And Just Like That recap: Silly sex, big decisions and a time ‘pre-Lena Dunham’

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

Big news out of the way first: this episode was finally a normal length! It was two-thirds the length of the bloated, rambling ones that have come before. And it felt livelier, didn’t it? I admire the writers’ restraint for only writing five jokes about testicles for Harry when I just know they had way more in the tank.

Let’s start with the snooze fest that is The Woman and her absent boyfriend.

The happy couple are home! What could go wrong?Credit: HBO Max

Aidan’s lugging his bags up the stairs of The Gramercy Hotel – sorry, Carrie’s apartment. She’ll give him a closet in “the cat’s room” and several hours of sex before she has a date to meet Duncan downstairs. They’ve progressed from early readers to a two-person writers’ salon. Despite his former career as creative guy designing furniture and business guy opening a bar with a friend (again, I must ask, WHERE IS STEVE?), Aidan seems baffled at the concept of “feedback” and doesn’t think Carrie needs it.

Aidan also shares that Wyatt wanted to live with Kathy, and he can hang out in New York as long as he wants because he’s suddenly untethered. But he didn’t care to tell Carrie ’til he was slumped in her bed? Send him to the basement and get Duncan up here!

Later on, we catch a glimpse of Carrie in a little cotton pyjama jumpsuit number – a trend AJLT costume designers Molly Rogers and Danny Santiago seem to be obsessed with this week. LTW runs home from the office in a bonkers red jumpsuit that gives the illusion she’s jumping from a parachute. Miranda is in yet another structured set when Joy stops by unannounced, making her total at least three this season. There is far too much accidental pee on this show for these women to have such a collective lack of access to their crotches! I’m nervous.

Speaking of pee, which I’m sorry this show forces me to do every week, LTW tries to initiate morning sex with Herbert, who disrupts the moment with the urinary realities of life. She’s trying to prove something to herself, after admitting to Charlotte, while wearing a literal circus tent, that she’s been “flirking” (flirting at work) with Marion.

Right in front of my salad?Credit: HBO Max

After watching them chat at work, I’m not quite sure I see it. What I do see is him going to town on a papaya, which feels like both a bit from a classic Sex and the City episode and a dangerous lunch option considering they’re sitting on expensive editing gear.

By the end of the episode, LTW’s gone from having a sex dream about Marion to confirming there’s a mutual attraction. She turned down his invite to see a movie then flip-flopped, then flipped back and ended up pitching her project to the Obamas’ producer from the grocery store. Is it bad that I really want to watch her blow up her life and have an affair with Marion?

SATC would have had Mehcad Brooks eating it without a spoon.Credit: HBO Max

Everyone’s rolling around in bed this episode. Seema and Adam the gardener have fun, silly sex and we see the most gorgeous skin ever captured on film. Everything works and feels easy-breezy, until they go to dinner, and she’s annoyed by every single thing about him. Namely: he uses crystal deodorant and his last name is Karma.

Honestly, I get it. No amount of banter and orgasms can cure such a severe case of The Ick once it sets in.

Sarita Choudhury, suffering from a severe case of The Ick.Credit: HBO Max

We get a fun gallery plotline with Charlotte this episode – and an appearance from her boss, Mark Kasabian (Victor Garber). Char and her gallerinas are installing a Tracey Emin-style artwork “from a time pre-Lena Dunham”. While setting up My Bed, Char gets vertigo, of course. These women are falling apart at the seams! It’s all an elaborate set-up for her to collapse on a prop condom while shouting for Miranda not to chance a sip of champagne at the gallery opening.

Turns out Joy is so fun and chill she forgets her girlfriend is sober and wants to leave a bottle of her favourite gin at Miranda’s place. Wanting to be just as cool and sexy as Joy, Miranda wonders if maybe she’s just “alcohol-ish”, and doesn’t need that sobriety after all.

Girl. We can’t go back there.Credit: HBO Max

For the first time since Harry told Charlotte he had cancer, I was genuinely affected by a scene in AJLT this week, when Miranda goes to the pantry for her choccie biccies while she works (and watches Bi Bingo) late at night, and tests her resolve against the bottle of gin.

She takes it out, puts it back. She opens it. She thinks. Sniffs. Pours a shot. Tips it out.

Just when I exhaled, she went back for it. Oh no. But she didn’t even trust the rubbish bin where her infamous slice of cake still got a look-in in season four of SATC. No, the bottle goes down the trash chute, which she doesn’t close until she hears it smash. Seems dangerous, but I won’t judge. For once.

And Just Like That… streams each Friday on Max.

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