The Carrie Diaries has dealt with its share of issues—family, friendship, sex, etc.  It was only a matter of time before it dealt with the realities of climbing your way up the career ladder. It doesn’t sound like a very exciting premise for an episode—and at times it even felt like a filler—but they made it work. It gave us a glimpse of Carrie’s hunger to become a notable journalist and how sometimes being a good person doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t put your own needs before others. While Carrie was dealing with her own career moves, Maggie and Sebastian had some personal choices of their own. Let’s see what happened on the latest episode of Carrie Diaries, shall we?

Bennett found out his ex was dying of AIDS. Walt got scared and decided he wasn’t ready to be part of the gay community so he broke up with him. Sebastian moved back to NYC and started a skateboarding business. Maggie began dating an Army guy named Pete.

The episode kicks off with Carrie and Sebastian speaking about college and how she’s unsure if she’ll get accepted to NYU or not. As she tries to forget about the dog-eat-dog world they live in, they run into a group of people taking pictures of a hawk eating a pigeon. It’s a nice set up to the episode, as it will be dealing with her making hard decisions in order to move up on the food chain.

We head to the Bradshaw house, where Carrie is telling Tom and Dorrit about the encounter. Tom tells them that kind of thing happens all the time and they need to develop a killer instinct when they go into the city. He boasts about turning into a completely different person when he walks into the firm but Dorrit finds it hard to believe. The mail arrives and Carrie opens up an envelope from NYU. It’s good news—she’s been accepted. Tom reminds her about the killer instinct she’ll need to develop but Carrie is sure the creative writing field isn’t nearly as bad as being a lawyer. Of course she’ll be proven wrong.

Cut to Larissa talking about how she’s going to deal with Bennett for not going to work. She knows he’s been out partying and Carrie tries to excuse his behavior by reminding Larissa that he just broke up with Walt and found out about his ex having AIDS. Although Larissa understands, she feels like he’s been taking advantage of it. She tells Carrie to give Bennett a call and tell him he has an assignment to do. Samantha arrives at the office and tells Carrie she has a new job—she’s going to look for a lost parakeet and collect the reward. Carrie tells Samantha about the hawk eating the pigeon and how she’s unsure the parakeet will survive long in the city. As Samantha goes about her business, Carrie decides to help out Bennett by writing his article for him.

Back in Castlebury, Maggie is at the Diner showing Mouse pieces of lingerie she plans on wearing for Pete.  Donna shows up and tells her the outfits scream, “needy.”  Mouse agrees with Donna and tells Maggie she shouldn’t confuse sex with love.  They remind her of her past relationships and advice Maggie not to jump into bed with Pete, since she tends to mess things up after having sex with men.  Maggie knows they’re right and puts forward a plan to keep sex at bay.

The next day at Interview, Larissa tells Carrie she received Bennett’s article and that it’s the best thing he’s ever written. Carrie knows she’s the one who wrote it and doesn’t like that Bennett is getting all the credit for her work. Looks like her killer instinct is kicking in. Later, she shares her feelings with Sebastian and he tells her that she should do things without expecting anything in return. Carrie thinks that perhaps she’s not as good of a person as she thinks she is. She notices Sebastian keeps straightening things up in the loft and he tells her his dad is supposed to come visit him although he’s unsure if he’ll actually show up.

Somewhere in Manhattan, Samantha is busy putting up flyers of the lost parakeet. She runs into a guy named Elliot and he compliments her on being “nurturing.” He invites her over to his place because it has a good view of the city and it will allow her to look for the parakeet—right. Samantha agrees to go with him. Meanwhile at the law firm, Tom meets the lawyer whom he’ll be negotiating a new deal. She’s clumsy and disorganized and when Tom heads to the conference room, she knocks his files off his hands—an obvious ploy to steal his papers. Later, Tom finds out she knows all the insights to the deal and realizes she played him but it’s too late to do anything about it.

Back in Castlebury, Pete arrives in town and tells Maggie he’s made reservations at a fancy restaurant in town. She takes everything he says as a sign that he’s looking to sleep with her and tries her best to not go down that road. They end up not going to the restaurant and instead have dinner at the Diner. When he suggest spending some alone time with her, Maggie starts feeling the pressure but luckily for her, Mouse shows up to chat with them. She sits with them at the table and basically ruins Pete’s plans with Maggie.

