I’m back with another And Just Like That recap! I apologize for the extended delay over the past couple of weeks! While Carrie Bradshaw was busy making grieving widows cry, I was equally busy traveling through Europe. But now we’re back, and ready to write!
This week’s episode, entitled “Bomb Cyclone” regressed a bit from the week before. Maybe it’s because I went so long without watching, but the corny and uncomfortable parts hit especially hard this week. Nonetheless, there were some plot lines I adored!
We open with Carrie on a Zoom call with a fairly obnoxious online blogger and to this I say—Justice for online bloggers! While I may not read every book before I give an author interview, I always research the author and the topic they chose to write about. That isn’t the case for this girl, who giggles when Carrie says the book is about “death”, and pivots to what lipstick shade Carrie herself is wearing at the moment.
To save her from the utter disaster of this interview, Carrie’s laptop falls off of her desk and immediately dies.
Queue title sequence!
We then flash over to Miranda curled up in her twin bed. I noted here that her pajamas are absolutely ridiculous, and I didn’t have to wait long for Nya to point that out as well! Miranda bursts out of her bedroom, stressed because her alarm didn’t go off, only for Nya to inform her that she and her ridiculous PJs can relax: it’s Sunday.
This interaction also sets up Miranda’s character arc of the episode. While Nya is moving on with her life and going through with her “no fault divorce”, Miranda is paralyzed by the fact that her’s is an “all my fault” divorce, unable to suggest anything to Steve because she doesn’t feel worthy.
In the York-Goldenblatt kitchen, Harry and Charlotte are making breakfast in relative domestic bliss when Lisa calls to share that the whole family saw Rock’s ad in a magazine. They’re all so excited! I’m happy for Rock, who has suddenly transcended from problem teen to golden child.
As Rock flounces off, Lilly asks her mother if she made the reservation at NOBU she requested. Apparently, 17 year olds and their boyfriends are eating in style these days. This sarcastic observation was also made by Anthony, who tells Lilly to go to Shake Shack and be happy. But… Lilly cannot possibly go to Shake Shack—not right before she loses her virginity!
With this declaration, Lilly walks off, leaving the adults confused and unsure of what to do next.
We have rarely seen a lot of growth in our main characters from Sex and the City to And Just Like That, except for in ways we don’t really like. Carrie has become more sex negative, Miranda has lost all confidence in herself, and Samantha has become a bad friend. Charlotte, on the other hand, has evolved in a way that feels natural and real when it comes to talking about sex. She’s incredibly sex positive and supportive of her daughter, as you would expect someone who’d been in an incredibly sex forward friend group in the late 90s to be.
Charlotte heads upstairs to Lilly’s room to talk to her about what’s going on. When she finds out that Lilly is indeed serious about losing her virginity, she gives her the normal parent talk. Being careful, condoms, etc. Then, she shifts, and I absolutely want to be this parent one day. Charlotte tells her incredibly disinterested teenager to make sure she focuses as much on her own pleasure as his—to which Lilly groans and tells her mom to leave.
Go sex positivity! I cannot explain how much I love all of the Charlotte scenes in this episode.
The first five minutes always set up each character’s arc for the episode, and if we don’t see someone in a prominent role it means they won’t be getting a story. The arcs we set up for the rest of our characters are:
- Lisa has an event on the same night as her husband
- Seema wants to rent a house in the Hamptons with Carrie
- Nya is happy with her divorce
As you can see, not super well developed!
That night, Miranda and Che have settled into a state of domestic discord. Miranda wants to cuddle Che to sleep, but Che isn’t in the mood. When Miranda assents and rolls over to sleep, Che puts on the loudest, happiest voice you can imagine and begins filming Cameos (videos that fans pay celebrities to make just for them) from their side of the bed. Obviously, Miranda is mad.
When this scene first started, I was happy to see this duo finally falling out. This is what I’ve wanted! Miranda standing up for herself! Then, we find out that Miranda is only mad because Che is smiling for other people and not for her. Che says that they’re not performing for Miranda the way they are for the people on Cameo, and this makes complete sense—while Miranda had every right to be mad at Che for recording while she tried to sleep, she has no right to be mad at Che for being sad. As far as I can tell, it hasn’t been that long and Che’s life was severely sidetracked!
