Carrie creeps closer to actually dating on And Just Like That…
Unfortunately, she has to weather a few more really embarrassing incidents to get there
TV Reviews Carrie
Vox recently ran an interesting editorial by writer Alex Abad-Santos titled, “And Just Like That finds the demented comedy in life’s humiliations.” It’s an intriguing angle to view the show through, ditching most of the fabulousness but keeping the frequently mortifying situations the Sex And The City friends often found themselves in, which apparently just seem to multiply as you age. After all, back in the SATC heyday, episodes would culminate with Carrie falling down in the middle of a runway show, say (although Miranda always seemed to get the worst of those plotlines, getting hit on by a sandwich and having to be rescued by Carrie’s boyfriend Aiden when she threw her back out while naked on her bathroom floor).
As a person in the AJLT age range, I have to say that my twenties were chock-full of humiliating experiences, but yes, my cringe moments are different now. Like my kids howling at my penguin-esque shuffle across Chicago’s currently icy sidewalks, because old bones do not heal well. Much like Carrie grappling with hip surgery and the series of curve balls flung at her this episode, hopefully, Abad-Santos posits, the lesson is that we learn to roll with the punches as we get older, accepting that “being alive is mortally embarrassing.”
As Carrie grapples with her grief, the show keeps sending us on an advanced timeline (effectively announced at the start of the episode by Carly Simon’s “Spring Is Here”) to make it feasible that our heroine could even visualize dating again (or, get forced into it by her editor). The episode title, “Sex And The Widow,” is a callback to the original series but also a huge stretch, as Carrie’s vomit-filled date is far from romantic. Ironically, the person on the show having the most sex now is Miranda.
But, while difficult to witness (especially for a squeamish person like myself), the culmination of Carrie’s date with hot widower/teacher Peter (Jon Tenney) did have the advantage of being surprising. Obviously, Carrie wasn’t going to have an easy road back to the romance world—still, she really doesn’t need to keep playing the “dead husband” card quite so often (thank you, Anthony, for finally giving that a long-overdue smackdown). But Peter saving her from the anguish of public humiliation at the fundraiser was a cute way for Carrie’s post-Big romance to begin.
If only her friends had better storylines. Does AJLT really have so much film time to spare that we need a tennis montage, scored by “Eye Of The Tiger” no less? I would say that the first tennis scene was pointless, except when you notice that Carrie and Lisa apologize to each other at least six times upon meeting. Charlotte is right, women do apologize for everything. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t apologize to your nice, accommodating husband for knocking him down on the ground during a tennis match, even if it was an accident. Or swear at him afterwards! The only redeemable factor of the Charlotte/Harry smackdown is the realization that all marriages have fights, no matter how perfect they look from the outside, as the Wexleys’ similar quarrel (and her inability to use a microphone) prove.
Because even with the bickering, couples like Charlotte and Harry, and Lisa and Herb, appear destined to work things out. Steve and Miranda, not so much. Apparently Miranda’s attempt to recreate her transcendent Che sex moment with her husband was doomed to fail (Cynthia Nixon cornering the market on hard-to-watch kitchen sex scenes this season), and also helped her rationalize jumping back in to bed with Che at the first possible opportunity. It would have been so much cooler if Miranda had been able to open up to Steve about her evolving sexuality instead; sure, he wouldn’t have been happy, but at least he wouldn’t be being deceived. The character assassination of turning the super-cute bartender into confused older man at the farmers’ market is one of And Just Like That…’s more unfortunate plot turns.
But apparently Miranda will try to clear things up next week. Meanwhile, just when I was praising last week’s episode for gelling around a unifying theme, I just can’t find one for this one, with its three disparate plotlines. It seems like a placesetter more than anything, setting Carrie up for dating and Miranda up for divorce, with only three episodes to go. Maybe Carrie is evolving and continuing to grow as she moves on from the death of her husband; although it has definitely improved from some earlier episodes, it would be nice if the show was on a similarly positive path.
Stray observations
- It was nice to see Carrie in front of her computer again.
