First, I was mistaken, and as of this airing they have not picked up a second season of this (I was, I think, confusing it with Gossip Girl’s hasty renewal). The only rumor I have seen so far is that HBO might order it to try and save face for how bad this season was, which is the clunkiest backhand slice since I last picked up a tennis racket — although it’s also fair to note that, if all press is good press to HBO, then And Just Like That ought to be worth ten times what Gossip Girl is. There is no buzz on that show at all beyond what HBO tried to force.
Second, thank you for hanging around here with me. I have enjoyed flying into an all-caps tantrum with you about And Just Like That; as I’ve noted in the past, it feels really good to get mad about something that doesn’t involve my crushing anxiety about the future of society and the planet as a whole. This is a pressure-release valve that I needed — and honestly, sometimes the bigger the potential, the bigger the rage blackout. It’s not like these actresses aren’t adept. It’s not like the new characters don’t have potential. And I never root for people to be out of a job. I wanted this show to do so much better by every single person involved, and that it couldn’t was a remarkable top-down failure, pocked perhaps by a greater desire to be lauded for telling certain stories, than to actually tell the stories well and take care of the characters in them. The show failed at developing people. At narrative continuity. At compassion. At featuring fifty-something women in ways that make them vibrant, multi-dimensional, human beings. At showcasing fifty-something issues, like menopause, with wit and wisdom. At being a show where post-menopausal women get it on. And, grievously, it failed at basic comedy. Pinning the show to Carrie’s grief made it difficult to achieve any real lightness; Sarah Jessica Parker played every scene, even the lighter ones, through a veil of sadness and from a distance. It was as if she had been turned down to about a 4. But whenever a joke came to break the doldrums, it just wasn’t funny. From Che’s mouth or anyone else’s.
This episode is heavily about Carrie and Miranda, so I’m going to knock out Charlotte’s story first and then cover Carrie and Miranda together. There is so much at which to cringe. So. Much.
Charlotte: Rock’s “they-mitzvah” is coming up, but rabbis keep backing out, so Charlotte is thrilled to pin down a trans rabbi to run the show. The rabbi is played by Hari Nef, and please add this character to the list of the ones we can keep in our imaginary spinoff, because Hari Nef is watchable and sharp-tongued and a welcome burst of energy. Unfortunately for Charlotte, Rock is completely unprepared for this: They haven’t memorized their Torah readings or even basic prayers, and they show zero interest in doing so before Friday’s event. Rabbi Hari suggests they cut down the reading to two lines, or do the mitzvah in English. Charlotte makes it about herself: “I did not convert to Judaism to have my child they-mitzvah’d in English!” Harry realizes the other rabbis didn’t back out for nefarious reasons; they simply fired them because they knew Rock wasn’t ready. So basically, everyone in Rock’s life had a read on this situation except Rock’s parents. Indeed, Rock even said last week that they didn’t want to do this and flounced off. How did it get to this point where everyone is surprised and no one has sat down with Rock? Anthony marches into Rock’s room and grabs the PlayStation remote out of their hand and orders them to learn their lines, via a long anecdote about how he was the Sky Masterson understudy at theater camp and stepped in and saved the day: “This is your shot, and you’re going to blow it. Learn your frigging lines.” And I guess… everyone thought this mediocre pep talk was going to work, because no one changed any of the plans. Naturally, on the day, Rock — who looks rad in a hot pink suit — refuses to go out there. “But you’ve been practicing for months,” Charlotte protests. No, they haven’t. We know this. We covered this already. Indeed: “No, I haven’t,” Rock says. “You have. I don’t believe in it… any of this.” Harry and Charlotte try to convince Rock to go out there and just finish the job — Harry wearily offers them an Oculus, or an Apple Watch — but Rock says they’re missing the point. “I don’t want to be labeled as anything. As girl, boy, non-binary, Jew, Christian, Muslim, or even… a New Yorker.” I did chuckle at the GASP Charlotte and Harry let out when they dropped that last bomb. Also, you need to know that Charlotte is wearing THE most hideous, dated dress in this scene. It was distracting. I can’t take her seriously while she’s dressed in Janie & Jack for Saks.
