And Just Like That … Season-Premiere Recap: Fake It Till You Make It
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If you’re anything like me, then surely throughout this And Just Like That … hiatus, there have been moments when you’ve been going about your business and suddenly it pops into your brain that Aidan asked Carrie to wait five years for him. FIVE YEARS. A chilling memory. A real day-ruiner, that one. In the season-three premiere, we come to find out that the details around this little deal are even worse than we thought. Not only is Carrie waiting five years to be with Aidan so that he can deal with his troubled 14-year-old Wyatt, and not only are they not supposed to visit each other for the entire time, but they aren’t allowed to call or text each other either! I’m sorry, but sending blank postcards to one another (fine, Carrie draws hearts on hers) is not a relationship. This feels like a hostage situation. Carrie “some women aren’t meant to be tamed” Bradshaw is totally fine with this setup? Impossible. At one point, Anthony describes her as Rapunzel waiting around in her tower for the guy, but honestly, this whole thing is already giving off real Miss Havisham vibes, but instead of a wedding dress, Carrie will be wearing increasingly insane hats — and this is only the beginning.
While it seems that Carrie refuses to acknowledge how untenable this situation is — surely they could’ve discussed a few other options aside from staying together but not interacting for half a decade — the show wisely points to this conclusion from the jump. First, thanks to Anthony, who learns about the new arrangement while the two attend a friends-and-family preview of the NYC Ballet and immediately has a whole bunch of follow-up questions, as any good friend should. While Miranda and Charlotte are checking in, they are taking an “as long as you’re happy” stance, which I guess is nice except for the fact that Carrie looks more resigned than happy. Anthony’s questions about how this can be a relationship if she has no idea when he’ll be coming back are pretty much Concerned Friend 101 types of questions here, and yet still, Carrie completely ignores him, clearly angry about it. Giuseppe, an angel person I pray this show does not ruin, tells Anthony to more or less chill out a little. By the end of the episode, it’s Anthony apologizing to Carrie for being so judgmental. I guess it’s a small win for reality that Carrie at least notes that she knows other people have opinions about her situation, but Anthony’s the only one to vocalize them, and yet still she seems to want to act like this whole thing is normal.
Carrie can pretend with her friends all she wants, but we get to witness firsthand — her hand, to be exact — how there’s no shot this works as is. Aidan, who declared he and the girlfriend he loves shouldn’t speak for five years, is the first to break that rule, calling Carrie in the middle of the night whilst three beers deep and hiding from his children in his truck. There is no way in hell that three beers get ol’ Country Lurch drunk, so I find this hilarious. Not only does he break his own rules, but he almost immediately, with very little transition, informs Carrie that he aches for her and wants them to have phone sex. Once Carrie starts to touch herself like he would touch her, Aidan is off to the races, sexually speaking, but an ill-timed car horn and a stare-down from her cat Shoe totally turn Carrie off. While Aidan finishes, Carrie fakes it. And then proceeds to feel guilty about lying to him. “Our sex life is the most honest thing about us,” she tells Miranda and Charlotte. But wait! It gets worse!
Wanting to make up for this apparent transgression, Carrie kicks Shoe out of her room and calls up her man for a confession and a redo. Only, as she kicks things off and asks Aidan to reciprocate, he informs her that he’s in bed with Wyatt, who had a really bad day, and he can’t do this right now. Could he not just get out of bed and at least assist Carrie on getting hers? He gets to break rules and dial her up for phone sex whenever he’s in the mood, but he can’t help her out? Carrie hanging up in embarrassment instead of breaking up with this man is a cry for help. Carrie’s new alarm system for her fancy Gramercy Park house going off repeatedly is a very loud metaphor that we can only hope Carrie herself picks up on. It’s clear she is faking more than orgasms.
