Don’t watch the second episode of And Just Like That… without waterproof mascara
The show gives Chris Noth’s Mr. Big a surprisingly moving sendoff
TV Reviews Brenda Vaccaro
After someone dies on a TV series, not many show the details of what happens afterward, give or take a Six Feet Under. (I’ve been through this with two parents, so believe me, I know). I was not really expecting And Just Like That…, of all things, to depict a heartbreakingly real picture of the aftermath of death, but that is exactly what episode two manages to pull off.
We pick up almost exactly where we left episode one, with Miranda comforting a grief-stricken Carrie who is dumbfounded as to what she’s supposed to do now. Charlotte accompanies her to the fancy funeral home (Those places are rarely comfortable. Was it the arm-chair covers that turned Carrie off for good? Probably?) but is too overcome with her guilt over making Carrie attend Lily’s recital to be of much help. Words of wisdom that we can glean here: People! Your friend’s grief is not about you. Get over yourself! Like, if your grandma dies, sure, you’re probably sad, but it’s your mom or dad that you should really be worried about. When my dad died, before I could recognize my own grief, I had switch over to taking care of my mom immediately. In Charlotte’s case, she should recognize that her status as friend of the deceased’s wife falls far below the widow herself.
As Charlotte tells her girls, death is an important part of life, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not one of the most difficult ones to get through. You’d think that would be enough for her to pull herself together, but you would unfortunately be wrong. In Charlotte’s gilded life, apparently, something like Big’s fatal heart attack was too much to process. I know Carrie likes to make herself the center of every situation, but this time, she deserves it.
I honestly thought I was going to be okay until Carrie asked who the flowers were from and then I absolutely gasped. When I saw Samantha’s name on the card, I just bawled. Yes, it’s terrible that Kim Cattrall is not on this series and yes, there is no way in real life that Samantha wouldn’t be there for her best friend, but… well done, show. You got me (commence immediate sobbing).
If that hadn’t kicked off the waterworks, just watching Sarah Jessica Parker’s performance sitting in the memorial crowd would have done it. Wordlessly, she feels her own self starting to lose it, tries to pull it together, until she realizes that she just can’t anymore. I feel like SJP is wildly underrated as an actress, especially throughout Sex And The City’s run, and that scene was just yet another example of how emotionally open she is. It’s nearly impossible not to empathize with her.
With Big’s funeral taking up most of the episode, we’re not left with much else. Miranda continues to humiliate herself in front of law professor Dr. Nya Wallace (played by Karen Pittman). We are supposed to believe that Miranda is an intelligent person—a lawyer who has frequently made partner—who lives in a major metropolitan ares. How is it that she appears to never have interacted with a person of color before? The whole incident with her professor and the missing ID was yet another long example of cringe, as Miranda thinks that just her saying that the professor should be let into the building should be enough to get her inside. Why would Nya even want to hang out with this overprivileged, wanna-be-woke white woman who needs her to explain why escalating a situation for no reason is bad? (One of the episode’s best lines: “This isn’t To Kill A Mockingbird.”) I know they’re fated for friendship, but I have no idea what Nya will possibly get out of it.
Compared to that incident, Miranda’s unleashing on Che (Sara Ramirez) after catching them smoking weed with her son almost made sense. (Again, maybe it was the bourbon talking?) Not to the extent that Che absolved her for it, but again, the incident certainly shows how this version of Miranda seems loosely wound to say the least (at this point, suspecting possible menopausal hormones. They are no joke!).
No matter: This was not Miranda’s episode anyway. It was rough, but I’m glad AJLT didn’t fast-forward six moths or something and instead stuck around to give Big—the longest running love interest of the series—a proper sendoff. As Carrie’s speech, delivered by Miranda, conveyed, they were all lucky to even know him. Carrie can appreciate that, and commiserate with her friends, and recognize the loss of Big in her life—but she’s not quite out of the woods just yet.
Stray observations
- Anybody remember why Susan Sharon got so mad at Carrie? Really was hoping that Che was going to step up and do their job of keeping annoying people away from Carrie at the funeral.
- Oh my gosh, Miranda has a drinking problem, we get it. If Carrie gets addicted to pills as well this show is headed toward a really dark Valley Of The Dolls kind of place (but I don’t think that it is).
- Honestly, it was pretty horrible of Stanford not to let Big’s secretary (the great Brenda Vaccaro!) sit in the front row.
- If Carrie is selling the apartment, does that mean that she’s headed for her old homestead, which, according to last week’s episode, she still owns?