Harry agrees to gong the whole thing, but a panicked Charlotte flaps over to Special Guest Star Lisa Todd Wexley, wailing that they have to cancel the party in the MIDDLE of the party, and she feels like a failure as a mother and as a Jewish person. I can’t decide if it’s telling that these women each seek out their new peripheral partners for advice and not each other, or if it’s just the show trying too hard. Maybe both. Having said that, LTW is wearing a sparkling turban, so personally, I also would ask her opinion first. And that is: “I have watched you take care of every person in your world every single day. So let’s forget about everyone else. Breathe. What do you want?” This would be kind advice, if this were about Charlotte, but it’s dismissive of Rock — who is going through something that we KNEW was more interesting than the show allowed it to be. A different show, and a better one, would have let us in on Rock’s world. Sex and the City was not an ensemble show. And Just Like That tried to expand its universe so broadly that it needed to become one, and it refused. Nya is the only person who had conversations that didn’t involve one of the central original three. I would have welcomed letting Rock take the reins. Making Lily have any definable personality. Showing how they do and don’t connect. Charlotte’s family could have been interesting.
It ends with Charlotte storming into whatever room Rock is in, and announcing that she did NOT come this far to cancel now and that SOMEONE is gonna get mitzvah’d. Guess what? It’s her. Charlotte proudly does all the recitations, and then her family comes up for a hug and a photo, including Rock. So clearly LTW, in all her divine wisdom, knew that all the ME ME ME shrieking from Charlotte indicated that it did indeed need to be about her, her, her.
Carrie, Miranda, and the Rest: Let us join hands and prepare for what’s coming. Red Rover, Red Rover, send my righteous rageball on over. We open in the tenth circle of hell, also known as Che’s podcast studio, where they are discussing breakups with Carrie and Bobby Lee. Who has a character name, but whatever. Bobby Lee is probably fine in real life, but is a sore thumb in this show, and I don’t believe for a second that his character is getting paid enough to sit in on this hackfest (possibly also applicable to Bobby himself). Bobby says that a woman got Covid to avoid breaking up with him in person. Che thinks they can top that: “A woman broke up with me on FACE TIME.” That… is not worse? That’s what passes for in person these days, and it’s a lot more courteous than a text, or, say, willingly swan-diving into a brutal pandemic. Has EVERYONE caught Carrie’s one-upmanship disease? Then Che, who, may I remind you, is ostensibly a professional comedian, says, “And she was so sweet. I never saw it coming. She should’ve broken up with me on Two-Faced Time.” Everyone laughs.
I assume the laughs are to cover up the noise of all their souls being sucked into Satan’s refrigerator. Carrie calls them all lightweights, and says she has them all beat. Now, a regular human with a lifetime of dating highs and lows would tee up the story about how a man dumped her via Post-It, but The Widow Preston is no regular human. Her blood is made of plasma and narcissism. You know, and I know, exactly what’s coming. We all probably woke up in a cold sweat midweek, hyper-aware on a cellular level that this moment was going to happen and that we could do nothing to stop it. Carrie says, “My husband DIED. DEATH. The ULTIMATE breakup… Clearly I win worst breakup ever.” Congratulations, Carrie. Here is your trophy. It just says WORST on it and you can apply it to yourself eight different ways a day. You did not get dumped. He loved you and he died in your arms loving you, except for that fraction of a second where he thought, “This asshole is just gonna stand there?” Maybe in that sense YOU dumped HIM, Carrie. How do you like THAT. Then Carrie swings around to Hot Producer Franklyn and suggests they take a call, but they don’t have any calls. BECAUSE NO ONE LISTENS. Also, this is not a radio show. Please help me understand how live phone calls work on a podcast. Do they post a number to call, and a time and a date, on… social media? Anyway, if the point was to make it look like no one cares about Fuckface Podcast, it worked.