No one else in Carrie’s orbit seems all that happy either at the moment, save for Harry — still the series MVP — when he’s watching Herbert perform with his college a cappella group at a fundraiser for his comptroller campaign. Only few people will ever know that amount of joy. (Praise be that And Just Like That … finally let Christopher Jackson use those pipes!) Seema, who at the end of season two joined Carrie in a decision to wait for her man, doesn’t even last five months before breaking things off with the walking scarf that is Ravi. And with good reason, to be honest. The man, who seems much less debonair than last season, is 100 percent focused on his film shooting in Egypt. He keeps missing FaceTime phone-sex dates and instead has his assistant log in to inform her of this news. (His assistant couldn’t just call or text to avoid catching his boss’s girlfriend in her lingerie?) She almost burns down her apartment when she falls asleep with a cigarette after waiting around for him. But what really does the relationship in is that when he finally acquiesces to her request to come visit her in New York, he turns it into a work trip and drags her around the city location-scouting with his team. Thank God Seema ends this thing by sunset. She is a woman who knows her worth, and she is worth so much more than housing a bag of Cool Ranch potato chips and Sprite in the back of a van. She owns too many silk matching sets for that kind of nonsense.
Miranda, too, remains unlucky in love, but at least her story is good for some laughs and copious amounts of cringing (compliment). I don’t know how to put this except to say that Miranda takes the virginity of a nun named Mary (Rosie O’Donnell, in a hilarious casting choice) while out on an exploration of both herself and New York City. Yes, there are lots of jokes about the Virgin Mary and holy ghosting. The best joke, however, is Carrie’s conclusion that she cares less about the fact that Miranda deflowered a virgin nun and more about the fact that Miranda slept with a tourist. She giggles each time Miranda gets a new text from Mary asking her to meet in places like Tavern on the Green, the Central Park Carousel, and in Times Square outside of the M&M Store. Mary is but a fawn, out in the world for the very first time, making the most cliché travel choices a person can, as we are all wont to do from time to time. While Carrie might giggle, Miranda cannot bring herself to blow off this nun. Perhaps it is mostly because Miranda has empathy for a woman trying to find herself, but I have to believe part of it is because Mary described having sex with her as “electric.” These women are nothing if not narcissists (compliment, again).
This is how Miranda Hobbes finds herself in the middle of Times Square, kindly begging a nun not to give up God for her. What a time to be alive. Thankfully, she doesn’t have to do too much begging — Mary was never planning on leaving the convent, she was just getting to know this other side of herself. And apparently, this other side of herself is so grateful to Miranda for opening up her world that she goes on to serenade her with a few bars from her first Broadway show — she sings Wicked’s “For Good” right there in Times Square, next to a person in a giant gorilla costume. Cynthia Nixon’s reaction to one of the most awkward serenades to be televised is so perfect, I laughed about it long after Miranda and her nun lover parted ways.
And so season three of And Just Like That … will march forward with Miranda hoping never to set foot in Times Square again, Seema back on the market, and Carrie still delusionally holding out hope for her “relationship.” The only sign that Carrie may finally be coming to terms with how difficult sticking it out with Aidan is going to be if they continue as they are is that she finally opens up her computer to write again, finally inspired after some time off. What is she inspired to put down in words? “The woman wondered what she had gotten herself into,” she types. Same, Carrie. Same.
This and That
• Charlotte spends most of the episode attempting to stop her dog, Richard Burton, from being canceled after a biting mix-up at the park. It’s goofy and goes basically nowhere (her sweet angel baby is proven innocent, of course), and yet still, my No. 1 reason for tuning in to this series is to spend time with Charlotte and Harry.
• LTW is trying to get her PBS docuseries about unsung Black women off the ground, but is tripped up when the PBS executives want her to include Michelle Obama, a woman who is definitely not unsung. She has no idea where to start, but finds a lead at the end of the episode in Herbert’s campaign manager Chauncey, who maybe worked in the Obama White House.
• I would be annoyed with Herbert, who adds to LTW’s stress by repeatedly bothering her to find out if he’s cool or not, but those sweet vocals mean I could never hate this man. Sorry, but that’s my truth. (Also, he is in no way cool, and he should just lean into that. His name is Herbert; it is impossible for him to be cool.)
• Lily, apparently, has a thing for one of the dancers in the New York City Ballet, and I’m bummed that we won’t get more with Charlotte and Miranda navigating their children dating. Brady, come fight for your girl!
• What is there even to say about Carrie’s Maryam Keyhani gingham hat at this point? Aside from the fact that it seems wholly impractical for summer in New York City (is her head not dripping in sweat?), what are we going for here? Is she cosplaying Neapolitan ice cream cone? Is she auditioning to be Toad’s sexy aunt in the next Mario movie? I do not know. And honestly, I don’t want to know. Insanity has always been a part of Carrie’s aesthetic, and we aren’t changing that now.