‘The Carrie Diaries’ Recap: Lie to Me

If I told you I disliked the second installment of The Carrie Diaries, I’d be lying. However, I’m not the one telling lies this week. I’ll leave that to Carrie, Sebastian, Maggie and Walt, all who kept their own secrets and told their own tales.

Carrie and Sebastian continue their romance, but there’s a foil to this teen love story: Donna LaDonna. Donna attempts to seduce Sebastian in a scene that was only missing cheesy 80s porn music, but he has none of it; he still has his eyes set on one Miss Bradshaw. Maggie pressures Carrie to lie to her dad and invite him to the swim club. Speaking of Carrie, she’s turned into a professional juggler dealing with being grounded, promising to spend time at the pool with Dorrit, her romance with Sebastian, internship, and secret Manhattan life with Larissa, who still has her eyes on Carrie’s bag for the photoshoot. It’s tough being the 80s version of a pretty little liar! Carrie lies to her boss, Bitchy Barbra, to skip out on work and attend the magazine photoshoot with Larissa, landing her in hot water. However, Carrie sneaks her way out of it and redeems herself in the bitchy eyes of Barbra. While Carrie’s away, Donna will play; with Sebastian, that is. Mouse witnesses their interaction and begs Carrie to make her move with Kydd before he ends up in Donna’s talons. Romeo and Juliet had a balcony, but Carrie and Sebastian have a swimming pool – and that’s where they agree to meet secretly after school. Unfortunately for the love birds (or is it fish since they spend so much time in water), Dorrit tells her dad about their tryst and he breaks up their kiss before anything else can happen. This also puts Carrie’s dad on my crap list for the week – he made me miss out on more minutes of shirtless Austin Butler and that’s the furthest thing from okay! He also bans Carrie from seeing Sebastian ever again because he knows secrets about his family life.

Elsewhere, Maggie is on her own version of ‘Mission: Impossible’ in an attempt to get closeted Walt to sleep with her. As can be expected, he’s having none of it. Walt thinks maybe it’s time he ‘fakes it until he makes it’ with his girlfriend, which isn’t exactly the romance any of us dream of.  Maggie seeks solace in the arms of the police officer she’s been seeing behind the backs of her friends and her boyfriend, who also isn’t very romantic. Walt waits for Maggie at her house, where he is the first person this episode to tell the truth – he doesn’t really love Maggie the way he should, and he breaks up with her. Brendan Dooling (Walt) continues to give a stellar performance episode after episode and I can’t wait to see where his coming out story goes next!

In the end, Carrie realizes that the truth really does set you free and finally spends time with Dorrit and Mouse, watching a bootleg copy of Purple Rain. Sebastian shows up and Carrie must turn his offer for the concert down. Luckily, Sebastian doesn’t seem upset and still looks at her with those totally dreamy eyes of his. Maggie seeks the comfort of her friends after her breakup, Carrie misses Sebastian, and Mouse is still crazy about Seth. However, the girls realize they only need one thing in their lives – each other. Oh, and peanut butter crackers. Maybe food truly does heal a broken heart?

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Favorite Moment: Walt’s breakup with Maggie. Brendan Dooling knows just how to reflect Walt’s struggle with his sexuality and the way he’s wrestling with feelings he doesn’t want to have. I’m also glad he finally dumped that two-timin’ girlfriend of his before things got too serious.

Worst Moment: Donna LaDonna’s attempt to seduce Sebastian. Donna has no character development thus far, making any scene she’s in a one-note ‘popular girl is mean to our heroine’ story like any other.

Hottest Character: For the second week in a row, this goes to Austin Butler (Sebastian). Hey, when other characters starting having shirtless pool scenes, they may have a chance too!

Character We Loved This Week: Walt. He finally grew a backbone and broke up with Maggie. He was also the only character to tell the truth, which automatically gets him major props in my book.

Character We Wanted To Slap This Week: Donna La Donna. I automatically dislike anyone who’s mean to Carrie and she’s trying to ruin things between her and Sebastian, which doesn’t exactly get her my favorite person award.

What We’re Looking Forward To Next Week: Carrie learns Sebastian’s big secret and decides to confront him about it, with shocking results. I’m biting my nails with anticipation of what this secret could be, so I’m excited to finally get some answers. Maybe he’s a robot. No one could ever look that beautiful and be real, right?!

Rating: 8/10. The second episode was just as entertaining as the pilot, giving us more details, backstory and development to our favorite characters while keeping the same charm, fabulous fashion, and totally rockin’ 80s music we loved from the beginning.