And Just Like That… season 2 finale: The meh return of Samantha Jones
Plus, Miranda goes back to her true love, and Carrie and Aidan start a five-year arrangement
TV Reviews Samantha Jones
We waited all season for that? Truly, hats off to Kim Cattrall, who I’m sure got paid a literal fortune to sit in a car and pretend to talk to her archnemesis on the phone for 60 seconds. If the cameo had been kept under wraps, it would have been a fun little surprise to begin the episode. But with everyone anticipating the return of Samantha Jones with bated breath, the phone call was underwhelming (even with the Annabelle Bronstein reference).
This season’s penultimate episode and finale were labeled part one and part two, which makes sense because this installment actually felt like a continuation of various arcs (mostly), whereas the rest of this round of And Just Like That… dropped developments from week to week.
Take, for example, my guy Steve (David Eigenberg). One of the most impactful scenes of the season was his blowout with Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) in episode six, in which they aired years of frustrations and grievances—and then the show basically never dealt with the fallout. How did Miranda feel about it? How did Steve feel? How did it impact Brady? We’ll never know! I would have loved an old school Sex And The City brunch scene where they all dissected the fight.
Last week, Miranda found out from Carrie that Steve was opening a new restaurant on Coney Island, and she began to grapple with how abruptly she leaves relationships. In the finale, she actually visits Steve on Coney Island and they have a heart-to-heart about wanting to be in each other’s futures, even as they let go of their partnership. I mean…yeah? You have a son together? You were definitely going to have to see each other. This isn’t a revelation.
Charlotte (Kristin Davis), the standout of season two, also gets a big moment early in the episode when Harry (Evan Handler) comes to wake her following her drunken return home the night before after Anthony’s (Mario Cantone) chat about “losing his ass virginity.” Chef’s kiss to Handler on his delivery of “ass virginity.” “I can’t do it all, Charlotte!” he whines after he tells her that he got the girls out the door by himself.
And then the show gives Charlotte its best monologue of the season, which I am going to type out verbatim because I love it so much: “You are not doing it all. I know, because you made a few breakfasts and ran a few errands, that it feels like you are. But in fact, you are doing the bare minimum of what I and other woman have been asked—no, expected—to do around the house for years and years and years. And now. I am asking, no I am expecting, you to help me with part of it. Not all of it. Because I love my work and I’m good at it.”
The thing about Charlotte is she always knew herself and she never made apologies for what she wanted. It’s been genuinely fun to see how that paid off in the long run, instead of whatever Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is doing.
The rest of the episode is devoted to Carrie’s last supper, a dinner party she’s throwing in her old apartment, catered by a Michelin chef, to say goodbye before she sells it to Lisette (Katerina Tannenbaum). This apartment is suddenly massive enough to fit everyone, and it’s kind of hilarious when Charlotte says, “Do you remember when we used to sit right here and eat cold sesame noodles out of cardboard boxes?” as if this was actually the same space.
Let’s do quick hits of what everyone’s dealing with at this party: Nya (Karen Pittman) is sad because she was elected to the prestigious American Law Institute but doesn’t have anyone to share it with—except the chef is actually that guy from the bar she didn’t sleep with back when she was working on things with Andre. Miranda and Che (Sara Ramirez) need to play nice after Che was a complete asshole to Miranda in their standup set last week. Seema (Sarita Choudhury) is pulling away from Ravi (Armin Amiri) after the “I love you” because she’s afraid of getting hurt. Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker) and Herbert (Chris Jackson) are both grappling with guilt after she miscarried. Giuseppe (Sebastiano Pigazzi) says he might move back to Rome because Anthony has thrown too many walls up. And Jackie (Bobby Lee) and Smoke (Bethlehem Million) are here just for funsies, I guess.
There’s a lot going on, but thankfully Carrie has a quick way for everyone to get some resolution. Once they’re all seated for dinner, she asks everybody to go around the table and share what they want to let go of—in just one word. Nya is letting go of yesterday, Charlotte is letting go of limits, Anthony is letting go of control, etc. Lisa, who tearfully told Herbert that she feels like she wished the baby away, is letting go of guilt. When it comes back to Carrie, she shares that she’s letting go of expectations. After being strict about everyone else only getting one word, she monologues about the meaning of her choice, because of course she does. At the end, Che says, “Carrie, that was…way more than one word,” and it’s the funniest they’ve been all season.
