That said, I’ll miss it somehow. The inanity. The necklaces that could kill people with a good, hard swing. The husks of these once beloved characters masquerading as human beings in printed outerwear.

This show succeeded, ratings-wise, in spite of itself because there is so little in this genre that scratches the particular itch this type of show does. Instead of moving on to the next light-hearted fashion-y show, we are left to look at photos of Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt crossing the street during the Devil Wears Prada 2 shoot. Maybe that movie will have both interesting-enough fashion and more depth than a middle-class bathtub.

And Just Like That’s series finale felt impressively pointless, managing to include a surprising number of scenes no one wanted to see!

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• Brands like Urban Decay and TA3 are hiring OnlyFans stars as faces, per Business of Fashion. Ari Kytsya’s video for Urban Decay “reached a million organic views in under 24 hours, the fastest an Urban Decay video has achieved that sort of visibility; it’s now the brand’s top-performing Instagram post in 2025 so far.” Brands’ fear of generating controversy through campaigns seems to have been replaced by an unquenchable thirst for impressions.

• Jennifer Lopez was reportedly denied entry to the Chanel store in Istanbul. She allegedly responded by saying, “OK, no problem.”

• Puck’s Lauren Sherman interviewed me for her Fashion People podcast. We got into the nitty gritty of Goop’s business.

• We are in the slow news season, so allow me to draw attention to things I wore recently (and loved!) to do media appearances to promote Gwyneth: this floral drop-waist dress by Nicholas, which is on sale for $276; this Self Portrait top that looks great in photos and videos; and this Dibs mascara that lasts all day and goes on so easily (get a discount with code AMYODELL). I also walked around Manhattan all day in these highly comfortable flat Margaux sandals.

• If you work from home like me, make your own coffee every day, and enjoy coffee subscriptions, Trade sells special cold brew-optimized beans and currently offers a discount.

And now, onto the recap!

'And Just Like That' Season 3 Episode 11 Recap: The Woman Has Real Estate Issues

We have one more episode of And Just Like That left. Though I am among the many who are hate-watching it, I’ll be kind of sad when it ends. (Even though I totally don’t trust this team to stay away from the franchise if HBO Max or another streamer throws gobs of money at them to kick it back up again.) I got pleasantly used to turning off my better judgment each week to settle in for 30 to 45 (!) minutes of Carrie and her gals doing various versions of nothing. I might even miss cringe-y Aidan the way I kind of missed messy Che after their drama was replaced with stable Joy and her well-behaved dogs.

I think this sadness points to a dearth of female-focused, fashion-oriented shows. While sports content explodes on streamers, those of us who just want to watch shoe-obsessed women talk about their dates over French toast simply don’t have that many options.

That said, these characters are really running out of things to talk about, because this episode was about little more than Carrie’s feelings about real estate. The writers have added more depth to Carrie's relationship to real estate than maybe any other relationship on this show.

Ahead, your character-by-character recap — our second-to-last!

Carrie

For an episode that came in at under 30 minutes, a significant portion was allocated to Carrie ordering Thanksgiving pies. Basically nothing happened to Carrie this episode except… she ordered too many pies and longed for her old apartment. This show cannot end with Carrie’s one true love being that apartment. She walks down her old street while talking on the phone to Miranda about all the pies she ordered, cradling one of those giant clutch bags that’s kind of like a baby but could double as a murder weapon. She encounters Lisette, she of curly bangs, wearing a particularly garish gold jacket with furry trim. Lisette invites her to a pre-Thanksgiving party, then nostalgic music plays while Carrie cuddles her pillow-sized bag and stares longingly at her old stoop.

She later visits her editor in her gorgeous office to talk about her manuscript. Her editor tells her it’s “fan-fucking-tastic” and asks when she’s going to get the last chapter. A flash of offense crosses Carrie’s expression — Duncan Reeves would have built an effigy for his personal Carrie Bradshaw worship after reading her ending. But her editor is a “happy ending gal” and doesn’t want this woman, who lives in the year 1846, to end up alone.

Over drinks with Seema, Carrie confesses to feeling afraid of going to Lisette’s party, not because it seems destined to be full of Upper East Side hipsters, but because it’s in her old building. And Seema, god bless, asks if she’s afraid “to see what a dump you lived in”? She asks Carrie if she wants to buy Duncan’s Harry Potter apartment under her stairs because he’s not renewing his lease and the owners want to sell. Sad about Duncan, Carrie lashes out at Seema, who explains she thinks Carrie should own the basement for re-sale value. Carrie should also renovate her kitchen for re-sale value, but maybe inordinate time will be devoted to that in the series finale, because what else is there to talk about?

Carrie goes to Lisette’s party, which is in her old place because Lisette lives there now. She’s erected a wall to create a separate living space for Ezekiel, her roommate, but Lisette got the closet. Carrie passes through it wistfully as Ezekiel passes out turkey tacos.

At home, Carrie sits down to write an epilogue about men who return to New York City. Really, she should follow Duncan to London and leave her boring, superficial friends behind, but that seems unlikely. At least her amazing house has furniture now?

Charlotte

Charlotte spends the entire episode doing one of two things: listening to Harry talk about his inability to get an erection, or longing for Rock to be more gender-conformist and appearance-oriented.

Harry cracks a joke about how polishing the silverware for Thanksgiving would be fine with him because he’d be rubbing something hard that stays hard — unlike his dick. He complains about going to Miranda’s for the holiday because he fears she makes her stuffing with white bread. Charlotte says she’s making the stuffing with focaccia and oysters and sage like she always does. When Rock enters the room wearing her Thoroughly Modern Millie costume, looking feminine, sappy music plays and Charlotte practically cries at how happy she is that her kid is so conventionally attractive. She later tells Carrie and Miranda that Rock looks “so grown-up and so pretty, but I don’t know if I’m allowed to say that.”

At the play, Charlotte practically tears up at how pretty Rock looks as she asks Carrie to take a photo because Rock asked her not to. Later, she has to hear Harry talk about looking at porn fruitlessly on his iPad and whimpers over photos of Rock in the play. So instead of being proud of her child for their talent, Charlotte is seemingly just relieved that they are beautiful when conforming to feminine gender norms.

Miranda

Miranda and Brady have a big fight because Miranda has invited Mia, about to give birth to Brady’s child, to Thanksgiving. Joy is made deeply uncomfortable by the fight and seeing all of Miranda’s baggage laid bare and broad before her like a lost luggage office at the airport.

Seema

Seema and Adam tell each other they love each other in the shower. Adam asks Seema to meet his sister. Seema is so smitten she agrees to go to their gluten-free, vegan Thanksgiving where everyone will probably have BO.

LTW

LTW spends the episode dealing with Herbert’s dejection over losing the election. Given he has all the appeal as a human being as one of Anthony’s bakery items, it’s not surprising to hear he lost by more than 7 points to, as one of the moms tells him at the school play, “a community activist in bad shoes.”

At home in the morning, LTW wears one of her fabulous outfits that makes her look like an inkblot in a cape, while Herbert sits next to a window wearing an overpriced sweater hoodie. He tells her he can’t bear going to the office because he lost and it’s so embarrassing, and she she swans off to her editing suite with dreamy Marion. Please, writers, make a bold choice and have her leave Herbert before we wrap all of this up!

Giuseppe and Anthony

Still struggling to feel invested in this relationship? So is Anthony. After Giuseppe proposes to him in the Bergdorf dressing room, where Anthony is trying to buy him a Lanvin sweater — because what says love if not designer knitwear? — Anthony confesses to Carrie that he’s having second thoughts. There’s still time for the writers to have Giuseppe leave Anthony and go running back to his strange mother.

Get Gwyneth

If you can, pop down to your local independent book store to grab a copy there.

And if you read and liked the book, I would be grateful for your five-star Amazon reviews!

A housekeeping note: I am sorry that I missed sending a recap of the ninth episode of And Just Like That. Between parenting duties and launching Gwyneth this week, I was unable to complete it, but am combining episodes nine and ten in today’s newsletter. I will be back to Back Row’s regular publishing schedule next week.

Loose Threads

• The fallout from the American Eagle ad campaign with Sydney Sweeney has become so utterly insane that J.D. Vance even weighed in. Vulture had a great take on it all, in what felt like a bottomless vat of takes.

• LVMH’s second-quarter fashion and leather goods sales declined 9 percent. CFO Cécile Cabanis told the Financial Times that Louis Vuitton outperformed the division’s average but that Dior came in “a little below.” No pressure, Jonathan Anderson!

• Hermès’s second-quarter sales increased 9 percent overall. However, while leather goods sales were strong, growth was weaker in fashion and silks and sales contracted in perfume and beauty, which investors don’t love.

• Thank you to for doing a Q&A with me about Gwyneth: The Biography! Heather and Jessica highlighted one of my favorite moments from the book, which is when Gwyneth is flying coach as a child and says, “You mean we’re not flying first class — we’re flying no class?!”

• Dibs Beauty makes just about the only color cosmetics I wear. (I love the eyeshadow palettes, lip gloss, and this blush/bronzer stick.) The brand just launched mascara that I’ve been wearing since I got a sample a few weeks ago and it is SO good — easy to apply and doesn’t transfer. Dibs is offering 15 percent off to Back Row readers with the code AMYODELL in honor of the launch. Enjoy!

• If you have August trips planned and need tiny travel hair stuff, R+Co is having a 20 percent off summer sale and has mini versions of just about everything, including volume spray, anti-humidity spray, and dry texture spray in this oddly enchanting purple bottle.

'And Just Like That' Season 3 Episodes 9 and 10 Recap: Aidan: Fin?

Showrunner Michael Patrick King just released a statement that this is the last season of And Just Like That, which will end with a two-part series finale. Apparently the season is a gratuitous 12 episodes instead of 10 because they’re wrapping all this up. Packing up their bags. Breaking up the band.

Serious question: Do we believe him? We thought the show had ended, then we got a movie. We thought that was the end, then got another movie. We thought THAT was the end, then got And Just Like That, which was renewed twice. It all kind of smells like Anna Wintour stepping back from American Vogue to hire a head of editorial content — leaving, but not, like, LEAVING leaving.

Whatever happens with this show, I’m glad Carrie has moved on from Aidan, whose drunken masturbation, family drama, and bad attitude feel like something we all survived this season.

Ahead, your character-by-character recap.

Carrie

Carrie opens episode nine wearing a high-fashion trad wife getup that was sort of giving “Disney character milking cows before she marries a prince.”

Aidan fears that prince is not him, but rather Duncan Reeves. Thus begins a dramatic mating ritual in which he competes with Duncan for Carrie’s attention.

Read more

• Anne Hathaway looked GREAT filming the Devil Wears Prada 2, including in the one shot where she was wearing a denim maxi skirt. This crew better hurry up before any more Anna Wintour-related shakeups unfold at Condé!

• The New York Times reports that the “bag of the summer” is a BAB which stands for Big Ass Bag. Back Row partner Ssense offers many, including this $550 black APC style, this $650 Hereu tote, and this woven raffia rag & bone tote, on sale for $182.

• If you plan on going backless this summer, Cakes Body is having a sale on boob stickies through July 31. They have grippy styles, adhesive styles, and a push-up style.

• Lauren Sánchez stepped out in Positano carrying a Dior minibag that is no longer in stores but used to retail for $15,000. I can’t quite tell if it would even fit a case-less iPhone.

And now, onto the And Just Like That recap…

'And Just Like That' Season 3 Episode 8 Recap: Loving Papaya and Hating Deodorant

Another week, another chance for And Just Like That to beat us over the head with metaphors more transparent than Saran Wrap. We have LTW bringing Harry macadamia nuts as a gift following his prostate cancer surgery and LTW being undone by her hot editor Marion slurping papaya during their lunch break. We also have Charlotte’s art exhibit, featuring women lying in bed in varying states of put-togetherness.

What does it all add up to? I’m rooting for one of these broads to have an affair — even if Miranda gets messy and ends up going back to Che. Sarah Jessica Parker hinted on Watch What Happens Live with her bestie Andy Cohen that Carrie might end up back at her old apartment. I could see the season ending with her kissing Duncan Reeves and deciding that she can’t handle having a hot biographer living under her stairs, and retreating to her sad old place where her cat can’t have its own room and she has to store sweaters in her oven. Even though her new place is completely ridiculous, something feels wrong about Carrie being so rich and living in the old apartment. At the same time, that scenario is so illogical that it would make sense for this show.

Ahead, Back Row’s character-by-character recap.

Carrie

Carrie still finds herself betwixt hottie British biographer Duncan Reeves and cringe pickup truck masturbator Aidan Shaw. Duncan lavishes her writing with praise in a way that Aidan never has. Carrie rewards him by laying a purple carpet runner on her stairs to dampen the sound of the high heels she enjoys clomping around in in the comfort of her home. Meanwhile, she can’t be bothered to give Aidan any of her closet space when he comes to stay for an extended period of time. When he pushes her clothes aside, she says, “I don’t like horror movies!” Then shoves him into the cat’s room with a small closet with plastic hangers.

So many times during this series, we have asked ourselves, What on earth Carrie is wearing? But perhaps at no point in the show was that collective questioning as loud as when she was in her closet, in this bizarre shorts romper.

This is what she wears around her house casually when she’s not wearing heels. This!

In bed with Aidan after doing it, he says he wants food. Since Miranda ate it all, she has none. Then Aidan reveals the reason he gets to stay with her for longer than a weekend is because his son Wyatt has decided he wants to live with his ex-wife Kathy instead of him. Carrie asks why, and Aidan says he doesn’t know, Wyatt just loves her more. (Same, really.) Carrie is like, hey, it’s kind of weird you didn’t tell me about this incredibly major life development sooner! But then quickly turns her focus back to more important matters like her outfits.

Now that he has no kid at home to worry about and can clue into Carrie’s life more, we see Aidan’s jealousy over Duncan rev up. He suggests they invite “Dunkin’ Donuts” to dinner but Carrie says no, she barely knows him anyway, it’s not like she’s gazed deeply into his eyes over a casual dinner of venison stew or anything. Later, Aidan asks Carrie’s gardener Adam about the “cat who lives under Carrie.” And Adam — ever articulate — says he’s “a meanie.” That’s because Adam didn’t divine the sentence, “The woman wondered what she had gotten herself into.” Then Duncan Reeves would have treated him like a god.

