And Just Like That… recap: We miss the old Miranda
Plus, our successful sex columnist still won't talk about sex
TV Reviews Miranda
It’s possible that Enid Frick (Candice Bergen) is the only person who ever had the correct read on Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker). The former editor who once mercilessly eviscerated Carrie’s first draft for Vogue is back to be prickly and uncharmed by Carrie’s whole schtick.
In this episode of And Just Like That …, she and Carrie bump into each other awkwardly in a restaurant. Enid hasn’t sent a condolences card after Big’s death and has blown off her email requesting she provide a blurb for Carrie’s latest book, and even now when Carrie asks that she promote it in her popular newsletter Ask Enid (“It’s rivaling Goop”), Enid declines. But she tells Carrie she had her in mind for her new online magazine for older women, Vivant, saying it’s focused “on women our age.” Obviously, being told she is in the same age bracket as a 75-year-old sends Carrie into a tailspin.
Sex And The City always suggested Enid was merely jealous of Carrie, and there’s some of that here as she whines that she doesn’t have her own book to promote. But I think Enid’s jealousy is likely rooted in a feeling that Carrie’s writing is overrated, if not mediocre, but that she has built a career by utilizing charm in a way Enid obviously does not, particularly with men. And I’m not here to take sides in that debate other than to say that this episode is a total showcase of how it makes no sense for Carrie to be a sex columnist when she is constantly uncomfortable with any conversation that turns sexual. Who gave this woman a sex column that launched a career and her current three-part book deal when she openly refuses to talk about vaginas?!
Carrie whines about the encounter with Enid to Seema (Sarita Choudhury), and once again, coaching Carrie is the only thing Seema gets to do this episode. Seema at first brushes off the suggestion that Carrie is old—“we’re sophomores, not seniors”—but backtracks once she learns that the comment was made by the Enid Frick, whom Seema idolizes. She encourages Carrie to go to the Vivant launch event and barter participation for a blurb in Ask Enid.
Meanwhile, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker) are sending all their kids off to camp, and everyone is thrilled for some kid-free time. Herbert (Chris Jackson) and Lisa are going to focus on work, as well as their upcoming twentieth-anniversary party, and Harry (Evan Handler) and Charlotte have plans to get busy. We then get a very graphic scene where Charlotte says, “Do you want to come on my tits?” and look, I get that there was a criticism of the show losing its sexual frankness in season one, but watching this line come out of Kristin Davis’s mouth was unsettling. Harry is game, but trouble is that his orgasm was ejaculation-free.
Charlotte brings this up over lunch with Carrie, Miranda, and Anthony (Mario Cantone), and Carrie makes a “Casper the friendly cum” joke. They all debate the merits of jizz-free sex, and when Miranda asks Carrie for her thoughts on jizz, Carrie replies, “I’ve never given it any thought until literally this moment.” Once again, you are a sex columnist! Sex and the City featured a whole episode about golden showers! You’ve never written or even thought about jizz? Charlotte and Harry visit the doctor, who says this is normal but that Harry can get his ejaculation back by doing pelvic floor exercises. Charlotte, a master of kegels, coaches him like a personal trainer, and that’s their entire storyline for this episode.
Lisa, on the other hand, has a lot more to do. With the kids out of the house, she’s focusing on her documentary, which will be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival. She and Herbert enjoy a date night, reveling in the interruption-free conversation and talking about how much they can get done when they aren’t responsible for the daily activities of three children. We learn that Herbert has been mulling over a run for city comptroller (a word that will never not seem like a typo to me), but he has decided that he’s going to put it off for now, because he knows a campaign would cause so much more to fall to Lisa. Lisa loves this decision, and these two are off to fuck.
Miranda, finally back in New York to deal with the Brady (Niall Cunningham) situation, is sleeping on her own couch while Steve (David Eigenberg) has installed a punching bag in a doorframe and is constantly going 10 rounds with it. He does this shirtless, and I see you, David Eigenberg! I surmise you had some demands to look more attractive after the hearing-aid scenes from last season. Everyone is due at family therapy, where they’ve apparently worked through Brady’s breakup woes, but now he wants to force the issue on his parents’ separation and also shares he isn’t planning to attend college in the fall. Steve is fine with this, and Miranda won’t share any real opinions. “This is not who she is, just so you know,” Brady tells the therapist, and I assume everyone at home also screamed, “Thank you!” at their TV screens.
