Season 1, Episode 07:
When I Deceive You
After successfully ousting Carrie from ''Communique'', Mark wonders if he did the right thing by not supporting her alibi. The next day, Stephanie goes into work and relates the circumstances to Allan, who agrees that she did the right thing.
Alex's editor at the Globe commissions her to write a story on the Communique leak and Allan Rush's relationship with the paper. After consulting with one of her co-workers, she interviews Stephanie and attempts to get some insider information. Stephanie refuses to budge and storms off. Alex then gets a meeting with Allan, but he rebuffs her questions and threatens to have her thrown out of the building before she leaves.
Linda commissions Nikki to sell a rare piece of art on her behalf for $5 million. When Nikki inquires further, Linda reveals that she is planning to substitute the real painting with a forgery, and is selling the painting because she knows her husband has been seeing another woman. Realizing what this means, Nikki plays dumb and attempts to sympathize with her.
Gil gets fed up with cold-calling at work, and calls Nikki for advice. She suggests talking to Stephanie and Mark to get them to invest money in the stock market. Gil eventually convinces Mark to have a meeting with him and Stephanie at the Communique offices to discuss their options. He eventually convinces them to invest.
That night, the Fairchilds meet up at a restaurant for dinner. The conversation turns to Carrie's recent firing, and Linda claims that Allan will be able to handle it. Carrie decides to leave for Paris and spend some time there. Allan tells her that he won't support her anymore and leaves to run an errand. It's revealed that Nikki is waiting upstairs in a hotel room and he promises that his marriage is over before they embrace.
Stephanie is approached by Ian Walker, the producer who pretended to be interested in Mark's play. He tells her that he's furious that a critical review of his most recent work was published in Communique, and threatens to spill her secret to Mark before leaving.
While balancing their finances later that night, Mark realizes that $10,000 is missing from Stephanie's private account. When he asks her about the money, she lies that she gave it to a relative to get them back on their feet. The next day, however, Mark finds out that the relative in question didn't get any money from her.
Alex's attempts to get more information on Communique leads her to discover that Rachel was the leak who set up Carrie. She sets up a meeting with Carrie and reveals the same information to her, and they agree to team up and take Rachel down. The next morning, Carrie confronts Rachel with the information and tells her to get her job back within the next day, on the threat of revealing her duplicity to Stephanie.
Mark gives $10,000 to Gil for the investment, and asks him to see if he can trace a cashier's check that was unaccounted for in Stephanie's records. Gil gets back to him later and reveals that Ian was the person who cashed the other cheque. Mark storms into Stephanie's office and blasts her for betraying her trust before he storms out.
He goes to Carrie's loft and barges in. When she asks what he's doing, he kisses her and they begin to make love on the bed...
Tropes:
- Always a Bigger Fish: Alex gets Carrie to help her sabotage Rachel by any means possible.
- Enemy Mine: Carrie and Alex (who didn't like each other much beforehand due to the latter's relationship with Peter) agree to set aside their differences and get revenge against Rachel.
- Hope Spot: Both Stephanie and Mark express happiness that Carrie has been shuffled out of Communique, but the moment is short-lived as he learns about Stephanie's duplicity and Carrie rallies Rachel to get her job back.
- Humiliation Conga: Rachel gets this. In the course of two days, she finds out that her infidelity has been caught on tape, she won't get the big settlement cheque she was expecting, gets fearful that a damning story on Communique is going to be released, Peter rejects her advances and Carrie discovers that she was the one who tricked Stephanie into firing her.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Mark has a momentary moment of self-loathing after he wonders if he caused Carrie to get fired.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Communique staff writer Tom's evisceration of Ian Walker's most recent play is what causes him to screw over Stephanie by telling Mark about her duplicity, which eventually leads to Mark cheating with Carrie.
- Oh, Crap!: Nikki gets this reaction when Linda reveals that she knows that Allan has been seeing another woman (but doesn't know who it is).
- Really Gets Around: Alex implies that Rachel's divorce records contain "more casual sex than the collected works of Jackie Collins."
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Ian gives one to Stephanie after finding out that his most recent work was panned by Communique.
- Spotting the Thread:
- Mark figures out that something is amiss when he figures out that $10,000 is missing from Stephanie's private account. This is what eventually leads him to discover Stephanie's duplicity.
- Alex realizes that Rachel is the leak at Communique after questioning another reporter, Lisa, who refuses to run any gossip items on Rachel's divorce case.
