Meg Ryan, Billy Crystal recreate When Harry Met Sally deli scene to hawk mayo

Audiences aren’t easily fooled these days. When Meg Ryan posted an Instagram photo of herself and her rom-com co-star Billy Crystal promising they were linking up “for something iconic,” lots of fans clocked that it was probably just a Super Bowl commercial. And in recent years you don’t even have to wait for the Super Bowl to see a Super Bowl commercial. So here you have it: an utterly anticlimactic When Harry Met Sally reunion—ironic, given that they’re recreating the movie’s famous fake orgasm scene. 

In the ad, the beloved duo are back at the very same table where they sat for Rob Reiner’s 1989 film. Crystal is wearing a cable-knit sweater, which he wasn’t actually wearing in the original deli scene but which some marketing exec identified as a perennial favorite look for online cinephiles. Ryan does a sped-up version of her classic fake orgasm (“This one’s real!” Crystal quips), and on hand to deliver the classic “I’ll have what she’s having” line is none other than Sydney Sweeney, because some marketing exec identified her as an up-and-coming rom-com star. And all of this is for Hellmann’s mayonnaise! The least orgasmic of all condiments. 

We won’t begrudge Ryan and Crystal for making a buck off the mayo guys, but the whole nostalgia reunion Super Bowl commercial is, to put it in sandwich terms, a bit stale. What enjoyment there was in watching the advertising extravaganza during the big game is undermined by releasing the ads online a week in advance. But in the wake of the movie’s 35th anniversary and recent addition to the National Film Registry, “it just felt like the perfect storm for us to get back together at the same table and have indigestion,” Crystal told Variety. He feels this little epilogue will make fans feel like Harry and Sally “have been coming there for 35 years every Saturday or Sunday and this is their thing.” Pretty cute for a mayo salesman.