Sex and the City
The Freak Show
TV Flash files “The Freak Show” as hour 15 of 94 in the TV Flash guide — Sex and the City (1998–2004) on HBO, season 2, episode 3, aired 1999-06-20, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S02E03: listed hour 15 of 94 in the Sex and the City guide, hour 3 of 18 in season 2. It aired 1999-06-20 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “The Awful Truth” (S02E02). Next is “They Shoot Single People, Don't They?” (S02E04).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Are all men freaks? Carrie dates a bunch of freaks before she meets Ben, then ruins a great thing when she turns into a freak; Samanatha goes on a first date with a man who wears dog collars and likes to be slapped around; Charlotte dates "Mr. Pussy" but realizes that's all he's good for; Miranda gives up on dating entirely.
Viewer FAQ
Where does The Freak Show sit in the Sex and the City guide?
S02E03 is listed hour 15 of 94 — hour 3 of 18 in season 2, season 2 episode 3.
When did Sex and the City S02E03 air?
The Freak Show aired 1999-06-20 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Where should I start?
Season 1, episode 1. The voiceover and the four-silhouette contract are the whole machine.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Watch it as the original big-city look book: four women, a voiceover, and shoes that did more character work than half the boyfriends. Manhattan is a lighting setup. The reboot noise is later; this run is the template every brunch-core series still copies.
The first thing you see is a woman on a street that is really a runway. Carrie Bradshaw’s voiceover is a fashion dispatch with dating as the alibi. HBO at the end of the 1990s did not accidentally invent the look book as comedy-drama. Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, and Cynthia Nixon made Manhattan photograph as a weekly fitting: four silhouettes, four theories of sex, one city that never dressed casual unless the casual cost more. Style is the plot. The shoe is not a punchline. The shoe is a…
Filed against
- Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw
Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw typed Manhattan desire into a global lifestyle franchise — Sex and the City as fashion, friendship, brunch as appointment TV, and shoes that did more character work than half the boyfriends. Reboots…
- Kim Cattrall as Samantha Jones
Kim Cattrall’s Samantha Jones made brunch into a press strategy on Sex and the City — four women, a voiceover, shoes that did more character work than half the boyfriends. Skin as branding, Manhattan as a campaign. On TV Flash she is the…
- Kristin Davis as Charlotte York
Kristin Davis’s Charlotte York is Sex and the City’s corporate sheath — architecture in a brunch quartet, shoes as character work, Manhattan sidewalk as campaign. Four women and a voiceover; her column is the manners. On TV Flash she is…
- Cynthia Nixon as Miranda Hobbes
Cynthia Nixon’s Miranda Hobbes was Sex and the City’s sharpest counterweight — lawyer skepticism, Brooklyn realism, friendship as lifestyle franchise. A practical coat doing more character work than half the boyfriends. TV Flash still…
- Chris Noth as Mr. Big
Chris Noth’s Det. Mike Logan helped launch Law & Order’s dun-dun empire before Mr. Big made him Sex and the City’s emotional cliffhanger machine. Sparse Manhattan cool and endless will-they discourse built a dual-brand career. TV Flash…