At home, Carrie tells Big’s ashes that she’s going on a date. Big’s ashes officially get more piping hot intel than her living friends. Then we smash to the end of the date, where Jon Tenney is walking her home and feeling very smug that they survived it intact. Jon says he has a confession to make. “You paid for that meal with a Groupon?” Carrie cracks. Wow.Don’t crap on Groupons, Miss Billionaire, especially not when you just got a free dinner. I hope he took her to Burger King. No, Jack in the Box. And on a day when they were out of Sourdough Jacks. Anyway, Jon’s confession is that he Googled her and learned she’s a New York Times bestseller, and Carrie does that irritating thing where she ducks her head and pretends it’s some other Carrie Bradshaw, ha ha ha, no big deal. Why isn’t this formerly confident woman proud of herself? Is she ashamed of her writing? Newsflash, Carrie, you should be bragging about your writing at every opportunity and be glad he didn’t ask about your podcast. The point of this: He asks to kiss her, and then lays one on her that resembles two dead fish being placed next to each other in the supermarket icebox. I know I carp about the show skipping out on important moments, but spending zero additional time in this void was one of the correct omissions. Their scenes somehow manage to crackle with an actual absence of energy.
The first person Carrie calls about it is… Seema, because the script says so. The throughline here SHOULD be that Samantha has left a void in Carrie’s life and she’s desperate to fill it, and can’t. Because she doesn’t call either of the other two women. Seema is banging that nightclub owner, whom people familiar with SATC recognized as Carrie’s Prada guy, and I guess he was also on Emily in Paris but I don’t even one-eye that show; I half-eye it. So I can’t retain any faces except that of the boss who hates her. But I don’t think this dude, Zed, is meant to BE Prada Guy. While Seema lies half naked on his stomach, Carrie bumbles through a conversation about how the date was charming and okay and she was nervous and they kissed and it was meh. She seems mostly thrown by the fact that Jon asked permission as opposed to just grabbing her in the heat of passion. (Perhaps Carrie should interrogate whether that’s because she has thrown up on him, ditched him, and radiates all the heat of a pool on a winter’s day. It’s amazing he did not get mouth frostbite.) In the middle of this, Zed starts mauling Seema on the hotel bed (do they not have apartments?) and she lets him, and they suck face through the phone, and Carrie just laughs it off and they hang up. Seema is kind of a jerk, but in a way that I respect given how much I dislike Carrie at the moment.
Carrie gives up and goes to bed, but her lamp is turning itself off and on, so the next day Carrie goes to her obligatory lunch with Charlotte and Miranda — the one where they all barely tolerate each other’s life news before dispersing with sweet sweet relief — and tells them that she thinks Big is mad about her date and sending her messages from the Great Beyond. Miranda greets this with the sensitivity of a table saw. Defensively, Carrie insists she’s not “woo-woo” about this stuff but that the timing seems crazy, and Charlotte says she is woo-woo (since when?) and yet still doesn’t believe Big would send a message from Heaven that Carrie shouldn’t ever kiss a man again. I said out loud, “HEAVEN, seriously,” because we all know Big is sitting down with the devil having a well drink, smoking menthols, and listening to Che’s standup specials. And then Miranda says, “Heaven, seriously?” and for a second we are in harmony until I realize that Miranda is just being a jerk about the concept of heaven. “You think Big is sitting up on a cloud puffing away on a cigar?” Miranda practically sneers, and Carrie says that yes, in fact, she does like to believe that. “Since WHEN? I thought we were on the same page about this,” Miranda spits back. It’s so disproportionate that she’s acting like this is a friendship dealbreaker, and look, I hate to be the one who says it here, but I’m going to: BIG DIED. Did Miranda miss this memo, because it’s been sent 84 times this season. Let Carrie believe whatever gives her comfort, asshat. Charlotte cheerfully notes that if you can’t DISPROVE it, then it could be possible, and freaking Miranda doubles down with, “I can’t disprove the existence of the Easter Bunny. Are we undecided about THAT now, too?” Awful. She is AWFUL. I kept waiting for this vehement reaction to be about something else, but no, Miranda is just driving the final nail into the coffin of anyone’s good opinion of her. Miranda closes with, “It’s just guilt. Get it fixed,” meaning both that and the lamp, and it’s nasty and Carrie SHOULD get up and throw a drink in her face and leave. Instead, Miranda gets a second to tell everyone she was invited to meet Che’s family, and we move on, and the bonds of friendship that once connected these women continue to imprison them instead.