Miranda only unloads her thoughts once she’s with Carrie, admitting she doesn’t feel like she has a right to share with her family because, she “blew us up and we all know it.” Miranda bitching to Carrie is the first time she has seemed like herself all season, and it would be nice to get more of it. Why is Miranda so obsessed with leaving her old self behind? Doesn’t she know there’s a book out there called We Should All Be Mirandas?
Che (Sara Ramirez) is back in town, along with their ex-husband Lyle (Oliver Hudson), who drove them and their stuff across the country to move into a new apartment. Carrie and Miranda go over for a drink, the group discusses Lyle and Che’s two-year marriage and throuple situation with a woman, and Carrie tries to leave once they discuss strap-ons. Is this woman only down to discuss missionary, or what? She bails, and the other three fall asleep, only for a Che/Miranda middle-of-the-night make out session to turn into the beginning of a threesome. “Are you okay with this?” Che asks. “Thank you for asking, my visceral reaction is no, but maybe that’s fear of the unknown,” Miranda overanalyzes. She agrees, but then she gets a Charley horse that puts a damper on things and she and Che end up on the couch anyway.
The night of Lisa and Herbert’s twentieth-anniversary party arrives, and it’s supposed to be a big four-course meal for 31 people. Only, oops, Herbert forgot to hit send on the Evites and only the people Lisa invited by word of mouth have shown up. That includes her father, Herbert’s challenging mother, an old gallerist friend, and Harry and Charlotte. Charmed by Charlotte, the gallerist (Victor Garber) offers her a job, but she insists her children need her now more than ever. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of this development, and I’m dying for Charlotte to have something more to do than attend PTA meetings and micromanage her children’s lives.
When the in-laws begin trading barbs and Lisa’s father (Billy Dee Williams) suggests that Herbert is only obsessed with money, rather than putting anything good into the world, Lisa rashly shares that he’s running for city comptroller. Noooo, Lisa. I want a more fabulous future for you than politician’s wife! But this couple is the most interesting one on the show right now, I have to admit.
The episode wraps up at Enid’s launch party for Vivant, where Gloria Steinem is in attendance. Carrie is so moved by her presence and speech that she agrees to write for the magazine despite her earlier reservations, but once again, she’s overestimated her own importance. Enid: “I don’t want you to write 1,000 words about purses; I want you to give $100,000.” Well played, Enid.
Stray observations
- During their brunch in the opening scene, Jackie (Bobby Lee) runs off to the bathroom because “I just broke my no hollandaise before noon rule.” Some of the humor on this show so bizarrely plays like it was written by a middle-school boy.
- The entire subplot about Marlon Schafer—an old man Bitsy (Julie Halston) is trying to set Carrie up with, while he’s dating Enid—was so unnecessary. Also the dick pic that Bitsy sent was flaccid. Is that how they are when you’re of a certain age?
- Charlotte during Harry’s pelvic exercises: “Think of your penis like an elephant’s trunk slurping from the river!” This does weirdly feel like the show getting back to its roots and showcasing sexual things that aren’t typical on television.
- When Lisa forgets to order the cake, Herbert’s mother once again reminds me of my grandmother: “Can I tell you why I never forgot to order the cake? Because I baked them all myself and I was happy to do it.”
73 Comments
I don’t watch the show but I do read the reviews here for some reason. I remember in Sex and the City Cynthia Nixon and Samantha got naked all over the place, SJP never went topless, and Kristen Davis had one scene where she was in bed with Kyle McLachlan where she was topless.
My question is: Was Harry finally able to shoot ropes on Charlotte’s boobs or did he miss and get it in her hair?
I was forced to watch the entire show by an ex-girlfriend who promised me nudity and I reallllly don’t recall either Samantha or Miranda getting “naked all over the place.” I’m not sure if there were more than two exposed boobs the entire show. Even when Miranda was having bad sex with that dude who couldn’t get her off she kept basically all her clothes on. I don’t think everything needs to be Euphoria but it was a pretty chaste show, nudity-wise.
You are not correct. Miranda and especially Samantha, were nude in the original Sex in the City.
Charlotte flashed a boob at a sailor in the Fleet Week ep.
Samantha was topless fairly often, Miranda once in a while, and I think Charlotte 1-2 times throughout the show’s run. SJP never.
So far in the new show, only Miranda has gone topless.
Look – click this or don’t (it’s definitely NSFW), but here is a one-pager that lists all of the scenes from the show:https://nudebase.com/movies/sex-and-the-city-nude-scenes/ There were more than you remember.
She kept her bra on. So really she was saying he could shoot on her bra, I guess.