As everyone is leaving, Miranda gets a call from her boss, who needs her to do an on-air interview with the BBC. Elated, Miranda frantically hails a cab, and the whole scene has the same rom-com vibe that Miranda had last year when she rushed to tell Che how she felt. In this moment, it became clear that Miranda was returning to her one true love: her career. May we see more of that in the freshly announced season three.
And finally, Aidan (John Corbett) shows up to set foot in the apartment one last time after refusing to all season. He tells Carrie to sit, and then explains that even though she just let go of this apartment for him and bought a massive four-bedroom house in New York City, he can’t come up here anymore. His 15-year-old son had alcohol and shrooms in his system, and he needs Aidan to be his constant. Carrie offers to come down to Virginia more, and Aidan says that won’t work either for some reason. He really thought he was doing something here, having one last breakup in this cursed apartment.
Only, he says it’s not a breakup? He asks her for five years—until Wyatt is out of his teens—for them to truly be together again. I’m so confused about this. Are they broken up? Are they doing distance for five years? Are they allowed to date other people? What if Wyatt goes to college at 18? Why is 20 a magic number? A lot can happen in five years! This feels so arbitrary.
Ravi also leaves New York (albeit for a much more manageable period of five months) to shoot on location in Egypt, so Seema and Carrie end the season as two sort of single girls on the beach in Greece, ordering cosmopolitans. And just like that…season two ended on a note of insanity after mostly finding its groove in the back half.
Stray observations
- Why was Che seated at Carrie’s side and Miranda all the way in the back? Also, why was Che invited and not Steve? They absolutely trashed Carrie’s best friend for decades last week and they still get an invite to her intimate party for her closest friends, when they were basically just a coworker for a few months last year? Let’s stop making Che a main character!
- Carrie’s kitten’s name is Shoe. I feel like Manolo might have had a better ring to it.
- All of Nya’s little sexual comments about the food during this episode felt like something a teenager would think was sexy. “It exploded in my mouth”? Girl.
- Miranda tells Steve he was right about them being good parents, and my genuine question is, “HE WAS?”
59 Comments
Kim said “you have me for 2 hours and 3 takes – make it count.”
Hopefully, the writers will do some decluttering before Season 3. We don’t need Che, their stupid podcast friend, or any protracted storylines about Anthony’s sphincter. You have the lives of 6 women to explore. Let’s free up some room for exploration.
Also, Nya. It’s very obvious they tacked this character on and have no idea how to integrate her into the group. It’s like she’s on a different show.
To be fair, all of the new characters were tacked on to address the show’s prior lack of diversity. But rather than finding diverse characters/actors who fit in with the show’s vibe, they simply checked a bunch of boxes. By good fortune, Seema and Lisa worked, but Nya and Che did not.
TBH Seema and LTW aren’t so hot either. That scene with Seema and her bf in he in the lobby of Carrie’s building was so poorly acted. It felt like they recorded the rehearsal and said “eh, good enough.” Lisa and Herbert are also only standing on one leg at this point. The whole baby thing was idiotic.
I say just keep Seema, who actually had a compelling storyline and I think whose flaws as a character were relatable to anyone that feels so anchored to their independence (although she deserves a better love than that man always on his phone).The rest can go, the kids having plot lines as they relate to their parents makes sense to Charlotte and Miranda, but it’s enough extra filler.
Apparently Nya was originally supposed to be Miranda’s love interest, which makes her intro makes so much more sense. Cynthia Nixon objected, she didn’t want a love story between two straight women.
Yeah, I can kind of see that.Will I languish in the Greys for all eternity…?
I haven’t been watching this and only clicked on the article as a lifetime Kim Cattrall fan, so the only think I learned is the show has a character named “Smoke.” Cool.
I know the cast said they hoped we wouldn’t be underwhelmed by Samantha’s cameo… but there wasn’t even a single whelm to be found.
