really sharing a lot more than they realized. And absolutely such a cool thing to look at with friendships. And it was fun. I mean that, you know, that blowjob scene is so kind of crazy and like over the top, and the table going up and down restaurant is really noticing.
00:21:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a lot. That was a lot, but you have to go a lot to Samantha, Samantha.
00:21:32
Speaker 2: You have to. And even Samantha says, Okay, that's more than I can handle. And so that's her moment where a little bit of Charlotte has gotten into her. And as I'm sure we've you've talked about on this podcast, but we've talked about all the time, is kind of you know, how much of you as Charlotte, how much of you as Samantha. Each person has different levels of who they which character they are, case they both have parts of each other in them and absolutely really sweet.
00:21:59
Speaker 1: I think it's so it was so so sweet and also so I think people forget about that because people still say to me like, would you and you know, Charlotte and Samantha would ever be friends. I'm like, sure they would. You can't just be friends with people like yourselves exactly or whatever. It's boring.
00:22:16
Speaker 2: Like what you grow up and you a different of your life. You collect people who are more like what you need at that time in your life. And I think this is exactly who Charlotte needed, yes in them, like, because look, Carrie was hiding behind her menu. You know she's definitely straight ahead sex talk, right. You needed to hear from Samantha the hard truth, and you know it is hard. It's hard when the girls fight.
00:22:45
Speaker 1: It is it's scary when the girls fight. But I think that's also it makes the relationship so much more real because there are conflicts. If you stay in those relationships, there's going to be conflicts and then you're going to get over it. Let's talk about Carrie and Miranda because also they fight more than I realize when I'm rewatching right and fights the wrong word. They disagree more than I realize, and they'll have weird like in the first season, is it the first season or the second where Carrie stands her up, you know, stands Miranda up for big and then and then she calls someone and you think she's calling Big, but she calls Miranda and you go and she's sitting there and they make up and it's so sweet, Like there's so right. There's so many like kind of ups and downs and hills, and you know, they're walking. Talks are always so fascinating. I love their relationship more than I even ever realized that I love their relationship, and I love the complexities of it, you know, and that they really like Miranda tells it like it is to Carrie more so than anyone else, you know, which I love so much. And I love this one because I don't remember another time where Carrie is like I mean, obviously Carrie has dated the guy before eight years ago, and now they meet him at the wake and Miranda is feeling all rejected because she was stood up by the dead guy. I mean, it's so much. It's it's so much to even retell. It's a lot, it is. It's incredible, like and so it go, it moves so quick, like you guys just did such a tremendous job, as you know. But then and Carrie's like, no, no, don't go out with him, like it's so rare for her to even like it's a very rare thing. Usually she's like yeah, you know, you know, see what it is or whatever, you know what I'm saying. She's usually more kind of casual, happy, go lucky or whatever about it. But since she's gone out with this guy and he was mean to her, like belittling, as we see later, like a very kind of like belittling, you know, misogynistic. Yeah, call exactly, but it's super fascinating. Then I just love the scene where they find so Miranda likes him because of course she's just wanting to feel, you know, good and whatnot. And they go out and she talks Carrie into going for drinks, and they go for drinks, and then of course it doesn't take much for that asshole to come out. And then right away, like maybe the third comments like, well, you know, Carrie's not at what does he say she is? It was something that she was.
00:25:06
Speaker 2: Oh god, I I just rewatched her.
00:25:08
Speaker 1: We just rewatched it, and I can't remember now. But it's so well written because there Miranda is trying to make the best of it right, and Carrie's like trying to reserve judgment, like I'm just gonna sit here, and he starts out okay. Like there's a couple little things like, oh, she loves her shoes, you know, and oh, Miranda says, did you go see his band? And she's like, no, I never did. And he goes, well, she was too busy buying shoes. That's the first little dig, right, And she goes, oh, I do I love my shoes and you could just see her like what is he doing? And then he just keeps going. And then Marna's like, well you are so and I just love when they're back together, you know what I'm saying.
00:25:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they it doesn't take much, it doesn't.
00:25:45
Speaker 1: No, no, and that was good. That's as it should.
