And Just Like That… recap: Aidan returns for a Valentine’s Day dinner

He’s finally here! Aidan Shaw, played by the incomparable John Corbett, is back in town. If you need a refresher, Aidan was the other big (lowercase) love of Carrie’s life, a furniture maker and all-around Good Guy™ on Sex And The City. In their time together, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) cheated on him with Mr. Big, won him back, but dumped him again after he proposed and she couldn’t bring herself to wear the ring. Yikes. Like Natasha, Aidan was roadkill in Carrie and Big’s journey to a happy ending.

He’s also key to the great Aidan-Big debate, which essentially boils down to do you root for the good, steady guy, or do you root for the guy who causes sparks to fly? Or, if you’re Carrie, do you get to have it both ways? Go for the sparks guy until he drops dead in the shower, only to rekindle things with the steady guy.

The question unfolds on Valentine’s Day, a holiday that brings everyone drama. Nya (Karen Pittman) is navigating her first single V-Day after the end of her marriage and decides to spend it making chocolate soufflé. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is trying to determine her sexuality (Lesbian? Bi? Pansexual?) after ending things with Che (Sara Ramirez). Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker) and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) once again have their plans ruined by their annoying children.

Let’s start with Charlotte. She’s running all over town taking Rock (Alexa Swinton) to modeling agencies since they’re blowing up after the Ralph Lauren campaign. She’s helping Anthony (Mario Cantone) find a wholesome Hot Fellas guy after he inexplicably fires most of his staff for injecting human growth hormones and he needs one to appear on Drew Barrymore’s show with him. (Too much time was devoted to this plotline in the show, and I will not waste more on it here.) Lily (Cathy Ang) informs Charlotte she must be out of the house on Valentine’s Day because she’s having anti-boys party after Blake dumped her. Lady has a lot going on and absolutely none of it is her own. This comes to a head when she accidentally eats a pot brownie one of Lily’s friends brought over and thinks she’s having a stroke at dinner. In the ER with Harry (Evan Handler), she realizes she’s only a momager and a maid for her kids and needs to get back to herself. That gallery job is calling her name.

Herbert (Chris Jackson) scored a coveted Valentine’s Day reservation, but Lisa can’t even appreciate it because she’s obsessed with hatred for her eldest son’s girlfriend. She spots them making out in the schoolyard and absolutely crashes the party when the girlfriend—named Baxter—moves to slip a hand into Herbert Jr.’s (Elijah Jacob) pants. Good for you, Lisa! I’m tired of moms on this show bending over backwards to excuse their kids’ inappropriate behavior out of fear of not being sex positive enough.

Baxter’s parents book a hotel suite for the two teenagers for Valentine’s Day, which Lisa shuts down instantly. Herbert suggests they spend the evening in their apartment while the parents are out for dinner, which pacifies Herbert Jr. but enrages Lisa. She is convinced that her son will have sex with his girlfriend on her bed. Why is she convinced of this? I don’t know, but as a mother, the thought is horrifying enough that I believe it would drive her to insanity.

She “booby traps” her bed by chopping and fluffing the pillows just so and taking a picture, sure that when she returns home to ruffled bedding, she’ll have proof that Baxter has no boundaries. We’re all disappointed to see the undisturbed bed, and Herbert is getting ready to tell Lisa she needs to let this go, but then, lo and behold, she finds Herbert Jr. and Baxter on holy ground—her closet—so that Baxter can take a picture holding one of her purses. Get the fuck out! Lisa is vindicated, and I’m just happy to see one of these dumbass kids finally put in their place.

Miranda, meanwhile, isn’t sure what she’s looking for now that Che is out of the picture. “Am I a lesbian?” she asks Nya as they peruse a bookstore. Che was nonbinary, and Miranda has no idea what that means for her sexuality. “I just think that you should figure it out…so that you can find love again,” says Charlotte as they approach Valentine’s Day. Gay or straight, Charlotte is going to Charlotte. She’s always on the side of true love. I, personally, would have loved for this episode to deal with the fallout of Miranda’s big fight with Steve (David Eigenberg), but he does not come up! And Just Like That… loves to drop a major plotline for no reason at all.

Miranda is pretty quickly on the horse again when she catches sight of Amelia (Miriam Shor), a sexy lesbian voice actor who records Jane Austen audiobooks. First Charles Brooks and now Diana Trout? Everyone gets a love interest from Younger this season! Miranda asks her out for Valentine’s Day and is thrilled when Amelia changes the location of their date from a restaurant to her apartment. Only, oops, it was because she was running behind on work, and when Miranda arrives at her apartment, she runs into a lot of lesbian cliches: an unfriendly cat with an uncleaned litterbox, dirty flannel sheets on an unmade bad, and Birkenstocks. When Amelia runs to the bodega to get quarters to wash her sheets, Miranda makes her escape. She’s in her fifties now and not inclined to stay in a bad situation for anyone else’s comfort.

And finally, we end with Carrie and Aidan. At first it seems like he has maybe stood her up when she waits in a crappy Italian restaurant for nearly half an hour. But of course, it was a misunderstanding. He was waiting for her in the booth next door because Carrie went into the wrong restaurant. They find each other out in front on the street and share a truly warm and familiar hug. They look the same. Things feel the same. He tells her he was sorry about John and he read her book. She tells him she’s doing better. They decide to go back to her place.

Only…he doesn’t realize her place is the same place they once lived in together. The place he once owned and she had to buy from him. To see the two of them stand outside, Carrie on the steps and him on the sidewalk, feels truly iconic. And it starts to melt Aidan’s brain a little bit. “I thought you had a different place.”

Carrie, realizing he’s having a hard time, says, “Yes, it’s the same place but we’re not in the same place. And it wasn’t all bad, Aidan. Was it?”

He can’t do it. “No matter how much I want to, I can’t go in there,” he tells her sadly. “I’m never going in there again.”

She understands. Time doesn’t heal all things. He moves to go, and then he turns back and says, “Fuck it, this is New York. They have hotels, right?” And then they kiss.

THEY KISS? Excuse the all caps, but WHAT?! When he says, “I’m never going in there again,” didn’t we all think he was no longer talking about the apartment, but about the relationship with Carrie itself? He’s just going to solve this problem by getting a hotel?

I just…look, I love John Corbett. I love Aidan. And maybe this will unfold in a way I like, but right now it feels like it would have been more meaningful to truly land the point that time actually doesn’t heal all things. Some behavior is so shitty that its hurt lasts forever. We can’t just keep letting Carrie get away with these things!

Stray observations

• Another week with Seema (Sarita Choudhury) relegated to the bullets at the end. But all she really had to do this episode was yell at a poor receptionist just trying to do her job. Although, yes, it’s extremely stupid to have a day where only couples can receive a massage at your spa.
• When Anthony’s Hot Fellas guys don’t want to wear the skimpy uniforms in winter: “You don’t think the waitresses at Hooters wear puffy coats, do you?”
• Lily lost her virginity last episode, and her boyfriend dumped her this episode? Charlotte seemed very unconcerned about this, but it feels like that’s a moment that could have actually used her presence as a mother, as opposed to creating an Instagram account for Rock.
• Carrie’s phone dies as she sits down to wait for Aidan in the restaurant, and what kind of monster leaves for an important outing with a phone that’s about to die?
• Without Miranda, Che only gets to have scenes as Carrie’s friend, but that takes away from Seema’s scenes, so I feel Che must go. I don’t really care about them having to Airbnb their apartment to make ends meet.
• Miranda is really leaning into that power lesbian styling this week, and I love that for her.