100%. Also, they went from Carrie and Samantha being totally estranged in season one until the last episode. Their off-camera drink in Paris brought about enough of a reconciliation that Samantha was going to fly from France to NYC for ONE NIGHT to have dinner in Carrie’s boring apartment, after Carrie didn’t utter a single word about Samantha throughout the entirety of season 2???
How the heck are you all giving this show similar ratings to What We Do In the Shadows?! (Sometimes higher)I would not give ANY episode more that a C-, and that’s too high. These episodes are D-F territory, and consists some of the WORST writing in television history.Yes, I want another show about ultra rich people in Manhattan crying about what dress to wear and selling art to Sam Smith.One of the worst shows off all time.
I love Mario Cantone, but I think Hot Giuseppe would have lots of other quality dating options in NYC or Rome.I wish they had done more with Brady after his meltdown, before the speech about Miranda and Steve being good parents.Despite these and other gripes, I have enjoyed the past few episodes more than Season 1 & the rest of Season 2. Maybe Aidan gives Carrie something to focus on other than books about grief and podcasts?
I was so disappointed in how the Aiden/Carrie thing ended. That was weird. How would anyone expect someone to wait 5 years and for them to be OK with that?! Seems an odd arc to go with going into S3, as the highlight (for me anyway) has been watching these 2 have a different kind of romance than 20+ years ago.
It was unclear why she couldn’t visit him in Virginia. Or why.. even let’s say, in a year.. his son wouldnt’t be well enough to allow his dad to leave for a weekend here and there? And finally, that once he’s 18 (in 3 years) he’d be at college somewhere..
Asking someone to put their life on hold for 5 years is incredibly ridiculous and selfish.
So in other words, this pretty much ranged from a mediocre to terrible show all season, even for those who were SATC addicts.There are tens of shows that have shown up on AV Club’s underrated and best of slideshows that have received cursory or outright no coverage here. Not a stretch to say AV Club should consider reviewing those instead of something that isn’t even getting particularly good ratings, let alone quality.
But there’s no way those other shows would drive this level of engagement. Fifteen comments with essentially no replies? You can’t put a pricetag on that level of discourse.
I’m sure there are things out there with more engagement potential, good or ill, than Sex and the Friggin City 2: Legitimately Nobody Has Cared Since S01E01 When That Guy Died and an Exercise Bike Company Had a Big Public Pissy-Pants for a Few Days.
Came here to say exactly this. Wasting time for recaps for this garbage show when Justified is RIGHT THERE.
No shit, Country Living has some decent coverage of City Primeval – better than AVC, anyway:https://www.countryliving.com/life/entertainment/a44870299/justified-city-primeval-adelaide-clemens-interview/
I wonder if Season 3 will have a 5 year jump.That would be a good way to hard reset everything and move ahead from where we are…
I *do* bet the Aidan situation is somehow resolved when the show returns. Not sure why they would otherwise put the characters through all of that — and then suggest the relationship is *not* over — only to never speak of him again.
And to have Carrie having even less of a love life than she’s had so far on the reboot.
hard to square the circle of all the product placement and a 5 year time jump, unless they introduce a plot-point about how everything from 5 years ago has come back in style.
Agreed. It just seemed like such a purposeful point to make and I can’t imagine they are planning to have 5 years happen without a jump. Maybe they’ll wait til the end of Season 3 if it is planned to be the last.Or maybe 1 episode in Carrie will give up on Aiden.
It pains me that this has gotten a season 3 while 1899 got cancelled after one season.
It pains me that there are so many unemployed or underemployed creative people who can’t even get one limited series. This show has had a whole run, three unnecessary movies, and now a third reboot season that is beyond superfluous. This obsession with old I.P. is exhausting. There are literally infinite other stories to be told.
ummm…spoiler ?? I dunno I guess her cameo was already advertised since before but I guess I was expecting an off camera one ( just her voice thru the phone) so that fact she made a filmed appearance was a surprise so kinda sucks they used the picture of that as the header image. Oh well.glad they didn’t do Bear reviews here or they would’ve used Carmie’s family portrait for the Fishes episode as the header image.