Well no wonder he couldn’t nut.
It feels like Kristen Davis is the only actress on this show who remembers Charlotte is a character, and not Kristen Davis.
I agree with you. I personally loved Charlotte in this episode. It felt very true to who she is as a character. Willing to get dirty with her husband and then play instructor to help! That is Charlotte!
I don’t ever recall Carrie’s columns being about sex in a graphic manner, just about the experiences of being a single woman who dated a lot, and the difficulties and joys of said dating. So for her to have qualms about all this explicit sex stuff isn’t out of character for her. Remember when she ran out of Samantha’s office when she caught her giving the delivery guy a blow job? And the argument they had when Sam said she was judgmental? Last week’s episode was much better than this. I’d rather see them figuring out their relationships than having three ways and Bitsy sending dick pics. To each his own….
Even so, you’d think a couple of decades around Samantha in particular and the dating scene in general would have moved her perspective at least a little, rather than making her more of a prude.
I don’t think she’s a prude. I had a TON of sex back in the day, with lots of guys, but I didn’t want to hear about other people’s sex lives in graphic detail. It’s one thing to write about sex in the abstract, it’s a whole other thing to hear people you are close to talk about what they do. Everyone is entitled to whatever they want to do as long as it’s consensual and no one is hurt, but I don’t want to hear all your gory details. Enjoy yourselves, just leave me out of it. And off topic from this, if I was Carrie I’d have told Enid (?) (Candace Bergen) to shove her stupid online magazine. She won’t promote Carrie’s book but she wants $100,000? Fuck off. Just because Brady isn’t going to college now, Miranda doesn’t mean he won’t ever go. And maybe college isn’t for him. Let him go help Steve run the bar.
Ha, yeah full agree on the $100,000 ask. Hard no. But for Carrie’s main job? She should have heard everything at this point.
Wasn’t one of the jokes her writing an article about the 69 position?
Who has a huge fancy dinner and doesn’t ask for RSVPs?
Jesus didn’t ask for RSVPs to his huge fancy dinner, fellow traveler.
His dinner party wasn’t that fancy
I dunno, if it’s the last supper you’ll be having for a while, you pull out all the stops and grab your best silver.
It’s no wonder Jesus is prophesied to slaughter entire armies at the Second Coming. My guy hasn’t eaten a good meal for over two thousand years. Hasn’t even had a bite of kugel, the poor schmuck.
It’s not divine judgement, he’s just hangry
It can be two things!
Yeah, but you’re also inviting the guy responsible for your death and a guy who’s going to pretend not to even know you, so you dial it back a little
To be fair. In every friend group you got a guy who is gonna get you killed and another who wouldn’t admit to knowing you in public.
Well, they reserved a table for 26 people, but only half of them showed up.
carrie being the world’s biggest prude is this show’s longest running gag. she is and continues to be the world’s most sexless sex columnist
She did have a fair amount of sex in the original show. I’m sure someone somewhere has counted, but her number is definitely in the double digits.
*having* sex is not the same as *talking* about sex, which is the job she is paid to do.
You claimed she was sexless. If she had sex with multiple partners, not so sexless.
what i said was that she was a prude (which she is) and that for a sex columnist, she is sexless, which, in the context of that sentence, means that she is not a person who is comfortable discussing sex, despite it being her job. stop being such a pedantic little wiener.
DON’T I KNOW IT.
I agree, also I enjoy when we get glimmers of Carrie being an asshole again (like faking covid). Carrie has always been a charismatic asshole, I hate that they keep trying to smooth that out of her.
right?? you’d think that being married to Big for 2 decades (and subsequently inheriting his millions) would make Carrie an even BIGGER asshole. and yet, she’s still running around town like some cute, quirky, scrappy upstart.
The problem with this show is that they decided to hand out too many “producer” credits to some of the actresses, and they decided to play themselves instead of an actual character. Miranda has suddenly had a personality transformation in her 50’s and become (I left my husband for a “woman”) Cynthia Nixon. And now the‘Che’ character has some weird open marriage situation, just like the real Sara Ramirez. And the witty“sex columnist” Carrie, is now uptight and humorless like the real SJP. What these women do not understand is that their personal stories are not what any of their fans were invested in, they were in invested in the “characters” that they were playing. No one should watch this anymore, not even to make fun of it. Except for the episode with Kim Catrall. In the spirit of the fun, witty, fashionable original, this pathetic exploitation just needs to die.
