The Cutprice Guignol

Look, there’s one thing that I need to get out of the way right upfront here, and that’s this: the wrap-up to this week’s first episode, Bay of Married Pigs, involves Carrie comparing the divide between married and unmarried people to the ongoing Troubles in Northern Ireland. You know, The Troubles: the Northern Irish Conflict, the thirty-year conflict that left more than three thousand people dead and more than a hundred thousand injured, a conflict that would not even begin to be considered over till the Good Friday Agreement, which happened the year that this episode came out. What kind of deranged, America-centric, insultingly minimizing bullshit is this? I can honestly say that I rewound the episode, certain that I had misheard this particular I-couldn’t-help-but-wonder, but no, there it is: Carrie’s dating troubles are comparable to the actual Troubles, apparently. There’s hyperbole for effect, and then there’s straight-up jaw-dropping ignoramity. I couldn’t help but wonder: what the fuck?