Kim Cattrall’s return had been prevalent in the news for months. She had done multiple interviews about it and even this column has mentioned it a few times.
Part of Kim Cattrall’s well publicized agreement to return was that she insisted that she only be dressed by Patricia Fields. She was also clear about not being in the same room as the rest of the cast. Ergo, phone call with no interaction.
I suspect that if SATC had been released into today’s version of the internet it wouldn’t have lasted. There’s just no pleasing you people. It’s too white, where are the POC? The POC additions were done awkwardly and smacks of tokenism. Not enough risky sexual talk. The sexual talk is cringe or juvenile. Too much focus on the core 3. Why aren’t they exploring more stories with the core 3? The producers just can’t win with you assholes. My advice to the producers is to stop caring because you’re right, you’ll never please the audience.
people were critical of all that stuff at the time, too.
I loved Ambrosia’s “How Much I Feel” playing at the party. I unapologetically love that song and I will soft-rock out to it forever.Other than that, is Wyatt not going to college in 3 years? Does Aiden know that “magic mushrooms” are not some harbinger of future criminality? Drinking and driving is bad, but I snorfed at “How does one get shrooms anyway?” especially when they live in the woods.I do love how the writers somewhat gave Charlotte her dignity back. It’s easy to forget, but Kristen Davis has much more range than she’s been allowed to show this season.
Juke’s “Golden Hour” was also a brilliant choice for that final montage. Bittersweet, forlorn, hopeful.
I had a friend who did shrooms OFTEN as a college freshman and she’s now a big shot real estate agent in Hawaii.
Bobby Lee, rapist, still getting work. Okay.https://www.tiktok.com/@bobbyleetijuana/video/7199366909463186731?lang=en
I love Kim Cattrall but I thought her acting was so stilted. Nothing felt authentic. They also definitely have to drop some characters, there are too many. Or if they keep them they should just be occasional friends not have whole story lines of their own, there’s too much going on. Less of the husbands and kids would be a start.
…Damn. I never watched Sex and the City and watched this show on a whim, and I have to say I’m waaaaaay on the opposite wavelength as apparently the majority of old school SATC fans. Che is one of my favorite characters and Sara Ramirez is amazing. Why would you want to get rid of them? Yeah, they’re touchy and harsh sometimes, but they’re a broke nonbinary person who gained and lost a dream job and a relationship in quick succession. They reliably have the most insightful moments and aren’t afraid to push back. Their biggest crime imo is that their standup isn’t that good. Carrie fucking faked COVID, but Che is the problematic one here? Yes, Carrie had about the best reason you can have i.e. PTSD at the thought of reliving her husband’s death. But Che can’t be frustrated at the body shaming and misgendering they encounter on almost a daily basis? Also: Jackie’s a mess but he’s fun! And I’m sorry, dismissing all these characters just because they haven’t known Carrie as long as Charlotte or Miranda doesn’t sit well. Like…so? You have a connection with someone it doesn’t matter how long you’ve known them. Everyone in this cast has great chemistry, sorry if it isn’t as shallow as constant rich white lady brunches that I get the sense old fans want to get back to. And there still is plenty of that, mind! Society has changed, for the better in a lot of ways. I’d say this show (even though all the characters are immensely privileged) is one of the better examples.
Did you watch the first season? Che was obnoxious even prior to the relationship with Miranda. All the characters from the original show have their faults, but they also have good things about them. Che never seemed to have any good personality traits. The character seemed to be checking a box of the writers wanting someone non-binary.
Che was not nearly as annoying in S2. Actually came around to be likable.
I did watch the first season, and I do not see your points at all. Honestly I think it’s pretty insulting to dismiss Che’s entire character as the writers checking some nonbinary box. Che and all the new characters have had interesting standalone story arcs. In a show where characters like Charlotte and Seema regularly Karen the fuck out of sales clerks, it’s weird to me that chill, cool, and yes, obviously troubled Che gets all this hate.
The term Karen is sexist. Unsurprisingly, no cutesy term for a man who complains about service has caught on, because only women speaking up = bad. Che never seemed cool or chill to me. If someone has to get high every day, they’re a mess, not cool.
