Welcome to the third recap of the second season of And Just Like That…, a spin-off of erstwhile ’90s/’00s comedy Sex and the City, a show about a sexually adventurous PR agent who cured a cold with Fanta and cough syrup over ice. This week’s episode was the season’s most coherent thus far, stocked wish fish-out-of-water hijinks including the always-delightful occasion of Carrie Bradshaw attempting life outside of the Manhattan city limits. Everybody’s struggling with big mid-life issues: showing up authentically in their relationships, balancing career and family, negotiating unexpected professional pivots, and figuring out what to do when your husband pees his pants at the club.

We open in Carrie’s mansion, where Carrie delights her literary agent by revealing she’s working on a new book, then disappoints her agent by revealing that although it is fiction — it is not romantasy. Also Carrie’s been invited to speak at SXSW in Austin, also to Google in Palo Alto and also on a panel about memoirs in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Carrie jumps at the chance to visit Virginia because that’s where Aidan lives. I hope her panel is at Colonial Willamsburg because she has the PERFECT hat for that occasion.

We then transition to the soft hard launch of Anthony’s Sexual Bakery, Hot Rolls Hot Boys Hot Fellas Hot Toddies (something like that), the concept bakery absolutely nobody asked for. If you’ve ever turned down a nine AM croissant because it wasn’t handed to you by a man in a skin-tight, low cut denim onesie with a prominent penis bulge, let me know in the comments!

So you just stick your whole finger right in his butthole?

Carrie needs a pal to accompany her to Virginia, lest her boyfriend think she’s going there to spend time with him, a truly absurd thing for a girlfriend to want to do with her boyfriend! These are the kinds of games we played with boys in the early 2000s when we were in our twenties, how is Carrie still doing this in 2025? Are straight women okay?

Everybody’s too busy to meet Virginia for an on-brand reason: Miranda has a leadership training, Charlotte’s attending an Artsy McArt Art Show of Artsy Art and Seema is too posh to even go to Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Aidan’s wife calls Carrie with a really embarrassing request and unfortunately it’s not for Carrie to find a tampon that got lost inside her — it’s for Carrie to possibly shake down her New York City pharma connections to procure a bottle of 30mg Adderall XR for Wyatt because the Nationwide Adderall Shortage has dried out Virginia’s local supply. This is like the most realistic storyline they’ve had so far.

You know, I was thinking about what you asked me before — about doing a threesome with me and Aidan just for the plot?

You were?

Luckily, LTW and the Hot Moms have arrived at Hot Fellas Bread-n-Bagels and you bet your ass these entrepreneurial mothers have the hookup. Despite a shortage that surely is impacting their own children as well, Charlotte’s able to score a dime bag of Addies immediately so Wyatt will be able to focus more intently on why his Dad is being so weird. Women can do anything they put their minds to!!!

Lisa Todd Wexley’s co-producer Grace, who has worked tirelessly for LTW and her ten-part docuseries for eight years — despite its original projection of being a one-year project — has been invited to work on Steve McQueen’s next documentary! This is great news for Grace but ultimately it’s terrible news for LTW, ’cause Stevie needs Grace immediately.

Oh my god there is a haunted poster for She-La behind me isn’t there

LTW is devastated and angry about Grace leaving her for Steve McQueen. Later at home she decides to mash some potatoes about it and talk to her husband Herbert.

It’s all right, you wanna fight. You’ve got a hunger. I was just like you when I was younger — head full of fantasies of dying like a martyr?

Dying is easy, young man! Living is harder!

Herbert reminds her how patient Grace has been for the past eight (8) years and made space for LTW to have babies. Much like Charlotte in this episode (you’ll see), LTW’s struggling to accept that there might be aspects of her professional life compromised by her family life. I think the mashed potatoes are going to turn out really good though.

Although Miranda has refused to accompany Carrie to Old Dominion, she will be cat-sitting Carrie’s marvelous tiny beast, Shoe, because that’s what lesbians do, they hang out with cats. (Not me personally because I am allergic, but speaking generally.) It will be a big week for Shoe because Carrie purchased Shoe a gorgeous playgym. It will also be a big week for Aidan because Carrie is continuing to add additional elements to her story of why she, Aidan’s girlfriend, needs to have lunch with Aidan, her boyfriend: she’s gonna give him a key to the house they own together! Romance.