Promise?
Ugh, and more meanderings with Carrie. It’s interminable. This season was Carrie Bradshaw and the Interminable Sadness, all over a person that the show seriously overestimated the viewer’s interest in grieving. It’s remarkable that Big is a pretty iconic TV character, and yet killing him is the one thing I would have been OKAY with happening off-camera and just catching up on it later. I cannot muster an interest in Carrie’s journey, especially because so many of the resonant day-to-day parts of starting over — finances, health insurance, struggling with work — don’t apply to her. Anyway, she takes her stupid lamp to get fixed and clearly wants the Lamp Man to tell her it’s just a simple Celestial Visitation Malfunction. Then she texts Samantha that she kissed a man. The correct Samantha Jones response is, “Where?” (She would lean in before asking and raise a gleeful eyebrow.) But Fake Samantha just says, “The first of many. How was it?” Carrie replies, “It wasn’t Big.” Fake Sam texts, “So, it was small.” Uh, no. It’s possible Samantha Jones would have made a lewd “He’s dead, so I HOPE not, honey,” joke, but more likely she would say, “Sweetie, we’re too fabulous to fuck with the little leagues.” Carrie asks if Samantha wants to talk, and Samantha texts back, “We’ll talk the day you ask me any fucking question at all about MY life,” and then goes and has dinner with Natasha. Sigh. Sadly, I am kidding. She just says, “Soon.” I hope we find out that Samantha secretly mailed her phone to Susan Sharon.
Off to Miranda for a second. She shows up to meet Che’s family and seems startled that it’s at a nightclub. Perhaps she could have Googled that, and avoided arriving dressed like the mother of the bride. Che plonks her down next to their grandmothers — no other blood family is named — and heads on-stage. Everyone starts clapping. “What’s happening?” Miranda asks through a fake smile. I know, it throws me off, too, that anyone would clap for Che. Into the mic, Che says, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to subject you to my stand-up,” and I immediately leap to my feet and applaud and tip the nightclub owner. This is the greatest gift I could ask for as a viewer, as a recapper, as a human with a pulse. Except. EXCEPT. Che starts performing “California Girls” by David Lee Roth. And we all know Sara Ramirez can sing — they have a freaking Tony for Spamalot, and they slayed Brandi Carlile’s “The Story” in the Grey’s musical hour — and yet somehow it is on par with the experience of listening to Che’s comedy, and I want to crawl into a hole and watch reruns of Barry and Ted Lasso to remind me that the human experience can be fun. Miranda is incapable of doing anything but look around, confused, as if she has never seen a person sing with a band before. Then Che shouts that they’re going to California: “Hollywood called, bitches! I’m making a pilot.” My notes say, “What is this excruciating nonsense.” (I type my notes. Handwritten it would just say, “!!! NO.”) How can this musical number be so bad?
Later, Che explains that it’ll take about a month, and then they’ll see if it gets picked up. Which part is taking a month? Is Che also helping with pre- and post-production? Is this a single-camera sitcom? Dear GOD, is it AN HOUR-LONG DRAMEDY? I need logistics, please. Wait, no, I don’t. Che says the studio is really excited. “They think I’m the new Roseanne. The good one from the ’80s,” they add. My notes read, “NO THEY DON’T.” My notes are savage. Che tells Miranda that things really accelerated in the last week, or else they’d have told her privately. “And yet you had time to put together a band?” Miranda asks. Che shrugs: “What can I say, I’m a fucking narcissist.” Then they ask Miranda to come with them to L.A. Which part of Che doesn’t want something traditional, exactly? Does “traditional” JUST mean marriage to them? Because Che is acting like they’re all for commitment. And Miranda is stoked because now she doesn’t have to give up her fix. This has been so neat and consequence-free for Miranda. How nice. She’s not even struggling with being in a bar and having tonic water.