Still, Che apologizes, and Miranda says that Che should try to leave the house this week. If this is going to be the way the show handles depression conversations, I don’t want it!
Carrie’s book interview didn’t go exceptionally well, but never fear—she’s headed to Widowcon! The event, which is most definitely not actually called Widowcon, is a convention for grieving women to get together and share stories and sell products.
It’s also being run by Karen “Karey” Moore, played by the iconic Rachel Dratch. She delivers such an incredible performance that it truly carries the campiness of the episode. Karey (who changed her name because it’s a “bad time for white women named Karen”) used to write with Carrie back in the day, and now both fully expects Carrie to bail on Widowcon and pulled strings to get her as the keynote speaker.
Carrie is STRESSED about this big speaking role, and decides she needs moral support. From Che. Che is reticent at first but agrees to help Carrie after she calls them fearless. After all, “My mommy says I have to leave the house at some point this week”. Che is, of course, talking about Miranda. Carrie sighs, and it’s at this moment that Che knows what they have to do.
It’s a dinner party at Nya’s house! She’s invited Miranda, Carrie, and Charlotte over to drink wine (nonalcoholic in Miranda’s case) and talk about their problems. Over the course of said dinner party, it comes out that Steve told Carrie that he’d keep his ring on until “death do part”. Miranda is understandably frustrated with this, given that she’s been waiting for him to bring up a divorce for months.
Carrie also uses a terrible segue to bring up Aidan, and it comes out that she’s kept up with him via internet stalking, despite being no contact. As luck would have it, he divorced five years ago and sold his furniture company to West Elm! A dream man!
Carrie’s new laptop is being put to good use. First, Carrie writes Aidan an adorable email asking him what he’s up to and if he’d like to reconnect. While she doesn’t plan on sending it, she does put his email in the TO line, which is a terrible mistake.
Seema comes over to book the Hampton house and sees the email, and they chat about it awkwardly for a couple of seconds before moving on to Airbnb. This whole episode has felt like such filler for Seema that I can’t help but wonder if they’re trying to write her out of the rest of the season by sending her to the Hamptons alone.
I want more for her than following Carrie around and clicking buttons on her laptop! She has so much potential to be an interesting, perpetually single adult woman who’s living her best life, and they’re just doing nothing with her.
The next morning, the bomb cyclone hits!
Che calls Carrie because they assume the Widowcon will be called off. It’s still going on, however, because all of the widows have already been in town for days. Che tries to get out of it, and then Carrie appeals to their emotional state. “Their husbands died,” she says. When That doesn’t get Che, she continues. “So did mine.”
That’s enough, and Che promises their attendance.
Carrie isn’t the only one with a big event that night. It’s Herbert-Harrigan dueling events day! Lisa’s car cancels on her, and despite the fact that she’s being honored by the MOMA as a Black filmmaker for a film she spent EIGHT ENTIRE YEARS working on, Todd suggests that Lisa just come with him.
That is unhinged. I don’t know much about the intricacies of filmmaker awards, but speaking at the MOMA for anything seems like it’s pretty high up there. Lisa says no (obviously) and then Todd offers to drop her using his car. She also says no to this because she doesn’t need a “knight in shining armor”. I’m confused?
Lilly is also heading out in the snow! Blake’s parents got trapped out of town, so it’s the perfect day to lose her virginity. Unfortunately, when she gets there she realizes that Blake doesn’t have any condoms, so she calls Charlotte to beg her to get them for her. Charlotte says no, but when Lilly says they’ll just use the pullout method instead, she’s out on the street.
Now everyone’s trekking down the middle of the road. Lisa looks confident and powerful. Carrie looks like she does in every scene, and to be honest I’m not even convinced she was really in the studio that day because the ADR is out of control. Charlotte is panicked, banging on the doors of drug stores that have already closed.
Whoever messed up Carrie’s ADR mixing was also in charge of music for this scene, and a White Lotus-y sound sequence plays loudly over the next few scenes as all of the women make it to their destinations.
Lisa heads straight to the bathroom to slide back on her wig and Carrie finds Che, who is dressed completely normally but gets made fun of by the friend who forced them to be there.
