“The Cold War”

Sex and the City season 6, episode 17
Original air date: February 01, 2004

Question of the Week: Without sharing your worlds, can even the hottest relationship stop cold?

Carrie and Aleksandr run into some of his art world friends while escaping the cold weather in a diner. The friends begin to grill Aleksandr about his big show opening in Paris, and Carrie's a little stupefied that she doesn't know anything about it. They ask if Carrie's in the art world, too, and Aleksandr proudly reads her column from the Post, something about the 69 position. Chagrined, she mutters something about it not being her best work.

Charlotte, on the other hand, is parading around in the cold, showing off her puppy. Anthony's rather sickened by all the attention Elizabeth Taylor gets walking down the street, but Charlotte is just basking in it. In fact, it gives her the idea that perhaps Elizabeth Taylor wasn't a champion show dog only because her previous owner didn't show her enough love and confidence. Charlotte decides to enter Elizabeth Taylor into a dog show, where she competes with grace — until she goes into heat, right onto Charlotte's pristine white shoes. The judge notices, but seeing the look of determination on Charlotte's face, gives Elizabeth Taylor the prize anyway. Elizabeth Taylor herself, though, is the prize when Harry and Charlotte take her to a dog park, where Harry convinces Charlotte to let her off the leash. Elizabeth Taylor gets, well, gang-banged by about eight different dogs, who sense that she's in heat.

After Smith is photographed in a booth with Stanford and Marcus, it hits the tabloids that he's gay, leaving out of course that Samantha was in the photo as well. He thinks it's funny, but Samantha won't stand for it, having worked the last twenty years to build a reputation for being the most desirable woman in NY. She decides to set it right by making a nasty video with Smith that she makes public through tabloid back channels, thereby proving not only that Smith's not gay but that she's still on top.

Miranda is still adjusting to the idea of living in Brooklyn, and it's not made any easier by the fact that their new house needs a lot of repairs. Steve's working hard on getting it painted and so forth, but it's the DSL line that Miranda wants so desperately. Of course, when Steve installs the DSL line, the first thing Miranda wants to do is check her celebrity gossip sites, where she's immediately confronted by Samantha and Smith's sex video. Disgusted, she logs off, vowing never to look at trashy gossip again.

Meanwhile, Aleksandr is doing a good job of keeping Carrie all to himself. He convinces her to work on her column at his apartment on his fancy computers, since it's too cold to go outside. After spending all this time with Aleksandr, she begins to want to know more about him and his life. He pushes her away, though, when she tries to ask about his gallery opening in Paris. Miffed, she eventually goes home to hear an answering machine message from Mr. Big. And another. And another. Seems in the four days she was at Aleksandr's, she missed several Big phone calls.

She also missed lunch with the girls, which doesn't make Miranda very happy. To make amends, though, Carrie travels out to Brooklyn, where they dish about how different Aleksandr is from Big. Carrie lets on to Miranda that it bothers her that she and Aleksandr don't share anything in common. Miranda contends that every couple's different, but as Carrie watches Steve bring in cheesecake and cannolis, after working hard to refurbish their house, she realizes that there's a closeness between Miranda and Steve that she and Aleksandr just don't have.

So, she asks Aleksandr if on Sunday he can meet her friends. She rationalizes that, having met some of his friends in the cafe the other day, he ought to meet hers. He corrects her and says that the people in the cafe were colleagues, not friends, and that he really has no friends in New York. But, he agrees to meet the girls. Unfortunately, though, he gets tied up with his work in his studio and has to call Carrie to cancel. He does send a few bottles of champagne to their table to ease the disappointment, though.

The champagne turns the girls giddy, and Carrie decides that it's a good idea to just take the girls to meet Aleksandr at his studio anyway. Being quite liquored up, though, doesn't make a good impression on a grumpy Russian who's trying to work. He very brusquely dismisses all of them, and the girls make their excuses and leave Carrie behind.

Later, she goes into the studio to talk to him about the incident, but before she can berate him, she realizes that he's not really alright. She prods him to talk to her, and he reveals that he's terrified about what this gallery opening will be. It's been six years since his last installation, and he's beyond nervous about the world's reaction. Carrie offers to listen, and he begins to open up, for the first time, about his work.