Cut to Podcast Central, where Che has just told everyone the best news imaginable: NO MORE PODCAST. I actually think that is a step toward world peace. They say it’s not just because of L.A., although obviously, it is. Che is clearly pretty confident they’re going to hit it big. There is no reason to stop it, yet, though; whatever happened to a short hiatus? But, Che thinks it’s done everything they wanted it to do — which yes, it got you a payday — and that they’re proud of all of it. Everyone is chill about this ending. No one on the production side is waving a contract around, or even asking them to change their mind. See? The one issue on which we are all unified is that this podcast needs to go away forever. Bobby and Carrie leave together and he says, “I feel like a person who survived a plane crash,” which is an interesting comment to make and truly rather an insult to the podcast, which makes me think I ought to like him. Carrie wants to stay friends, because her old friends seem exhausted by her and she often seems to hate them actively, so he invites her to a party at his place.
Nya still exists, so Miranda goes to see her and tell her that she’s finishing class remotely and going to L.A. for what is now “a few months.” Nya is surprised, because Miranda had nabbed an extremely sought-after internship at Human Rights Watch on the strength of Nya’s glowing recommendation. She HAD? Since WHEN? Miranda chucking everything would have so much more impact if ANY of the other stuff in her life — school, this internship, even Steve and Brady — had ever felt real. (Well, Steve once felt real, but not this version of him.) They didn’t write Miranda; they wrote a résumé. Miranda smugly says she’s following her heart, and Nya sighs that she’s selfishly just sad because Andre is out of town and so she’d penciled Miranda in for a lot of hangouts. She DID? Since WHEN? Nya for sure has other friends. Miranda is not good enough company for me to think she dazzled Nya to the point of being her only social engagement. If you care, by the way, Andre is out on tour, which he agreed to do because they are hoping physical separation will offer clarity on the emotional issues dividing them. “Let’s feel what we’d be throwing away over a baby we haven’t even met,” Nya explains. This should have been the midpoint of the season, right, and maybe a mature and measured counterpart to what Miranda did, presented WHILE Miranda was going through it. Instead it’s the end of Nya’s arc. She started here, and she moved like an inch, and now we’re done with her. Her imaginary spinoff with Hari Nef and Lisa Todd Wexley is going to be amazing, though.
Back to Carrie. They jam in a call from Seema so that we can hear her say she’s into Zed, and stick a hasty bow on THAT character’s story. That’s a wrap for Seema, ladies and gentlemen. Carrie hangs up with her so that she can have lunch with Big’s brother. There is painful dementia joke when she idiotically misunderstands him asking her where Big is. “On a shelf in my closet, next to my very best shoes,” she eventually says. “That would say a lot if you knew me better.” I’m confident he would get that after five minutes. He is here to ask where she plans to place the ashes, and mansplains how a family crypt works by drawing her a picture and dangling the carrot of space for her too. I’m sad that a character we never knew or cared about is the one spurring along the discussion about what to do with Big’s ashes. Personally, I think she should split them up and rub some all over a Peloton, drown some in a bottle of expensive booze and then bury it, have a couple custom cigars made with them inside that she can disperse to his enemies, and then stick some in a suit pocket and then send it to a dry-cleaner so that his essence can infuse air around what I assume he loved the most in life: more suits.
Bobby’s party turns out to be a surprise wedding, and none of it is funny, so I’ll cut to the end: Hot Franklyn is there, and he thinks Carrie is really smart and full of insightful relationship advice. “I’d like to produce you, alone, talking to callers,” he says, except he makes it sound like a sexual proposition. FINALLY, this show delivers on a setup. You don’t put the smoking gun of Hot Franklyn in a booth without pulling that trigger. I still want to know how live callers work on a podcast, but whatever. In essence, he wants Carrie to be Dr. Frasier Crane, minus the credentials, and also probably the patient listening.
