And Just Like That recap: Let’s pray this season is kinder to Miranda

This story contains spoilers for season three, episode one of And Just Like That.

What has this woman gotten herself into?

It’s a question we ask as we hit play on a new episode of And Just Like That... (AJLT) – one I may have asked myself somewhere between agreeing to recap each episode this season and the moment I watched Charlotte York-Goldenblatt’s bulldog, Richard Burton, get his jaws around an American Girl doll of an unsung black she-ro. And it’s what Miranda Hobbes must’ve been thinking as she weaved through the crowds in Times Square to meet her not-so-virgin Mary.

Our favourite “rando”: Cynthia Nixon as Miranda in And Just Like That.Credit: Maax

Miranda suffered her fair share of humiliation in the original HBO series, sure, but AJLT seems thrilled at the prospect of cutting our lawyer down to size. From her clanking backpack of tiny booze bottles in season one to the strap-on confusion of season two, Miranda has come a long way from the respected and aspirational partner at a law firm who, yes, once ate cake out of the bin.

When we meet her in season three’s premiere, she’s sipping mocktails in a lesbian bar, where not even the cute girl waving to her as Chappell Roan songs play wants her. With her relationships with Steve and Che Diaz long behind her (actor Sara Ramirez won’t return to the show and I pray the same isn’t true for David Eigenberg), Miranda is staying in an Airbnb in the village. She and Steve have sold their Brooklyn brownstone (another character from the TV show I’ll miss dearly).

As last drinks are called, Miranda and Mary (Rosie O’Donnell in a gorgeous cameo role) are two of the final “randos” in the bar. Mary’s in New York from (a small town outside) Winnipeg for “the world conference for compassion of the unhoused”. Sure!

She offers Miranda genuine compliments, makes her intentions clear and is one of the few romantic interests on this show to treat any of our leads with any dignity when she invites her back to her hotel room to lose her virginity (though she waits until the morning after to mention that last bit).

Say what you will about Mary, she had a great week.Credit: Max

As Mary updates Miranda all week with her itinerary – dinner at Tavern on the Green, riding the carousel in Central Park, a visit to the M&M store in Times Square after seeing Wicked – she and Carrie mock like only two former downtown It Girls can.

It’s fun seeing them be so bitchy. Sometimes it can feel like AJLT has sanded over all these characters’ hard edges and Carrie, especially, is an almost passive, pearl-clutching version of her former self. The columnist and novelist floats out of her Gramercy manse in fresh-off-the-runway Simone Rocha, as the episode opens, to send a card to Aidan with nothing but a heart drawn on it.

Amazing that Carrie can look down on anyone while wearing that hat. Credit: Max

The timeline on this show’s always been a little hazy, so who knows how long it’s been since his “let’s come back in five years” ultimatum. They’re in touch enough to send a few postcards, but so rarely that his late-night audio booty call comes as a surprise. Anthony doesn’t know any details of the agreement, but Carrie’s adopted cat Shoe has grown a lot.

After a long night of leaping out of bed to shut off her alarm, Carrie spends another day faking that she’s fine with the whole thing before hopping back into bed to fake it with Aidan over the phone. He’s drunk, “in my truck in a field”, and desperate to have phone sex.

“Don’t break the mood,” he tells Carrie, after honking his literal horn (car version). Carrie can’t get back in the mood with Shoe watching, and her impulse to pretend is a sign – I pray – that this storyline finds its conclusion soon.

In a bed across town, LTW is getting up at 4.15am to fine-tune a pitch for PBS about a documentary project highlighting 10 unsung black women. Between the executives wanting her to replace one with the “very, very sung” Michelle Obama, and her husband in crisis over whether he’s cool, Lisa’s got more story in this episode than Charlotte, who’s trying to clear Richard Burton’s name in a case of dog park mistaken identity (sure).

Poor cancelled Richard Burton. Credit: Max

Seema’s bed is lucky to be standing after she fell asleep with a lit cigarette, so exhausted was she from looking hot and waiting for her movie director boyfriend Ravi to call. (I’m with the firefighter: “Who still smokes in bed?”)

Seema compares Carrie’s calm patience to her demands of Ravi, and the way she invokes the fun, loose, messy Carrie of “then” to this version of her, who’s zen about Aidan’s distance and rules and dressed either like Bunny MacDougal or in a strawberry shortcake bonnet, makes me mourn the spitfire we’ve lost.

Thank god for Seema, who kicks her distracted boyfriend to the curb/canal by episode’s end.

Seema (Sarita Choudhury), now with slightly shorter hair. Credit: Max

It’s genuinely touching to see Miranda and Mary’s final moments. When the nun says, “I always knew this person was somewhere inside of me. And now I’ve met her. Thanks to you”, it fills me with faith that the rest of this season might just get a little closer to the centre of what’s really going on under the glossy veneers of Carrie and Charlotte.

Not Miranda, though. If anything she could use a little more gloss. Wicked: For Good in theatres November 2025!

And Just Like That streams each Friday on Max.

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