00:25:47
Speaker 2: Be, as it should be. Yeah, she had to have that little journey. She had to have the moment of it. And by the way, that's the thing with these kind of vessels. And this guy was kind of based on a guy that I had dated. I was wondering who was an a told and continues kind of to be an actult. Those guys can be very charming. And so she goes on a day with him and it's a lovely date, like they close the bar, you know, he kisses her good night. It's romantic. The whole thing, and she's like, you know, as an audience, you're thinking, maybe the guy has changed, like yeah, great, right, but Carrie knows better, or at least in this case, she knew better. And and I think what's good too, is that you think maybe for a second, oh, she doesn't want her to date him because she dated him, and you realize, no, no, no, she was right. He's just an adult because people absolutely certain people like that don't change.
00:26:41
Speaker 1: Like agree, He's very recognizable to me.
00:26:46
Speaker 2: We've all had one or two of these people in our life. Hopefully people are no longer in our lives like that, but most definitely. Yeah, but that is a type. And it's certainly a guy that he uses his charm, you know. It's farm offensive, yes, and it's just offensive, which by that would have been a line we would have written in this episode.
00:27:07
Speaker 1: So good, So good? Can you take me through? I don't think I've ever asked you. I've had Cindy on, I've had Michael on. I don't think I ever asked like, I would love to just give everyone in myself too. Sometimes I wonder in the past a breakdown of how it went for the process of you, like, how did you get assigned which episodes within the season and how much advance did you know, like, oh, okay, I'm running that one and this is the theme or you know, breaking the stories, how what's the process like or what was it like for sext and City.
00:27:52
Speaker 2: So it pretty much stayed this same season a season, even as we got one or two more writers. But what we would do is we would talk at the bigning of the season about what we really wanted the arcs of each of these characters to be. So we knew where we were starting them and we knew where we were ending them. Things could change within that, but we knew, you know, Charlotte was going to go from here to here, so by the end of the season, we want X to have happened. And then we would start to break down within it. We would talk about ideas and kind of themes that were important to touch on for each character, and then it would depend on the episode. So sometimes someone walk in which just a great story, like like, for instance, a woman's right to shoes. Okay, so I went to a party, I had to take my shoes off and it really was upsetting to me and it got me thinking about what would happen if someone took my shoes because also when you're a small person, your shoes are very important part of your outfit. And I wish I had known I was gonna take my shoes off, I would have worn something different. Okay, but that when sometimes you walk in with something like that, you go, that's a great thing to have happened. How can we use that to tell a story we want to tell, which case was Carrie and her choice to be single and to spend her money how she wants to write. Yeah, so it became a bigger episode around that. And in that case, because I came up with it was my idea, I will write that episode. Sometimes it has to do with order of you know, we would kind of start with sometimes with seniority, you know, Michael, my first episode, I would write the second episode, and then sometimes there'd be an episode that you just knew a person had to write. Cindy had done her crazy trampoline not trampoline.
00:29:44
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, high wire what was it called?
00:29:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, she'd not on the Hudson River, and so she wanted to write about that, you know, about taking chances and putting yourself up in the air. Figuratively, and so sometimes it would be the thing that you knew that this person had to write because the thing that they really cared about thematically or it, or sometimes it was hey, it's your turn to write an episode. But nobody would ever write an episode they didn't feel really attached to. No important to us that people write what they what they could feel. Right, when Miranda buys her house, I wrote that because I had bought my house and had gone through the exact same things.
00:30:33
Speaker 1: Such a good one.
00:30:34
Speaker 2: I love that episode. Still so great, So thrilling too that women now single women now outrank single men. I'm buying houses no way. Twenty five years later, now the little women are buying more houses more than men. Incredible, incredible, And then you think about what Miranda went through to which is what I went through. She had keep checking the boxes as single women and single woman.
00:30:58
Speaker 1: Yes, this is my life. I know all about it.
00:31:01
Speaker 2: So it's just it's still happening. But we are we have outpaced men, not of pay. So that's a long description of kind of how how it works. Sometimes we will will break a lot of the episode in the room. We'll go through it and outline it and talk about what, because you also want to make sure that each of these characters are hitting certain points in each episode that they need to hit right. So it might be that the episode is primarily about Charlotte not having sex with her husband and what that means, But how does that fit in with our other characters and stories we need to tell for them at the same time, And then we takes a place of fun theme on top. And also the question right, Yeah, it was interesting because the question doesn't necessarily apply as specifically as some sometimes it does. Because the question was are we getting older and wiser or just just older? Right?