At Interview, Carrie tells Bennett what she did for him and he thanks her for the favor.  Larissa compliments Bennett on his piece and Carrie starts to feel jealous of the attention he’s getting.  She gets mad at Bennett for bragging about the paper since he wasn’t the one who wrote it.  Bennett tells her he’s been dealing with a lot and didn’t even realize what he had done.  He tells Carrie he’s still not feeling well and decides to go home.  Later, a coworker tells Carrie that Bennett lied and he’s actually at a bar having drinks with a couple guys.  Carrie once again decides to take on Bennett’s assignment—she’s going to interview a ballet dancer.  She shows up at the Gala with Samantha and starts feeling bad for taking over Bennett’s work.  Samantha makes her feel better by stating that he was the one who dropped the assignment.  She also tells Carrie about Elliot and is gushing over him when she notices he’s also at the event.  They go up to him and Samantha introduces him to Carrie.  He’s quickly joined by a woman and Elliot admits he’s married.  Yikes!

Back at the Bradshaw house, Tom is telling Dorrit about the lawyer who stole his files and she says it’s a classic girl move. She tells him that Carrie uses the same method, except she cries to get what she wants. Tom realizes he’s a sucker and Dorrit offers to help him deal with the lawyer. She brags about being manipulative and while Tom feels uneasy about the whole thing, he eventually agrees.

Meanwhile at the Gala, Samantha is downing champagne and Carrie notices that maybe she liked Elliot a little more than she thought. Carrie leaves to do her interview with the ballerina and Elliot comes by to speak with Samantha. He apologizes for not telling her he was married but tells Samantha he’s in an open marriage and is allowed to be with other people. Outside, Carrie’s age allows her to bond with the young ballerina she is interviewing. The girl makes her see that everything is a competition in the city. Carrie realizes that she shouldn’t feel bad for thriving and leaving Bennett behind.

At the loft, Sebastian’s dad drops by as promised Sebastian tells him about his skateboarding interview but his dad is more interested in telling him about his own business ventures. Turns out he made a not-so-great deal and now is in need of money—he wants to borrow his trust fund. Sebastian finds himself in a difficult situation, especially after his dad makes him feel guilty for not helping him out.

The next day, Carrie turns in her interview to Larissa and tells her she took the assignment after Bennett failed to do it. Larissa tells her that she knows she was the one who wrote the previous piece for him. Her article will be published in the magazine. Meanwhile, Maggie tells Mouse that Pete is leaving town and that it was her fault for scaring him away. Mouse tells her to go to the bus station and follow her instincts. When Maggie gets there, she tells Pete why she was acting so weird around him. She’s really into him but doesn’t want sex to screw everything up. Pete admits that he loves her and Maggie is shocked since they haven’t slept together yet. He tells her he’s willing to wait for her as long as she wants and they kiss.

Back in the city, Bennett shows up at the loft and tells Carrie that he got fired from Interview.  He’s mad at Carrie for taking over his assignments and stabbing him in the back. Carrie feels bad for it but Sebastian tells her she knew Bennett was on shaky ground and went for it anyway. He wants her to admit that she got carried away and did things without caring about the consequences. They start arguing about each of their financial situations and he admits that his dad lost all his money and now wants to use his trust fund. He tells Carrie he was embarrassed to talk about it. Sebastian admits to being worried his dad will lose his money but he’s willing to give it to him and help him out.

At the law firm, the lady lawyer shows up at the conference room to find Dorrit waiting for Tom. They talk about his weakness for crying women and the lawyer thinks they’re bonding but really it’s all a distraction so Dorrit can steal her profit and loss file. She hands it over to Tom and tells the lawyer that she made the mistake of underestimating her. Dorrit leaves and they decide to stop with the cheap tricks and handle the deal like professionals. Later, when they reach the end of the deal, Tom compliments her on her skills. They end up actually liking each other and have sex in the conference room.

Back in the city, Elliot approaches Samantha again on the street. He tells her that he’s really interested in continuing to see her but she tells him that she likes him too much to share him with anyone. It’s too bad that the first guy she’s into isn’t available. As she’s walking away, Samantha finds the lost parakeet and when she returns it, she refuses the reward. In the loft, Sebastian gives his dad his trust fund but knows that it might be the last time he’ll ever see that money again.  At Interview, Larissa gives Carrie Bennett’s old desk and computer. The episode ends with Carrie calling someone and introducing herself as a writer for Interview.

So what did you guys think of this episode? A bit slow compared to previous ones but still a solid episode overall. I’m interested to see how the dynamic between Carrie and Sebastian will be affected or if it will change at all. She’s now growing more into her journalism shoes and he’s kind of taking a giant hit—financially speaking. I feel like maybe he’s going to feel a bit threatened by her success, especially if his business doesn’t take off right away. We’ll have to wait and see. Don’t forget to leave us a comment, we’d love to hear from you.