Somehow, ‘And Just Like That’ Manages To Be Both Boring AND Shocking at the Same Time
Well, gang. Here we are. Week 3 of And Just Like That, and somehow we have more to talk about than ever. This show is starting to feed my brain the same way that reality TV shows like Catfish do: there’s just something endlessly fascinating about watching the many ways one can metaphorically flip their car over five interstate lanes.
This episode was all over the place. It had some wildly baffling highs and genuinely unsettling lows. In the middle, Carrie just kinda bumbled around. I felt like a background fish from SpongeBob as I wondered if the writers were actually going anywhere with all this built-up agitation they’ve amassed. Will these subplots go anywhere? Will Aidan actually return any time soon, or will And Just Like That just keep forcing us to watch the antics of Manhattan’s doddering one-percent?
Ah, well. At least Steve is back.
Return of the King!
The episode opens with a lot of ruckus in the Hobbes-Brady household, and initially, I was worried we’d have to be tortured with another Brady sex scene. But as it turns out, the ruckus is just Steve, RIPPED as HELL, going to town on a boxing dummy.
My goodness. Steven. David Eigenberg put in the work for this return. I always thought Steve was the cutest guy in the cast anyways, but Jesus Christ, he’s absolutely shredded now.
And you know what? Good for us, obvi, but most of all, good for him. They did Steve so dirty in the first season of AJLT. I’m actually in favor of Miranda coming out as queer; I think that characterization makes sense, yet they handled it in a way that kind of gutted Steve like a fish. Didn’t have to be that way! He didn’t have to be the butt of multiple jokes! The Steve we know would never, ever be walking around like, “How do I work this? Where is that large automobile?” And even if he did, we as viewers would never make fun of him for it, because that’s just mean!
I hope Steve gets his due this season, I really do. It’s my hope that Steve takes a sabbatical from the chaos that is his life and just has his own jolly good time in the city. Maybe this is how we’ll be reintroduced to Aidan, since they’re friends/business partners. Yes. Show us Steve having a glass of scotch on the rocks and reading Hemingway again, like he used to. This is my wish.
Speaking of Miranda, though—oh, miss girl.
Whose consent is it anyways?
Listen. I’m no prude. I love talking about sex, I am comfortable with the way I live my life, and I am supportive of the lifestyles of others—provided that every party involved is enthusiastically consenting to whatever’s going on. That attempted threesome scene? The consent was dubious at best, and nowhere NEAR as enthusiastic nor well-communicated as it should have been!
Miranda and Carrie help welcome Che back to NYC, and along comes Lyle, Che’s ex-husband, to not only help with the moving process, but also live with Che for a little while. We learn that Che and Lyle used to be poly before splitting up, a quick yet pointed introduction that had me raising my eyebrow because knowing And Just Like That, there was no way they were just going to introduce that and then drop it.
Lo and behold, later on, Che and Miranda find Lyle drunkenly passed out on their bed. The couple decides it’s too cruel to move him to the broken couch in the living room, and instead fall asleep next to him. But Che starts gettin’ frisky in the middle of the night, and after a little convincing (since, you know, Lyle was there), Miranda gets frisky, too. And you know what, it was actually kind of hot! UNTIL…
Lyle wakes up and starts macking on Che. And then Che starts macking on Lyle. And Miranda’s stunned, because none of this had been discussed prior! But instead of saying, “Sorry Miranda, we should have asked first,” or, “Hey LYLE, shove off, I didn’t ask Miranda,” Che looks at Miranda and essentially asks if this is “too intense” for Miranda to handle. Which is just about the most roundabout way of asking if someone’s okay with something, because it’s not actually asking for explicit consent. Never before have Che and Miranda even discussed opening their relationship to other people, in any capacity, but they especially didn’t discuss doing anything like this.
So of course, because AJLT‘s Miranda is a pushover who suddenly forgot how to bite back when the moment calls for it, she just goes with it. After awkwardly trying to play along, Miranda finally has an out when she gets a Charley horse and has to leave the room.
And to Che’s credit, they immediately stop and come out to check on Miranda, but holy shit, initiating a threesome without explicit discussion and consent beforehand is some real college behavior. There have been a lot of uncomfortable scenes in this show thus far, but most have just been lighthearted, ridiculous things to point and laugh at. This genuinely had me a little grossed out.
Which is saying something, because this next scene was, like, fluids gross.
To come, or not to come
I’ll just be blunt: Charlotte has gone from being unable to say the nickname “Mr. Pussy” to literally begging Harry to come on her chest. Yes, you read that right, and we had to watch it, too!! We watched as Charlotte said absolutely filthy things to Harry as they were getting it on, and then we watched Harry stand—STAND!!—over her to send his spunk flying. Good god! Holy moly!
Worst of all, the semen was nowhere to be found! Zippo! Zilch! Where is the come? Certainly not on Charlotte!
We then get back to the roots of this show, a show in which sex is actually talked about and the girls actually work through things with their partners. Was it gnarly as hell to witness? Yes, absolutely. Was it equally as gnarly to watch Charlotte help Harry with his kegels by grabbing him by the taint and lifting it whilst he did his pelvic floor exercises? Great googly moogly. But it finally started to feel a little more like Sex and the City again.
More to the point, this episode was kind of a neat piece of character development for Charlotte. Initially I thought they were trying to make her a little too sexual to be believable, considering her character in the original series, but the more I mulled on the cum-plications of it all, the more I liked it. Charlotte and Harry are just that compatible: that sex god helped bring her out of her shell. Now, Charlotte doesn’t just say Mr. Pussy, she hath become Mr. Pussy.
On top of that (lol), Char even got an opportunity to work in the gallery scene again! During a dinner scene with the Wexleys—which was wildly stupid for predominantly bourgeoisie reason—Char meets a man who recognizes her from her gallery heydey, and he’s so impressed by her candor that he offers her a new position. This was a shocking bit of good writing, because it felt like the writers finally understood that we don’t necessarily love how so much of Charlotte’s character has been reduced to “horny mom.” I suppose only time will tell whether she does anything with this opportunity, or if it becomes yet another plot carrot-on-a-stick that goes nowhere.
…oh, and yes, Harry’s spunk gets its funk back. Rejoice.
Carrie was also there
In case you’re just dying to know: Carrie runs into her old boss Enid (Candice Bergen), who no longer works at Vogue and instead writes a publishing blog. In the hopes of getting a book shoutout, Carrie attends a swank party that Enid is hosting, just to realize she was only invited to donate a whopping $100,000 of her dead husband’s money to Enid’s “endeavors.” Bitsy Von Muffling sends Carrie a dick pic from her friend, who turns out to be Enid’s boyfriend. Gloria Steinem was there, for some reason.
Whatever. Hey, did you know the house they used in this scene was also Miranda Priestly’s house in The Devil Wears Prada? That’s … that’s cool, right?
(featured Image: Nickelodeon / Max)
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