Ooh, the opening credits! I've missed these. Cha, cha-cha, cha-cha. Cha, cha-cha, cha-cha. Cha, cha-cha, cha-cha, cha-cha, whee, go xylophone! Splashy bus! Cha cha cha.

Lights up on Carrie's beautiful brownstone. She VOs about how strange it is to oversleep in the city that never sleeps, which isn't quite a pun, but leads us to a dash montage when she rushes out the door, drops her brown vintage Fendi clutch, misses a cab, dashes down the street and narrowly misses crashing into two slow-moving older women, all set to a jazz combo led by a mute-happy trumpet with several close-ups of her brown stacked heels thrown in for fashion flavor. Fun. Whoops, look out for the cute dog-walker with the cute dogs! Finally, she grabs a cab. And then, it's rush hour. The actions stops. Fuckity fuck fuck! Carrie, stalled in traffic, explains to Ethic Cab Driver #475 that she needs to be downtown in thirty minutes. Hey, he's ethnic, not Moses. You think he can move mountains or something? Just then, between the carefully stopped W delivery truck and the shiny black BMW, Carrie spots her white whale: The 4 and 5 trains, a.k.a. the subway. She tosses a bill at Moses and leaps out. Wow. Carrie's taking the subway! She emerges in the financial district, gets directions to the Stock Exchange off some suit, and heads over to the flaggiest building EVER. It's draped in more flags than Dolly Parton on the 4th of July. Kate Smith can't sing it louder than this building can. Flags are the new black. Everybody in flags. If you don't cover yourself in flags, the terrorists have already...MY HOME SWEEET HOOOOOME!! Sorry, got a little patriotic there in the midst of my snark.

There's a bit of a security snafu, as Carrie's shoes, honkin' brooch, and clutch set off the metal detector. She goes through a few times (oh, how we have all been there, ha ha, this show is so topical, whooo, checkpoint humor!), then explains to the guards that she's there to ring the bell, so can she please go? They let her go without even a pat-down. Samantha would complain and demand to be frisked, NOW. But Carrie is on a mission.

Her fictitious newspaper, the New York Star, is going public. Wow, a newspaper that isn't owned by a huge conglomerate? That isn't the Seattle Times? Sigh. I'm jealous. Maybe they have a chance, this fictitious newspaper. She winds her way through the trading floor, with typical wide-eyed enthusiasm and glee, then opens her mouth hugely as she pushes the button that makes the bell go CLANG CLANG CLANG! Wheee! Carrie has a job. And she gets to ring a bell. Sigh. I missed this show. Even though I know that this scene depicts the exact opposite of what's really happening in the day-to-day world of newspapers, columnists, and the market, the optimism is catching. That, or I'm really hormonal right now and the chocolate hasn't kicked in yet.