Oh, also, Carrie’s dumb lamp goes on again. She asks Big-as-Lamp whether he’s trying to reach her, and then turns it off and falls asleep. She has a dream of herself in Paris, with the “Hello, It’s Me” song playing in the background, and we hear Chris Noth’s voice singing the line “let you know you are free” as Carrie turns to camera. This was supposed to be Carrie and Big in a horse-drawn carriage, but they snipped it out after a whole raft of allegations were made against Noth. Instead, Carrie wakes up and her lamp is on.
At Rock’s mitzvah, Carrie tells Miranda and Charlotte that Big came to her in a dream, and it made her realize that Big wants his final resting place to be in Paris at their bridge. Carrie, you just want a trip to Paris. Admit it. (I know they had a moment in Paris, but does she not remember the time they broke up because he didn’t tell her that his office MIGHT move him to Paris, and she stormed out screaming that he never took her into consideration in his life?) It’s very Carrie to decide that the essence of Big is her, and that he never added up to anything other than the sum of their relationship. This is not where Big would want to be. It’s where Carrie would want him to be. It’s where Carrie should grab a tablespoon of her ashes, and then leave instructions to have someone mix it with a tablespoon of hers and throw THAT down over the bridge in Paris. But it’s not Big. But I guess that’s part of the problem; in the show universe, Big never was much more than the sum of their relationship, and we barely knew his real name, so what else could they even think of?
Carrie tells the girls they’ll make a weekend of it in Paris, and that their rooms and plane tickets are on hold. (I sure hope Carrie isn’t forcing them on this trip but then making them pay for it.) While Charlotte deals with Rock, Miranda tries to sound excited but also nervously says she needs to check her schedule because she’ll have to fly out from Los Angeles. She babbles that Che invited her out, and what the heck, why not, and it’s great timing because Brady will be backpacking across Europe anyway. Carrie COMPLETELY freezes on her, and then brushes her off and says FORGET IT, Miranda can’t fly to Paris from L.A., it’s too long. Miranda insists she doesn’t care about that part; she just wants to know the dates so she can square it with the taping. Carrie is all, “NEVER MIND, it was PRESUMPTUOUS,” and stomps off. Miranda chases her into the bathroom and says she thinks she can make it work, and Carrie complains that she’d just be jet-lagged through the whole thing. “I can do both,” Miranda says. And she can. This entire interaction was handled in the exact opposite way actual friends would do it, up to and including the fact that Miranda hadn’t told her ladies yet that she’s going to L.A., and the fact that Carrie would be so bitchy and wounded and negative about her friend having a life that doesn’t revolve around the anniversary of Big’s death. Also, jet lag is never a reason to say no to a trip? Even a short one. Human beings can deal with shit, Carrie. People take those flights all the time, and let’s be real, you could fly her first class and she’d pass out for 8 hours in an airplane bed and be fine.
Miranda insists she can do Paris and L.A., because they’re both important. Carrie is hella unimpressed that Miranda gave up her internship to “go sit in an audience and laugh” all day, and this is a super rude comment, because how dare she imply anyone will laugh at Che’s comedy. Also, it is starting to feel like The Hills all over again where Lauren Conrad turns down a Paris internship to stay with a boyfriend everyone knew wouldn’t last. Miranda is giving up an internship to miss… a pilot taping, and in a show where characters interrogate themselves, she’d realize that it’s because she believes out of Che’s sight will be out of Che’s mind, and that she should therefore keep the internship and see what happens. Sigh. Carrie cannot believe this is Miranda talking, and Miranda defensively asks if she’s not ever allowed to change, or change back again if she wants to: “Do I have to follow rigid rules until I die?” She is talking around the issue. It’s not about rules, it’s about hastiness. It’s like how the writers of the show got defensive of Steve by saying, “Hearing loss happens!” when the problem was not writing the story, it was writing the story horribly. That said, Carrie is having a fit and it’s not the first time she’s been cold to Miranda about things that Miranda feels are important. Miranda snaps, “Why do I feel like I can’t go to L.A. without letting you down?” and Carrie asks why Miranda cares what anyone thinks. Well, perhaps it’s because the minute it came up, and the minute Miranda’s life became inconvenient to Carrie’s Me Party, Carrie shut her down and threw a tantrum. I personally have no idea why Miranda cares about Carrie’s opinion anymore on a macro level, but she does. Her response: “Because you’re not ‘anyone.’ You’re you.”