- Also fun: The way Carrie predicted “I’m gonna be sick” in the episode at least a few times before actually doing so.
- I know Miranda is besotted, but I did not miss Che.
- Best outfit: Loved what Charlotte and Carrie were wearing at the fundraiser: Charlotte’s green dress looked stunning on her, and Carrie’s black-and-white boatneck was like an Audrey Hepburn New York throwback. Runner-up: Carrie’s light blue slip date dress with patterned coat was also to die for.
- Worst outfit: Carris has two: It’s a tossup between the horrid purple jacket with ginormous shoulder pads and red tie, and the apparent pajama shirt she topped with a giant fringed pillowcase-like bag to go visit her editor in.
- Seema was so just filling the Samantha chair with the girls at the restaurant.
- Next week: Here’s hoping Miranda finally does come clean with Steve, who deserves much better!
69 Comments
FREE STEVE!
he’s been cumming on Miranda’s ice cream the whole time!
He’s already moved on to Chicago to become a firefighter.
I found it hard to believe that Steve suddenly forgot how to touch a woman’s private parts. He’s a former bartender with presumably plenty of experience. Is he developing dementia along with hearing loss?
Yes, I believe a bicycle metaphor probably would be apt here. The clitorwhat now?
I read it as he just wasn’t Che and thus not turning Miranda on, no matter how good his technique was.
Also, good for him for washing his hands first! That looked like spicy food.
Right? And of course it was played like, “Ugh, what a fuddy-duddy!”
That sounds pretty considerate to me. Also, dirty hands = UTI maybe?
…but not washing them afterwards…
They are treating him like a decrepit old man with brain damage.
I don’t get this show. When’s she going to blow up the prom?
PLUG IT UP!
It’ll be right after the Fireworks Factory Episode
Steve has always been my favorite of the men/romantic partners to the main characters. He is cute, funny, sexy, and caring. I always feel like he has gotten the short shrift when it comes to a story line, and how his character ends up. I think of all the characters (along with Harry) he is most deserving of a happily ever after. Bummer.
Giving him a disability, while marginalizing his charming aspects—was it supposed to make all of us feel OK with her disdain and deceit? Because it makes me feel worse/sad and puts a sour taste in my mouth about how someone should treat another human being in partnership. And Just Like That—I give up on all of them.
I liked Harry for calling Charlotte out on her guilt trips in the original show. What was the line “I gave up Christ for you and you can’t even take out the garbage?” or something?
lol lol that is a great fucking line.
How about “do you know what people think when they see us together?” I would have walked out on that one. Bitch.
He did!!!
And his response, “It’s gonna be a long life if you keep that up. I gave up Christ for you, take out the trash. I gave up Christ for you, pick up your socks.”
I love Harry.
STEVE DESERVES BETTER!I truly do not understand how they are framing Miranda’s evolving sexuality around deceiving Steve. Truly disgusting.
I don’t have much faith at this point, but I hope that when Miranda comes clean Steve really lets her have it, and we see her realize and acknowledge how she hurt him.
I hope so. I hope he acknowledges the damage and hypocrisy.
he does, but it’s also how a lot of peoples evolving sexuality plays out in later life. I don’t think the show is promoting this as the way to go about exploring your orientation, but it is a messy reality that even if Miranda came clean to Steve from the get go she’d be painted by lots of audience members as selfish.
Your imagination of what viewers would feel in that scenario is far from “reality”
How many episodes in are we now and still no sign of Tommy Cooper?
Coming to terms that these girls are exactly who they were and we’re meeting them while they are attempting some sort of growth that we often don’t allow women past a certain age. It’s going to be messy and alienating and sometimes the worst of you appears when you try and change, even when you’re wearing your best outfits.
I expected Carrie to be messy … Not Miranda. I do like Charlotte’s mess, I find her storyline compelling. But Miranda’s is kinda of ruining it for me.
Isn’t the penguin shuffle actually the officially approved and recommended method for navigating icy sidewalks?
Well, I sure think so
I wasn’t that thrilled Miranda and Steve got together in the original show really. They weren’t that well-matched. That said when people are having a baby together – I know a few people in real life who decided that meant they had to have another try at something that didn’t work so well.
