And Just Like That… season 2 finale: The meh return of Samantha Jones

We waited all season for that? Truly, hats off to Kim Cattrall, who I’m sure got paid a literal fortune to sit in a car and pretend to talk to her archnemesis on the phone for 60 seconds. If the cameo had been kept under wraps, it would have been a fun little surprise to begin the episode. But with everyone anticipating the return of Samantha Jones with bated breath, the phone call was underwhelming (even with the Annabelle Bronstein reference).

This season’s penultimate episode and finale were labeled part one and part two, which makes sense because this installment actually felt like a continuation of various arcs (mostly), whereas the rest of this round of And Just Like That… dropped developments from week to week.

Take, for example, my guy Steve (David Eigenberg). One of the most impactful scenes of the season was his blowout with Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) in episode six, in which they aired years of frustrations and grievances—and then the show basically never dealt with the fallout. How did Miranda feel about it? How did Steve feel? How did it impact Brady? We’ll never know! I would have loved an old school Sex And The City brunch scene where they all dissected the fight.

Last week, Miranda found out from Carrie that Steve was opening a new restaurant on Coney Island, and she began to grapple with how abruptly she leaves relationships. In the finale, she actually visits Steve on Coney Island and they have a heart-to-heart about wanting to be in each other’s futures, even as they let go of their partnership. I mean…yeah? You have a son together? You were definitely going to have to see each other. This isn’t a revelation.

Charlotte (Kristin Davis), the standout of season two, also gets a big moment early in the episode when Harry (Evan Handler) comes to wake her following her drunken return home the night before after Anthony’s (Mario Cantone) chat about “losing his ass virginity.” Chef’s kiss to Handler on his delivery of “ass virginity.” “I can’t do it all, Charlotte!” he whines after he tells her that he got the girls out the door by himself.

And then the show gives Charlotte its best monologue of the season, which I am going to type out verbatim because I love it so much: “You are not doing it all. I know, because you made a few breakfasts and ran a few errands, that it feels like you are. But in fact, you are doing the bare minimum of what I and other woman have been asked—no, expected—to do around the house for years and years and years. And now. I am asking, no I am expecting, you to help me with part of it. Not all of it. Because I love my work and I’m good at it.”

The thing about Charlotte is she always knew herself and she never made apologies for what she wanted. It’s been genuinely fun to see how that paid off in the long run, instead of whatever Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is doing.

The rest of the episode is devoted to Carrie’s last supper, a dinner party she’s throwing in her old apartment, catered by a Michelin chef, to say goodbye before she sells it to Lisette (Katerina Tannenbaum). This apartment is suddenly massive enough to fit everyone, and it’s kind of hilarious when Charlotte says, “Do you remember when we used to sit right here and eat cold sesame noodles out of cardboard boxes?” as if this was actually the same space.

Let’s do quick hits of what everyone’s dealing with at this party: Nya (Karen Pittman) is sad because she was elected to the prestigious American Law Institute but doesn’t have anyone to share it with—except the chef is actually that guy from the bar she didn’t sleep with back when she was working on things with Andre. Miranda and Che (Sara Ramirez) need to play nice after Che was a complete asshole to Miranda in their standup set last week. Seema (Sarita Choudhury) is pulling away from Ravi (Armin Amiri) after the “I love you” because she’s afraid of getting hurt. Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker) and Herbert (Chris Jackson) are both grappling with guilt after she miscarried. Giuseppe (Sebastiano Pigazzi) says he might move back to Rome because Anthony has thrown too many walls up. And Jackie (Bobby Lee) and Smoke (Bethlehem Million) are here just for funsies, I guess.

There’s a lot going on, but thankfully Carrie has a quick way for everyone to get some resolution. Once they’re all seated for dinner, she asks everybody to go around the table and share what they want to let go of—in just one word. Nya is letting go of yesterday, Charlotte is letting go of limits, Anthony is letting go of control, etc. Lisa, who tearfully told Herbert that she feels like she wished the baby away, is letting go of guilt. When it comes back to Carrie, she shares that she’s letting go of expectations. After being strict about everyone else only getting one word, she monologues about the meaning of her choice, because of course she does. At the end, Che says, “Carrie, that was…way more than one word,” and it’s the funniest they’ve been all season.

As everyone is leaving, Miranda gets a call from her boss, who needs her to do an on-air interview with the BBC. Elated, Miranda frantically hails a cab, and the whole scene has the same rom-com vibe that Miranda had last year when she rushed to tell Che how she felt. In this moment, it became clear that Miranda was returning to her one true love: her career. May we see more of that in the freshly announced season three.

And finally, Aidan (John Corbett) shows up to set foot in the apartment one last time after refusing to all season. He tells Carrie to sit, and then explains that even though she just let go of this apartment for him and bought a massive four-bedroom house in New York City, he can’t come up here anymore. His 15-year-old son had alcohol and shrooms in his system, and he needs Aidan to be his constant. Carrie offers to come down to Virginia more, and Aidan says that won’t work either for some reason. He really thought he was doing something here, having one last breakup in this cursed apartment.

Only, he says it’s not a breakup? He asks her for five years—until Wyatt is out of his teens—for them to truly be together again. I’m so confused about this. Are they broken up? Are they doing distance for five years? Are they allowed to date other people? What if Wyatt goes to college at 18? Why is 20 a magic number? A lot can happen in five years! This feels so arbitrary.

Ravi also leaves New York (albeit for a much more manageable period of five months) to shoot on location in Egypt, so Seema and Carrie end the season as two sort of single girls on the beach in Greece, ordering cosmopolitans. And just like that…season two ended on a note of insanity after mostly finding its groove in the back half.

Stray observations

• Why was Che seated at Carrie’s side and Miranda all the way in the back? Also, why was Che invited and not Steve? They absolutely trashed Carrie’s best friend for decades last week and they still get an invite to her intimate party for her closest friends, when they were basically just a coworker for a few months last year? Let’s stop making Che a main character!
• Carrie’s kitten’s name is Shoe. I feel like Manolo might have had a better ring to it.
• All of Nya’s little sexual comments about the food during this episode felt like something a teenager would think was sexy. “It exploded in my mouth”? Girl.
• Miranda tells Steve he was right about them being good parents, and my genuine question is, “HE WAS?”