- Favorite outfit: Have to give it up for Carrie’s memorial ensemble. She said she really wanted to do it up proud for Big, and she succeeded.
- I know this show has always been inconsistent about the girls’ family members, but it seems odd that only Big’s brother would show up for the funeral. And neither of his ex-wives, for example.
- The images of younger Chris Noth throughout the episode were just heartbreaking. Hard to believe that someone that beautiful could ever really die.
- Next week: Big is gone, so why is Natasha back? Will she and Carrie finally commiserate via grief?
67 Comments
So far, this show’s a mixed bag. Big’s death hit me hard (it’s pretty much my worst nightmare), and I think a lot of the scenes around that are great. But then some stuff is just way over the top. Miranda’s awkwardness, for instance. And her super-obvious drinking problem. We’ve watched tv before – it doesn’t need to be that obvious in order for us to catch on. And what was the deal with having Stanford acting like such jerk to that woman? That was just weird.Anybody else think that Miranda’s going to leave Steve for Che??? I’m predicting it now.
I second the Miranda/Che coupling, art imitating life thing. I’m going to go out on a limb and say Carrie is in the early stages of dementia or Alzheimer’s. She forgot about Miranda asking where the coffee was but I could be wrong.
Thats what happens when you are grieving. You can’t retain basic information, you lose track of the time, even the day. When my dad died I had this bizarre thing happen where I was completely convinced it was my friend’s birthday. My Dad died on Martin Luther King Day…my friends birthday is November. I couldn’t remember anything. I was too stricken.
She forgot about Miranda asking where the coffee was but I could be wrong. Grief does that to you, especially in that first initial stage when the shock and loss is so new and profound. And you forget the strangest things.
After all those obvious hints about Big’s heart attack the coffee bit felt like bad foreshadowing. Carrie might as well look at the camera after she said “here’s your heart medication.” I hope they don’t go in that direction, they already did that with Steve’s mom on the original run of the show.
I thought Miranda’s gentle response in that moment was so sweet.
Oh it really was. Miranda and Carrie always had the best and most believable friendship of the quartet because SJP and Cynthia Nixon had chemistry but were also really adept at portraying their friend dynamic. It really shows beautifully in scenes like that.
No — that’s the kind of thing that happens when you are grieving. Your brain gets foggy. Giving Carrie early-onset dementia would be laying it on way too thick.
Oh god no. I cant handle that! Miranda and Steve belong together!
I’m with you, I love Miranda and Steve and don’t want to see that messed up. But the show seems to be foisting all the woke storylines on Miranda and doing a really bad job of it. I’m really hoping the showrunners surprise us here, but the Miranda/Che interaction all but screamed this is where we’re going, folks.
Miranda’s drinking disorder I’m sure is connected to some kind of pain that I assume is around her sexuality, but maybe she’ll figure it out with Steve by her side. I also think it’s important that shows stop using rock bottom moments for substance use issues, and maybe Miranda doesn’t have to be completely abstinent once she figures out what’s causing her so much pain.
I definitely think Che and Miranda are gonna have an affair. I feel like they’re gonna make Charlotte’s kid trans because they’re pushing it so thick with the weird dress thing…even though do upper crust moms still expect to dress their teenagers? It feels weird
That funeral home with all the white and looked like the inside of coffin was deranged. I get that Big wouldn’t have liked the other stuffy funeral home but I don’t think that place was an improvement, it looked sterile and sad.
Also, (unless I misunderstood) Carrie wrote that speech for Miranda? It was terrible and weird and not just Miranda reading of it.
I personally couldn’t find this episode moving because I was distracted by that stuff and I do not buy the reason for Samantha’s falling out with Carrie and let alone her not texting Miranda or Charlotte. So the flower thing seemed cold and out of character for Samantha. I could see her being mad at Carrie for while like she was with the photoshoot that one time but getting over it soon-ish.
I think I am more heated than normal cause I really defended this show being made when it was first announced and it’s ending up exactly how everyone said it would.
I thought Carrie was going to be mad at Miranda for such a vague speech. The idea that Carrie wrote it was weird.
I don’t think that was actually a funeral home, it’s more like a gallery space/studio. How Big might’ve liked it better is… debatable, but (if one has to say something nice about it) it goes with what Carrie’s wearing?
I don’t know it reminded me of Natasha and how she wanted everything beige.
I think Samantha bailed when she realized she was friends with a bunch of losers.
