'And Just Like That' Season 2 Episode 6 Recap: Is Miranda Worse Than Che Now?

She may be, but — this show is getting better!

Back Row’s full archive of And Just Like That recaps can be found here.

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

The face of a woman who doesn’t know how she ended up with a ring light.

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.)

I don’t think SJP ever worked so hard to wear something on this show.

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:

While those shoes in that weather feel like a death wish, this outfit made SOME sense because she could, you know, move in it! If she can’t do her little Carrie jog, maybe it’s not the look for her.

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

These feel more like Charlotte’s pajamas than Miranda’s.

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

It’s nice to see her dressed down!

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

Those smooth-bottomed shoes on that snow is anxiety-inducing.

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

She doesn’t know what she’s doing here either.

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.