Miranda And Steve First Meeting Episode
Cristoforo Kanoy
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.
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.
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 \u201CTOXIC\u201D 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.
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\u2019ve been seeing from Carrie, like when she asked Enid for a mention in her newsletter Ask Enid. Now, she\u2019s even acquired a ring light for her Zoom interviews. This book promotional tour may be the most we\u2019ve 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\u2019t need the money, as evidenced by the ease with which she parted with $100,000 for Enid\u2019s startup magazine, which can only be slightly less efficient than simply setting it on fire.
Maybe Carrie\u2019s 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\u2019t 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\u2019s 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\u2019s most famous Luddite, she knew to elevate her camera to eye-level is unclear, but probably Seema told her \u2014 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\u2019t read the book and in fact seems to be Googling her books for the first time on the call. \u201COh I get it,\u201D she says, \u201CManhattan \u2014 but with men!\u201D Carrie asks her if she read Loved and Lost and she says she didn\u2019t because, \u201CI\u2019m so effing slammed with all my other content right now.\u201D The story she runs ends up revolving around Carrie\u2019s 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\u2019s dressed like, \u201CThis Barbie flies fighter jets!\u201D Seema asks Carrie if she\u2019ll share a house with her in the Hamptons, something she\u2019s never asked another woman to do because it seems \u201Ctoo sad, too Bravo.\u201D Seema has a chauffeur and a townhouse \u2014 yet she can\u2019t afford to own a Hamptons house? She also says she wants a 2-bedroom, 3-bathroom on the beach. I\u2019m 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.
Over dinner of paella and wine at Nya\u2019s, 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, \u201CHey Stranger.\u201D
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\u2019s a historic-looking blizzard, which Che attempts \u2014 and fails \u2014 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\u2019s 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.)
Carrie meets Che at Widow Con where a vendor is selling a vibrator called a \u201Cwidow wand.\u201D They see another widow author basically doing standup at the podium. Carrie is horrified that she has to follow jokes like, \u201CMen die faster than the flowers at the corner deli,\u201D and Che gives her one of their best jokes in the series: \u201CThe widow wand doesn\u2019t come with a lifetime guarantee \u2014 but then again neither did my husband.\u201D Carrie fumbles it, but her reading inspired Che to pull herself out of her depression and get her life back on track.
Miranda seems to have a good thing going at Nya\u2019s 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\u2019s a \u201Cno-fault divorce.\u201D Miranda says that must be nice because her divorce is an \u201Call my fault divorce.\u201D 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\u2019ll 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\u2019t have it in them to perform in comedy clubs, the subtext being: that faux palatial Hudson Yards apartment won\u2019t pay for itself. Miranda is upset that Che is giving her fun self to her fans but not to her. She claims she doesn\u2019t 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\u2019s 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, \u201CI hate that I hurt you so much.\u201D But maybe she actually doesn\u2019t, because she notices a condom wrapper on the nightstand and goes, \u201CLet me guess \u2014 the Whole Foods girl.\u201D When Steve indicates she\u2019s right, Miranda says, \u201CEnjoy your locally sourced organic sex, I\u2019ll start writing up the divorce papers.\u201D With all due respect to the writers, they got this part wrong: Steve is obviously a Trader Joe\u2019s kind of guy, and Miranda\u2019s next line should have been, \u201CEnjoy your two buck fuck.\u201D
Of course Miranda getting mad at Steve for starting things up with someone else is wildly hypocritical since she cheated on him \u2014 but anyway, this seems to put a fork in any notion of them reconciling.
Lily has a purple streak in her hair, so we all know she\u2019s going through something teenager-y. She\u2019s annoyed that Charlotte didn\u2019t 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\u2019s apartment. Lily says she can\u2019t have sex for the first time after Shake Shack. Charlotte looks lovely with her hair wavy and soft like this, in her \u201Cmorning mom\u201D outfit instead of her usual silliness that makes her look rather like a Barbie extra or, if it\u2019s a Burberry kind of day, Cousin Greg\u2019s date. She goes to talk to Lily away from Harry, and says she wants to be a \u201Csex-positive mom.\u201D She advises Lily to focus on her pleasure as much as Blake\u2019s \u2014 which is of course horribly awkward for Lily, but also the kind of thing she\u2019ll silently thank her mom for in 15 years.
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