Haven’t seen the new show at all, and I doubt I will, but I’ve seen enough of the original that I’m still somewhat curious about it. Anyway, I just wanted to come down here to say that if they wanted to explain Samantha’s absence from the funeral in a way that makes sense for the character, that doesn’t make it look like she’s needlessly taking a grudge too far, then they could have just set Big’s death and funeral during the (only recently ended) period where travel from the UK to the US was banned due to covid. Unless they did, and that wasn’t mentioned in the article.
The new show lives in that optimistic fantasy world where the pandemic happened, but we’re over it. Just a few chuckles about “do we hug now?” and “I miss when we had to be 6 feet apart legally.” See also: Curb Your Enthusiasm.
They didn’t and I was thinking the same thing. They literally could have said she was visiting Smith (I know they broke up but they seem like the type to do a friends with benefits plus she is his publicist) in New Zealand during a film shooting and got stuck there.
That would have made the flowers mean more because we would understand how much Samantha would want to be there but couldn’t. To me if you can’t get over your friend no longer needing you as a publicist when the love of life dies you are just a terrible person.
You thought Carrie/Miranda’s speech was terrible?? What? I don’t even know how to respond to that. It was 100% Carrie, her voice, her style of writing, and it was so sweet. I thought they nailed it. I was just afraid they were going to have “drunk Miranda” fuck it up.
And honestly I think they’re doing the best they can to describe Samantha’s absence. I appreciate that they didn’t just kill her off. And yeah I think it would have been more in character for her to come to NY for the funeral but they don’t have a whole lot of choice.
Actually, they *should* have just killed her off. The story they are peddling lacks credibility based on the Samantha Jones we saw for years. I believe this is MPK & SJP being a bit passive-aggressive regarding KC. It would have simplified everything if the writing had just indicated Samantha’s cancer returned in an aggressive form and treatment was unsuccessful. That would have cleanly written her out and spare the producers the humiliation of bad writing—and SATC was praised for having smart, intelligent writing.Side note—It is becoming apparent that Kim was the original comedic spark. These 3 without her are just NOT funny. The premiere episode was *painful*…that brunch scene—ouch.
Maybe it was the way Miranda read it? But it sounded stilted and weird. And I don’t even understand why Miranda of all people read that speech, she didn’t like Big and tolerated him for Carrie’ sake. Again, this is situation where Samantha would have been the best person to have read the speech so her absence was felt even greater. Or even Charlotte who was always supportive of Big and was the one who picked up the phone call that lead Big to go to Paris.
Agree that Samantha would likely have read it. Charlotte felt responsible for his death; no way she would have made it through. But Miranda did it for Carrie. And, her opinion of Big may have changed over the years since C&B finally got married… feels like their relationship stabilized? I never saw the second movie so I don’t know where they left it.I thought the script was lovely and definitely sounded like Carrie’s voice.
Samantha hated emotional moments! She would have channeled her energy into arranging the crowd and getting the room set up.
the flowers from Samantha gave me goosebumps. That was a sweet moment, and was what someone that still had lots of love for a friend they fell out with would do.
Another nit: everyone in the white-white funeral home is wearing the same tone of black clothing. Nobody stands out. If you’ve ever been to a funeral, that is not how real life works. Everyone’s interpretation of funeral clothes (and everyone’s available closet) differ.
Agreed. The speech was horribly cringe-worthy and Carrie’s reaction seemed quietly mortified. I thought the reveal was going to be that Miranda just copied it from somewhere online or something. A bad speech, terribly delivered and yet Carrie wrote it? Uh…what?
I agree that SJP is underrated as an actor, but that’s probably because this one role has so dominated her career. Even so, it’s enough evidence – turning Carrie into a truly likable character is quite a feat, especially for so long.She’s been in a few movies that I absolutely loved (Mars Attacks, Honeymoon in Vegas, LA Story). Honorable mention for Hocus Pocus.
She’s so good in Hocus Pocus. Just bizarre swings that fit so perfectly into the tone of the movie in every scene. The phrase is overused, but she knew EXACTLY what the assignment was, and her weird voice and spacey looks are integral to it being cohesive.
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She is a dream in LA Story! I think that movie is criminally underrated. And don’t forget Girls Just Want to Have Fun.
I love her in the Divorce series where she leaves all traces of Carrie behind.
I think Carrie told Susan Sharon that her husband was a creep.I can’t imagine Big’s exes would be interested in mourning him. It is weird that no one in the show seems to have much, if any, contact with family members.
Well we definitely know that Miranda has an onscreen sister (showed up in the Motherboard episode), but yeah. I was surprised that she has only one kid? For some reason I thought she had 3 kids.As to the exes, it’s a rich man’s funeral. Although the lack of children might be an obstacle, but there’s no harm to show up and see what one can get.
