This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn’t exist.

I’m back with another review of everyone’s favorite cringe reboot, And Just Like That! I’ve seen a lot less chatter on Twitter about the show this year, presumably because many of the good memories we had surrounding Sex and the City dissipated after the mess that was AJLT season 1. HOWEVER, I stand firmly that season 2 is pretty decent, and recommend that you all give it a try.

That being said, for the next couple of weeks my reviews might be slow to come out—I’m going on a Europe vacation and doubt I’ll have time to watch and review. 

We open with Miranda waking up to an aggressively loud 5am alarm. This unintentionally wakes up Che, who hadn’t gone to sleep until 4am the night before. We will find out later in the episode that this recurring problem, which they sum up as “one morning person, one night person”, in fact goes much deeper. Che throws parties in their house every night of the week! Miranda goes from Manhattan to Brooklyn at 5am to get home in time to cook breakfast for her son! These people are quite simply incompatible and make no effort to adjust for each other. 

The sex better be amazing, is all I’m saying.

If the title of the episode didn’t tip you off, it’s Halloween in New York! Given that Carrie Bradshaw and company are fully grown adults, you’d think this episode would be about the children. Instead, the ladies head to a costume fundraiser hosted by socialite Charlotte York.

It’s pretty obvious that neither Miranda, Carrie, nor Charlotte dressed up, but the latter two at least have the name of a person their current outfit resembles. On Charlotte’s part, this required Harry to put on an incredibly elaborate costume, complete with a wig. This is a very cute coupley moment for the two of them, where they bond over the fact that nobody else understands their idea. Miranda brought a clown nose, because her life is a comic disaster.

At the party, Lisa puts on an incredible dance show. This frustrates her husband when he shows up, because now that he’s running for public office the optics need to be good. This plot—and the insistence by the writers to create marital strife among the Black couples in the show in direct opposition to Charlotte and Harry’s domestic bliss—pissed me off, but that night Lisa put Herbert in his place.

“I know you’re running for City Comptroller and all, but you don’t get to CONtrol me” she says, and that’s the last we see of them for the episode.

The rest of the group has other plans for the night. Nya is single and ready to mingle, and Seema knows just the place. To the shock of Miranda, Carrie agrees to go with them. 

When the single girl group arrives at the hotel bar, Seema has immediate success. There’s a hot man there, and he picks her up quickly. Just a few seconds later, Nya finds a hot man as well. That just leaves Carrie, who returns home to her Wordle. One of the funniest parts of And Just Like That is the way they incorporate pop culture in the most unnatural possible way. It always takes me out of the show for a second, but in a way that’s (nearly) fun.

The next morning, it’s time for Carrie and Seema to get back to their favorite activity—chatting on the phone. Seema informs Carrie that the man she hooked up with used a penis pump to get himself hard. I have quite literally never seen one of these devices outside of the Austin Powers movies, and truly believed they’d been deprecated in favor of Viagra or something else less… aggressive. The more you know! Despite the awkwardness of this “intermission”, Seema agreed to give him another date.

This conversation distracts Carrie so deeply that she comes to a standstill in the middle of the bike lane, causing a biker to crash into her. The man who falls, George, is an attractive man about her age. He’s initially very annoyed that Carrie caused him to fall and likely break his wrist, but Carrie offers to walk him to the urgent care and they fall into flirty banter. 

Can someone with a better Sex and the City memory remind me if Carrie fell in love because of getting hit by a vehicle once before? In my head, Aidan hit Carrie with a bike when they first met. Maybe that’s just in my head!

Either way, at the urgent care, Carrie finds out that mysterious biker George has a partner. Not in the gay way, but in the business partner way. They need to sell their next app urgently, and now George (and Paul, who Facetimes mid visit) is worried about meeting the deadline. When George’s card declines while trying to pay for the visit, Carrie’s guilt compounds, but like the millionaires before her, she doesn’t offer to help out.

Meanwhile, Charlotte and Rock are working hard on a spectacular dinner for Harry. Rock recently received a business card from someone at the skate park who wants them to be in a modeling shoot, and in a shocking turn of events they want to do it. The shoot is for Ralph Lauren, and Charlotte could not be more excited about it. Harry, on the other hand, is skeptical. Either it’s fake, or it’s exploitative which, if my recent documentary binge taught me anything, is probably true.

The goal of said dinner is to woo Harry, but it doesn’t seem to work all that well. Luckily for Rock, all they need is their mom’s approval, and they’ve already got it.

Our final chat of the day takes place on a park bench. Nya tells Miranda that she loved her one night stand. She felt absolutely incredible leaving his house the next day, and the sex was incredibly fun. Not only that, but she went back to her own house to sleep for hours afterwards. 

Miranda is jealous. Not of the sex, but of the sleep. She hates staying at Che’s, but she doesn’t feel she has anywhere else to go. Luckily, Nya has the perfect idea. Andre’s studio is open! Nya absolutely hates living alone and it’s easy to persuade Miranda to take her up on the idea.

If this was going to happen, I feel like it would have been far more natural for it to have happened in season 1. Miranda stops doing well in class because she can’t sleep, Nya is worried about her, and she finally offers up the guest bedroom because she doesn’t know what else to do. This way, Nya wouldn’t have just randomly become friends with the student who microaggressioned her on the first day of class. Just a thought! Either way, it’s fun that it’s happening.