Carrie ends the episode typing in a normal font (Arial, what a relief): “After what seemed like forever, the women felt happiness had arrived at her doorstop.” Me too, in part because this episode was only 35 minutes.

LTW

LTW confesses to Charlotte that she had an explicit sex dream about her editor Marion. It involved a farm where vegetables were growing. She claims she has a great sex life with Herbert, who has the personality of one of Anthony’s bread loaves. Charlotte says that sex dreams are fine, even she has them. She says flirting with coworkers at work — with she odiously names “flirking” (flirting + working) — is also fine. She does it with the guys who hang things at the gallery — who doesn’t?!

Later, we are subjected to a cringe scene where LTW tries to engage in morning sex and says, “Put it in me.” Herbert says he has to pee because, “It’s early, you know?” Contrast this with Lisa on her lunch break at work with Marion, who’s sexually eating papaya, his favorite fruit. “I love papaya,” he says to a transfixed LTW who insists she’s fine with her dry, crouton-less salad — a salad as charisma-less as her husband.

Marion tells her to come to a screening of a documentary that was produced by the Obamas because one of their development executives will be there, and he can introduce her. LTW at first says she can’t because of Charlotte’s gallery opening, but then changes her mind. At home, she tells her family she didn’t get the pink seltzer her daughter likes because she has to go to this movie screening. I struggle to imagine a New York family as well situated as LTW and Herbert who would not have hired help to run errands for them so she doesn’t have to. What does feel real is that Herbert would expect anyone other than him to procure an item for one of their children.

During the screening, Marion’s leg touches LTW’s leg, and she rushes from the theater like she just learned Aidan is messing with her closet, too. But since there are hardly any stakes in this show, she gets to talk to the Obama producer anyway later on Marion’s phone.

Miranda

Joy shows up to Miranda’s new apartment with a bottle of gin only Canada sells and asks to keep it in Miranda’s cabinet. If she likes gin that much and it’s that good, wouldn’t she want it for her own place? Anyway, we learn Miranda hasn’t had the conversation with Joy about how she doesn’t drink because she’s an alcoholic. The bottle of gin causes Miranda to wonder if she can handle a little booze here and there. At Charlotte’s gallery opening, she says maybe she’s “alcoholish,” and then holds a glass of champagne, alarming Charlotte. Back at her apartment, she works while watching that terrible reality show, the gin beckoning sensually to her from within the cupboard like Duncan under Carrie’s stairs. This is the most Cynthia Nixon has had to do, as an actor, so far this season. After she eats a spon con Pepperidge Farm cookie, she pours the gin into a glass, smells it, then dumps it out and throws the entire bottle down the garbage shoot in the hallway.

Charlotte

Charlotte spends the whole episode tending to her loved ones and her gallery opening. She cares for Harry at home after his surgery; overseas the injection of fake semen into a condom for the art installation; assures LTW that it’s alright for her to have the hots for Marion; and tries to keep Miranda from falling off the wagon. She is rewarded with vertigo that causes her to collapse at her own opening. Who will be there to care for Charlotte if, god forbid, this is foreshadowing her coming down with a major illness? Not her narcissistic friends, that’s for sure!

Seema

Seema wins for most ridiculous storyline of the season, which is really saying something! She’s now in a full-on situationship with Adam, the Vogue-endorsed gardener. We see them doing it, then Seema chuckles and says she’s “never laughed after sex.” As though to ensure that doesn’t last long, Adam then aggressively — disturbingly — nuzzles her armpit with his full face.

Later, they go to dinner where they see a woman sitting in a nearby booth applying deodorant so obviously she could have been filming a TikTok deodorant ad. Because how else would the writers bring up the topic of him not wearing deodorant? There was no other way!

Wearing a necklace and brown dress shirt, Adam talks about how he doesn’t use deodorant, he uses a rock crystal. Seema (good woman) says, “You should have told me about this crystal shit before we even got involved.” At the art opening, Seema looks at the naked woman on the floor mattress and says, “See, this would be my life if I stopped wearing deodorant.”

Next week, Seema goes “from WeWork to she work.”

Speaking of going from WeWork to she work… you know who literally did exactly that? Gwyneth Paltrow! Whose company Goop was once housed in an L.A. WeWork. Read all about it in my soon-to-be-published book Gwyneth: The Biography, which People called a “bombshell” book (not because of the WeWork, because of other reporting relating to Madonna, Winona Ryder, Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck, and more). I would be so, so appreciative of your pre-orders! The book is out July 29, and every single sale helps authors like me immensely. If you can, head on down to your local indie book store and preorder a copy there.

Pre-Order GWYNETH

• and I shared our thoughts on this week’s couture shows, a few designer debuts, Anna Wintour stepping back as Vogue’s editor-in-chief, and those crazy rumors about Bezos buying the magazine in a Substack Live. You can listen to the audio for free as a podcast if you prefer. (My review of Jonathan Anderson’s men’s debut for Dior is here.)

• Speaking of wild Anna rumors, I attempted to cut through the noise in a story answering eight questions about her role change.

• Today’s And Just Like That recap discusses Harry’s personal shopper from Bergdorf Goodman. Here’s an exclusive story on what it’s really like to work in that job.

• I’ll talk more about the record-setting auction of the original Birkin next week, but if you want to join the discussion now, I started a chat thread that’s open to all readers.

Today’s issue is free, but if you haven’t yet, you can go paid to read all of these stories and more.

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And now, recap time!

I had forgotten that Lisa Todd Wexley talked about her dead father in season one of And Just Like That. After her dad died in last week’s episode, what looked like the embarrassing continuity error of her father dying TWICE went viral. At first, some viewers I chat with regularly wondered if she actually had gay dads. It’s a fair theory, but I have a hard time imagining this show would give a character gay parents without beating us over the head with that choice at every turn. Then, a “source close to the series” started back-channeling with outlets like IndieWire and Entertainment Weekly, who rushed to inform their readers that the first death was LTW’s step-dad. Nothing to see here!

Is anyone buying that? I think fans would have respected a named source from the show coming clean and saying they messed up — different people come in and out of the writers’ room, and they made a mistake, etc. Sarah Jessica Parker has already admitted she’s never seen the show, so really, what’s the harm in admitting that others haven’t? Or, they can just own that this show is operating in a plane of reality as warped as its home network, HBO / Max / HBO Max. If HBO can die and came back to life, why can’t Lisa’s dad, you know?

Emma Rosenblum, author of the forthcoming novel Mean Moms, about a group of wealthy forty-something women whose kids attend the same elite private school in Manhattan, pointed out to me that the show has other continuity issues. Like Charlotte’s daughter Lily, who was adopted as an infant in the Sex and the City series finale that aired in February 2004, but is, Rosenblum said, “the eternal high school junior” instead of off at college.

Rosenblum’s book (an advance copy of which I’ve been highly enjoying) chronicles slightly younger characters, but documents a similarly wealthy milieu to the one And Just Like That seems to be trying to capture. The details in her book read as much more true to me than those in this show, so I was curious to get her take on the strange world of And Just Like That. “The fashion is so off. It's so peacock,” said Rosenblum, who pointed out that quiet luxury is still in vogue with wealthy Upper East Side Moms. “No logos, though everything is obviously the finest cashmere, like Loro Piana.” The women always had some out-there fashion moments in Sex and the City, but not like this: “If you look back at the early seasons and you see what they're wearing, there is a semblance of how people actually used to dress.”

The wealth the writers have given these characters has likely contributed to the rut of boredom they can’t seem to climb out of. Money “takes a lot of conflict out of life,” noted Rosenblum. The idea that Seema’s walking-around cash would evaporate once she leaves her firm, if she were one of the most successful realtors in the city, also makes no sense. (Rosenblum: “Realtors work on commission!”)

Also, the show simply fails to capture New York City the way it used to. Rosenblum has seen the And Just Like That crew filming in the Upper East Side. These sets have “become a circus,” she said, and wondered if it was simply logistically more challenging to shoot around Manhattan these days. Whatever the reason may be, the show has abdicated its position as America’s cupcake kingmaker. It hasn’t anointed the next Magnolia Bakery, to say nothing of the next Pastis or the next Manolo Blahnik. “The Instagram food scene in New York is bigger than ever,” said Rosenblum, who would expect to see them at Carbone or Chez Fifi.

Finally, Rosenblum — who doesn’t think the show will kill off Harry — wondered about Carrie and the Tums. “Is she going to be ill? Is that the only direction that they can figure out how to go with these people? Like, ‘Oh, let's give them cancer.’” I thought it was just product placement, but now I, a woman, am wondering.

Ahead, the character-by-character recap of episode seven.

Carrie (and Duncan)

We open with Carrie knocking on Duncan’s door to tell him his first chapter about Margaret Thatcher is “thrilling” and, “I hate you.” She overlooks his nasty pipe-smoking habit. Next thing we know, she and the gals are back at the bulge bakery — their main place of recreation given that, bizarrely, no one in this version of New York exercises or owns a tight brown Alo Yoga set for power walks. Carrie befriends Giuseppe’s mom Gia, who hates Anthony seemingly for his appearance.

Carrie and Miranda leave the bakery together, and Miranda asks what’s going on with Charlotte. Unable to divulge that Harry has prostate cancer, Carrie lies and says Charlotte’s dog Richard Burton has terminal cancer. They decide to throw Charlotte a lavish birthday party in Carrie’s furniture-free house to cheer her up.

Whilst playing with her clothes at home, Carrie receives a call from Anthony, who’s on a bread-resembling landline a tween girl might have had in her room in the nineties. He wants to complain about Gia, and Carrie says she’s going to lunch with her. Cut to the lunch at the fanciest imagineable type of restaurant. Carrie listens to Gia momsplain to her how to manage step-kids. Her cartoon meal consists of a few leaves of bone-dry lettuce where there should have been some type of pretentious carpaccio blanketed in foam, garnished with tweezer-placed caviar.

Carrie gets Duncan to attend Charlotte’s ridiculous birthday party, and he tells her he’s read her first chapter. He raves over the opening sentence to her book, “The woman wondered what she had gotten herself into.” You know this man is really horny because he falls all over himself telling Carrie how brilliant that sentence was (“just stopped me dead in my tracks”).

Duncan shows up to the party wearing a nice-looking dark green shirt and khakis that read more as stylish than “man going to office.” I like her curls, but I loved Carrie’s straight har in her party look, which (good job, showrunners) included a faint bustle in the back. With the sparkle stickers on her chest, it was most certainly a triumph of tacky.

The party scene included a charming moment where Carrie is relatably mortified by the scene of Charlotte opening her gifts. Duncan shoos her outside to tell her again how much he liked her pages, and how even as a period novel it was “anchored in this completely grounded and beautifully detailed tableau” and that “the woman — she’s vibrant and she’s completely alive.” Compliments so non-specific that, if I were Carrie, I’d wonder if he read anything but the first sentence. But the writers are at least drawing a contrast between Duncan, a literate man, and Aidan, who probably reads little more than Garfield comics.

After the party wraps up, Miranda is eating a piece of pink cake in the kitchen while she tells Carrie how easy she finds her relationship with Joy. Carrie bristles since Miranda is trying to tell her that Aidan isn’t worth it — which he’s not. This was another moment that felt, finally, real. It’s hard to imagine friends being so close that Harry gathers them together to tell them about his cancer, yet they don’t tell their ringleader that her boyfriend is not treating her well.

Miranda also reveals that she read some of Carrie’s first chapter, and asks Carrie if the woman is based on her. “What are you REALLY saying?” Carrie asks. “The woman wondered what she had gotten herself into,” Miranda says. This was a cutting and great answer and, hot damn, the same question we all ask ourselves when we sit down for this show, week after week.

Miranda

Though it felt true to Miranda’s character that she would tell Carrie that Aidan is about as useful as a clogged toilet, so much about the rest of this Miranda felt insane. Would she be that distraught over Charlotte’s dog having cancer? Would she show up to Carrie’s house wearing a one-shoulder silver jumpsuit with platform heels and a karaoke machine, saying, “Did someone order fun?” Only to add, “Nothing says all-out like balloons and karaoke!”? Also, I appreciate that her son Brady is a good guy who takes out the trash for Carrie, who insists on wearing high heels her every waking second, but didn’t he used to have a personality?

Charlotte

Naturally, as Charlotte continues to fall apart over not being able to talk about Harry’s cancer with her friends, he decides the way to make her feel better is to go to Bergdorf to buy her an expensive handbag. Why communicate with another person when you can just spend money on them?

Related:

Charlotte swings by Bergdorf to get Lily something to make her feel better after her boyfriend breaks up with her, and spots Harry. Harry tries to hide from her because he doesn’t want her to know about Bonnie, his Schiaparelli-accessorized personal shopper. Apparently Bonnie picked out the blouse Charlotte wears. Why Harry would be hiding Bonnie makes no sense — would Charlotte be offended that he went to the trouble of finding someone with taste to tell him how to allocate his money on her designer wardrobe? It seems more likely that they would both use the same personal shopper since someone like Charlotte, who makes elaborate charcuterie boards on weeknights and has something resembling a job now, most certainly wouldn’t be physically going to Bergdorf on a random afternoon, but rather ordering and having things delivered.

At her birthday party, there’s a great moment where her younger gallery colleagues realize they should have brought gifts, though only one of them did. When two of them ask to put their names on the present, the one who brought it says she can’t put three names on a re-gifted $40 candle.

Seema

Seema may be facing financial ruin, but she still has enough money to get her eyelashes done. After that leads to an infection, she shows up to the birthday party from everyone’s nightmares wearing a Louis Vuitton eyepatch. Carrie’s gardener, who’s been eye-fucking Seema for several episodes now, is at the party, wearing the same “in it to win it” T-shirt he had on during the day (to do yard work?). Seema is so seduced by his karaoke performance of “Bette Davis Eyes” that she ends up making out with him in a taxi at the end of the episode.

