A Reluctant Bonnie to Her Clyde: Sabrina Carpenter Ushers in the Short n’ Sweet Era With Barry Keoghan…and A Slight Who’s That Girl Narrative

Although “Espresso” might technically be the “first” visual to signal what Sabrina Carpenter has now confirmed as her Short n’ Sweet era, it is “Please Please Please” that truly marks the beginning of this album cycle. For one can’t talk about Carpenter these days without the mention of her equally filler-laden boyfriend, Barry Keoghan. Increasingly “on the scene” in Carpenter’s life (including the recent Leonardo DiCaprio-“memed” [not themed] cake he got for her twenty-fifth birthday party this year), Keoghan has now been immortalized in one of her music videos. A sure sign that things are bound to go south sooner or later—which is exactly what “Please Please Please” prophesies (making it perhaps a self-fulfilling one? Or is it “self-fulfillering” in this case?). In the meantime, though, they’re doing their best imitation of Bonnie and Clyde in the Bardia Zeinali-directed “Please Please Please.”

But before viewers can fully grasp that Carpenter is the reluctant Bonnie in the situation, she instead channels a slightly more esoteric femme fatale. So esoteric, in fact, that maybe she’s not even aware how similar she is to Nikki Finn (a.k.a. Madonna) getting out of prison at the beginning of 1987’s Who’s That Girl. Indeed, it seems that a lot of things are too “esoteric” for Carpenter to realize she might be borrowing from (like the album cover for Short n’ Sweet itself). And so, in the same fashion as Nikki, an irritated prison guard calls Carpenter’s name and tells her she’s free to go. With her big, teased hair (very 80s-inspired as well), Carpenter fumbles through the hall to go to the “reception” area to collect “all” her possessions: sunglasses, lipstick and what seem to be a pair of earrings. In Nikki’s case, the lipstick returned to her is “fire engine red,” whereas Sabrina’s is something slightly more in the “brownish nude” realm of shades (though the color of the stick is blue). In another moment that mimics Nikki’s post-prison release vibe, Sabrina applies that lipstick “ditzily” and “defiantly” while the law enforcement around her expects her to take her newfound freedom more seriously. Ergo, the officer scolds Carpenter, “Ma’am this is not a beauty counter, I’m going to need you to comply.” So much for freedom.

Ignoring his stern tone altogether, Carpenter seems to sense a presence nearby. That of her beloved, Barry. Dressed head-to-toe in black (with a shirt that squeezes in just such a way to indicate he wants you to know he’s been working out), she catches only a slight glimpse of him being escorted in cuffs to his cell. As the prison door starts to close on her again, the two lock eyes in a way that suggests they’re not “acting” when it comes to their yearning and burning at all. And it is at that moment the song commences with: “Please please please don’t prove ‘em right”—while bearing a distinct country twang that further vindicates Lana Del Rey’s insistence about the music industry “going country.” Especially since Carpenter happens to now be working with Lasso producer Jack Antonoff for the first time on this record and on this song. 

In the next scene, however, the true beginning of the track showcases a quintessentially “Antonoff-rips-off-the-80s” sound (à la most of Taylor Swift’s recent work). This while Carpenter, still maintaining her country twang and dressed in thigh-high black stockings, a hooded blue velvet mini dress and black gloves with “SC” embroidered on one of the hands, visits her “bad boy,” even if separated by the Plexiglas partition. Picking up the phone to talk to him, she puts her hand up to his, and he does the same (barrier [or Barryer] be damned!), all the while talking animatedly as she just smiles and listens—hoping and praying he’s not gonna fuck up again when he gets out. A hope befitting the song’s overall motif, which is that Carpenter doesn’t want to be made a fool of after defending her man’s honor and insisting to everyone that he’s a “stand-up guy,” to use the phrase from the single. Hence, in pretty much every way, this is a song that only a Taurus could create, for not wanting to be embarrassed or shamed is at the top of the Taurean list of priorities in general and when it comes to romantic relationships. What’s more, Carpenter taps into her Taurean trait of “always being right” (a.k.a. too stubborn to admit when they’re wrong) when she tongue-in-cheekly sings, “I know I have good judgment, I know I have good taste/It’s funny and it’s ironic that only I feel that way.”

