‘And Just Like That…’ Season 2 Episode 1 Recap: “Met Cute”

When the first season of And Just Like That… premiered last year, Carrie Bradshaw was Mrs. John Preston. At long last, she was living out her years-long fantasy of being Mrs. Big and her life was idyllic: she had a closet the size of her old apartment, a husband she could dance to Todd Rundgren’s greatest hits with, and more or less the same group of friends, all stable and secure in their own marriages, she could amble into middle age with.

Things look vastly different for Carrie this season – Mr. Big is dead, she has moved back to her old “Classic Carrie” apartment, and she’s ready to play the field again after spending a full season grieving the loss of the man who got away in the most definitive way possible. As the first episode of season two begins, Carrie enters her bedroom where Franklyn (Ivan Hernandez), her podcast producer, awaits. One by one, each of the central characters, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), Seema (Sarita Chouhury) and Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker) approach their partners, and we’re treated to a montage of good, hot lovin’. Only Nya (Karen Pittman), Miranda’s law professor who chose her career over having a baby with her husband last season, is shown alone, infinitely scrolling Netflix, her husband is nowhere to be found. The show literally starts off with many bangs, as if to say, “We might be 25 years older than we were when this thing started, but oh yeah, this is how it’s going.”

Carrie may be in bed with Franklyn, but she’s not interested in anything more than a good time. He’s simply her Thursday-night romp, the guy she’s enjoying post podcast-recording sex with. He’s so not on her relationship radar that we learn that Carrie’s going to the Met Ball this year, and she asked Seema to be her plus one. Seema is excited for the thrill of going to fashion’s biggest night and posing on the infamous stairs, which is something everyone on this show seems excited by, too. Until they learn that they’re not famous enough to enter through he front door. “Real people like us have a different entrance,” Carrie tells Seema, which is so meta (Met-a?) considering how well known SJP is for attending the Gala and entering through the celebrity stairs. And who will Carrie be wearing to the Gala? Smoke, her podcast co-host Jackie’s (Bobby Lee) wife. Smoke is an upcoming designer, and Carrie hopes that wearing her gown will give Smoke some well-deserved exposure.

At Lisa Todd Wexley’s (LTW from now on) house, she’s pulling off the feat of being supermom, in a scene that depicts the tightly choreographed way she excels at her work, her parenting, and her wife skills. And even though she could dip into her husband Harold’s (Christopher Jackson) checking account to finance her new documentary, she’s not interested in his “big swinging checkbook.” Throughout the episode, LTW is our archetypal woman who has it all, including a gorgeous Valentino gown for the Met Ball.

3,000 miles away, in Los Angeles, New Age Miranda is busy having sex in swimming pools with Che (Sara Ramirez) and eating salsa and doing dunks in sensory deprivation tanks. She’s got all kinds of time on her hands because Che’s filming their pilot, called Che Pasa. I’m not even going to dignify the name Che Pasa, I’m simply going to walk past it as if it’s a celebrity I spotted on the street but want to give them their space. While I cannot stop thinking about Che Pasa, I am not going to acknowledge it. Not gonna make eye contact with Che Pasa.

Che’s career success and the fact that they’re constantly workshopping new comedy material has gotten Miranda a little worried that maybe all the sacrifices she’s made for this relationship are for nothing. In one scene, Che asks Miranda to try on a strap-on, and despite their encouragement that Miranda take on that top position, it’s clear that Che is the dom in the relationship. We all act a little out of character when we have crushes and start to fall in love, but the problem here, the problem with this hold that Che has on Miranda, is that Miranda’s not just acting out of character, she’s not even Miranda anymore. She’s so weakened by her feelings for Che, that she’s not standing up for herself or being the assertive, acerbic woman we know.

When Miranda actually confronts Che about the perceived rift between them, Che breaks down and admits that no, this distance between them isn’t something Miranda imagined, it’s actually because… Che is on a diet. This big reveal seems like a) a ridiculous way for Miranda’s anxiety about the relationship to resolve, and b) not something that feels in-character for Che. Granted, we don’t know all the nuances of Che’s character yet after only one season, but I refuse to believe that one wardrobe fitting where they were told that they have a big belly would result in this kind of emotional breakdown. I almost laughed when Che flopped down on the bed, tears in their eyes, explaining that they were dieting, but the music playing over the scene was somber, a cue that I should actually be taking it seriously.