LTW

Having suffered the indignity of losing her dad for the second time, the writers basically hid LTW away this episode. She emerges at the party wearing sleeves that are attached to her dress, making big circles when she puts her arms out. They should have cut Brady’s lines and had the gals bring their dogs to the party to jump through LTW’s dress holes. Then the woman really would have wondered what she’d gotten herself into.

And Just Like That recaps are available in full to paid subscribers. Check out the complete recap archive here.

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Also for paid subscribers: I’ve started a thread in the Back Row chat about who could replace Anna Wintour at Vogue. Please head over there and chime in! I’ll have more Anna coverage for paid subscribers this week.

Owing to significant news, including Anna Wintour’s step back from oversight of American Vogue and Jonathan Anderson’s debut at Dior, I did not get to recapping the fifth episode of And Just Like That. However, given that so little happens on this show and that many of us are probably mostly hate-watching it at this point, I figured it would be fine to lump two episodes together. We are now halfway through a 12-episode season!

In the course of the last two episodes, the show seldom veered from reducing these women to their shoes and expensive apartments, continuing the impressive feat of making Emily in Paris look downright Shakespearean. Why Sarah Jessica Parker is allowing this show to be a pox on her legacy, I cannot understand. But I fear we’re heading toward an inevitable moment where Carrie must choose between Duncan and Aidan in order to tee up — I’m afraid to even type it — a fourth season. HBO, it’s okay — you can put this show out of its misery and just have her choose Duncan!

Let’s take a look, character by character.

Carrie

Carrie apparently loves wearing high heels in the (dis)comfort of her home. When she is alone in her still-empty place, she walks all over in high heels like a one-woman fashion show. I guess this was the writers’ way of giving us gratuitous shoe porn, because apparently they write around outfits (maybe not the best way to produce compelling material, as it turns out!). But even in the interest of promoting shoe ogling, it was a perplexing array of maximalist heels, including white over-the-knee boots, as though the whole minimalist/Phoebe Philo/stealth wealth moment never occurred in the imagined universe of this show… even though it chronicles people who are obsessed with fashion.

Apparently, Carrie’s clomping disturbs the grown Harry Potter living under her stairs: Duncan Reeves, a world-famous biographer. Carrie, despite working as a famous writer herself, seems never to have heard of him. He confronts her in a collarless shirt and cardigan because And Just Like That’s men are allowed to be comfortable. Carrie refuses to abate the clomping because high heels are basically her entire personality. That the And Just Like That Instagram account memed this line as though it is iconic shows you just how bizarrely out of touch this version of Carrie has become.

Carrie then attempts to placate Duncan with a gift basket of local foods. He tells her he comes to New York to write, not to learn about local anything. Carrie is appalled when Duncan attempts to give her what Carrie calls “nursing home” slippers from Amazon. Rather than not wear her heels in her home, she goes through the effort of laying down the ugliest brown carpet runners you’ve ever seen and then makes an elaborate show of having her heeled friends walk on those instead of the wood.

At which point, we must pause and ask: who is this woman? Who buys brown carpet runners to appease a man she dislikes so she can wear painful-looking shoes in her own home when no one is around?

I asked ChatGPT and it bristled at the query:

Carrie texts Samantha, who lives in London, to ask if she knows anything about Duncan. Samantha says “he’s a lot of fun.” There’s a predictable joke about him living under Carrie but Samantha wishing he were under her. His sex appeal validated, Carrie takes her rage out not on Duncan for trying to tell her how to live her life, but Miranda, who stays with her after getting tired of the heavy metal blasted by a naked man living next to her Airbnb. Carrie snaps at her for spilling a Coke on the table Aidan ended up ordering her from First Dibs after disparaging it, and for eating her yogurt and banana. If she loves walking in her heels so much, needing yogurt and a banana present the perfect opportunity for her to leave her house wearing vintage shoe booties and a ballgown.

Carrie ends up at dinner with Duncan, where she says she’s writing a novel, and he says he’s writing about Margaret Thatcher, but he’s worried about whether or not readers will “accept a woman” from him. Later, over mutton stew in his basement apartment, they agree to read each other’s first chapters. She then recounts this meal to Aidan over the phone, while he combs his thin wet hair into whatever the opposite of a cunty little bob is. Clearly jealous of Duncan (“like the donuts,” he odiously quips) he shares that he’s coming to visit because Wyatt’s going to Wyoming for a troubled-kid wilderness program.

When Aidan arrives, he tries to be cute and throw a stone at her window like he used to, but he ends up shattering it, such is Aidan’s usefulness in all ways now. Only then, surrounded by shards of glass, is Carrie finally barefoot in her own home. He’s like, “Why aren’t you wearing shoes?” and Carrie admits it’s because of Duncan. Aidan wants to go to Scranton the next day to find vintage French doors to replace the one he broke, but Carrie can’t because she has an influencer event at Tiffany’s. The brand mention and shot of her and Charlotte walking around the first floor of the Fifth Avenue flagship had to have been paid placement, along with the Tums she starts her day with. If the writers want to have any fun (alas), they’ll have her at a Tums influencer event in the next episode.

After the Tiffany event, Aidan tells Carrie he slept with Kathy and that it was a mistake he wouldn’t make again. Carrie doesn’t seem to care all that much because she figured they were in an open situationship. Then, they’re passionately embracing in bed and Aidan rounds out his time in New York by wearing a cheap suit to LTW’s dad’s funeral that splits along the crotch when he sits down. He can’t help but be absolutely not hot at every turn.

Charlotte

Charlotte learns while carrying a purse with her dog’s face on it that Harry has prostate cancer, but he asks her not to tell anyone because he doesn’t “want to be the cancer guy.” This would maybe beat being the “pants-wetting guy”? Charlotte says she’ll quit her job to care for him, and he tells her no. She even offers to cancel their weekend Governor’s Island glamping trip, but Harry insists they go even though their kids (understandably, I’d argue) have no interest in spending a night in a tent on Governor’s Island. Charlotte is clearly being wrenched apart inside by Harry’s diagnosis, but keeps her promise to Harry and doesn’t tell her friends. When she bumps into that woman Mitsy, who this show just can’t quit but needs to like a smoking habit, at Memorial Sloan Kettering where Harry has an appointment, she’s wearing what one assumes is her depressed dress: a minimalist (for her) denim sleeveless wrap that actually becomes her nicely! Mitsy asks her who she knows with cancer, and Charlotte lies and says she’s there to volunteer.

Harry decides to have surgery instead of radiation and Charlotte goes downtown to buy male Depends (another brand activation Carrie could hit). Because in this imagined universe, where every fashion-inclined woman rejects minimalism, no one but Duncan uses Amazon and Charlotte travels to Gramercy to hit a CVS where no one would see her. Only, she bumps into Carrie and comes clean about Harry’s diagnosis and her fear that, unlike this show, he’s going to die.

LTW

Lisa shows up to the Governor’s Island glamping trip that only she and Charlotte wanted to do with her arms in the air like a Kardashian riding a gondola at the Jeff Bezos-Lauren Sánchez wedding. She admits to Charlotte at the spa that she has a crush on her new editor, Marion. In the next episode, she puts her phone on do not disturb when she’s working with him, even though moms don’t ever do that. The writers, instead of making the point that this is fine for moms to do, decide to have Herbert show up to her editing suite to tell her that her father has died and she may have missed the chance to say goodbye to him because her phone was on silent. So there you go, mothers who watch this show: silenting your phone and ignoring your family is, according to this program, one of the worst things you can do.

LTW then finds herself at odds with the woman who ran her dad’s theater and who sent an invitation to his funeral before LTW could get to it. The seemingly purposeless conflict easily resolves, and then LTW finds herself unable to deliver a eulogy, but very able to dress her and her daughter in dramatic structured black suiting.

Miranda

Cynthia Nixon really drew the short straw this season. So far over these six episodes, all her character has really done is watch a reality TV show, eat guacamole, go slightly viral for saying “wild cunt,” and start a relationship with the sane-seeming Joy. After getting berated by Carrie for wandering her apartment naked and eating her snacks, she enlists Seema to help her find a new place. Seema tells her to spend $150,000 over asking on a spacious, gorgeously furnished apartment, and Miranda at first says no out of principle. But because this show is little more than wealth porn now, it’s not long before she blithely agrees and offers to throw in extra for furniture, like it’s springing for one more baguette at Anthony’s bulge-themed bakery.

Seema

Seema tries and fails to secure a loan from a bank for an office for her new real estate firm. Then, because she’s out of a job, she has to let go of her brown Mercedes and driver, which is what qualifies as an emotional arc. I stopped expecting anyone’s finances to make remote sense on this show, but her inability to afford her car and driver did not add up, did it? If she was one of the most successful realtors in the city, that would make her pretty rich, no? Also, what happened to the idea of her banging Carrie’s gardener? If she can’t have her company or her car, and has to utter lines like “I work in real estate — not unreal estate,” can’t she at least have that?

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“Loose Threads” will return next week.

We’re one one-third of the way through the third season of And Just Like That and the plot is finally kind of advancing — albeit at the pace of that ATV Carrie had to ride to the dress shop. Yes, I typed “one-third” because this season spans a whole 12 (!) episodes. That helps explain why the story has felt dragged out. The first season had 10 episodes, the second 11, and this season will have an astonishing one dozen — the number of eggs Aidan probably makes his son Wyatt collect each morning from the chickens that live on the guest house stairs so that he doesn’t go to the mall to play virtual reality zombie games. I realize this show is one of the most popular on Max, but still — editing is a dying art.

While the writers have been determined to make the recurring men on this show as cringe as possible, they finally introduced one who isn’t embarrassing to watch at every turn: LTW’s new editor, played by Mehcad Brooks, a relief for the universe these characters occupy. (Maybe there’s hope for Charlotte’s daughter Lily yet if she, too, wants to have relationships with men.)

This week, I’m doing the recap couple by couple.

Carrie and Aidan

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Yesterday, I announced my next book, Gwyneth: The Biography. Thank you all so much for your kind comments, supportive messages, and pre-orders! If you live in the U.S., I would be so grateful if you pre-ordered the book here. If you are in the U.K. you can pre-order the book here:

Pre-order Gwyneth in the U.K.

I can’t say THANK YOU enough for all your support. And now, let’s deal with And Just Like That. (You can find Back Row’s full recap archive here.)

“Loose Threads” will return next week.

Before we get into the third episode of And Just Like That season three, we need to address Sarah Jessica Parker’s Howard Stern interview.

Credit is due to Stern who, no matter what you think of him, did his homework, which was watching And Just Like That carefully enough to notice Aidan licking his hand in the scene where he’s in a truck in a Virginian field getting drunk alone and trying to have phone sex with Carrie. Also, Stern seemed to have taken the show seriously versus dismissing it as a recycled, Samantha-less abomination that’s basically on the streaming version of life support.

Anyway, here’s a transcript of the exchange based on Ryinskott’s Instagram edit of all the bits of this line of questioning (which is nothing short of remarkable to watch).

Howard Stern: There’s such a weird moment where he [Aidan]’s having phone sex with you, and he’s about to play with himself when he’s talking to you, and he licks his hand.

Sarah Jessica Parker: I’m sorry, what?

HS: He takes his tongue, and he starts licking his hand, and then he plays with his penis. Did you know he did that in that scene, because you probably filmed it — have you seen this scene at all?

SJP: No, I have not seen that.

HS: Is that really true? You really have not seen it?

SJP: I have not seen it, no.

HS: I’m shocked.

SJP: I can’t comment on that, my lawyer has advised me not to comment.

HS: Really, is that true?

SJP: No, I mean, I have no attorney weighing in.

HS: No, I mean is it true that you really have no knowledge of it? This is a crazy scene.

SJP: I have no knowledge. I haven’t seen most of Sex and the City ever, and I haven’t seen And Just Like That. Every now and then, Michael Patrick [King, who’s credited as a producer, director and writer] will say to me, “Please watch episode” — you know, um, so I don’t know. This is the first I’m hearing about that.

HS: It’s CRAZY. Because, as a man, I got — I was like, why is Aidan licking his hand? I have been known to do this — not lick my hand, I’ve been known to masturbate.

SJP: [Laughs uncomfortably.]

HS: I don’t lick my hand. I was really shocked and I felt your character would have been insulted because, like, what are you licking your hand dude? It’s gross.

SJP: Wow.

HS: It’s a very — it’s a big deal to me.

SJP: Wow. Is he in a truck?

HS: Yes. He’s in the truck, he zips his pants and then he licks his hand and then he starts playing with himself.

SJP: [More uncomfortable laughter.] You’ve gotta stop saying that, you’ve gotta stop saying that.

HS: Why? You — listen, you’ve been around the block. You know what’s happening.

SJP: What does that mean — been around the block?

HS: You’re not an innocent. Are you uncomfortable talking about men’s masturbation?

SJP: [With head in hand.] I don’t even recall that I’ve ever discussed it my entire life.

HS: [Gleeful laughter.] Buy some lube. If you’re that dry down there. Don’t spit in your hand. It was hideous.

SJP: This is how we’re gonna end things. Oh, you bring it full circle.

It was hideous. That scene was so cringe that it has colored the entire show. And Just Like That could have been your average ambient television viewing experience — empty, but with some FASHUNS — but instead, it’s become a grotesque psychograph of cringe. I can’t look at Aidan, played by John Corbett, and think of anything but how unappealing he is, and that scene is 100 percent to blame.

As for SJP never seeing And Just Like That or much of Sex and the City…

Girl, with long-held affection and all due respect: what are you doing?? We are paying to watch this show, you are getting paid handsomely to make the show — as both top-billed cast and executive producer and — you’ve never seen it?!

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The season premiere of the third season of And Just Like That was so painfully cringe that we can never look at Aidan or the actor who plays him, John Corbett, the same ever again. And the second episode was so painfully just bad that I’m not sure I can look at, well, any of these characters the same ever again. If the first episode gave me some small hope that the writing would improve this season, the second episode had the second Sex and the City movie cheering from beyond the grave.

For the sake of this franchise and the Sex and the City brand, this show should stop after this season. It’s OK, (HBO) Max — you can let it go.