They make no sense as a couple, and never did. Just a weird pairing.
and Che doesn’t make sense long term, either. Miranda’s problem isn’t figuring out her sexuality, it’s figuring out compatibility
I can’t help but think that it is Nixon’s actual personal life influencing this storyline. They already did the am I gay? thing with Samantha.
At the very least, we deserve a scene where Steve finds out that Carrie’s boss gave his kid pot, and that his wife gave them a pass because she’s sleeping with said boss. Then, I want to see Steve divorce Miranda and take every cent she has as revenge for her sanctimony for when he cheated. And the series finale should be Che led off in handcuffs after Steve went to the police to press charges for endangering his minor child. The episode should be titled “Sex and the Queen Non-Binary Character Who Was Held Accountable for Their Bad Behavior Just Like Everyone Else”. There’s your reboot.
I suspect the NYPD has bigger fish to fry than an adult sharing pot with a 17 year old on one occasion.
Oh, we’re parsing for realism now? I didn’t know this show was a documentary. Okay, we’ll play it your way: A Mexican friend of mine was in NYC recently and was caught by 2 cops smoking a cigarette on a train platform. They cornered him against the wall and practically threatened to rip his face off, then wrote him a ticket. He still has trauma from it. You’d be surprised what the NYPD has time for. Che is a Mexican who gave pot to a white minor child. Trust me, they’ll find the time to make the arrest.
Definitely not a documentary, but let’s not deliberately aim for a lack of realism. Bored cops on the beat are not the same as the ones taking complaints in the precinct.
I wrote fan fiction about a far-fetched fictional television show and that is your contribution toward keeping it from becoming more unrealistic? You’re going to have to work a lot harder than that. However, if your goal is to suck the fun out of the comments section, you’ve succeeded admirably.
Especially since Miranda got pregnant with Brady in the real show in 2001, so he’s not even a minor. That boy’s nineteen or twenty!
Brady is technically 18 on the show.
Nope. 17. Miranda made that pretty damn clear.
Brady is 17. This is confirmed in the first episode. And when Miranda catches Che giving him pot in the second episode, she specifically says “He’s a minor. I could have you arrested.”
Jeez, this just made me picture Che as Brady’s step-parent and I don’t like it one bit. The only consolation would be if Steve remarries an absolute knockout
You forgot Steve hires Harry to handle his divorce from Miranda.That’d blow this shit show up for sure! I noticed they gave Cynthia & Kristen EP credits. Now we know how they bribed them into coming back.
I am still of the opinion that there was a place for this show – but the execution is just getting worse and worse. Can we go back, scratch this and start over? It just doesn’t have any of the wit or sense of humour of the original, or the self-awareness! I feel like it was able to sort of make fun of itself in a way, or at least acknowledge the silliness of a lot of its plotlines.This week for me it was the dumb one-liners. The cheesy cringey ones that the original made work because the delivery and context seemed to be..well, more self-aware. But now it’s just… cheesy and cringey.I will say, Anthony’s line about the cater-waiter in the bathroom made me laugh aloud for the first time since the season started. Also: Harry was getting a little Larry David there at the auction with pushing the “sorry” and I was kind of into it actually.
I don’t understand why Miranda can’t have an open and honest conversation with Steve about their sex life. They seemed to enjoy their ice cream and binging time so I don’t understand why they don’t talk about opening up their marriage? Steve can hit on hotties at the bar (if he can hear them even, because as the show repeatedly tells us, he’s losing his hearing and is old) and Miranda can get it on with Che, guilt free. Then they can continue to eat ice cream and watch documentaries together. Why is no one being an adult here? One other super annoying part that made zero sense. LTW is supposedly a film maker and doesn’t know how mics work? Really AJLT? This is what you’re giving me? Carrie, your friends know Big is dead. They were incredibly kind and supportive through your grieving process. You don’t have to say it every five minutes to guilt them into doing whatever you want.