Are you kidding me? Are we really hiding behind sexism to excuse away a phenomenon perpetuated by entitled, mostly white women? Guess what, women can be jerks to minorities and other women. Men, too, and I agree we should have a term for them. But come on. You don’t get to shit on the nonbinary character for nonexistant annoyingness and then act like people who lose their shit on service staff are the oppressed ones. Get outta here.
i just have to say that both of you have Y names and the same color avatar makes this impossible to follow.
Methinks they’re the same person.
A lot of non-binary people that I’ve met get high daily. I have had trans friends who get drunk every-other-day as well. A lot of non-binary people have suffered from emotional abuse from their parents or peers… you’re being super ignorant, asshole. And to all those people I just mentioned, I imagine Che is dope representation. Did I say you’re an asshole?
…dude
sa…did you just use “sexism against men” as a defense LOL. Sad-bro over here.
“Karen” exists no one, not even white men, have the sense of entitlement to have the whole of society serve and please them like white women.
You’re just showing everyone that you don’t know what “Karen” means. Karen comes from Becky, which comes from many other iterations such as Miss Anne. It’s rooted in the very real phenomenon of white women calling upon other authorities (like the police) to do their bidding. There’s not a comparable term for white men because those people traditionally had power already. Men wouldn’t need to threaten calling for additional help. A man (historically, one who owned the slaves, the land, or the company, etc.) would already have sufficient power himself. Also “complaining” is not being a Karen. Being a Karen would mean something more like, “If you don’t do what I say, then I’m going to call the manager” — and then expecting that the manager will take the white woman’s side in the matter. The word is entirely about assumptions, expectations, and soft power.You should try talking to a black person for once. I’m not black, but at least I know the gist of it. (And for added clarity: your comment is ignorant, silly, dumb, ridiculous, but you still weren’t being a Karen. Do you get it yet?)
the scene of them all eating off the little tiny spoons was absolutely bonkers. It felt like the actors were given zero script except to make “mmmm” sounds and had Anthony say “get a room”.Carrie is such a try hard in the very best and worst ways all at once. She was ready to let go of the step mom performance without a second thought.Also I burst out laughing that they chose mushrooms of all drugs for the kid to be misusing.
“in his system” … I think shrooms leave your system in like 24 hours?
I feel like I’m missing something- what’s good about this show? What is actually compelling apart from the familiarity of the characters? I got the appeal of the original, a bit, it wasn’t my thing but I see why people liked it.But like this is getting average-to-good reviews and I don’t really see why.
Is the cat named Shoe or Choux? Because the latter seems more in line with what Carrie would choose, with the added benefit that it sounds like “shoe.”
Meh. That’s all I have to say. Can we have some new shows?
Another dropped thread: Brady/Lily. Just poofed into the ether as quickly as it came.
Yeah, I didn’t understand Carrie and Aidan’s relationship one bit.
They literally can’t visit each other? Carrie will be “a distraction” to Aidan when she visits? Like his son needs round the clock supervision because he did what the vast majority of teens do? Get in a little trouble?And, yeah, “five years” makes no sense. Is Aidan going to accompany him to college, Thorton Melon style, when he turns 18? And is legally an adult, even if he eschews the traditional college path?They’re going to literally be on ice for five years without visiting or anything? And this seems rational? So they’ll reconvene when they’re sixty, giving up the last embers of their youth for utterly arbitrary reasons?Yeesh.
I could do without every one of the kids. They’re all entitled whiny assholes. Lily expected her mother to navigate a blizzard to buy condoms because neither she nor her boyfriend bothered to think of it? Ugh. Rock expected her mom (or dad) to interrupt their work day to bring her a NOTEBOOK that SHE forgot? How old is she, five? Brady has always been a jerk.Aiden’s son did his best to break up Carrie and his dad and succeeded perfectly. My two kids were assholes in their teens too, but never as demanding, spoiled and obnoxious as these little twerps. My kids are in their 40’s now and are amazing adults/parents. I lived through their teen years. I’m not entertained by reliving that.