That said, I will always have fondness for Sarah Jessica Parker. Her dual commitment to books/libraries and fashion is unmatched! She executive produces a documentary about the horrors of book-banning by day, and goes home to cuddle her complete archive of Carrie Bradshaw’s wardrobe from Sex and the City (she has every. single. piece.) at night. She deserves better than to appear on a streaming service making cracks to Miranda about a “guacamole beard” wearing a denim skirt with pleats more dramatic than Charlotte trying to get her kid into Princeton.

You know who else deserves better?

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Loose Threads

• Well, Dior finally announced Maria Grazia Chiuri’s departure after her resort show in Rome, which was lovely. For some reason, LVMH hasn’t announced that Jonathan Anderson is taking over, even though everyone knows. (I’ll have more on this next week.)

• Hailey Bieber’s Rhode is being sold to E.l.f. cosmetics in a $1 billion deal, including, Rachel Strugatz reports at Puck, “$800 million at closing (a combination of cash and stock) with a potential earnout of $200 million based on Rhode’s performance over the next three years.”

• The Devil Wears Prada sequel has a release date of May 1, 2026, though no cast members have been confirmed. Stanley Tucci told Variety, “I know they’re working on it. If it happens, I would be so happy, but I cannot give you any information. Otherwise, I’ll go to the actor’s prison or something.”

• Lauren Sànchez and Jeff Bezos have reportedly booked the five luxury hotels on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore along with “every water taxi in Venice” for their wedding taking place the weekend of June 24. Activist group Laboratorio Occupato Morion is planning protests beginning Friday, stating, “There's no room for oligarchs, their private parties and their dirty money.”

• If you want some new ideas for how to wear a button-down shirt, the eminently stylish has some tips!

And now, let’s get through the return of And Just Like That together.

'And Just Like That' Season 3, Episode 1 Recap: Carrie's Cry for Help

And Just Like That’s war on sweatpants as ready-to-wear continued Thursday night with the show’s third season premiere. Readers: three seasons! It feels like 18. Yet, it’s impossible to look away when Carrie is there on Max HBO Max, walking down the street with a hat as obvious as a parade float, as she compromises the full potential of her love life for the sake of one highly unappealing man.

I’m wondering if others agree (and please chime in with your thoughts in comments) that the first episode was less cringe than seasons one and two? Maybe cutting Che really did have that much of an impact. It would seem to defy the laws of television physics that Rosie O’Donnell, cameo-ing as a nun-tourist in a Wicked T-shirt, was somehow less annoying, and looked — at the risk of making another nun joke — like kind of a saint next to Aidan.

Let the character-by-character recap commence.

Carrie

Carrie has it pretty good this season. She dresses for day in a sheer Simone Rocha gown and parka stuffed with flowers. The effect is lovely if a bit tumor-y (but this bulbous stuff is trending right now, and who is Carrie Bradshaw to ignore an awkward trend?). What was she doing in this, after she mailed Aidan a vintage postcard with nothing written on it, because he doesn’t want to communicate with her for five long years? Surely something banal, like going to pick up cat litter. She lives in a new two-story place that is, by average New York standards, the Jeff Bezos’s yacht of apartments (if it were tasteful). And she hasn’t opened her laptop in weeks because she’s too busy picking out fabric for a chaise, which is on back-order, she says, kind of like her relationship. And her cat, Shoe, is both the cutest and likes to be snuggled on its back in her arms, laying there like a clawless, toothless stuffed animal. So much is just so good, here — the new clothes, the new place, the new kitten, the not having to work. Plus, Miranda lives nearby in the West Village, able to easily pop over to rescue Carrie after she slips and falls.

Carrie’s big problem is Aidan, who gets drunk in his truck in a field in Virginia one night and calls her for phone sex, which was arguably more cringe than any scene ever with Che. Aidan talks about shitting his pants, and it’s just so, so bad that Carrie fakes it.

I have to assume that Carrie’s fashion is now a cry for help. Her clothes start out serene, in the beige Rocha, and then take a wild turn. She goes to the ballet wearing a huge, lifeless neck bow that just HANGS there like the misery she can’t escape.

The hat she trots out for a walk in the park with Seema makes her look like one of the mushrooms from Mario Bros. The black-and-white polka-dot blouse she pairs with distressed pink pants seem to signal an identity crisis. She can’t decide if she’s going to make like Aidan and sand some furniture, or like Charlotte, whose personality is 75 percent shirt dresses, 25 percent pet owner.

By the end of the episode, Carrie realizes one thing: she has to do more writing than Anthony’s young and energetic boyfriend, and penning Aidan’s “Handsome Pond Lane” street address onto a postcard that’s emptier than Lily Goldenblatt’s Shein box is not enough. She leaves us with the sentence, “The woman wondered what she had gotten herself into.”

The woman could very well be referring to her clothes.

Seema

Seema’s attitude toward Ravi is the foil to Carrie’s toward Aidan. When we left them at the end of season two, he was going off to Egypt to make a film, promising her that they could still be together. Seema is giving the relationship her all, including wearing full-on lingerie for a video dates instead of just, say, sweats and a Zoom bra. But Ravi sends his assistant to the Zoom date, even though he hadn’t spoken to Seema in a week, and Seema ends up lighting a cigarette and drifting off, torching both the bed and some of her hair.

The nice thing about Seema as a character is that she is unwilling to excuse Ravi for not making her his priority. You could easily imagine lots of women in New York putting up with Ravi’s bullshit because he is a fancy, rich film director, who wears nice suits and pulls off those jaunty little neck scarves. And when he arrives in New York, he seems like he might be okay as a boyfriend! He brings Seema what looks like a $500 bouquet, he says “I only see you” as delivery men are in the room setting up her new mattress, and he notices that her hair is shorter — all things I’m pretty sure Aidan would be incapable of.

The next day, Ravi tells her he’s planned a lunch date at Jean-Georges, he just has to do something for work first. Probably thinking that means sending an email or making a call, Seema puts on her finest — a cross between a beach cover-up and evening wear that appears to be made of leather braids. Once she finds out her outfit has to be squeezed into a van with Ravi’s production crew so he can go location-scout for the perfect annihilated pier, she’s back to being disgusted with him. She learns he has a “no perfume in the van” rule that she’s unwittingly violated. They miss their reservation for lunch and then dinner. And one of his minions subjects her to Sprite and chips. Having wasted her look on sitting in Ravi’s van with people who indulge his enormous ego and eat sandwiches from a cooler, she decides that they are done.

LTW

Not only is LTW’s husband Herbert symbolically suffocating as an alleged human being, he is also physically suffocating as a bedmate. Unable to sleep as he drapes his body over hers, LTW gets out of bed to make coffee and start working. She’s stressed about the documentary series she’s making about unsung women in history, and has an important meeting about it with PBS. She puts on an odd dress that looks like a Midjourney creation, and accessorizes with a necklace made from what look like the decorative balls you’d find in a large bowl on a dining room table at a Florida VRBO.

Her next major look is a dress that probably costs $20,000, which the costume department made sure to cheap up with a big red waist belt. (That said, the feathery yellow shoes were a nice touch.) The dress was lovely on her!

Charlotte

The drama in Charlotte’s life this episode revolves around her dog, Richard Burton, and the ridiculous things she wears to walk him. While her teen daughter is busy ogling a sexy, 20-year-old ballet dancer in nude tights — prompting Uncle Anthony to tell his boyfriend, “It’s ballet, not Grindr” (good work, writers!) — Charlotte is presumably polishing her waist belts or picking out her dog-walking lewks. Early in the episode, she and LTW look like they are on their way to an eighties workout-themed costume party.

Later, she walks her dog wearing kitten heels, because no one on this show is ever allowed to be comfortable — even if the task at hand involves picking poop up off the ground — unless the outfit looks like a Halloween costume.

The whole “Charlotte cares more about her dog than her kids” storyline felt like a departure from previous seasons, where all Charlotte cared about was her kids. Maybe this is a New Charlotte, giving herself to more to her career and dog instead of her family. We know she’s checked out from her home life when her daughter Lily is shamed by sibling Rock for shopping at Shein. I just can’t imagine Charlotte being fine with Lily wearing Shein when she buys her kids Oscar de la Renta and carries her poop bags in a tiny satchel from Burberry. No, this is a Charlotte whose mind is elsewhere.

Miranda

Miranda’s clothes were shockingly… normal. If you told me everything she wore came from J. Crew and LOFT, I would believe you. Who could forget when the costume designers dressed her in that amazing purple-and-yellow ombré coat by Oscar de la Renta last season? Maybe that was her quotient of fabulosity for the duration of this program, because in the season premiere the craziest thing she wore was a brown plaid trench over a waist belt. (This show is Valhalla for waist belts: why?)

Perhaps her clothes symbolize how, after a chaotic Che-filled couple of seasons, Miranda’s life has settled. She’s no longer couch-surfing, she’s eased into her second career, and she’s the one in control of her romantic relationships. If she wants to have a one-night stand with a virgin nun after a few phony Negronis, she can without it ruining her life. (Plus five to the writers for Carrie’s line, “I don’t know which is worse, that you slept with a nun or a tourist.”)

Once again, her attitude is a notable contrast to Aidan’s peculiar hold on Carrie. Even in the middle of Times Square in the Wicked shirt, holding the sad bag of M&Ms, Rosie O’Donnell was still somehow not as tragic as Aidan jerking off in a truck in a field with a six-pack.

What Paid Subscribers Are Reading

Right before And Just Like That’s season two finale, news broke that the show had been picked up for a third season. This confirmed what has clearly been building in recent episodes: that misery would be on the menu, because happiness does not a third season make.

“We are delighted to share that since the launch of season two, ‘And Just Like That…’ ranks as the #1 Max Original overall, and is the most-watched returning Max Original to date,” said Sarah Aubrey, who runs original content for Max. It’s sort of like the Twitter of shows — we know we should move on, but a lot of us just can’t quit.

So we knew that things were unlikely to work out for Carrie and Aidan. But now, some narrative threads are just dangling even more purposelessly and uncomfortably than before, like a rabbit foot from a purse. Such as: What purpose did Carrie selling her apartment serve, if she’s not going to occupy it with Aidan? And why was, “I want to do this, just give me five years” Aidan’s out? What sense did that make?! Also, why was Carrie wearing leggings with that delightful Oscar de la Renta dress??

Here’s your final character-by-character recap of season two! Thanks for sticking this rickety ride out with the Back Row community. As Steve poetically stated, “I’m surprised my head isn’t smashed on the pavement like a watermelon.”

Carrie and Aidan

Carrie walks into her old apartment wearing the same outfit she wore when Aidan called her crying at the end of the last episode. So this is, what, hours later? And she’s already asking Aidan on the phone if he got Wyatt home from the hospital? I’m confused. If Aidan just called her with the full update on Wyatt’s condition, and it’s less than 24 hours since the accident, would he be discharged and home so soon? And more crucially, would 24 hours be enough for Aidan to go to Virginia, deal with Wyatt, fly back to NYC, and decide that the best way forward is a five-year break?

Once home with a box full of fancy napkins, Carrie takes a call from Samantha in London.

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This episode wanted to be about balancing the pressures of middle age, both personal and professional, with children. However, the episode was really about how Carrie can be a huge jerk.

We see Charlotte, LTW, Aidan, and Miranda all try to figure out how to come to a new normal with their families. Meanwhile, Carrie is mostly left to eat zucchini chips, decorate her apartment, and ignore her everyone’s problems but her own. Here’s your character-by-character recap of the season’s penultimate episode.

Carrie

How could Carrie Bradshaw have moved to New York City when she was 21 and never visited Coney Island? People who move to New York City when they’re young and not tired do all the things. They go to different boroughs to try the place that New York magazine says has the best dumplings/pizza/tacos/whatever in the city. They take the ferry to Governor’s Island in the middle of the summer and sit there on a blanket all day drinking wine out of a box. They take the Metro North to the Botanical Gardens to see the cherry blossoms and maybe also to drink wine out of a box. They go to Coney Island to eat a hot dog or play a carnival game or even just sit on the beach with – that’s right – wine in a box. What kind of newspaper writer occupies such a bubble of striving, such a vacuum of curiosity, that they never go to Coney Island?!

Carrie visits Coney Island for the first time with Aidan because his bestie Steve is taking over a hot dog-and-clam stand there. She wears a sparkly jacket and another pair of purple pants, while Steve wears big purple gloves (for cleaning) that don’t look entirely dissimilar to the ones we’ve already seen on LTW (for sashaying). Carrie flirtatiously asks, “Steve, how did you ever find this place?” As though Coney Island is a top-secret spot that has never been featured on the cover of a Cyndi Lauper album and in a Beyoncé music video, among myriad other iconic works of pop culture. Steve says he used to come out here when things were bad with Miranda to clear his head. One day he was sitting on his favorite bench, looking out to sea, when he turned around and saw the hot dog stand and realized he needed to do something new, just to make himself happy, and “fuck all that bougie Brooklyn bullshit.” Fine, but he clearly likes all the boujie Brooklyn bullshit if he’s a regular at Whole Foods and is willing to fight Miranda to keep their brownstone.

Over vegan brunch with the gals consisting of zucchini chips and mimosas, Carrie learns that she won a raffle at a school fundraiser to have a Michelin-starred chef come to her apartment to cook a dinner for 16 people. She decides to turn it into a goodbye party for her apartment, and leaves the restaurant wearing a mustard-yellow quilted coat with the proportions of a graduation gown.

If this show’s writers are going to wrap up at least one story line before the season finale next week, it’s Anthony and Stanford’s. Carrie calls Anthony to her apartment, where she wears pajamas and heels. She’s interrupted her busy schedule of decorating her new place and smelling her books to relay some information to Anthony about Stanford. Carrie tells Anthony that after a big fight with his TikTok client, Stanford fled to Kyoto where he became a Shinto monk. She says Stanford is giving Anthony all of his possessions, including the apartment.

Carrie really wants Aidan to go to her “last supper,” but he still refuses to go into her old apartment. In bed in their hotel room for the last time before Carrie moves into her new place, Aidan tries to make it seem like he’s at fault for not going into the apartment. He says something about how he hates that when they were together the last time, he tried to lock her down when she clearly wasn’t ready.