This feels so much larger than the Rabbit, don’t you think?

ALSO it’s gonna be a big week for Miranda ’cause she asked Joy from the BBC out for drinks, under the guise of needing advice for future on-camera invitations.

Carrie: Do you really have to play those games?
Miranda: I don’t know, maybe I should just hop on a plane and surprise her with a key to a house she’s already been in twice?
Carrie: It’s his house, and can I please get a cease and desist on the Aidan wisecracks?

Miranda settles out of court. I remain unsettled!

At the Art McArt Gala, Charlotte’s young, cool Gen Z employees are hungover from raving and selling art all night at the club. Meanwhile boring old Charlotte, noted Wife & Mother, missed out on all the networking opportunities because she was at home roasting chickens for her family.

At the klerb, we’re all fam

That’s so interesting!

Later that evening over a dinner she has prepared, Charlotte tells her family — and also Anthony and Giuseppe — that her inability to keep up with Gen Z, due to the invisible and visible labor she is obligated to perform for them, is preventing her from going dancing all night with her co-workers, which is where all the big art deals are taking place.

Be honest Mom these are Trader Joe’s bagged Haricots Verts and you didn’t *need* to leave work at 5 to put them in the microwave

Harry agrees that he, too, is lacking the level of cool he needs to exude in order to keep up with the Jaydens at his law firm. Charlotte suggests they reinvent themselves and try going out to party. In other news, Anthony says Guiseppe is neglecting Hot Buns Hot Ones by focusing on his poetry instead of trying to sell sourdough rolls with his Kielbalsa if you know what I mean. Also Rock is dressed like a little sailor and it’s adorable:

Charlotte every day you dress like you’re about to board the Good Ship Lollipop, of course you must have known your child would do the same one day

Harry doesn’t have cool enough clothes to go party so Carrie gamely takes him to the shoppes to acquire some hot fashions.

🎶 I’m dudin’ up my shirt front
Puttin’ in the shirt studs
Polishin’ my nails 🎶

Charlotte your husband is singing Fred Astaire at Standard & Strange again can you please come pick him up

Seema’s shoved forcefully into a Career Crossroads this episode when her boss Elliot reveals that not only is he somehow 90 years old, but he’s retiring and has sold his company shares to a guy named Ryan.

C’MON TOSS AN OLD MAN A JUNIOR MINT

Elliot’s disrespect of Seema’s excellence is uncalled for, and further salt is poured onto the wound when Ryan arrives with a little hate and a bottle of champagne. Sima decides to take all of her vacation time ASAP to reflect on her life and her choices and her future. Her first step will be to visit WIlliamsburg, Virginia, with her dearest friend Carrie Bradshaw, so she pulls up to Carrie’s brownstone just in time to meet Adam Gardens, the Garden Guy.

May I interest you in a bed of plants? They are poisonous.

Get in the car, little boy, I’m in the mood for a little arsenic

There’s a little promising banter between Adam Gardens and Seema that hopefully will evolve into hot sex for Seema in the future.

Somehow Seema and Carrie are flying coach to Williamsburg. The plane experience is disappointing to Seema because even though there’s an empty seat in between them — the height of luxury if you ask me — the flight attendant won’t get her a tequila until she’s at cruising altitude.

“Why does no gay man ever give me what I want?” asks Sima. This is how I feel about the gay man who is the executive producer of this show.

I downloaded six episodes from the third season of The West Wing before we took off, you in?

Later that evening, Seema and Carrie have dinner in Williamsburg. Seema says she’s considering striking out on her own and starting her own firm, The Patel Group. The restaurant owner stops by to thank Carrie for being such an incredible panelist and Seema asks for recommendations from the menu and then he realizes they have the wrong menus because the restaurant used to have Hearty Southern Fare like fried chicken but now it has sweet potato reductions.

Here at Colonial Williamsburg we invite you to visit the farming plot near the windmill where farmers are growing large-scale plots for our authentic colonial dishes

I LOVE WINDMILLS

Once again Seema wonders why gay men won’t give her what she wants while I wonder how on earth they are distributing inaccurate menus to guests??!?! This would never happen at The Olive Garden. Later that same evening, Carrie’s timidly interacting with Aidan about their evening plans while Sima has been out in the streets doing the lords work, acquiring a delicious dish for them both:

There’s one straight man who always gives me exactly what I want and his name is Colonel Sanders

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