Back in New York, Nya is still dealing with her separation from her husband, Andre Rashad, who’s taking their time apart to tour with his band. While dining alone, Nya meets a sexy man at a bar and rejects his advances, but the chemistry between them is obvious, and she’s clearly turned on by him. So she gets drunk and calls Andre to ask for some phone sex, but when he tells her he can’t because one of his bandmates – a woman – is in the room with him and they’re writing a song together. Nya goes off, telling him she’s writing a song of her own – a breakup song. It’s a sloppy mess.

The day of the Met Gala, Smoke arrives at Carrie’s apartment with bad news, a seamstress stomach flu has taken hold of the city, and Carrie’s gown isn’t finished. Smoke races against the clock to finish the dress as Carrie paces her apartment. Seema, meanwhile, recused herself as Carrie’s plus one when her boyfriend Zed invited her to meet his son for lunch on the same day. But while at said lunch, she learned that Zed actually still lives with his ex-wife, something Seema could not, would not abide, so she ditched her lunch and called Carrie to reinstate herself as her plus one. This would normally be fine, but the problem is, Charlotte was planning to bring Anthony as her plus one, until she learned that Harry was excited to go to the ball (he had Epstein-Barr his senior year and couldn’t go to his prom, so this can make up for it), so Carrie gave Seema’s ticket to Anthony (Mario Cantone). Is this complicated? Yes! But luckily, when Harry learns that he won’t get to walk the stairs of the Met and he’s relegated to the normal people entrance, he bails on Charlotte, who then calls on Anthony at the last minute to take his place, and all is right with Charlotte and her gay bestie.

At Carrie’s apartment, Smoke admits the dress she designed just won’t be ready for the ball. She asks Carrie if she has anything in her closet that would go with the cape she designed, and after a minute of hesitation, Carrie remembers that she might just have the perfect thing for a ball whose theme is “Veiled Beauty”: her wedding dress. Sure, it’s the one Big left her at the alter in, but as she walks out the door wearing it and looking fabulous she explains, “And just like that, I repurposed my pain.”

This Vivienne Westwood gown she donned for 2008’s Sex and the City: The Movie, the outfit is symbolic, not just for allowing Carrie to move on from Big, but it also helps bridge the gap between the first series, the movie, and the new series all at once. (We can forget the second movie ever existed, honestly.) As long as the show continues to throw these scraps at us, these little Easter Eggs that allow us to connect the dots from the present to the past, it might just be enough.

A few thoughts came to mind while watching this episode, which I know most of us loyal fans had high expectations for. The first season of AJLT was hit or miss, filled with attempts to bring the show into the present, acknowledge its past blind spots, and create new tension with the introduction of several new characters. The second season is continuing that same tradition, introducing plot that’s not super satisfying, from Che’s self-consciousness about their weight to Nya’s marriage troubles. I wish I cared more, but… I don’t. Where it excels is when it lets the characters we love just be themselves.

Charlotte, still the most stable original character, with her relatively happy marriage to Harry and her relationship with her dog Richard Burton still thriving, is a perfect example of how this show thrives when it doesn’t overthink things. When she unexpectedly shows up at Carrie’s apartment and sees Franklyn there (and sees Carrie cooking an egg for breakfast. Carrie! Cooking!) her bewildered expression is something only Kristin Davis and her years of practice as Charlotte can pull off, to great comic effect. She barely says more than two words (“WHO??” and “WHAT!”) but she makes the reveal that Carrie is finally hooking up so sweet. Later, when Charlotte pries into Carrie’s relationship, she says, “How big is his dick? I’m not allowed to be me, so I’m gonna be Samantha. Now I’m gonna be Miranda: ‘If you sleep with someone at work, you’re giving away your power.” When Carrie finally tells Miranda she’s sleeping with Franklyn, in one of the show’s best subtle gags, that is exactly what Miranda tells her.

As first episodes go, this one was good, not great. But it does open up a door for Carrie to be her single self again and own it. I mean, sure, maybe it’s just the back door at the Met, and not the main entrance, but the door is open nonetheless.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.