An Absurdly Unrelatable Show Has a Relatable Moment
Despite its ludicrous storylines, And Just Like That manages to get something right about modern parenting.
This article contains spoilers through Season 2 Episode 10 of And Just Like That.
And Just Like That, like no other show in our admittedly depleted television universe right now, is simultaneously a riot, a rout, and an utterly chaotic melange of small-scale storytelling and high—but-literally-am-I-high—fashion. Every episode contains at least three scenes to which there is nothing to say but “What?!?” Five weeks ago, The New Yorker ran a humor piece that imagined ludicrously banal storylines the show could tackle next; since then, two have basically happened. Last week, Miranda and Charlotte went to Chipotle, where they were confused by the fast-casual chain’s ordering system. Carrie might have a cat now? Che, a comedian who used to have a hit podcast and a sizable-enough following to get them a sitcom pilot and a Cameo presence, is doing overtime at a vet’s office again, because apparently the only two financial brackets in this world are Hudson Yards–rich and shift work.
Money is important to TV shows, I think, because striving is the engine for really good storytelling, and when most of your characters seem to be 0.001 percenters, you end up with stakes-less narrative arcs that involve Airbnbs without salad tongs and kids who forgot their notebook. Sex and the City was a thrilling show for its relatability, in a fun-house-mirror kind of way; And Just Like That exists in such a remote socioeconomic universe that watching it can feel like gawping at an exotic species in a nature documentary. (And here we see, in her native habitat, a 57-year-old female receiving an unsolicited dick pic at a fundraising lunch with Gloria Steinem. Watch her ruffle her plumage! See her eyeballs spin.)
All of which is why this week’s episode, inelegantly titled “The Last Supper Part One: Appetizer,” was the best of the season so far. Somehow, it married the balls-to-the-wall absurdity we’ve come to know and love (news arrives that Stanford, who departed for Japan last season, is now a Shinto monk, allowing Anthony to make an inartful “gay-sha” joke) with a surprisingly thoughtful and touching analysis of modern parenting. I’m not talking about Charlotte, whose Mad Libs storyline this week involved selling a painting to Sam Smith and getting drunk at happy hour. Rather, it was Lisa Todd Wexley—it seems necessary to say all three names, as though she were a pop icon or a Supreme Court Justice—whose unplanned pregnancy, maelstrom of conflicting emotions, and fury at her husband for not getting a vasectomy offered up something the show has absolutely been missing: authenticity.
Appropriately, the episode’s best scenes were sandwiched between truly questionable snippets of dialogue. Miranda’s new boss returned to the office after giving birth, barking, “Five weeks’ maternity leave is enough when the world’s in crisis, right?” (Lean in, ladies!) Miranda declared zucchini chips to be something to live for. Che delivered a stand-up routine about Miranda that was so cruel, so unnecessarily excoriating and derisive, that it threatened to obliterate the redemption arc their character has been on this season. But first, at brunch, Charlotte broke the news to the women—I can’t call them “girls,” even though I feel like I should—that Lisa’s new documentary project had been extended by PBS into a 10-part series. “They’re Ken Burns–ing you!” Miranda declared, while Lisa nodded, wanly. Later, she revealed to Charlotte the reason for her lack of enthusiasm. Why get excited about a project she doubts she’ll be able to complete? “I will be missing deadlines, I will be pumping around the clock, and I will be failing at both jobs?” she said. “Goddammit. I thought it was finally my time, Charlotte.”
And the thing is, she’s right. Midlife is when you’re supposed to be able to pick up all of the dreams you’ve deferred—like Steve, opening his clams-and-hot-dogs joint in Coney Island to renew his sense of self after a traumatic divorce. Or Miranda, realizing that 30 years of corporate lawyering gives her enough gravitas in her new internship to take the opportunities she’s offered and not fret about the sad-salad girls still stuck doing grunt work. Or Charlotte, getting “back to me” time via a blender full of margaritas. Or Stanford, finding peace in a Kyoto temple, even if the late, great Willie Garson deserved a much better Photoshop job. But Lisa, very abruptly and unexpectedly facing another 18 years of child care, realizes that her flourishing career and creative goals might get pushed past the point of no return. “Should we be having the other discussion?” her husband, Herbert, asked. (Bless you, Herbert, for affirming a woman’s right to shoes and to choose.) “I’ve thought about it, but I can’t,” Lisa replied. “I mean, I’m really grateful that I have that option, but … I just need to wrap my head around this new reality. I will. I always do.”
That last line, delivered quietly and away from Herbert, carried a weight with it—sacrifice, sadness, an acknowledgment that you can love every single part of being a parent and still recognize all the costs that come with it. By the episode’s end, even the child-free Carrie was feeling the crunch of kids, as Aidan sobbed outside the hospital where Wyatt, his 14-year-old, had been admitted after crashing his father’s truck into a tree. On a different show, Wyatt’s accident might not have to change anything: Aidan and Carrie could continue their long-distance love affair, albeit with caution; the series could even dare to expand its geographic reach by actually having Carrie visit Aidan on his farm in Virginia. (In HBO’s companion podcast, the showrunner Michael Patrick King said they thought about doing just that, but it would have meant filming there in winter, which would have been a production hassle.) In the show as written, though, it’s easy to see how this could force the end of Aidan, whose guilt over not being present for his son makes him reluctant to keep leaving. Still, in a series where every character has main-character syndrome, it was bracing to see some of them come a little closer back to Earth.