Miranda having a queer plot line still feels true to the character, they just did it in the most annoying way with the most annoying partner in Che lol (getting finger banged while she was supposed to be watching Carrie and Carrie peed herself was great comedy tho).Also lol’d at Miranda walking into a recovery meeting dressed like a billionaire.
Between this and Star Trek Picard, I’m starting to wonder if “actor senility” is a thing. Not to say that the people in question are literally senile, but people are known to be far more rigid in their thought patterns as they get older, which would be a liability for a profession like acting. Maybe so far we haven’t noticed since older actors are limited to movies or plays that don’t require as much time on camera/stage but now that we are rebooting shows this far in the future, we see that these people are just incapable of playing someone other than themselves for extended periods of time.Or maybe they are just lazy egomaniacs, I dunno.
Season 3 of Picard showed it wasn’t an actor problem but clearly a show runner issue. When they finally delivered what fans wanted from a Picard show(which was totally an eventually TNG reunion) it was great. Everyone was their character again. Different because of time but still realistically where they would have ended up. At least that’s how I see it
What I wanted from Picard: A TNG reunion.
What I got from Picard: A show so terribly written that it almost killed the thrill of a TNG reunion.
What I didn’t get from Picard: Yar and Wesley (and no I don’t count the weird cameo that included even more bad writing).
To be fair, they both were written out of the show in ways that made them hard to return. I do wish Will Wheaton was brought back for more than just the cameo but TNG fans have had a long history with Wesley and there are still many who still hate the characters and anything associated with it. I’d take season one Wesley over any season Raffi any day personally. I hated that character on Picard
Pfff they have holodecks. Also they had all those Romulans in S1 and not a single Sela sighting?
And considering all the Deus Ex Borg they pulled every. fucking. season. it’s not really a stretch to have them bring Wesley back as a Traveler or a Q or whatever for more than a poorly-conceived coda cameo for a character who deserved so much better.
Which character deserved better? Soji or the weird proto-Soji from the 21st Century? Both were horrible. I would rather they saved Wesley for Season 3, though, since it’s Beverly-centric storyline (and the presence of wesley’s own brother!) would have made a far more natural time for him to show up.Rather than having Q to show up to meet Jack in the post-credit sequence, it should have been Wes.
I meant Wesley deserved better. Honestly I cared almost nothing for any of the new characters they introduced.
Agree. All the new characters from Seasons 1-2 were basically terrible. Rios was kinda fun, but they had no clue what to do with him. Tragically, the worst one, Raffi, stuck around until the end. Even Seven’s inclusion was completely pointless fan service. She had no connection to Picard whatsoever and her post-Voyager career choices (being a, what, freelance, unauthorized space cop?) were baffling.
Picard Season 3 was horrible. The only thing worse than it was Picard Seasons 1-2. That doesn’t mean 3 was actually good, just not the worst thing that ever existed. The excessive fan service was stomach-churning.
This episode felt like the old show trying desperately crawl out from under the new one, but continually set back by the all the new issues. Wasting the talent and charm of Sarita Choudhury by sidelining Seema to Carrie’s intermittent life coach is a crime. The more I watch, the more I’d much rather have a new show with Lisa, Seema and Nya (where was she, btw?). Side notes:
-In the opening scene, Candace Bergen sounded like she was at death’s door, only to come alive (no pun intended) later. I don’t mean that as dig. I was genuinely concerned for her. But then later, she seemed to get her mojo back.-The shot of a shirtless, ripped Steve with the punching bag was definitely an actor demand. Good for him on insisting they stop portraying him as a frail fossil.
If it’s a nice flaccid dick pic, it’s still a good dick pic. And I imagine there could be a barely there line between a dick pick and an erect dick pick on Max. Bitsy sending the pic was already pretty aggressive, but it might have been intolerable if it was full louisville slugger.
That dick pic going from a text to Carrie’s photo album is some bullshit right there. Nobody on this show knows how phones work?
… these characters collectively have been dating for decades and decades, and no one had experienced a partner having a dry orgasm until now?! Not even the married ones?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:The problem is not new character Che Diaz. The problem is new character Miranda Hobbes.
Did you notice Che completely cut Miranda out of the threesome? Che Diaz is the most self centered, whiny, needy, ignorant, selfish, awful hideous person that REAL MIRANDA WOULD HAVE SEEN THROUGH IN 3 SECONDS. I just find it hard to believe that getting laid again is enough to drive this complete loss of self.
Because Che sucks so hard, I never want to see Sara Ramirez in anything else.