Unfortunately, that “good taste” seems to be failing her, for, the instant Barry gets out of prison (where she awaits him dressed to the nines [as usual] in a pink fur coat), he does just what she asked him not to: “Please, please, please/Don’t prove ’em right/And please, plеase, please/Don’t bring mе to tears when I just did my makeup so nice [this level of vanity highlighting another Taurean “tell”]/Heartbreak is one thing, my ego’s another/I beg you, don’t embarrass me, motherfucker.” Ah, such a Taurus. Not only with her contempt for being humiliated, but also her need to control everything—including the actions of others. As for the “making Barry a criminal” element of the narrative, there can be no denying the reference to his 2022 arrest for public intoxication while drinking in Dublin (and surely, you have to be right proper plastered for someone in Ireland to consider you drunk enough to be worth calling the gardaí in). Something that, based on his inherent Irishness, perhaps Carpenter is afraid he might be at risk of again. Ergo, the lyrics, “Whatever devil’s inside you, don’t let him out tonight/I tell them it’s just your culture and everyone rolls their eyes.”

As for the music video version of Barry, he disappoints Sabrina by taking her to what appears to be a garden-variety (in its grotesquely stereotypical way) “Italian” restaurant—in case the horrid poster of the shape of Italy filled in with pepperoni and cheese pizza wasn’t enough of a tip-off—but is actually just a mafia front (again, more disgusting Italian stereotypes) for some kind of a shady operation involving a bookie. By the time Sabrina realizes she’s been bamboozled by Barry, it’s too late, and she’s forced to watch him get in a fight with the goon squad until he manages to subdue one of them into the back of Sabrina’s trunk. Alas, Barry’s crime spree doesn’t stop there, as, in the following scene, we see him pointing a gun at a woman in a bank while she places stacks of cash into a bag as the following lyrics play in the background: “Well, I have a fun idea, babe, maybe just stay inside/I know you’re craving some fresh air, but the ceiling fan is so nice (it’s so nice, right?)/And we could live so happily if no one knows that you’re with me/I’m just kidding, but really (kinda), really, really.” Carpenter’s Taurean traits thusly rear their head again with this obvious nod to being a homebody—especially since the chances of something humiliating happening to you are greatly diminished if you don’t go out in public. 

Hesitantly taking his hand as they walk out of the bank together, it seems Carpenter is starting to have the epiphany that Barry is never going to cease these dishonoring shenanigans (a word with decidedly Irish origins). That much is made clear when the law catches up to him at their next location: an arcade (this particular setting suddenly “hot” in the wake of Ariana Grande’s “we can’t be friends [wait for your love]” video). So it is that she must watch him get taken away by the law once more. Only she’s starting to become much less sentimental about the whole thing, as made obvious by her eye-rolling reaction when she waits for him yet again outside the prison—this time in a neon green fur coat instead of a pink one. 

So it is that she decides to take “the law,” as it were, into her own hands and handcuff him for the video’s denouement. Of course, she does it in that “this is going to be very kinky” sort of way—until Barry realizes that kink has nothing to do with it. Except in the Chappell Roan way of “My Kink Is Karma.” And oh, how kinky Carpenter gets in that sense by placing a piece of tape over his mouth and kissing him on the lips to leave her own lipstick imprint (in a certain sense, it’s giving Eric Knox [Sam Rockwell] drawing lips on the piece of tape he puts over Dylan Sanders’ [Drew Barrymore] mouth in Charlie’s Angels). This while she delivers her coup de grâce outro, “If you wanna go and be stupid/Don’t do it in front of me/If you don’t wanna cry to my music/Don’t make me hate you prolifically.”

And yet, if Barry is game enough to appear in a song and video of Carpenter’s that trolls him this much, then maybe he isn’t so embarrassing, after all. Indeed, he might be in a stronger position to demand of Carpenter, “I beg you, don’t embarrass me, motherfucker.” Because, at this moment, her own wish has been fulfilled. One that The Smiths also said with a triple please in the form of, “So please, please, please/Let me, let me, let me/Let me get what I want/This time.” That’s all Carpenter is asking of this boyfriend, too.