Everyone is afraid to take the next big step on And Just Like That…

Transitions can be terrifying. Sometimes taking the next big step seems impossible. As I stare down the barrel at my final few months of employment here at The A.V. Club, I find that I am stress-eating like someone with a tapeworm the size of a garden hose. Seriously, I feel like I am more likely to be eating than not eating at any given time. It’s been days since I’ve felt actual hunger pangs. We get so comfortable/complacent where we are, what is there to compel us to make the next move, even though we may ultimately wind up in a better place?

For Lily, finally entering the world of tampons means that she gets to go to a pool party in the Hamptons. For Carrie, latching on to Big’s wedding ring means that she rejects a date with Jon Tenney’s Peter, who does seem to be a pretty nice guy. The fact that Steve is clinging to his now-dead marriage impedes his ability to ever be able to move on with someone else. Andre and Nya’s inability to come to an agreement on what the next phase of their lives will be may cause an irreparable tear in their marriage.

And sometimes we rush into the next stage when we really shouldn’t, as our formerly confident, capable Miranda becomes a giggling, stammering schoolgirl in her relationship with Che. That staircase scene was probably the worst in a series of neverending humiliations for Miranda related to her Che obsession. When Che comments, “This isn’t going to work,” Miranda becomes downright unhinged. A few weeks ago I cited a Vox article that posited that And Just Like That…’s goal appears to be to humiliate these beloved characters as much as possible. Like when Charlotte, who shat herself in the first movie, now has a period accident in the brightest white jumpsuit imaginable. But Miranda, the woman who coined the phrase “He’s just not that into you” (even turned into a terrible movie!) should not be cowering around Che’s doorstep. Again, I’m almost mad at this show for making Che relatable, when they, like everyone watching, wants to know what the hell is going on here. This Miranda is almost unrecognizable from the sardonic redhead we loved before.

Charlotte’s transition into full-on mom mode is much less surprising, and I liked Cathy Ang’s fits of teen angst as Lily wrestled with the tampon problem. (I went through a whole box of Playtex to figure it out myself, while my best friend coached me over the phone, then freaked out when one of the applicators appeared to be missing, convinced that it was floating around in my uterus somewhere.)

But honestly my favorite moments in this penultimate episode belong to Carrie and Steve. Have we ever seen these two interact on their own before? (I feel like at one point Steve asked Carrie to please leave his friend Aidan alone, as it obviously was never going to work out between them. But that’s all that comes to mind.) Nevertheless, they are characters with decades of history between them, and both grieving. Carrie stressing to Steve that he’s a wonderful, wonderful person who deserves to be with someone who loves him was way overdue, but at least someone said it! It appeared that Steve’s inability to move on, Miss Havisham-like, is what finally springs Carrie into action. You can’t waste the rest of your life just wishing that things were different.

That’s what change hopefully brings us, after all, right? A new happiness to replace our fading older one. We just have to be strong enough to move on. As a fellow fiftysomething like Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte, that’s what I’m counting on, anyway. Just as soon as I put down the Ben & Jerry’s pint I’m having for breakfast.

Stray observations

• Best outfits: Hard to believe that Carrie and Seema couldn’t get into the club, what with Carrie’s breathtaking rose-patterned shift and Seem blessedly breaking out of her monotone earthy hues for a sapphire blue dress that was just stunning on her.
• Worst outfit: Charlotte’s string tie blouse from the American Girl prairie collection.
• Worst accessories: Why would anyone wear high heels like that to a painting event? Or thigh-high lace-up boots for that matter.
• If you’d like to see Cynthia Nixon in a less annoying role, I highly recommend HBO’s new The Gilded Age. It’s like Downton Abbey but in New York, and a few decades prior (although creator Julian Fellowes has said that it exists in the same DA universe). Some critics are calling it out for style over substance, but I found it immediately addictive and yes, the gowns are to die for. And Nixon and Christine Baranski as a pair of maiden aunts are extremely fun to watch.
• Wouldn’t Anthony, owner of a bread company, bring the bread to dinner? Nonetheless, he was delightful as always and his immediate “Get out!” to the Holocaust denier made me lol. Guess that guy is definitely reading the wrong books.
• It was fun to see almost all of the AJLT’s new characters interact at the painting thing. Personally, I want to see a trio teamup of Nya, Lisa, and Seema, they are all such powerhouses.
• Cue Seema and the club owner hooking up in 3, 2, 1…
• I know most women have had one, but I had a period accident in the eighth grade that haunts me to this day.
• Seriously, someone as fabulous as Seema doesn’t have a ton of friends to go out with on her birthday?
• What happened to the black diamond Big bought Carrie at the end of the second movie; wasn’t that their commitment ring? I don’t get these plot holes, do they think we won’t remember?
• Next week: The finale, y’all. We have a lot of fun stuff coming up for it: I talked to AJLT costume designers Molly Rogers and Danny Santiago about how they revisited Sex And The City’s fashion sense for this new series, and frankly begged for advice on how to break out of my own stretchy pants wardrobe. Saloni Gajjar, who already called out Sarita Choudhury as the show’s underused MVP, has an interview with the actor also running next week. We will also speculate on what could happen in this possibly final episode. And look for an article about the character of Che on the site later today.
  And will there be a season two? Stranger things have happened, after all. Have a great week, stay warm, and we’ll see you then.