And Just Like That… season 2 premiere: The show returns with more cringe and comfort

And just like that…we’re back! The Sex And The City successor series— annoyingly titled And Just Like That…—has returned for another season of Woke Moments™ and Che Diaz. In my brain, I still call this show Sex And The City, and the punctuation of the new title is cumbersome, so forgive me for using AJLT going forward.

While we’re on the topic of things you’ll have to forgive, please know that I do not have encyclopedic knowledge of the SATC universe. There are many, many people on the internet who do. If you’re looking for someone who can tell you the exact thing Carrie wore in season two, episode three, I’m not your girl. Sex And The City 2 (the movie), for instance, is a bit of a blur to me, because my boyfriend and I were breaking up at the time, and he texted me no less than 25 times while I was trying to watch that movie with my mom and then was waiting for me when we left the theater. But I think that messy anecdote alone makes me qualified to write about Carrie Bradshaw.

GRADE FOR SEASON 2, EPISODE 2: C+

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The season opens on everyone getting it on to that Elton John-Britney Spears remix, which someone probably thought was a good metaphor for the show. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is hooking up with her hot podcast producer, Franklyn (Ivan Hernandez). Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker) and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) put the moves on their husbands. Seema (Sarita Choudhury) is enjoying some oral from club owner Zed (William Abadie, who also currently plays Antoine in Emily In Paris, which feels like a violation of the metaverse somehow). Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Che (Sara Ramirez) are getting it on in a pool during daylight hours, reminding us that they’re actually out in L.A. Only poor Nya (Karen Pittman) is home alone, missing her husband, who left to go on tour because she was unwilling to get pregnant. We see a lot of boobs in this montage (no male nudity, of course), and everyone’s boobs look great. (Did no one breastfeed?)

The main narrative arc of the premiere is that Carrie, Charlotte, Lisa, and Seema are all attending the Met Gala, except they constantly refer to it as “the Met Ball.” Is this like when commercials refer to the Super Bowl as “the big game”? Could AJLT not get the rights to say the Met Gala? Carrie Bradshaw worked for Vogue! She would never say “the Met Ball.” I’m going to have to dock points for this.

Charlotte comes over early in the morning to show Carrie the sketch of her gown, only to run into Franklyn on the way out the door from their “Thursday sex after the podcast.” Carrie begs her not to go all Charlotte and try to make it into some great romance, so Charlotte asks her the size of his penis (channeling Samantha) and tells her that having sex with someone at works means she’s giving up her power (channeling Miranda).

Elsewhere in Manhattan, Lisa is making edits to her documentary in Final Cut Pro, getting ready for her day, listening to her daughter recite a French poem, finding her husband’s tie, and doing breath checks on all her children to make sure they brushed. It’s nice to see an actual working mom on this show, even if she is in a closet that’s bigger than my living room and has a very nice set-up for a desktop computer. (If you come for me in the comments and say Miranda was a working mom, I will counter by saying that her nanny did everything and we never saw her multitask like this. Lisa also has three children.) Lisa is rushing out the door to make a pitch for a grant to finish her doc, and when her husband offers to write her the check so she has more time for him in the mornings, she destroys him with her eyes.

Time to check in with Miranda via a phone call with Nya, who reminds us that she misses her estranged husband. I can already tell that Nya is going to get the worst storyline this season. Miranda, meanwhile, is raving about how happy she is in L.A. as she prepares to enjoy a sensory deprivation tank. “That doesn’t sound like you,” Nya comments as the audience stand-in. “It’s the new me!” Miranda exclaims. “Best me ever!” Cut to her getting salt in her eye while in the tank. “Fuck the new me.” Kudos to Cynthia Nixon for agreeing to be naked in the most unflattering situations, like struggling to climb out of the tank.

Carrie freaks when Franklyn invites her to hang out with his friends on a Tuesday because it is not on their Thursday sex schedule and she’s not ready for a relationship. She phones Che, looking for assurance that the podcast producer is going to be chill when she says she doesn’t want something more serious, and Che takes this call as they goad Miranda into putting on a strap-on harness. Maybe just decline the call! Miranda overhears Che’s advice that some relationships are meant to stay in the bedroom and immediately gets into her head that they view their relationship that way. Season one of this show got pretty pointed about how people change and should be allowed to do that, but it is a bummer to watch Miranda try so hard to be the “new her” that she’s constantly insecure about who she is and her place in her new world. L.A. is not for Miranda! Get our girl back to New York!

There’s a bit of musical chairs over who will get to attend the “Met Ball.” See if you can follow: Seema is supposed to be Carrie’s date, but she reluctantly declines when Zed asks her to meet his son over lunch that day. Anthony (Mario Cantone) is supposed to be Charlotte’s date, but she has to uninvite him when she realizes Harry (Evan Handler) is excited to go with her. So Anthony becomes Carrie’s date, until Seema realizes Zed still lives with his ex-wife and bails on their lunch, so Seema is back in and Anthony is out. Except on his way out the door, Harry can’t stop complaining about how hot his tux is and how much his boots hurt, and Charlotte tells him to stay home to pick up her gay BFF on the way.

Everyone looks stunning in their looks, but Lisa gets an especially gorgeous shot crossing the street in her Valentino as her husband tries to wrangle the train. The big reveal, however, is Carrie, who is without a dress at the last minute due to a seamstress shortage. Instead, she pulls that beautiful Vivienne Westwood wedding dress out of storage (the one she was wearing when Big bailed on their nuptials and she beat him over the head with her bouquet) and just like that…repurposes her pain. That did not feel like the theme of this episode, but I will admit that seeing Carrie in that dress is a good way to make me feel like something emotionally resonant is happening.