As he talks, he gets a call from Cathy, who says that their son Wyatt drove his truck into a tree, broke his collar bone, and is in the emergency room. Aidan catches a flight home, only to discover that Wyatt snuck out of his house, hitchhiked 30 miles to the farm, drank his dad’s beer, and then got in his truck and hit a tree, totaling the car and breaking not just his collar bone, but also his leg in two places. Aidan is beside himself, telling Carrie on the phone from his car that all Wyatt said he wanted was to sleep at his dad’s house, and that he should have been there. Carrie takes his call from her new, devastatingly cavernous apartment, and barely reacts to his anguish (arguably over-acted, but still). She just says, “Oh honey… breaks heal.” She may as well have been like, “Welp, these pillow aren’t gonna fluff themselves, good luck with all that!”

Charlotte

I had thought last week that Charlotte’s sophisticated art gallery job would mean fewer pouf sleeves and cheesy clothes and more boss-bitch suiting and clean necklines, but I was wrong. It seems that weekdays at the gallery are for black pouf sleeves and weekends at brunch are for Barbie pink. We see her in gallery wearing giant polka-dot poufers as she shows Sam Smith a six-figure painting. A coworker frantically summons her to a landline call from Rock, who left their earth science notebook at home. Charlotte calls Harry and says he has to bring the notebook to Rock at school because she’s selling art to Sam Smith. He’s annoyed that Charlotte has called him because he thinks that every time the phone rings, his father has died and because he’s in the middle of doing something with a brief. She points out that she’s run to the school herself a million times and it’s his turn. To his credit, Harry doesn’t need to hear anything more before he agrees to go.

This idea that women can’t “have it all” could not feel more trite. That said, having kids, particularly young ones, plus a career is a struggle in a world that is conditioned to go to moms for everything. Charlotte’s storyline may indicate that women can’t have it all, but they can tell their families that they need to live – and then go live! Charlotte tells her kids to respect her brunch time with the ladies on the weekend because that’s something she needs after not seeing her friends all week. After she ends selling the painting to Sam Smith, her younger colleagues say that whenever one of them closes a sale that’s $100,000 or more, they all go out to drinks. She says no, she has to go home, but they insist, and before we know it Charlotte is at the bar with them taking shots like a Gen Z. When she gets another text, she drunkenly throws her phone into a pitcher of margaritas and lets it disappear with the dirty dishes.

Later, she stumbles into her apartment as drunk as she’s ever been on this show. Harry, Lily, and Rock are all, Where have you been? We need X, Y, Z – and A, B, C, D, E, F, and G! She informs them that she’s “slaying at work” and threw her phone into a pitcher of margaritas and has no idea where it is. Lily tells her she’s gross, and Charlotte sasses right back that she was “a person before all of you” and “more than your wife and mom.” This is not a revolutionary monologue on Charlotte’s particular kind of privileged motherhood, but made a point that a lot of women watching this show, who bottle up their micro-rage every time the school calls them at work instead of their partners, were probably happy to hear.

Miranda and Che

First, let’s get something out of the way: that purple-and-yellow coat was fabulous. I will not be debated on this point.

Second did anyone else find the plot line about Miranda being a bad person for ditching her exes to be as random as that Sam Smith cameo? Since when is this something unique to Miranda? And since when is it a bad thing to leave exes behind? Who says women have to stay friends with them or keep up with them or not resent them? Sure, you could argue that for the sake of shared children it makes sense to at least try to have a cordial relationship. But as for Che? Skipper? Why can’t she just move on?

Carrie is the first person to shame Miranda for how she treats her exes, pointing out that she hasn’t even seen Steve’s new Coney Island joint. This feels more like an “I went to Coney Island, look at me!” flex than something that merits genuine concern. After Miranda – wearing that incredible coat – meets a woman named Joy at the U.N. who has greyhounds instead of children, she arrives home to Nya’s apartment where Nya tells her she’s going to cut her ex off like Miranda does. Thusly shamed, Miranda decides to go to the comedy club to see Che’s standup with Carrie and Aidan. Che’s act is all about how terrible it was to be with Miranda, and, unsurprisingly, about as funny as an injured puppy. Miranda leaves, making eye contact with Che on the way out. Che runs out to catch Miranda, who’s all, “Where are all the jokes about what a mess you are?” Maybe she still loves them just a tiny bit because “jokes” is a pretty generous term.

As Miranda is humiliated, Carrie just sits in the booth with Aidan, having a grand old time. Why didn’t she rush out the door to check on Miranda? Isn’t Miranda her best and oldest friend? And isn’t Che someone she’s known for all of what, a couple of years at best?

Later, Miranda trepidatiously calls Carrie to say she can’t go to the last supper since Che is attending. This seems perfectly understandable, why should Miranda have to endure the discomfort of being around an ex who crafted a whole standup routine about how horrible she is just so that Carrie feels she and her apartment are properly feted? Does anyone really give a rat’s ass about that apartment except for Carrie? No, her friends are just going to be there for her. Yet instead of saying she understands, no big deal, the other night was rough, Carrie tells Miranda to grow up and go. Maybe if Miranda were a pair of shoes Carrie would treat her with more concern.

Seema

Seema tells Ravi she loves him during sex and he says, “I love you too.” She panics and runs over to Carrie’s apartment in her second full leopard look of the season. That first leopard look was one thing, but the idea that she has at least two outfits like this may be insane? Kind of like Carrie trudging to Widow Con in the Valentino Moncler puffer dress that may as well have been a giant suction cup. The clothes on this show are doing everything in their power to be even less practical than The Row’s $800 white satin ballet flats. Carrie tells Seema it’s OK, feel your feelings, etc. but quickly loses interest in her problem because the kitten adorably finds its way to a shoebox. And wouldn’t it be more fun to talk about what Carrie should do with this kitten than Seema’s emotional distress? Obvi!

LTW and Herbert

LTW is incredibly stressed out about the prospect of having a fourth child. She doesn’t know how she’s going to manage it with her career, and becomes furious with Herbert for not getting a vasectomy eight years ago when she asked him to. Herbert can’t do anything he’s asked, ranging from sending anniversary party invites to taking it upon himself to ensure they don’t have more children — after his wife has carried three of them. He admits he should have listened to her, and says that if anyone can do this, she can. But that’s the whole point — LTW doesn’t WANT to be saddled with more responsibility and she knows a man who can’t even send a Paperless Post certainly won’t be able to pick up the slack. Rather than say he’ll drop his dumb comptroller campaign, he asks if they should “be having the other discussion.” She says she is “grateful” to have that option, but can’t do it.

Vogue’s Michelle Ruiz noted that she would terminate the pregnancy if she were this distressed about it, writing, “Not to overthink the sociopolitical implications of a Max reboot, but why is a show with its roots in going there dancing around not only the word but the topic, especially after Roe v. Wade was overturned and the right to abortion is so urgent?” LTW’s line about being “grateful” to have that option sounds less like something a woman would say in the privacy of her own bedroom than like something a lawyer or publicist added to the script so that anti-choice viewers — which surely make up a minority of the audience — don’t get mad. (Even though, as Ruiz notes, the original Sex and the City included frank discussion about abortion.)

LTW says she doesn’t want to have an abortion and, later in the episode, miscarries.

Anthony and Giuseppe

In a love scene featuring Anthony and Giuseppe, a long conversation ensues about how Anthony has never bottomed, which confuses Giuseppe who thinks that’s something they should both do. Whatever happens with Giuseppe, at least Anthony won’t have to fight Stanford for those Versace bedsheets.

Nya

Nya gets an invitation to Carrie’s last supper which means that, at long last, the writers are allowing her to leave her apartment for something other than buying a cookbook.

Here’s your character-by-character recap of the third-to-last episode of the season.

Carrie and “Chatty McNice Guy”

We open with Carrie in bed in Che’s fake-nice rental, which looks like it’s been Carrie-fied. The décor doesn’t quite match the fabulous sheer lounge dress with metallic shoulders she wears over black underwear, but it’s starting to look like it falls from a similar tree.

Aidan enters the apartment with a “CHELLO!” He tells Carrie he’s been friendly with the building staff, and she says he can’t be all “Chatty McNice Guy” and risk practicing Southern friendliness here since they’re basically renegade subletters. Soon after Aidan strips down to his tighty whities, they hear a knock on the door and don’t answer it, only for a letter to be slipped underneath. It says they’ve exceeded the 30-day guest policy and have to GTFO. Well, chicken shit. Where will they do it now, since Aidan still patently refuses to go inside Carrie’s apartment? So much time has passed and they like each other so much that it seems like he should just get over himself and go up there. He’s a man, he’ll get laid, he’ll move on. That said, as a viewer, I’m not mad at the opening this presented for Carrie to get involved with that Gramercy apartment.

Carrie goes back to her apartment to find a perfect kitten that Che brought home from work. It would have been easier to enjoy the kitten had Carrie not been wearing such a strange outfit.

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This season is eleven episodes long, which means we still have three to go. I am both enjoying it and feel like we will be released when it ends. Websites are already locked in SEO Hunger Games for “and just like that season 3” clicks and all the stories say that Max hasn’t confirmed a season three yet. (So, there, I saved you some clicks.)

I’m optimistic for the rest of the season because the eighth episode is the first time in the entire reboot that Carrie has been happy. The show works better when she is happy. She’s less of a drag at lunch and more profligate with her spending (we’ll get to that garlic press). You know who else is looking a lot more carefree? Aidan! He’s released himself from the belt of his Belstaff jacket and is wearing it open like a sane individual. Maybe this is partly why Carrie is so happy.

Here’s your character-by-character recap.

Carrie and Aidan

We open with Carrie and Aidan in bed at a hotel that looks way too mid-range for Seema but offers a room service menu with $26 omelettes Carrie likes. They talk about Carrie going to Aidan’s farm in Virginia and meeting his three sons, one of whom is named Wyatt. He lets slip that in addition to the kids, he has chickens! Not the kind you can rent in the Hamptons if you’re rich, but the kind he owns and really knows. He’s squints seductively at Carrie and lets slip a fun farm fact: one of the birds likes to saunter into the house and lay an egg on Wyatt’s bed every morning.

In this scene, Aidan is backlit and fuzzy and I get that it’s supposed to be DrEaMy but it also has the vibe of Carrie either dying or waking up from a concussion.

Carrie shares over lunch with the sisterhood that she actually kind of is dying in the good, Rachel Zoe sort of way because she’s having the best orgasms of her life. She’s in so deep with Aidan that she plans to visit him on the farm, she says. This is a big deal because she’s still traumatized by “that country shack he had upstate.” Carrie is so serious about this that she even looked up farms nearby and hands her phone to Seema so she can see how surprisingly chic at least one of them is. Seema looks at the phone for an eternity before telling Carrie that it’s not as chic as she thinks, she just happened to mistakenly tap farms in Norfolk, England.

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Miranda and Carrie then walk outside and Carrie wears what looks like a big pink bathrobe. If this takes place roughly a month since the last episode, it’s March, which means it’s cold as hell, yet Carrie wears her coat open and I have no idea how Sarah Jessica Parker is pretending like this is easy and comfortable. Carrie asks Miranda if Big was a giant mistake, and Miranda says she doesn’t know how to answer the question which is another way of saying: yes girl, sorry!

Next Carrie goes to visit Che, manning the front desk at the vet like a normal person who never filmed a pilot. Carrie says she wants to rent Che’s place so she and Aidan have somewhere to do it when he’s in town since Aidan still won’t go to her apartment and they’re “spending a fortune” on hotels. This does not track with the Carrie who gave Enid $100,000 for a magazine, but as a committed And Just Like That viewer I have signed up for accepting such inconsistencies, so let’s move right along. Carrie adds that Che can stay at her place when Aidan’s in town and Che takes the deal.

We then see Carrie and Aidan going up to Che’s 18th floor apartment. Aidan wears the same Belstaff Trialmaster jacket but opened up like the doors to his farm in the mornings. Now we can all sleep better at night because this is how he is meant to wear it.

Carrie and Aidan have plenty of stuff with them — luggage (of course Carrie makes him carry a non-wheeling suitcase that looks like an oversized doll accessory) plus a huge bag of Chopt. But Aidan immediately decides that Che’s apartment doesn’t have essentials, including salad tongs and a pepper mill. Serious question: do people come home with their Chopt salads and reach instantly for tongs? The whole point of it being chopped/chopt is that you can stir it up and eat it with any utensil, including probably a butter knife.

This inspires a “we love having sex with each other” shopping spree at a Sur la Table sort of establishment, where Aidan reveals himself to be the kind of man who knows that a tiny cheese grater is for salt. They go back to the apartment with tongs, a pepper mill, and a $47 garlic press which is, shockingly, an actual thing. Aidan cooks chili and Carrie wears purple sweatpants (first purple pants mention) when Che shows up and, sensing the strong “we love having sex with each other” energy, asks why it didn’t work out the first time around. Carrie says it was because she made a horrible mistake.

Cut to Carrie and Seema at the hair salon, and Carrie learns that Seema canceled their Hamptons rental because she doesn’t want to be third wheel to Carrie and Aidan. Carrie acts devastated by this but it was frankly the right call. If Carrie actually liked the idea of sharing a house in the Hamptons, she and the gals would have done it successfully a few times on Sex and the City.

Aidan solidifies his boyfriend status by having dinner with the women and making them all laugh hysterically about his chicken, whom he apparently lifts into his kid’s bed to lay an egg. And Carrie really must be head over heels for this man because instead of regarding this the way she does his upstate house, she ends the episode by bounding off to rural Virginia. Do any Back Row readers have chickens? Can anyone shed light on what it would really be like to let them lay eggs your kid’s bed?

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Miranda

In the first lunch scene, Miranda wears a sweater that was much better proportioned than the first sweater she wore in the previous episode, which looked like it eats humans. On her walk with Carrie, we notice that she wears purple slacks (second purple pants mention) that — Anna Wintour deep cut incoming — remind me of that scene in The September Issue where Anna says she doesn’t like the purple pants in Edward Enninful’s color-blocking photo shoot because “they look big.” Tap this to watch the clip:

Miranda paired them with fuchsia heels, which didn’t feel like the heels of someone who owns so many brown sweaters but were a fun statement nonetheless.