I just don’t buy that Che would see anything at all in Miranda, who is old, square, timid and boring, while Che is (at least supposed to be), hip, young, daring, and adventurous (to say nothing of non-monogamous.)I just don’t buy it for a second.
Totally agree.
Thanks. 🙂
Random thoughts:I thought Miranda and Che were going to break up after Miranda went back to NYC. No such luck.I find it hard to believe Che is so irresistible that Miranda can’t wait until Carrie leaves to start having sex. Or that they can’t do it in the bathroom instead of next to Che’s (ex?) husband.How does Che get to be bicostal with a good sized NYC apartment on a mid-level comedy career and a TV pilot? I recently re-watched the Summer of George episode of Seinfeld, which involved a guy named Lyle living with and oddly affectionate with Jerry’s girlfriend. Wonder if Che’s Lyle is a callback to that.I found the Harry’s absent ejaculate part of the story to be mildly amusing, but dirty talk doesn’t seem in character for Charlotte. We could have used Samantha saying, “Oh, honey, I can teach you how to make the cum come” and Charlotte cringing at the restaurant.It’s hard to believe Charlotte’s rich friend Lisa didn’t have a party planner who could handle all this stuff. Or that everyone they knew was out of town that night.I think, like Ted Lasso, the longer episodes are dragging things down. The original series seem to hit the mark faster with humor.
“How does Che get to be bicostal with a good sized NYC apartment on a mid-level comedy career and a TV pilot.”
Same real estate company as the Friends gang and the kooky misogynists from Big Bang Theory. They deal in rents so frozen Disney’s once sued for IP infringement.
Friends addressed the discrepancy, claiming it was Monica’s grandmother’s rent-controlled apartment. The landlord would likely have gotten suspicious, but at least that makes some sense.I don’t know if the apartment from BBT was supposed to be in a specific location other than somewhere in Silicon Valley, but at least they had scientific jobs.
Which don’t pay nearly as well as people assume.
Yep science jobs don’t pay great and IT jobs in their age bracket(the same as mine) don’t pay the way they use to because to many boomers are still sitting in the better positions. It’s just finally started to shift but wasn’t a decade ago when BBT was on
I’m going to guess those Baby Boomers know that it’s “used to” rather than “use to” and the difference between to and too.
Even if they did, they wouldn’t be able to figure out how to post here. But thanks grammar Nazi for the constructive criticism.
Sincerely: why do you feel the need to add this?
BBT takes place in Pasadena. Aren’t they all professors at Cal Tech? Not the cheapest place to live, but it’s not outrageous (South Pas is fairly reasonable), particularly if you’re all working adults sharing one apartment. Okay, maybe Penny, since she’s a single waitress, is a stretch, but it’s far from the biggest real estate crime on TV.
I assume Miranda is also her sugar momma right. All the ladies on that show are filthy rich.
How does Che get to be bicostal with a good sized NYC apartment on a mid-level comedy career and a TV pilot?
Literally none of the economics in this series have ever made sense other than Carrie being a sugar baby for multiple wealthy men who did nothing to earn their millions. That made total sense.
At least Sex and the City had the one episode where they reveale Carrie couldn’t afford to buy real estate because of her massive shoe collection.However, how Carrie even managed to afford groceries while working as a sex columnist in a weekly free newspaper remains an utterly unsolvable mystery.
watching this line come out of Kristin Davis’s mouth was unsettling.I love when Charlotte talks dirty. It’s fun to see someone so uptight doesn’t have to be uptight about sex.
I love that Char and Harry are still into doing each other.
She has demonstrated she’s willing to do whatever her husband(s) need to perform sexually. It’s made her character way more sex positive than Carrie or Miranda. Miranda let a dude eat her ass but refused to return the favor.
“a word that will never not seem like a typo to me”
On this website, who can tell anymore?
There was no jealousy. Carrie sucks, shes a shitty writer and human being, and Candace Bergen’s character saw right through her.
Carrie’s writing is overrated, if not mediocre
Are there any people in the audience, having heard the narration as a kind of ostensible sampling of what Carrie’s writing is like, who could have possibly ever come to any other conclusion?
Correction: Miranda, finally back in New York to deal with the Brady (Linguini from Ratatouille) situation, is sleeping on her own couch while Steve (David Eigenberg) has installed a punching bag in a doorframe and is constantly going 10 rounds with it. He does this shirtless, and I see you, David Eigenberg! I surmise you had some demands to look more attractive after the hearing-aid scenes from last season.