We also know that Charlotte had a brother, who had a rebound bang with Samantha and was apparently never spoken of again. I recently rewatched part of the episode with Charlotte & Trey’s wedding, and Charlotte did walk down the aisle with an older man, so maybe her father? I can’t remember if any of her relatives were identified when she married Harry.
I can forgive the show’s characters infrequently contacting family members. Not everyone is close with their biological family. And I can see a group of New Yorkers being closer with their friends instead of blood family. Which ties into this show’s theme of friends being the most important thing.
I can imagine that all of them might not have close family members, but 0 out of 4 normally functioning women have any kind of regular contact with a parent or sibling? It just seems unlikely. I get that they’re focusing on the friendships and the location, but it seems to be an untapped well of storylines.
Well, the show is about the women’s relationships with each other. Any other relationship is going to be secondary to the narrative.So we really don’t the status of the women’s relationships with their families. We’ve rarely seen it unless it’s related to an episode arc (Like with Charlotte’s younger brother).We’ve gotten a few clues like with the aforementioned scenario and Miranda’s sisters. Plus, that CW prequel show claimed Carrie has a younger sister and her mother died when she was young; and Carrie met Samantha via Sam’s cousin – but I don’t know if the mothership considers that info canon (but I doubt it).
Carrie didn’t have so much as a cousin at her wedding in the first movie. ZERO mention of any family, ever, other than one vague mention, early on in the show, of her dad leaving her and her mom when Carrie was little. Of course, The Carrie Diaries gives her a widowed dad and a sister, but that was like an entirely separate show.
I honestly don’t want a story about a bunch of random family members running around.
I feel obligated to point out that Megan Reynolds called this back in November— but could also apply to uh, the surprise of say, Big having a heart attack in the first episode not an incredibly surprising plot twist, but still, applause to you. (if you are clairevoyant, can you tell me when T***p is going to be indicted?)
I dunno. It was widely publicized he was going to die in the planned 3rd movie so I don’t know if it was so much clairvoyance as it was context clues
For my money, it’s in the title. “And Just Like That” telegraphs that someone dies unexpectedly. Chekov’s title.Of course with the BTS tension, Samantha is certainly at least as much of a candidate as anyone else. But then, I’d been saying since before the first movie that any return to the SATC universe is just likely to have to kill off one of the partners to give the franchise a continued reason to exist.
I watched last night because I knew I wouldn’t be able to avoid spoilers, but I do think it’s a little ridiculous that you have that spoiler in the subheading that people are going to see even if they’re just scrolling.
Uh oh. You complained about spoilers! Prepare to get dragged!
“We are supposed to believe that Miranda is an intelligent person—a lawyer who has frequently made partner—who lives in a major metropolitan ares. How is it that she appears to never have interacted with a person of color before?”Lol. https://www.npr.org/2021/02/16/968372253/white-woman-who-called-police-on-black-man-bird-watching-has-charges-dismissedNothing says out of touch like 1) relating intelligence with job then 2) relating living in a big city with being unable to be racist.
Does Miranda have a drinking problem? I’m having a hard time pinning her character evolution down. I was truly appalled by her meltdown during the memorial—not even about her opinion regarding her son smoking pot, but about the incredibly, incredibly inappropriate and LOUD handling of it.Not gonna lie, though,I cracked up, rewinded and cracked up again when Chucky tried to steal the bag.SJP is surprising me–she is giving a commendable performance. B+ seems about right for the episode.
I think Miranda battling a drinking disorder makes sense in regards to why she freaked out on Bradie, kind of a classic generational divide on how any other substances aside from alcohol are seen as inherently problematic. It’s was her own issues around substances bubbling to the surface there. I hope they follow through on Miranda’s drinking, and I guess we’ll find out what pain she is trying to escape.
How is it that she appears to never have interacted with a person of color before?Didn’t she have a thing with a man played by Blair Underwood? It was a multiple episode arc, no?
She also interacted with some non-white neighbor moms when Brady wouldn’t stop crying in season five.
I guess I am an outlier but when Miranda laid into Che giving a minor pot at a fucking funeral I cheered! If someone gave my teen drugs at a family friends funeral I would have done worse. Just for reference, I am a childless woman in my 30s. But I can still put myself in her shoes!
Yeah I have three grown sons and what hit me was who goes to a funeral and gives pot to some strange kid they don’t even know. Besides being beyond inappropriate, it’s a stupid thing to do (still illegal to contribute to the delinquency of a minor). But it was also one of those weird misstep scenes that the show is giving us so far.