These days, Miranda is single and has time to be an intern at Human Rights Watch, where she works alongside Gen Zs who resent her. When they handed her a partially eaten garlic chocolate chip cookie I thought it was part of a scheme to sabotage her. Only, as their boss seems to know, they might not be smart enough for that? They are, however, bitter that they’re barely allowed to take notes in meetings while Miranda, who to be fair has thirty years in corporate law on her resumé, is trusted with such tasks right away.

During lunch, Miranda takes a seat at their table where she dresses her salad then shakes it in the container like genius Kardashian impersonator Yuri Lamasbella. (A salad hack for you, Aidan.) The Gen Zs regard her with disdain and seem to text about her while she’s sitting right next to them. It’s no matter, because their boss decides that Miranda should fill in for her on maternity leave. This was a nice turn of events for Miranda, who has always been such a work horse that it’s felt off to see her without a career. Plus, aside from some sexual encounters she seemed to enjoy and that stunning purple gown from the previous episode, not much else this season has really gone her way.

Charlotte

Charlotte tells her teen kids that she’s going back to work and they react somewhere between indifferent and pleased that she won’t be around so much. She wears a peculiar, badly layered outfit with a fuzzy hot pink sweater, pussy bow, and ruffled collar. Clearly she needs some better clothes, so enter the most confident of all dressers on this show, LTW. Wearing a purple dress with high purple boots (or boot pants? anyway, purple bottoms mention number three) and a yellow sweater over top, she accompanies Charlotte shopping. Trying on clothes, Charlotte is self-conscious about her figure. She buys a black dress with a skinny pink waist belt because she can’t help herself and just wear black, but also isn’t stylish enough to work with color like LTW. She digs out an old photo of herself that looks like an Instagram #ootd but from 1999. On her first day of work, she puts on a few pairs of shapewear, but then decides to throw them out at the gallery when she sees that her colleague is not thin and wears a crop top. That’s the Charlotte we know — willing to part with $250 worth of undergarments after wearing them for all of 40 minutes.

Seema

Seema finally had something to do aside from ride around in her brown car. Sure, this episode saw her at the hair salon again, but she also got to have two meals with the gals and… work in her office! The real estate partner she’s apparently had this whole time wants her to take a difficult film director client off his hands. He enters her office wearing a linen jacket with a tie wast and tells Seema that Marvel is paying for everything and she’ll earn a big commission. He pleads with her to take him, saying, “Show me where I want to live.” Seema clearly finds him handsome and says OK.

At the hair salon, Seema tells Carrie she can’t do the Hamptons rental with her and that she’s canceled it so that they don’t lose the deposit money. She can’t bear to be a third wheel to Carrie and Aidan. Carrie isn’t like, “You won’t be a third wheel!” Instead, she says she will only be a third wheel some of the time. Seema made the right call because that sounds uncomfortable for everyone. She tells Carrie that it’s been hard to see her with a boyfriend and that she needs space. Carrie acts like this is very sad for her but Seema assures her their friendship will be fine.

Apparently needing space equates to missing bread service at dinner. She shows up to the Aidan meal a little late looking insanely fantastic in a full-sequin black pantsuit which makes up for her silly white spa outfit with the huge fur collar from the previous episode.

Anthony

Anthony somehow has been running his bread business the past month with only Giuseppe delivering loaves. When he learns Giuseppe is gay (Giuseppe: “A straight poet? Come on.”) he tries to fire him rather than risk electric attraction to an employee. Giuseppe quits and kisses him, which would seem to put the bread business in jeopardy. Maybe before the season ends this show will have some storylines about how successful people can have satisfying relationships and jobs at the same time. If a show like Sex and the City can evolve into the woke bingo card that is And Just Like That, surely it can figure out how to give us, well, just that.

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We open with the glaringly Samantha-less gals at lunch in a restaurant we know is fancy based on the chartreuse upholstered chairs alone. Carrie eats the sort of shaved cabbage salad that looks like it could have come out of a bag from Trader Joe’s. It’s difficult to focus on what they’re saying because they all look like they’re about to go film a Harry Potter movie on a remote island in the North Atlantic. Carrie wears a sweater with a splash of argyle. Miranda, eating a truly sad-looking hunk of stark white fish with what looks like green juice poured over top, wears a huge structured sweater in brown asymmetrical fair isle. Its funnel neck is so funnel-y it looks like it’s eating her. Charlotte has chosen a plain dark sweater with a Peter Pan collar. Miranda’s sweater is going to eat her next.

Ahead a full recap, organized by character.

Carrie and The Jacket — I Mean, Aidan.

The whole point of the lunch was to analyze the meaning of Carrie accepting a Valentine’s Day dinner invitation from Aidan, who was surely at that point buffing his jacket in advance of his trip. The gals agree that Aidan wouldn’t have asked her out on Valentine’s Day if he were spoken for, which excites heteronormativity stan Charlotte most of all.

Carrie then spends much of the episode in a restaurant that does not have the the upholstery of a fine-dining establishment. She wears a floral dress with small pouf sleeves that manages to be a dowdier version of her apartment’s new wallpaper. Her phone dies, forcing her to plug it in at the cash register, although it’s hard to believe she would leave the house that night so excited to reunite with Aidan without a phone she made sure was fully charged. Finally she and Aidan realize they’re not in the same restaurant and walk outside. There he stands, in all the glory of his waxed $595 Belstaff trialmaster jacket. Is he doing something sexy with large planks of wood, this Aidan? No, but this is a new-ish Aidan who has money now — not Mr. Big money, but West Elm-bought-me-out money, otherwise known as jacket money.

He belts the jacket tightly at the waist as if to suggest an interest in tailoring or influencing — one of the two.

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And Just Like That seems to have settled into the best version of itself: ambient television that feels the Nancy Meyers canon pulling it one way, and the Moncler collab canon pulling it in entirely another. I know this show is never going to give us that sweet, sweet Nancy Meyers kitchen porn, but with Seema and Carrie heading to the Hamptons, we might get a coastal grandmother fashion moment yet. And though the show may never make you question your backsplash, this episode did deliver surprising blizzard fashion porn.

The sixth episode also accomplished the unexpected feat of maybe making Miranda a less likable character than Che, who during the entire previous episode practically had “TOXIC” in lights above their head. Maybe what Che needed to be the least annoying version of themself was to be unchained from not only Miranda, but also Che Pasa. Meanwhile, though Steve has barely appeared in the season, the writers managed to give him a lot to do, which is more than can be said for Seema and Nya. Despite being main supporting characters, they have done little more across these six episodes than pick men up in a bar, talk on the phone, and sit at tables.

Ahead, Back Row’s character-by-character recap.

Carrie

If the first season of And Just Like That was about Carrie wandering Manhattan unbearably grief-stricken in high heels and maxi skirts, this is the season of Carrie Bradshaw, Hustler. For authors, selling books in 2023 often comes down to the sort of self-directed hustle we’ve been seeing from Carrie, like when she asked Enid for a mention in her newsletter Ask Enid. Now, she’s even acquired a ring light for her Zoom interviews. This book promotional tour may be the most we’ve seen Carrie hustle ever in all of this franchise, including the time she was about to be evicted from her apartment and badly needed money for a down payment after spending it all on Manolos.

Carrie has to create her own version of a Barbie promotional tour for her memoir about widowhood, and that means awkward interviews and even more awkward events. She doesn’t need the money, as evidenced by the ease with which she parted with $100,000 for Enid’s startup magazine, which can only be slightly less efficient than simply setting it on fire.

Maybe Carrie’s enduring the pain of book promotion because she really wants it to be a success. Maybe she actually is kind of famous, has an ego, and can’t not be in some sort of spotlight. Maybe she just needs to keep busy after her husband died. Whatever it is, there is comic beauty in the show’s depiction of being a career writer today. At first I thought Carrie was putting her laptop on books and turning on a ring light to film a self-promotional TikTok. How, as television’s most famous Luddite, she knew to elevate her camera to eye-level is unclear, but probably Seema told her — which would have been a better arc than her losing her Birkin and therefore a piece of herself.

Carrie has to do an interview with a Gen Z type who says she hasn’t read the book and in fact seems to be Googling her books for the first time on the call. “Oh I get it,” she says, “Manhattan — but with men!” Carrie asks her if she read Loved and Lost and she says she didn’t because, “I’m so effing slammed with all my other content right now.” The story she runs ends up revolving around Carrie’s favorite lipstick shade, which seems like the kind of thing that really would happen at one of these websites after a middle manager makes sure everyone on staff knows about the upcoming pitch meeting with Revlon.

After her laptop falls on the floor, Carrie goes to the Apple store with Seema to get a replacement. She wears a perplexing, puffy blue jumpsuit with a pouch dangling from the belt. Everyone around her is wearing a coat, yet she’s dressed like, “This Barbie flies fighter jets!” Seema asks Carrie if she’ll share a house with her in the Hamptons, something she’s never asked another woman to do because it seems “too sad, too Bravo.” Seema has a chauffeur and a townhouse — yet she can’t afford to own a Hamptons house? She also says she wants a 2-bedroom, 3-bathroom on the beach. I’m no Hamptons expert but my impression is that beach-adjacent real estate in them parts is for people like Martha Stewart or anonymous hedge fund types who own estates as big as shopping centers, yet also keep their own chickens.

In a meeting with her editor that could have been an email, Carrie learns that she can promote her book at something called Widow Con. This plot thread created a role for Rachel Dratch, whom was so nice to see! She played a Widow Con organizer with whom Carrie wrote a rom com akin to 27 Dresses in the nineties, before flaking on a crucial pitch meeting. A former screenwriter somehow heading up a random Con also felt disturbingly accurate.

Over dinner of paella and wine at Nya’s, Carrie starts talking about Aidan, who is apparently divorced and sold his furniture company to West Elm. Surely with her newspaper work dried up, she likely has nothing to do at her laptop at night but impulse shop Matches Fashion. But at home post-paella, she feels a different sort of impulse, and instead of buying a new hat, drafts an email to Aidan with the subject, “Hey Stranger.”

Carrie convinces Che, who is still in a depression about their pilot, to go with her to Widow Con. The morning of the Con, there’s a historic-looking blizzard, which Che attempts — and fails — to use as an excuse to back out of attending. Carrie convinces Che to go as she trudges through the snow wearing an utterly fabulous and ridiculous puffer dress from Valentino designer Pierpaolo Piccioli’s 2019 Moncler collection. This was a delicious fashion moment for the show, but also absurd even for Carrie Bradshaw. A full skirt like that goes with a city blizzard as well as Carrie and quiet luxury. (The footage of Sarah Jessica Parker getting zipped into this look and walking around on the set is riveting.)

Maybe the costume team felt like they had to make it up to all of us after they sent her through the snow in the first movie dressed like this:

Carrie meets Che at Widow Con where a vendor is selling a vibrator called a “widow wand.” They see another widow author basically doing standup at the podium. Carrie is horrified that she has to follow jokes like, “Men die faster than the flowers at the corner deli,” and Che gives her one of their best jokes in the series: “The widow wand doesn’t come with a lifetime guarantee — but then again neither did my husband.” Carrie fumbles it, but her reading inspired Che to pull herself out of her depression and get her life back on track.

The episode ends with Carrie sending Aidan that email — if she can survive public speaking at widow con, emailing Aidan can’t possibly be any more embarrassing.

Miranda and Che

Miranda seems to have a good thing going at Nya’s apartment. She sleeps so hard there in her heart pajamas that she loses all sense of time. She wakes up one morning to find Nya at her dining table working on her divorce papers, which Nya says she can handle on her own because it’s a “no-fault divorce.” Miranda says that must be nice because her divorce is an “all my fault divorce.” Over the paella dinner, Carrie tells Miranda that if she wants to divorce Steve she needs to initiate it because he told her last season he’ll never take his wedding ring off.

Later with Che, Miranda gets angry when Che rolls over to record Cameos in bed. Che explains they have to do this for money because they didn’t have it in them to perform in comedy clubs, the subtext being: that faux palatial Hudson Yards apartment won’t pay for itself. Miranda is upset that Che is giving her fun self to her fans but not to her. She claims she doesn’t mind that one of the fans sent a tit photo to Che, but judging by her reaction to Steve fucking the Whole Foods girl, this has to be a lie.

Miranda storms out, then we see her folding laundry at her Brooklyn townhouse when Steve comes home. She asks Steve how the apartment hunt is coming along, and he says he’s not moving. Miranda blows up, and Steve blows up back, telling her she never wanted Brady or to move to Brooklyn. They end up doing a sad, loose spoon in bed, and Miranda says, “I hate that I hurt you so much.” But maybe she actually doesn’t, because she notices a condom wrapper on the nightstand and goes, “Let me guess — the Whole Foods girl.” When Steve indicates she’s right, Miranda says, “Enjoy your locally sourced organic sex, I’ll start writing up the divorce papers.” With all due respect to the writers, they got this part wrong: Steve is obviously a Trader Joe’s kind of guy, and Miranda’s next line should have been, “Enjoy your two buck fuck.”

Of course Miranda getting mad at Steve for starting things up with someone else is wildly hypocritical since she cheated on him — but anyway, this seems to put a fork in any notion of them reconciling.

Miranda then goes back to Che, who decides to break up with her. Another sad, loose spoon ensues and Miranda congratulates herself on “two back-to-back breakups.”

And just like that — this episode made a lot of people dislike Miranda more than Che.

Charlotte

Lily has a purple streak in her hair, so we all know she’s going through something teenager-y. She’s annoyed that Charlotte didn’t get her a reservation at Nobu for a lunch date with Blake. Suggesting they just go to Shake Shack like normal teens is Anthony, who spends an inordinate amount of time slicing bread in Charlotte’s apartment. Lily says she can’t have sex for the first time after Shake Shack. Charlotte looks lovely with her hair wavy and soft like this, in her “morning mom” outfit instead of her usual silliness that makes her look rather like a Barbie extra or, if it’s a Burberry kind of day, Cousin Greg’s date. She goes to talk to Lily away from Harry, and says she wants to be a “sex-positive mom.” She advises Lily to focus on her pleasure as much as Blake’s — which is of course horribly awkward for Lily, but also the kind of thing she’ll silently thank her mom for in 15 years.