It turns out Carrie’s guilt eventually did get the better of her, and she heads over to George’s house with enough soup to feed a small army. He’s confused to hear from her, but buzzes her in nonetheless, causing Carrie to walk into the largest New York City apartment I’ve ever seen. It’s beautiful, with artwork on the walls that most definitely costs more than my not-insignificant yearly rent.

It turns out George isn’t actually poor, he’s sold two apps already and is trying to sell his third. He’s writing this one in Python, so I’m not really feeling too confident about it, but that’s besides the point. A more fun fact is that Carrie types 92 words per minute. I hear that and raise you to 102 WPM. Get on my level, Carrie!

After this conversation about money, Carrie’s feelings for George change from pity to lust. She’s into him, and he’s into her tiny little wrists. This least-charming pickup line ever launches a brief makeout that only ends when it’s interrupted by Paul.

Paul—George’s partner—has arrived in the house with George’s dry cleaning and an attitude problem. In a lot of ways, And Just Like That is following the Seinfeld model of “good guys but we found one flaw that’s worth ending it” this season. 

It’s modeling shoot time! Rock waltzes into the shoot accompanied by Charlotte, who’s dressed entirely in vintage Ralph Lauren. Rock is having a great time, and the shoot seems to be a genuinely positive experience.

Then in comes Harry, wearing the same wig he donned at the halloween party earlier this episode. It makes him look younger, and he tries to get information from the tech guy by saying “dude” way too often. Charlotte of course notices him instantly, and tells her husband that he ought to leave before Rock catches him. 

He does, finally. This entire scene was incredibly campy and fun to watch, but felt tonally dissonant in the same way some of Jackie’s scenes have earlier in the season.

We now enter the part of the episode where there’s lots of dialogue that’s relatively boring, but necessary to ensure all of our characters are on the same page. This week, it’s Miranda’s job to carry the torch. First she has dinner with Che, and then mattress shopping with Carrie. During exposition hour, we learn: 

• Miranda tells Che she’s moving into Nya’s and Che doesn’t really care
• Miranda is scared to ask Steve when he’s moving out even though it’s been 2 months
• Carrie is going on a date with George the next day

As happens in TV shows, now that they’ve recorded the pilot it’s time to get a test group together and see the public’s opinions. Che is excited about this because it means the process is moving forward, but they’re clearly taken off guard by the feedback.

First, someone says that “the crying sends a signal that it’s sad to be nonbinary”, which is something Che expressed earlier and delights them to hear. I am still so confused about this. Telling your parent something about yourself that you’ve previously been lying to them about is an emotional experience! It doesn’t matter whether that thing is good or bad, crying is a healthy way to release strong emotion.

Regardless, the rest of the feedback comes down hard on the character Che Paso, played by Che Diaz. A nonbinary person from Brooklyn hates them. The character feels inauthentic, described as a “walking boomer joke”. I fully agree with this; that’s also how the character Che Diaz played by Sara Ramirez. I wonder if Ramirez feels hurt by everyone attacking Che on the internet.

Che themself certainly feels hurt by the comments. They go home that night and sit on the couch smoking, clearly depressed. Miranda tries to make them feel better by yelling about corporations and TV shows not knowing anything, but it doesn’t help. If anything, it just makes Che feel worse.

They finally ask Miranda to leave, not just for the night but for a few days. Miranda agrees with the sad puppy eyes she’s adopted in this reboot, and heads out the door.

The entire Che/Miranda relationship has the appearance of writers being scared to throw Miranda back into the real dating world. If Che was a man, the writers would have only had them in the show for two episodes and then had Miranda date someone else. They’re scared! Put Miranda out in the lesbian dating pool! Have an episode where Charlotte calls up her old lesbian contacts from the gallery to take Miranda to Cubbyhole! Give me some gay drama!

Seema’s night isn’t going much better. After having sex with her man, she breaks out the vibrator to finish herself off. The man, despite using a literal Penis Pump, is not happy. At first, I thought he was going to feel bad for not making Seema come and offer to engage and help her finish the job. But nope! He calls Seema disrespectful for using a vibrator, and marches off. The double standards are appalling.

Back to our Seinfeld plot. 

Carrie has come back from her date with George and is making out with him in the bedroom. They have a cute little moment where Carrie helps him unbutton his shirt, since he can’t with his broken wrist, and for a second I think they’re going to turn it around.

Then, just as the foreplay is beginning, George gets a Facetime. It’s Paul, and he answers it. Pro tip: never answer a Facetime when you’re about to have sex. 

Paul is pissed because George forgot to send the pitch deck, and George gets up to do it, leaving Paul on the pillow next to Carrie. This is far too much for our girl, and as Paul apologizes and goes on a long-winded rant about why he was upset with George, Carrie sneaks off. 

Once she leaves the room, she calls to George that she’s leaving. He doesn’t understand, but he also doesn’t seem too upset about it. This inspires Carrie to tell George that he’s already in a relationship. Paul is his wife. 

I’m not sure how I feel about this “wife” gendering of Paul, it gives me the ick a bit, but oh well.

And just like that, Carrie’s back in the saddle and ready to date!

Grief: over.

What did you think of this episode?