Enter Rabbi Hari Nef, who was using a bathroom stall. And here is where Rabbi Hari lost me, because she gives a whole speech about how she heard the details, yes, but what she really heard was that the relationship between the two of them is an incredibly strong bond, “and yeah, that closeness presents challenges from time to time, but this right here is precious and worth protecting, right?” Oh, Hari. I have nine other episodes to show you.
What follows is a really lovely scene, funny and wry and also emotional, about lifelong friends clearing away the rubble and figuring out how they’ve messed up with each other, and how to go forward with love and honesty. I mean, I assume that happened. We don’t SEE it. None of that is SPOKEN. We just pick up with them after Charlotte’s mitzvah, when Carrie says she and Miranda have agreed that Miranda won’t go to Paris because Miranda is in love and it’s great and fine. Charlotte shouts, “I’m so happy for you!” Charlotte truly did not deserve what this show gave her, including the “Smug Charlotte” label. With a couple exceptions, she’s been nonjudgmental and supportive, and neither of these two has any time for her. To wit: Charlotte tells Carrie she’ll still be there, and Carrie says, “You two got me this far. I can do the rest on my own.” Poor Charlotte. Carrie won’t even be alone with her.
Epilogues: Brady leaves for Europe when Miranda leaves for Los Angeles. She asks if he’s ever going to say anything, and no, she does not mean about the bomb she dropped on their lives, or about her new famous romantic partner. Instead, it’s about whether he noticed that she dyed her hair red again. “What happened to all the grey pride?” he asks. She replies, “It’s still there. I just felt like changing it up again.” Brady grins, “I thought you were just copying my look.” Miranda: “I had it first.” They link arms and head off to their taxi. No. Sorry. These two do not have a real relationship at all. Also Miranda spent the first half of the season telling Nya that her son is an unpleasant asshole. Also, where is Steve? Can he please be dating Susan Sharon or something, and chortling over the fake Samantha texts they’re sending Carrie?
Carrie strolls her Parisian bridge in a hideous orange meringue of a Valentino, and then dumps Big’s ashes out of a purse shaped like the Eiffel Tower that I assume is a Judith Lieber. She then texts Samantha, because we all know Samantha is the friend love of her life and the only loss that needed grieving, the only wound that needed healing. No further questions. She asks if Samantha wants to meet for a cocktail, I guess because… it’s a quick flight from London? How very Carrie of her. Samantha says, “How is tomorrow night?” I can’t WAIT until Carrie finds out that she’s been texting Dan Humphrey this whole time.
Cut to: Carrie’s new podcast, where her first answer to one of her live callers is basically, “I don’t know.” She yammers about how the more she lives, the more she’s mystified, and the less life makes sense. Stellar advice. “But if there’s anything I’ve learned from my recent loss, it’s that you WILL laugh again, especially if you have one or two good friends in your corner,” she says, because after all, BIG IS STILL DEAD. She then says, “As for love, anything’s possible. The future is unwritten.” Did we not JUST say this show was evoking The Hills? And now Carrie is going full Natasha Bedingfield on us. This note of romantic optimism is wholly unearned, but nonetheless, Franklyn comes in and tells her how fabulous it was. And as they get in the elevator, Carrie tells him how nice it felt to look up at him every time she felt lost, and BOOM. They make out. I am very, very pleased that the show had the sense not to waste Hot Franklyn. It is the only sensible decision anyone made. This probably means they’re going to dig up Aiden in season two.
And just like that… THAT’S A WRAP.
Hero of the Week: Any actor who got so excited about being cast in this, only to discover that they were going to get little more than scraps. They all showed up to work anyway and made us want more of THEM than of the actual mains.