00:31:55
Speaker 1: A really good question which applies.
00:31:57
Speaker 2: In a lot of ways, in a subliminal way to like friendships and learning what you have to do in a relationship. But it was really more about applied literally to Carrie giving that speech to these women and them saying like, well, you're still single and you're oh my god, yes, Like what do you have to teach us? I know you don't seem any wiser, oh god, seem older and single.
00:32:25
Speaker 1: That was scary too. There was the whole episode. There were so many times where I was like, oh, you know.
00:32:31
Speaker 2: I know, and I'm sure you noticed that Sarah Jessica's stand in was in the scene.
00:32:39
Speaker 1: That's who it was. I was trying to figure that out.
00:32:42
Speaker 2: And she asked a question. We had to give our stand ins were terrific a chance to do on camera work, and that was a case where she she got to ask a question.
00:32:53
Speaker 1: That's so nice. So wait, let's go back to the writer's room. Okay, So when when you so you would get like you might know at the beginning of the season, like just have it marked out, I'll do episode number four, episode number eight or whatever, like theoretically, and you would know the arcs as you said, which also we were so wonderfully shared you know that information at the beginning, and as you said, sometimes it would change. But Michael Patrick, would you know, sit us down and say, like, this is the plan just so that we could also kind of try to, you know, plan it out in our mind somewhat, and then sometimes when you got the scripted would be different or you know, interesting new twist or whatever. But then in terms of writing, so if you're in the room with everyone, would you do a rough draft and then take it in the room for them to read, like how did that part work?
00:33:42
Speaker 2: You would go away for all are part of a couple of days. Usually, you know, some episodes famously we wrote had to write very quickly because we just didn't have as much time. Splatt was one of those where Cindy and I wrote it together and we wrote it in five days, oh which but we loved every minute of it because it was fun to write it together and also we knew exactly what we wanted to do. But yes, you go away from the room, you tippy type at home. This is how we tippy type. It's just like a pterodactyl. Love it and then you bring it back in and the room will read it and give thoughts, and then you'll go away again, and then it would go to HBO. But you know the thing, It's funny now looking back, we got very few notes from HBO. They were hosingly supportive, and I wish the world were set up the same way to tase writers a bit more to know what they're doing. There's a lot of second guessing that happens, and so people end up giving I think a little more notes than they need to.
00:34:50
Speaker 1: I agree from what I know, and I'm not a writer, right, but I feel like because of the way that HBO was structured with Chris and Carolyn. Really there weren't that many people, and Carolyn had the good sense to just hire the right writers and let you guys do your thing, which is just so rare.
00:35:10
Speaker 2: You know, you don't really don't find it anymore.
00:35:13
Speaker 1: You really don't. And I talked to her. I had lunch with her last week because we did the event for Sir Juskain. It was so nice to see her, and we talked a little bit about like just the you know, fear in the industry, you know, and fear just breeds everybody being so nervous and like overthinking everything, and it's hard to create or have these kind of breakout hits like how we were and heated rivalry. Heated rivalry because they went to Canada where they had no budget, but they got to do what they wanted. And then luckily Casey was like, yes, oh, by that good call on Casey's part, right, but you know, it probably wouldn't have gotten made in the way that it did if it were here with all the different tinkering.
00:35:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, I also I am I'm so respectful of the fact that there are a lot of executives scared for their jobs and things. Of course, the time and things are certainly not the way they were. Is this sense like I need to show my worth, but it has kind of beaten down the creative process. And it was such nirvana to be I mean, in so many ways to be in the room we were in, to be working with the actors we were working with, to be telling the stories we were telling, but to be left alone to do that, it was really it made the show better.
00:36:26
Speaker 1: It just is absolutely absolutely.
00:36:29
Speaker 2: When Carolyn did have notes, they were really smart, right, and they were never about I'm scared to do something right, like do we want to do that? Okay, tell me why? Right?
00:36:42
Speaker 1: Right? Right? That sounds just like her. Yeah, that's good. That's really good. You guys, this is so much fun that we're going to have to have a part two, So join us later in the week on Are You a Charlotte