And Just Like That … Recap: The Hobbes Rom-Com

And Just Like That

Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered

Season 1

Episode 8

Editor’s Rating

2 stars

**

Photo: Craig Blankenhorn/HBO Max

When Che Diaz is the only one around to reason with you, you know things are dire. Honestly, having the most mystifying character in the entire show be the one to remind Miranda that she’s being an utterly shitty person tracks. The Miranda stuff has been a mess from the beginning, and much of that stems from the fact that the Miranda in And Just Like That … seems to have zero connection to the Miranda in Sex and the City. Carrie has, more than once, said things to the effect of not knowing who Miranda is anymore, and I feel like it’s way past time for these friends to have an actual conversation about this. It’s great that Miranda is having a sexual awakening and feeling alive and free and finally feels like she’s beginning to understand who she is. All of that is good! But she’s doing it all at the expense of several other people — even the person she is supposedly in love with! — and that doesn’t seem to cross her mind at any point. Sure, most of the characters on this show are self-involved, but this is a new level. Even her reason for finally telling Steve that she has been cheating on him and wants a divorce is self-involved: She’s not doing it because it is the right thing to do and she feels guilty — she’s doing it because it is the only way Che will stay with her.

When Che learns that Miranda hasn’t told her husband they’ve been sleeping together, that this is a secret affair and not part of an open marriage (it feels like this is something Che would’ve explicitly clarified before continuing the relationship, but okay), they want nothing to do with Miranda. They are not a cheat, not a liar, and certainly not a home-wrecker. Miranda seems legitimately flabbergasted that someone might feel this way. Has she not been living on planet Earth all this time or …? And this — the threat of losing Che forever — is what finally prompts Miranda to have an honest conversation with her husband.

Miranda’s friends seem to have resigned themselves to the fact that Miranda is going to do whatever she wants (Samantha’s absence has never been felt so acutely as it does in this dinner scene when Miranda announces she’s going to ask Steve for a divorce — Samantha would have so many notes!). Still, hey, at least Carrie’s like, Um, maybe you want to check that Che is as into this whole thing as you are before you blow up your life. Miranda does exactly that. She shows up outside of Che’s place of business (!!) to ask if they’re all in. They could’ve given Miranda cartoon heart eyes at this point; the woman is so head over heels. Miranda gets the response she was hoping for: Che says they’re in love with her, too. Miranda is so moony over Che that it seems like she doesn’t entirely take in Che making it very clear that Miranda will never have anything traditional with them. In the moment, Miranda is like Yeah, yeah, traditional is the problem and as long as it’s you and me, I don’t care! I have a feeling that she won’t be so enthusiastic about a nontraditional relationship if that means, say, sharing Che with other people (maybe, again, something Che should be explicit about with Miranda, but Che is gonna Che). It doesn’t even cross Miranda’s mind, she is so in love. With Che’s confirmation that the feeling is mutual, Miranda heads off to dump her deadweight, er, Steve.

This conversation is heartbreaking. Miranda walks into it like a real asshole assuming that it’ll be no big deal because Steve surely must know that their marriage is dead and Miranda wants out. She can’t even comprehend that he might feel differently. But, of course, he does. Miranda tells Steve that this, their marriage the way it is, isn’t enough for her. She should be telling him this! It’s just that she should’ve told him way before she started sleeping with someone else. Whether they could’ve worked it out or not, who knows, since, as it turns out, their marriage the way it is does happen to be enough for Steve. After all the years of ups and downs in their relationship, he revels in the stability of it all. He also makes it clear that he’s fought to keep their relationship alive many times before when Miranda didn’t and he’s exhausted, so if this is what she really wants — he wants her to be happy, after all — this is it, he isn’t fighting for them anymore. Can someone give this guy a hug? Steve!

While this news clearly shatters Steve, Miranda only feels relief (we’re just asking for a tiny bit of sensitivity toward this man you built a life with!). She calls Carrie to tell her the news and inform her friend that she is currently in a cab on the way to the airport to surprise Che at their show in Cleveland. She’s going to tell them that they can be together for real now. She feels like she’s in a rom-com, she says! (What would Sex and the City Miranda think?) Something tells me that the perfect rom-com ending might not exactly be waiting for Miranda in Ohio, but only time will tell!

Meanwhile, over on the Upper East Side, Charlotte is still blowing Harry. Admittedly, it is this kind of story line I had been anticipating when a Sex and the City reboot became a real thing. Lily walks in on Charlotte about to give Harry head when Charlotte slams the door in her daughter’s face. She makes up a story about checking Harry’s penis for cancer and then immediately regrets it because, as she tells Carrie and Miranda, she had this whole plan to normalize talking about sex with her children, but when the opportunity presented itself, Charlotte’s impulse was to do the exact opposite. Mostly, Carrie and Miranda cannot get over the fact that Charlotte still blows her husband — Carrie’s “Is he dying or something?” is a true highlight — but once that shock wears off (what have these women been talking about for the last 15 years?), Carrie reminds Charlotte that there is still time to have an honest conversation here.

That conversation doesn’t go exactly as planned. Charlotte takes Lily out to lunch, but before she can even broach the subject, she discovers that her 15-year-old is posting some suggestive photos in skimpy clothes on a finsta. Charlotte wants some answers and Lily is, you know, a teen, so things escalate, and Lily ends up running away to Aunt Carrie’s, where she’s been helping Carrie inventory her clothes before she puts them in storage. It’s nice to get a reminder of the friendship that exists between Carrie and Charlotte since most of the time Charlotte’s treated like an annoyance rather than someone’s best friend of several decades. Carrie tries to talk Charlotte down, reminding her that Lily is a good kid and is just trying to figure out who she is. Carrie is able to stop Charlotte from spinning out, which is great, although I still wish someone would sit Lily down and talk to her about the permanence of the internet. I know Lily eventually admits that only a small group of friends follow that specific account, but still, I have concerns. I am exactly who Carrie worries she is in the eyes of her cool young neighbor. I am ma’am.

The kicker of this whole story line is that while Charlotte was right to have a chat with her daughter about those photos, and it makes sense that she would feel some type of way about her daughter getting older, in the end she didn’t need to be worried that Lily was much less innocent than she thought: Lily still believes that her mom was checking for penis cancer in the bathroom. Her dad getting a blowjob before he’s had his morning coffee never even crossed her mind.

• Carrie spends the episode dealing with noisy new neighbor Lisette, who ends up being a young and famous jewelry designer with a super-shitty boyfriend who keeps calling Carrie “ma’am.” Carrie’s worried she’s becoming the loser curmudgeon upstairs, and it doesn’t help that cool girl Lisette keeps bumping into her while she’s wearing ridiculous outfits like her One Cigarette a Day Uniform, which consists of many headscarves and rubber gloves so that she doesn’t bring the smell of cigarettes back into her apartment, tempting her to smoke more. Carrie is so fucking high maintenance. Regardless, the two women bond over dating in New York when Carrie catches Lisette kicking her boyfriend out. Carrie wanted the approval of the Youths, and now she has it!

• Carrie is an acclaimed sex-and-relationship writer, and the best advice she can muster as a tearful Lisette confides that she feels like an asshole for even dating a guy like that is the equivalent of a shrug emoji. Oh, Carrie.

• Not to harp too much more on the Miranda and Steve of it all, but hot sex was never their problem!

• Man, everyone in the AJLT universe is super into Vulture, huh?

• Okay, it actually warms my heart to see how much of an auntie Carrie is to Charlotte’s kids.

• What a welcome return for the gorgeous Versace ball gown!

• Lotta dicks in this episode! And I don’t just mean Miranda! I mean actual dicks!