Are you telling me, that not one mom at the fundraiser didn’t read Carrie’s columns and books and wouldn’t want to hangout with her for an afternoon? I find that incredibly unbelievable. There would have to been a fangirl there somewhere. If Che was getting fawned over, why wouldn’t Carrie be as well? Especially since Che, objectively speaking, is terrible.
Why does anyone not communicate anything to a partner? Miranda isn’t acting optimally, sure, but she’s acting in a perfectly realistic manner.
exactly, she’s being painted as some monster, when she exists in a society that has made her feel guilty about her sexuality I’m sure her entire life. Condemning her just perpetuates it.
And… if characters communicated with each other properly in any show it would kill a ton of plot lines.
I don’t think I could even hate-watch this show. I just hate-read the reviews.
The more I hate watch this show, the more convinced I am that this is some sort of elaborate prank on us SATC fans.
That was not Steve running away from Miranda at the farmer’s market. That was the actor playing him (David Eigenberg) FLEEING this trainwreck of a show!
She did literally nothing as Big died, what, ten minutes ago? And now she’s dating? This show has exactly NONE of the charm of the original incarnation. Samantha is where we all want to be – far, far away.
There was a long scene in the beginning establishing that several months have passed (during which time she wrote a whole book about coming to terms with her husband’s death), and then there is another scene explaining that Carrie was pushed into dating by her editor. She didn’t want to, and she had to get drunk to go through with it. There was even a scene in which she said she can’t imagine having sex with anyone but Big. Much to whinge about but “Carrie started dating immediately after Big died” isn’t one of them.
Did Charlotte time travel to 1940 in her doubles match with Harry? WTF was that get up? That was the worst outfit. Oh, and apologize already. What is her problem? There’s a tennis club near my apt and I see women who are either coming from or going to play, at the grocery etc. Never once have I seen them in a down to the knees skirt and a Gucci belt. Those silly short tennis skirts, yes.Two people in their mid 50s get that drunk that they puke on the street? This is why you don’t hook up your phone to your car speaker if you’re not alone.
I was actually really happy with that tennis dress! I play tennis and am disgusted that you can be playing tennis well into your 70s and still be expected to wear a tennis dress that barely covers your butt. I have a cotton dress with deep pockets that goes slightly past my knees that I love playing tennis in… it has been gently mocked by friends for being old-fashioned, but I am happy not to have to show the world my cellulite and just feel comfortable playing.
I feel like this will be an unpopular opinion around here but… I think Che’s an asshole. Lighting up a pipe in a public elevator and at a funeral and at their employee’s house. Bringing tequila to someone on painkillers. Flitting in and out of Miranda’s life whenever they damn well please. I’m always high! I forget 3 hours ago! They are SUCH AN ASSHOLE although very attractive with clear charisma and yummy sex skills but fuck. I can’t stand them.
ok but you also can understand why someone would want to fuck them! Miranda thinks Steve is a pushover when really he loves her, and she’s letting Che be an asshole to her because she thinks thats what she wants 🙁
You’re so right (on both counts; Che is hot hot hot) and that makes me sad.
Worst of the new regulars. When she got up to do her act at the auction I wondered how long before she mentions her queerness. Was it even five seconds?
And getting high every day is not a positive quality in an adult.
I think we can all agree that Che is an asshole. A sexy, sexy asshole.
Was Steve’s confusion at the Farmer’s Market written just to show how un-sexy their relationship is compared to Nya’s, or is it foreshadowing perhaps early dementia, like Steve’s mother’s in the original series, setting-up Miranda in the caregiver role, yet again, which will conflict with her desire to be with Che?
I took a shot every time Carrie mentioned that Big had died and I woke up in an Air Ambulance
The still-very-handsome David Eigenberg is 57. 57!!! That is midlife, not elderly. At the age at which most people are reaching the pinnacle of their careers, he’s doddering around like a 97-year-old.
Well, at least this is ageism against MEN, for once. Typically a man pushing 60 is still portrayed as a sexy silver fox of hunka hunka burning love, while women over 50 are long since expired.
The show is doing Steve dirty.
I am so here for the Seemantha of it all.