"Shortcomings" By: Jami McGuigan

Plot Summary:
This episode explores various family dynamics and how they relate to the lives of women. In this episode, Miranda dates a man that is going through a divorce and has a child. Carrie dates a man named Vaughn who ejaculates too quickly, however, she stays with him because she loves his family. Charlotte’s brother Wesley, who is also going through a divorce, comes to New York for a visit; Samantha ends up sleeping with him.

Thematic Parallelism through the theme of “Family”:

This episode is unique for embodying/embracing the different types of families in modern day society. In addition, I consider the women’s roles within/in relation to these families to be broad in comparison to how women are usually seen on television.

·     Women's attraction/lack of attraction to various “families

o   Carrie is attracted to Vaughn’s family more than she is attracted to Vaughn

o   Samantha is attracted to Charlotte’s brother who is going through a divorce

o   Miranda is not attracted to a divorced man with a child

·      Different kinds of families/complications of the nuclear family

o   Wesley (Charlotte’s brother) and Leslie: their relationship sounds perfect but it is not as they are getting divorced

o   Miranda’s date is a single parent

o   Vaughn’s family is very open and honest and close—it seems like they have it all together but in reality they do not

o   Carrie considers her girlfriends her family: “Sometimes it’s the family you are born into and sometimes it’s the family you make for yourself”

· 

Stereotypical Gender Roles:

- Carrie describes women’s worst nightmares as the fact that their birth certificate can never be destroyed, and bathing suit season

- Carrie's Boyfriend cannot contain ejaculation before having sex

- Carrie describes chocolate chip cookies and times spent with Vaughn’s parents as a form of foreplay (female desires of the "perfect" family life)

- Charlotte tries to make her brother feel better by baking him muffins

- Charlotte calls Samantha a slut and then apologizes by baking her muffins

Non-Stereotypical Gender Roles:

- Miranda’s worst nightmare is family hour at her gym because children were allowed to come

- Miranda as very un-mothering with her date’s child

- The man Miranda is dating prefers to be committed to one person than to date “I’m just one of those weird male aberrations that prefers to be married”

- Vaughn becomes very sensitive and emotional when Carrie tries to talk about his "problem"

- Samantha “once fucked a guy because his family had a pool”

- Samantha has "so many notches on her bedpost it is practically whittled down to a toothpick"

Throughout this episode there is a great balance between how women are portrayed in relation to their own families, and how women associate themselves with other people's families. There is also a vast representation of what qualifies as a "family" and the roles that women play in terms of sisters, girlfriends, and mothers. Although Charlotte is portrayed as a classic women who bakes, Carrie, Miranda and Samantha are shown as independent women who change the definition of what it means to be a woman in a family.