Lily’s rescheduled sex date ends up falling during the epic blizzard. She and Blake don’t have condoms and he is too chicken-shit to buy them because he claims the local drug store owner might tell his parents. So she calls Charlotte, who pauses her snow day viewing of Edward Scissorhands (which is not a Charlotte movie — she would take this day as an opportunity to try to force Rock to like 27 Dresses). Charlotte puts on the most pink, least water-proof outfit possible to wander through the snow looking for condoms. She obtains a multipack, which she delivers to Lily with a warning not to use the warming ones. Then Lily goes back into the building and Charlotte looks up at the apartment with more awe and wistfulness than we ever saw her display at Lily’s piano recitals. Maybe Kristin Davis was dreaming of their next chapter on Sex and the City Junior.

LTW

LTW and the wet blanket she calls her husband have conflicting events the day of the blizzard. She has an event at the MoMA, which is honoring her as a filmmaker but — egads — he has a comptroller campaign function. He asks why she can’t go out of her way to go to his event, and she asks why he can’t do that for her. When the events fall on the day of the blizzard and her car service is canceled, LTW packs up her wig and trudges down to the museum on foot, saying she would “take a dogsled” if she had to. She might have been better off in that sled given her choice of footwear: white, high-heeled boots that would not only make her feet painfully cold but also cause her to slip ‘n slide to the museum. In this fantasy world, though, those shoes may as well have been Sorels, because she manages just fine and takes the stage looking gorgeous, like nary a snowflake ever graced her form. As she’s talking about how it’s amazing her film took eight years instead of eighteen since she has three children, Wet Blanket walks in and sits down.

Seema and Nya

Seema did nothing but go to the Apple store, use Carrie’s computer, and invite Carrie to the Hamptons. Nya also barely did anything this episode aside from make paella and remind Miranda that she needs to divorce Steve. Maybe next episode they can create a scintillating arc for one of these women where they read the Daily Mail on an iPhone.

We’re just about halfway through And Just Like That’s second season, and fans I’ve talked to seem divided over whether or not it’s getting better. I would argue that it is. Is it The Bear? No, but that’s not what anyone expects. We expect something of the quality of, what, Gossip Girl? If you’re still with our Samantha-less friends and wondering if the show runners are hearing the anti-Che cacophony, we know now that the answer is YES: this episode served a Che send-up on the sort of silver platter that you would only find in Charlotte’s house. Also, Carrie is back to dating wealthy, mediocre men; Miranda’s life is in shambles; and Harry has a wig.

Here’s a character-by-character recap.

Carrie

The main reason Halloween seems to have been worked into the plot line is so that the writers had an excuse to give Harry a wig. Carrie decides to attend Charlotte’s Halloween charity fundraiser as Helen Gurley Brown, circa 1970. On the walk over, Miranda tells Carrie she didn’t realize she had dressed up, despite the metallic bows in her hair. With all the hats she’s wearing this season, Miranda’s right that the bows hardly stand out as costume.

At the party, between cringe dance sequences, Carrie agrees to go with Seema and Nya to a high-end hotel bar to meet men, but she has more success when she causes a man to crash his bike in the most ridiculous fictional bike-crashing scene that may have ever been televised. It was so absurd she may as well have knocked a nearby stack of TNT barrels into the road. Dressed like a fall Pinterest influencer in a fedora and plaid coat, Carrie stops in the bike lane as Seema tells her about hooking up with the liquor salesman with a penis pump. Dude on a bike who seems like he has ample warning that Carrie’s obstructing his path somehow just can’t slow down, turns to avoid her, and ends up splayed on the curb.

Carrie blubbers about how sorry she is and how this was completely her fault. (Counterpoint: this man should not be allowed to ride a bike.) He grumbles about how his wrist hurts, and she takes him to the urgent care she once saw an Olsen twin patronize. Filling out his forms, she learns his name (George Campbell), his address, that he’s single, and that he has an angry work wife named Paul who FaceTimes him to ride his ass about finishing an app deck. This whole imagining of Gen X hustle culture is as absurd as the bike crash meet-cute and only gets worse as it goes along.

When his credit card is declined during checkout, Carrie assumes George Campbell is poor, inspiring her to go to his apartment for lunch one day with enough soup for six people. She’s surprised to walk in and see the place is enormous and filled with art, indicating that GC is, in fact, rich and that this show remains steadfast in its commitment to avoid showcasing the average Manhattan existence, devoid of lavishness. In this fantasy world, art collections and multimillion-dollar dwellings are had by all, including those we are led to believe are self-made yet still have enough time to go to Halloween parties and have long chatty lunches on random weekdays.

After GC admires Carrie’s delicate, not-broken wrist, they start kissing on the couch when Angry Paul walks in with George’s dry cleaning. Why he needs to pick up his dry cleaning makes no sense since they’re so busy with selling their fourth app and it could surely be — like just about everything else in NYC — delivered.

Paul is furious to find George kissing Carrie instead of grinding ass on that deck. Actually this is one thing the show has in common with The Bear season two (and if you haven’t watched it yet, skip to the next paragraph if you want to avoid spoilers): the whole hackneyed plot line about how a man can have a job or a relationship but most certainly not both.

Carrie is about to sleep with GC when Pissy Paul FaceTimes because the app deck hasn’t been messengered. Again: it defies the imagination that two people who have gotten rich from selling apps do not know how to use WeTransfer. All Carrie wanted to do was get it on with broken-wristed George Campbell, but he answers the call during foreplay, making him the second romantic partner after Che to do so this season. Carrie decides to do what Miranda should have done long ago with Che and edit George Campbell out of her life. She slips out of his enormous apartment, declaring, “And just like that, George and I were over, but at least I got back on the bike.” I think we can all agree that the better kicker would have been: “And just like that, I realized: George wasn’t a feather in my app after all.”

Che and Miranda

Many Sex and the City fans have complained since their introduction about how grating Che is. Arguably worse than their comedy is how they treat Miranda.

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Many devoted viewers like myself have been wondering how this show descended to its current station. So many talented actors, writers, etc. work on it that it has to be executives meddling and giving notes. I’ve decided to blame David Zaslav, CEO of Max parent company Warner Bros. Discovery. Zaslav has been credited with killing the HBO part of HBO Max. And this week, it was revealed that one of his flacks called GQ to complain about freelance writer Jason Bailey’s piece declaring him “the most hated man in Hollywood” — which so many journalists and people in general do every day! — resulting in the magazine softening the piece before pulling it entirely. (You can read the original here anyway.) Variety reported that GQ Editor-in-Chief Will Welch, one of two staff who received the complaint, is also a producer on a Warner Bros. movie based on a 2018 GQ story (which was published under the previous editor-in-chief Jim Nelson, whose writers have been singing his praises this week). It’s been an embarrassing situation for a magazine that no one would pay any mind to otherwise, and if Zaslav can stink that place up that badly, it stands to reason that he can certainly do the same to And Just Like That.

The fourth episode is really about sex, which felt campy and funny after two episodes that revolved around the women stalking secondhand sites for a dress and a purse. Charlotte and LTW’s kids go off to sleep-away camp, leaving them to enjoy their utterly un-enjoyable husbands. Carrie and the gals get back to brunching with Anthony filling Samantha’s seat. Bitsy, the pink-clad widow who seemed oddly human in episode three, unfortunately proves to be more regrettable as a person than her accessories. Miranda begins and aborts a threesome. And Seema, once more, has absolutely nothing to do — which is, incredibly, somehow more than Nya had to do.

Here’s your character-by-character recap.

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Carrie

This episode forces Carrie to navigate the modern publishing landscape, which is full of flakes, desperation, and traps — but also undying hope. The commentary here was tremendously on-point, and it was refreshing to see a character who could somehow regularly splurge on Manolos in her thirties as a freelance newspaper columnist reckon with the true nature of the industry.

Carrie is at breakfast with her podcast friend Jackie, dressed confusingly in hot pink with flamenco sleeves, when she bumps into her old Vogue editor, Enid. She explains she avoided Carrie at first because she didn’t send a card after Big died #awkward. She tells Carrie she’s had her own death: “After 34 years at Vogue and then six years before that at Mademoiselle, Condé Nast gave me the golden parachute.” Losing your husband equals me losing my overpaid job is, like placating an entertainment executive at the cost of institutional credibility, such a Condé Nast attitude. Apparently she’s gone on to launch a popular newsletter called Ask Enid, which Enid says is “rivaling Goop.” Ha ha and all, but isn’t the point of the golden parachute that you… don’t have to launch a newsletter? I love what I do but if I had fuck you money from Condé Nast…

Then Carrie says, actually I’m not sure if you got my email but I had asked you about blurbing my book, it’s too late for that but maybe you could mention it in Ask Enid. Enid says if she does that she’ll have to mention everyone’s book (well, no) and Carrie says, does everyone have a book? And Enid is like, well I don’t mostly to avoid embarrassing interactions like this. In a few lines of dialogue, the writers manage to capture the flakiness of publishing people, the desperation of (even established!) authors, and the newsletter economy that will either save or ruin us all. Well played.

Enid reveals she’s starting a magazine for older women called Vivant (“that’s French for alive”) that she wants to get Carrie involved with, and which is “focused on women our age.” Carrie takes immediate offense to this remark and insists Seema take a break from her busy schedule of getting in and out of her brown car to meet her at a cafe to talk about it. Carrie wears a white bedsheet and a confusing triangular hat that looks cowboy-ish but also like something Paula Deen would use as a centerpiece. Seema tells her to treat getting Enid to promote her book like any business negotiation, and say that she will write for the magazine only if Enid will plug her book.

After a jizz gabfest with the sisterhood and Solo cup cocktails at Che’s new apartment, Carrie goes to Enid’s party, where she encounters Bitsy and Gloria Steinem. Carrie wears a watercolor-print dress that looks perfectly nice but is this the dress of the same woman who wore the flamenco sleeves to breakfast with her former podcast partner? I don’t know, but I do know Gloria Steinem showing up randomly at a former high-powered magazine editor’s party is, well, accurate.

Bitsy reveals to Carrie that she gave the old guy who’s been texting her, Marlon, her number, and that he’s good in bed. While Steinem addresses the ladies, Bitsy sends Carrie Marlon’s dick pic — the absolute iStockphoto of dick pics — because, feminist icon speaking or not, this is all bullshit anyway, isn’t it? Enid ends up revealing to Carrie that she doesn’t actually want her to write a column, she wants her to invest $100,000 in her magazine. Surely has the funds now that Big has kicked it. Carrie gets a photo of herself, Enid, and Steinem, and Enid reviews it before Carrie does anything with it only to discover the iStock dick, which is apparently her “boyfriend’s pecker.” Then, in a truly perplexing act, Carrie seems to agree to give her the $100,000. Why does a magazine cost hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to start in 2023? If these olds can send dick pics and approve social media portraiture, surely they can read things online. Also, if Carrie has all this money, why would she spend it on this woman’s magazine instead of, say, buying her way onto the bestseller list? Or keeping her own podcast vivant?

Seema

Seema looked fantastic in the beige jumpsuit with the capital F-shaped ear piece. The writers need to give her a problem of her own that doesn’t have to do with her hair or handbags so that her entire existence doesn’t revolve around Carrie’s. Her achievements this episode include: telling Carrie that they’re not seniors like Enid, they’re sophomores; telling Carrie that when she’s at that party, she can’t be photographed with a walker because “it’ll kill your brand” (progressive!); and reminding us that she’s so devoted to selling real estate that she will be “pushing penthouses from the grave.” Was there a reason the writers didn’t send her to the jizz brunch? Maybe that would kill her brand.

Charlotte (and Harry)

Charlotte opens the episode in a pleated red Brandon Maxwell shirt dress that I guess, lacking a pouf sleeve, she’s decided isn’t saccharine enough, so she attaches a strawberry brooch at her bellybutton. As soon as Charlotte’s kids go to sleep-away camp, she and Harry run home to do it. She tells Harry to ejaculate on her chest, but nothing comes out, leading us to the Great Jizz Brunch of 2023. Carrie calls it “Casper the friendly come.” Miranda declares she never liked jizz anyway. Anthony orders mayo. Charlotte says she’s always been a fan of mayo. As much as no one wants to think about Harry’s ejaculate, this ridiculous scene was exactly what this show has been missing.

Then Charlotte rushes Harry to the doctor, who eats a protein bar while telling them that Harry’s semen went into his bladder and he needs to strengthen his pelvic floor. There is a terrible joke involving Harry confusing kugel, the noodle pudding commonly served during Jewish holidays, with kegel exercises. This leads to one of this show’s rare scenes involving workout clothes. Charlotte, treating this like a Barry’s Bootcamp class, lies Harry on a yoga mat and tries to teach him how to take control of his pelvic floor.

Later, at LTW’s anniversary party, Charlotte sits next to a gallery owner who invites her to work for him. She says no and he invites her to call him if she changes her mind. Maybe Seema will start hanging out with her if she has something to talk about other than her kids’ Chanel dress and Harry’s orgasms.

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LTW and Herbert

LTW sends her kids off to camp wearing a $3,700 green LV-monogrammed jacket and $1,000 wide-legged Rosie Assouline printed pants you can buy on sale for $300. LTW has some nice style moments, but I realized looking at these pants, is also kind of a walking sale rack.

LTW’s husband Herbert may very well be the blandest, most useless character on this show. So it made a disturbing amount of sense when he revealed he was seriously considering running for city comptroller. As if to show that this is precisely the sort of individual who would run for elected office, he turns out to have ruined their anniversary party by not clicking send on the email invitation. Truly this was a shame because more guests deserved to behold LTW in her extravagant caped floral evening wear from Rianna + Nina’s resort collection. If you’re a hot mom looking to do loud luxury, this is a tip-top choice. The dress itself retailed for $11,270, so with the cape, which I’m not finding online, it’s probably closer to $20,000? Still one-fifth the amount Carrie spent to help launch a shitty magazine!