The second episode, I’m sorry to say, feels a lot more disjointed. While nearly everyone was pulled together by the power of the Met in the premiere, everyone is off on their own side stories in episode two. That feels especially crazy when the original three are handling minor inconveniences, while the new characters—women of color—are grappling with much deeper problems. Yet who do you think is getting more screentime?

Carrie—and I really don’t want to devote more than a paragraph to this—has to deal with the humiliating task of recording an ad for a vaginal suppository on her sex podcast. She doesn’t want to talk about vaginas! Not hers, not anyone’s! And pretty much everyone is like, “What are you talking about, you have a sex podcast? You have been a sex columnist for years!” A good reminder that Carrie is a huge prude and always has been. Franklyn, another man that is too nice and too accommodating of Carrie’s neurosis, brings his laptop to their standing sex date to try to help her rewrite the ad in her own voice, and suggests working in “WAP” to feel more current. You know, he says, the hit by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion? “Well, I’m Carrie B and I don’t speak like that, so Megan thee end,” Carries responds, and reader, I almost quit the whole show right then.

Charlotte absolutely loses her mind when Lily (Cathy Ang) sells some of her designer clothes to the Real Deal in order to buy an electric keyboard. “Honey, you have a Steinway,” Charlotte says, and Kristin Davis’s delivery of this line is perfect. Once she’s in possession of the keyboard, Lily writes a truly horrific song about privilege and having to be a good girl and insists on performing it for her family while wearing a beanie. (“Who is she, Lily Eilish?” Anthony sneers.) No one told this sweet overachiever that if you’re trying to be less of a good girl perfectionist, you don’t ask the family to assemble in your Park Avenue living room so you can perform your angsty ballad for them.

But Charlotte is beside herself at the loss of the designer clothes, particularly a Chanel dress that Lily once wore to a piano recital. She tries to get the clothing retailer to give her back the dress as an apology, which is absurd when she is a millionaire and could simply buy it back if it means that much to her. Carrie gets her to admit it’s not about the dress, it’s about feeling like Lily is rejecting things Charlotte has given her, but this feels like a weak explanation for Charlotte essentially going full Karen.

Out in L.A., Che is trying to develop their show and fighting with customers and writers over how to bring their story to life. Miranda fills her days by going to an AA meeting (hey, remember that Miranda alcoholic plotline from last season? The show does too, barely) and then tagging along with someone she meets to clean up a beach. Oh no! She loses her phone and can’t call an Uber, meaning she won’t make it to a dinner with Che and Tony Danza (who is playing their father on the sitcom). These are truly the stakes: Will Miranda make it to the Tony Danza dinner? She does not, but Che asks a friend to pick her up, and Miranda is startled to learn that he is Che’s husband because they’ve been too lazy to get divorced.

On the other side of this episode’s coin, Lisa is dealing with a difficult mother-in-law who grew up in North Carolina and believes that Black people need to present in a certain way. She takes issue with natural hair, criticizes Lisa’s headwrap at bedtime, and when her daughter-in-law greets her at the door in a tribal print, she says, “I see you just returned from your matinee performance of The Lion King.” As someone who once witnessed my father’s mother walk in the door and tell my mother, “Wow, you look like shit,” it’s nice to see that mother-in-law struggles transcend race. But all of this comes to a head when Lisa’s husband Herbert (Chris Jackson) can’t hail a cab for himself and his daughter because of some obvious racism, and he tries to confront the driver. Both Herbert’s mother and Lisa remind him (in different tones) that he has to keep his frustration in check (“We never surrender our dignity”) because it’s not worth the potential consequences of getting into a public conflict.

One of these things is not like the other. Imagine this problem going up against Carrie not being willing to say “vaginal suppository” on air!

Nya also struggles with her separation from her husband, who admits he’s considered sleeping with someone else and suggests they consider a surrogate to alleviate her concerns about having a baby. Nya throws away his stuff. Seema’s longtime hair stylist criticizes her for being too picky when it comes to men, and she takes this to heart and goes back to Zed, only to immediately dump him when he asks her to invest in a club. Seema and Nya are fabulous, and I hope their storylines move away from shitty men soon.

To wrap up the episode, the entire podcast company shuts down and they make Carrie feel like it’s because she wouldn’t do that ONE ad. That is obviously ridiculous, but it’s good advice for her to stop being so precious about the word vagina. “And just like that…I freed up my entire week,” Carrie tells us. I mean, was it that busy before? You were just recording a podcast and having sex on Thursdays.

Stray observations

• Of all the fashion on this show, what I am coveting is The New York Times crewneck that Carrie is wearing after her initial romp with Franklyn.
• Anthony: “I’m really enjoying listening to your podcast, rich people’s problems!” That is basically the premise of this show.
• After Carrie is complimented on her kimono, she says, “My friend Stanford sent it to me from Japan.” Booooo! Deal with Stanford’s absence and Willie Garson’s death in a meaningful way!
• I did laugh a little at Che wearing socks while Miranda is going down on them. A truly masculine quality.
• Of the suppository ad, Carrie tells Franklyn, “My vagina has to write its own monologue.” Cut to a shot of Carrie at her laptop, working on a paragraph that is at least 200 words. Girl, this ad should be like 30 seconds max!
• Also a funny line for those who are parents: “I have to go, my kid’s school just called; there was some microaggression over a Squishmallow.”