I thought they poured it on a bit thick but yeah. I’d be pissed.
I don’t know… I’m just not buying into all the hype of the reboot. I watched the original series a few times many, many years ago, and this new show just seems to consolidate the fact that we’re watching three incredibly egotistical assholes.Maybe it’s just the passage of time, maybe I overlooked their selfishness way back when, too. But now, being older, god damn these characters really rub me the wrong way now. I think Big had the right idea in checking out early.It MIGHT get better, with the new characters being introduced, but I’m not holding out hope.
“Get over yourself! Like, if your grandma dies, sure, you’re probably sad, but it’s your mom or dad that you should really be worried about.”
I understand the sentiment here, and in many cases, this might be true. I would still refrain from such generalizing statements about grief in a public article, though—invalidating a person’s sadness or devastation (after the death of any relative, really) for an edgy opener isn’t a particularly beautiful color.
For years after the series conclusion, because of the Happily Ever After endings across the board, I’d always guessed at least one of the partners was just gonna have to die. For my money, going into the movies, I’d always guessed at Steve Brady. As soon as Chekov’s Peloton showed up in the first episode, we’d guessed at Big’s death in my house.It comes down to this – you can either find ways to let the characters grow and continue to evolve, or you can keep their Happily Ever Afters. Coming back to the well to tell stories without particularly significant stakes or tension is how you wind up with the fanfic vibes and abiding shittiness of the second movie.
The scene where Steve & Miranda are hugging and they ask Brady to join them, and he says, “I’m good,” and Steve says, “Yeah, but we’re not.” That was so good.
I know, I weepy there.
This recap didn’t devote nearly as much time as it should have to Charlotte’s near-psychotic self-centeredness. She made the situation the day after the shocking death of her friend’s husband so much about her that the funeral director thought she was the widow and Carrie had to literally send her off just to get away from the toxicity. I mean, Carrie actually got up to comfort her! Comfort HER!!! And then Charlotte shows up and gets all offended that she’s not invited in and instead of waiting oh-I-don’t-know a few weeks to broach the subject if Carrie were still holding her at arms length, she just HAD to cry and make it all about her AGAIN. When I was dealing with cancer I had a friend I’d known for 30 years fly in to take care of me post-surgery and she also made everything about her and it ruined the friendship. Charlotte needed a big time out and a Miranda-style reprimand for that shit.
I cried too. Really like your recaps. SJP is definitely underrated, so is Kristen Davis.
“Really was hoping that Che was going to step up and do *their* job of keeping annoying people away from Carrie at the funeral.“
I honestly thought I was going to be okay until Carrie asked who the flowers were from and then I absolutely gasped. When I saw Samantha’s name on the card, I just bawled. Yes, it’s terrible that Kim Cattrall is not on this series and yes, there is no way in real life that Samantha wouldn’t be there for her best friend, but… well done, show. You got me (commence immediate sobbing).Hard same. I was fine with this whole reboot (other than not being able to take Miranda’s cringe scenes) but just the simple card of “Love, Samantha” absolutely wrecked me.
Why, what happens?
The show is playing a tricky game with Samantha. While I think it deserves credit for not taking the easy way out and killing her off, it’s unfair that they are teasing a possible reconciliation even though we know that Cattrall will never actually appear.
While it was nice that Samantha sent the flowers, I can’t help but think IRL the death of Big would suddenly evaporate any remaining rift between the friends and that either Sam or Carrie would reach out and they’d reconcile, even if only for a little while. But, sadly, we know that’ll never happen. At least on screen.The best we can hope for is to see Carrie’s phone light up with Samantha’s name. She picks it up and we fade to black.
I think I’m done after this one. This series is pretty bad. I’m glad the title is “And Just Like That…” because it really doesn’t feel like SATC. SATC was a comedy with moments of drama, though generally handled with a deft, light touch. This is a drama with some crummy repartee – it feels like more of a continuation of the awful movies in that regard, so I guess not super surprising. And the pacing feels like the Netflix season of Arrested Development.
I feel like SJP is wildly underrated as an actress, especially throughout Sex And The City’s runMy memory of awards season when this show was airing was that SJP made frequent trips up to the stage… quick Google search:
“She is known for her role as Carrie Bradshaw on the HBO television series Sex and the City (1998–2004), for which she won two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Comedy Series and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.” (Emmys.com)
I feel like that’s a fair bit of recognition, though, no?