Charlotte eventually makes it to Lilly’s, where she gives her daughter an explanation of all of the condoms in the variety pack she purchased. Lilly tries to cut off the conversation and goes inside, and then spins around to give her mom a hug. It’s a very cute moment!
The person onstage at the Widowcon when Carrie walks in is a stand-up comedian. Her jokes are fairly terrible, but everyone’s dying laughing. Carrie, on the other hand, is dying inside. She has to follow this woman’s set with her own rather mournful chapter reading.
There was no need for Carrie to worry, however, because after she tries to make a joke that absolutely bombs, she dives into reading and that goes great. Everyone is captivated by her words, and even Che appears to be resonating.
Carrie reads a line about moving on because she’s outgrown who she used to be, and in that moment Che’s depression is cured. After all, they just had their ego die, not their husband! He’s still very much alive! This line was corny and a terrible representation of dealing with mental illness, but it gives me hope that we’ll start writing Che as a less annoying character, in light of their ego death.
Lisa’s auditorium is considerably less full than Carrie’s was, given that her guests were not all staying at the hotel already, but she dives into her interview conversation nonetheless. The speech was honestly inspiring, if you ignore the fact that she said the word “she-roes” unironically.
I’m having a great time just listening to her talk, but then we dial it back to Lisa’s primary life conflict—the extremely manufactured fight and make-up dynamic between our working woman and her working husband. I deeply despise these fights, because they don’t seem to make sense to the characters at all. Lisa and Todd are clearly both the type of people who support each other, or else they wouldn’t be together still. It’s even more dissonant when you look at the perpetual marital bliss of Charlotte and Harry.
Still! A very cute moment occurs when Lisa, mid-sentence, notices Todd walking into the auditorium. He left his own event early to be there for her! This is what he should have done all along! I’m so happy, and so is Lisa, making for a very cute and heartwarming moment.
And now for the very opposite of a heartwarming moment!
Steve walks into his home to find Miranda doing laundry on the couch. Brady isn’t home because Steve let him work some shifts at the bar (is the kid even 18?), which is news to Miranda and an excuse to be snipey for Steve.
She asks how the apartment search is going, and we find out that Steve hasn’t been looking at all. He lied in therapy, and he doesn’t plan on moving out. Moving to Brooklyn was his idea, and he built the inside of it with his own two hands. Miranda tells him to say that to her name on the lease, the only name on the lease, and I die a bit inside.
“Ya never wanted me, and ya never even wanted Brady,” Steve snaps.
Miranda leaps up and throws on her coat in record time, but Steve immediately gets in front of her, barring her from leaving and apologizing for what he said in anger.
This fight felt like things they would both authentically say, but I’m still so confused how we got to this point! Why did Steve ever say that he would move out of the Brooklyn house if he didn’t want to? Miranda would have moved if he hadn’t!
Miranda and Steve must feel the same way, because they end up laying in bed together, spooning in a way that indicates their issues are resolved even though they’ll never be able to be together again. Miranda apologizes for the way she hurt Steve, and he acknowledges that he knows she regrets it. It’s all okay.
And that’s when Miranda sees the condom wrapper on the bedside table! She’s irate! This whole time, Steve was playing the victim while in reality he was fucking the Whole Foods girl!
Steve is confused by this. Yeah, he moved on, and so did Miranda. He’s not the victim here.
Despite Miranda having entirely invented this victimization arc, she creates another fight with Steve, prattling about how happy she is that he’s moved on as well. I thought this was going to lead to her having a crying breakdown, but it doesn’t. She declares that she’ll send the divorce papers, and then marches right over to Che’s.
At their apartment, ‘Che is clearly doing better. They’re up out of bed, motivated by their newfound depression cure: Lexapro personal growth.
“We definitely should have split up earlier while we still had a chance to be friends,” Miranda says about Steve, and Che says yeah, that’s actually what I’ve been thinking about me and you.
It’s a sad moment, and they find themselves in the exact same half-spooning situation Miranda and Steve were in just hours before.
Thank the gods for this break-up. I’m ready for single, queer Miranda.
And Just Like That…. Carrie sends off her email to Aidan! I cannot wait for next week!