Anyway, in order to prove to her dad, who is adorably proud of her filmmaking career, that Herbert cares about something other than making the money required to waste all that shellfish and buy his wife’s capes, LTW announces that Herbert is indeed running for city comptroller. Maybe he’ll forget to press send on his candidate registration and fictional NYC will be spared.

Miranda

If you thought Miranda going back to NYC to be with Brady meant that we were going to get a Che-free episode, think again! For some reason, Che’s defunct husband Lyle drives them to New York from L.A. where they move into a new apartment with an elevator and everything. After going to therapy with Brady and Steve — who has installed a punching bag in his bedroom doorframe and has abs as hard as a tree trunk — Miranda goes with Carrie to visit Che in their new place. Lyle is padding about with solo cups and liquor and reveals to Carrie that he used to be a Beverly Hills hairdresser and he and Che got together after he cut their hair. Everyone makes sure to call Lyle a “mixologist” specifically as though they fear it would be offensive to use any other term. In keeping with the theme of the men on this show having less personality than Excel TikTok influencers, it’s hard to imagine that Lyle would be offended if they slipped and called him a “bartender.”

The conversation turns to strap-ons. Miranda mentions her strap-on flirtation, and Lyle says someone named Janey was his first pegging, leading Che to explain they were “poly pioneers.” Lyle falls asleep in Che’s bed and rather than make him move, Che makes Miranda share the bed with the two of them, which is so college in the worst way. Che feels Miranda up, which leads to Lyle rolling over and trying to initiate a threesome. Che asks Miranda if it’s OK, and she says sure, then quickly experiences physical discomfort, and aborts mission(ary) (that is a very AJLT joke; unlike Steve’s abs, this show is rotting my brain).

Miranda moves to the broken couch outside and tells Che to continue if they want to. A friend and Back Row reader pointed out that this was a realistic reaction from Miranda, who has blown up her entire life and constantly twists herself into a pretzel to fit into the World of Che and appeal to them. If you thought you were finally done with Che at that point, too bad, because Che comes out to sleep on the sloping broken couch with Miranda and they grunt and giggle each time it rocks with their movements.

You know you can’t wait for Che’s moving-themed standup in the next episode, sure to include this groaner I found on a list of Ikea jokes on ScaryMommy.com: “Ikea won’t stop calling me. All I wanted was one nightstand.”

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Now we have And Just Like That, where fashion items feel like obligatory garish accoutrements instead of spiritual outlets. The original series succeeded because it depicted a woefully under-exposed female archetype, but also because it captured a well-defined slice of culture and society in Manhattan, an “in” crowd of women who knew what the hot purses and nightclubs were before most people did. But just when it seems like And Just Like That might be closing in on the frontier of fashion culture the way the old show did, like a bucket of ice water to the face, we bear witness to Charlotte wearing a Burberry plaid shirt and apron at the same time. Here’s your third episode character-by-character recap!

Carrie

Carrie bumps into her cool jewelry designer downstairs neighbor Lisette wearing a blouse with what looks like tiny seashells dangling from it, like Charlotte crafted it in between dog walks. Being a Youth, Lisette wears athleisure, including biker shorts and an oversized windbreaker paired with over-the-knee floral boots. Her look is less “Hadid sisters stepping out” and more “Emily in Paris trying on shoes she doesn’t buy.” We learn Lisette is part of a showcase of jewelry designers to watch put on by Bulgari, which feels like a placement Bulgari paid for. Carrie tells Lisette she’s showing in Bryant Park which, as the former home of fashion week, is “hallowed ground.” Sure Carrie, religious experiences were had when editors and buyers watched the BCBG show there in 2007.

The big thing Carrie has to do this episode is record the audio version of her next book, a memoir about Big dying called Loved & Lost. We get a glimpse of the galley which has the most cliché black-and-white rocky coastline photo on the cover and was likely designed by AI.

Whenever Carrie’s in the recording booth and tries to read the part about finding Big in the shower, she can handle the part about arriving home to “Beethoven’s concerto still ringing in [her] ears” but can’t get through what comes next about finding him in the shower. Weirdly, the producers don’t seem all that sympathetic? They sort of regard her with the same disinterest Charlotte shows her kids.

Carrie then bumps into her friend Bitsy, a fellow widow who tells her that she pre-ordered her book (good woman). While Bitsy’s pink printed top with the one long sleeve and necklace that look like a pool noodle for ants were so loud it was hard to focus on anything else, this was actually one of the better, more human scenes of the series! The show rarely allows us to feel Carrie’s isolation as the lone widow of her friend group. Bitsy gives her advice that none of her closest friends can, which is that the second year after losing one’s husband is worse than the first, “because you feel farther and farther away, and it’s just awful.” She tells Carrie to do whatever she needs to do to make herself feel better.

The humanity of this scene is quickly undone by the next, in which Carrie bursts into her apartment with five Bergdorf bags filled with shoes, shoes being the thing that usually lift her spirits. She sits on her bed, the shoes splayed out around her on the floor, and tries on different ones. Then, she picks up the galley of her book and attempts to read chapter 3 wearing a sparkly orange open-toed mule on one foot and a patent leather pink Gucci pump on the other. When the shoes fail to propel her through the text, she calls the audiobook people and says she has Covid, which was notable given And Just Like That has barely acknowledged Covid until this episode even though it’s been an animating force in viewers’ daily lives for the entire duration of the series. Carrie then gets to sit at home for a while. During this time, she wears a see-through crinoline as loungewear and plays with her shoes, which seem to have been whittled down to the Loewe balloon heels that were talked about so much leading up to this episode I thought they would get more fanfare on the screen than Carrie wearing them during a phone call.

Again, the writers of Sex and the City and And Just Like That have refreshingly never made Carrie the kind of person who turns to religion, yoga, meditation, cleansing or anything woo woo when in need of inner strength. But the shoe scene falls so flat because it is neither funny nor spectacular. The old Sex and the City would have both given us a proper shoe montage and woven the shoes-as-emotional-support thing into the story better. Instead, we bear witness to a depressing form of consumerism as an antidote to the boredom of having such vacant friends.

Charlotte

Next to Seema, Charlotte has the worst storylines of the series. To attend a meeting at her kids school, she wears an Oscar de la Renta pouf-sleeved dress she will one day be devastated to discover that neither of her children want. Administrators reveal that the students made a MILF list, which they say “has put the entire Arbor community at risk.” (Note how the school is named as though a middle-of-the-road private equity fund and the last mom on the list — Cassette Spence — as though a nineties Vogue staffer.)

Do kids these days even know the meaning of the term MILF, which originated in American Pie in 1999, years before they were born? (Vogue.com ran a story headlined, “And Just Like That… We’re Saying MILF Again?”) Who cares, it gives LTW and Charlotte something to do other than stand in their closets. They have no concern about the list aside from wanting to make sure they rank on it. LTW obtains a copy, and they’re happy to see they’re numbers two and three, but unhappy to learn they rank behind a stepmom whom they agree should have been disqualified by virtue of being a stepmom.

After Charlotte hears Carrie has Covid, we see her in her kitchen wearing a Burberry plaid shirt, tying a Burberry plaid apron around her waist, creating an outfit none of us will ever unsee.

What elaborate, apron-necessitating cooking project might she be about to embark upon? Just the thing Carrie will need during Covid: Basmati rice.

LTW

Charlotte’s franken-Burberry aside, LTW wins the episode for most distracting clothes. To the school meeting, she wears an odd eighties two-toned power suit, perhaps to foreshadow how retrograde this plot line is going to get. She wears a silky printed suit by Rick Owens to film Nya for her documentary, for which she employs a sound guy who feels free to stick his entire hand down the front of Nya’s shirt. She tells Nya, who’s interested in the sound guy, this means he likes her because he didn’t stick his hand down the shirt of the circuit court judge she interviewed the day before. Then (is this a continuity error?) she’s back in the two-toned suit to join the other moms in ogling Milo H., the teen student who allegedly made the list, in a scene unfortunately executed with more joy than Carrie’s shoe-buying spree.

Miranda

Miranda’s story line with Brady this episode gave me hope for the series morphing into something that can make the audience feel things. Unfortunately, that was preceded by silliness involving Miranda making the mistake of buying an Android phone, which she can’t work, which interferes with her running lines with Che. If you ever doubted Miranda’s love for Che after she blew up up her life with Steve to move across the country for them, allow that doubt to be assuaged by Miranda willingly playing Tony Danza calling Che “my little cannoli” over and over and over.

Then, wearing her second bucket hat in as many episodes, Miranda pops into a tattoo parlor. She wants to remember who she is in this moment, the bucket hat-wearing, Android impulse-buying, mega-fan of Che’s comedy she has become in L.A. and never go back to being an uptight corporate lawyer ever again. Ricky, the tattoo guy, suggests “some fun robots” including the housekeeper from the Jetsons. Miranda calls Carrie, who is appropriately horrified, and tells her that if she’s going to get a tattoo, get it where no one can see it. Also, she tells Miranda she needs to get back to New York.

After Brady calls Miranda saying that Luisa broke up with him and he’s in Amsterdam where a car almost hit him and he wished it had, Miranda starts panicking over his mental state (understandable). She tells Brady to call her back and sneaks her phone into Che’s taping (again, what year is it that a sitcom is taped in front of a live studio audience?) where Brady calls her during the “little cannoli” scene. The producer that tried to put Che in the zoot suit is furious, as though they just failed to capture an Oscar-worthy moment on par with Schindler’s List. Miranda, who looks lovely in a green jumpsuit, finds Che on the studio lot to tell her she’s going back to New York to see her son. Here, we are left with the sense that Che is not just bad at comedy, but also relationships. Miranda, who is genuinely in crisis, apologizes profusely for everything, and Che is just kind of like, “Whatever, your kid will get over it.”

Seema

Like a number of actors on this show, Sarita Choudhury is so great, and I get annoyed that this show gives her so little to do! Last episode, Seema’s story line involved getting over her problematic hair dresser so that she could get a blow out. This episode, a mugger snatches Seema’s mustard-colored Birkin bag, leaving her to stalk secondhand sites for it. That makes this the second episode where one of these women expends more energy on online stalking one of their beloved fashion items than they do on their careers or relationships.

The costume designers and writers seem to be working in tandem to make Seema defined by the brands she likes more than the personality she could have. When she’s robbed, she wears a caftan-y Fendi dress with black streaks down the front that feels like the sort of thing you would buy because it’s Fendi but not necessarily because it’s great. When Carrie is faking Covid, she shows up wearing a Louis Vuitton monogram-print face mask that she says “is chic but definitely not up to code.” She then accompanies Carrie to Lisette’s jewelry showcase, where Lisette wears hooded evening wear, making her one of the ten customers who currently exist for hooded evening wear.

Even though this is a jewelry showcase put on by a major brand, there is no security — which defies logic since these brands are well known to send security guards to stalk the Anne Hathaways of the world when they loan them diamonds — and a dude robs the joint seemingly without any weapons. Seema pulls a gold gun from her bag, which scares the guy off. Just when we get scared that Seema might be one of those women who owns guns, we learn that LOLZ it’s just an extra-sassy lighter!

Later, Seema steps out of her luxury brown sedan only to encounter a Pomeranian she wants to kneel down to pet on the sidewalk, at which point she notices her bright mustard Birkin basically unscathed stuffed under a fence. I’m sorry, but Seema isn’t bending down in the sidewalk to pet someone else’s purse dog. To remove a scuff from an Amina Muaddi shoe? Yes. To touch hand to dog? No.

Part of the problem with this show is that being materialistic for the sake of it with no other interests or hobbies or guiding belief systems just seems so lame today — as lame as a show called Che Pasa. This means that And Just Like That’s fashion has to do way too much work. If we’re not tuning in for character development, screenwriting, or plot, we’re tuning in to see how these women turn themselves out. But the clothes can’t compensate for characters that have the depth of a splash pad.

Let’s review individually.

Carrie

When Carrie podcasts she wears wireframe glasses and muddy colors, as if to remind us that, what, she’s some sort of grizzled, salt-of-the-earth newswoman? Instead of someone who does this ninety minutes a week to break up her shopping and lunch schedule? Her show falls apart over her refusal to read an ad for a vaginal suppository, but also an inability to rewrite it in her own voice despite being a professional writer.

We are supposed to believe that someone who has discussed blow jobs, erections, and penises at length with her friends, written a column called “Sex and the City” for a mass audience, and had her bestie remove a diaphragm, is too uncomfortable to say the words “vagina” and “suppository.” We are also supposed to believe that Carrie summoning the strength to do this is what will ensure the future of her show but also the entire podcast company. And we are supposed to believe that Carrie, who puts on airs of having become a more empathetic person in her grief, allowed the place to go bust, putting people who need their jobs out of work, all because it just wasn’t HER to say “promo code vag in the city.”

While the fate of the podcast is in limbo over Carrie’s inability to write better ad copy, she throws on a gray jumpsuit and grabs her J. W. Anderson pigeon purse to go around town with Charlotte to locate the Chanel dress her daughter sold. She wears, improbably, high-heeled sandals with socks. It’s not the sandals and socks that strike me as improbable styling-wise as much as the pitch of the sandals with the socks. It all looks horribly uncomfortable in a Prada runway carnage of spring 2009 kind of way. As for the jumpsuit, is she dressing utilitarian because she and Charlotte are going Big Chanel hunting? Did she choose a neutral backdrop to make her pigeon purse pop? Or did she need a lot of pockets because that bag doesn’t fit more than a credit card and box of Tic Tacs?

When Carrie leaves the office after the place collapses over Suppository Gate, she’s wearing a pretty fuchsia dress, as though the bright future ahead of her is one where she doesn’t have to do this much work and can just sort of Charlotte around, minus the childcare, cooking, and bows. When she exits the office building with the podcast man she was sleeping with (what is his name? has anyone retained it?), cringe dialogue ensues over how he wants more than Thursdays. “Thank you for the sex and the city, double entendre intended,” Carrie says. And rather than be mad or upset about anything happening — losing his job and his sexual partner in the same 15 minutes — he’s just like, “See, you are the writer!” How did this man go from seeming so dangerously sexy at the end of the first season to being this vacant in every possible way, like an AI rendering of a human being?

Speaking of Charlotte…

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