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Spoilers below.
Fans of Sex and the City are very familiar with Carrie and Aidan’s pattern, and so is everyone in else in their lives. With their ecstatic reunion, it seems like their friends and family are all waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or for Carrie to hurl it at Aidan’s head. In episode 9, season 2 of And Just Like That…, things still seem to be going well. For now.
Aidan has returned from Virginia after a long week apart to see Carrie at Che’s Hudson Yards apartment, which they’re subletting illegally. Unfortunately, it is Aidan’s nature to be Chatty McNiceGuy to everyone in the building, and the jig is up. They receive notice that they have gone over the building’s 30-day guest policy and are being evicted. All while Aidan is in his tighty-whiteys.
This brings up a lot of questions about what Carrie is going to do with her jewel box of a studio apartment, the one her beloved boyfriend won’t even enter. She’s not just considering herself anymore, but also Aidan and his three sons Tate, Homer, and Wyatt, who sure seems to hate Carrie—or he’s just a 14-year-old boy, as Aidan claims.
She decides to get in touch with Seema, her new bestie and her old real estate agent. Seema is dealing with her own problems, specifically the demanding Marvel movie director Ravi (Armin Armiri). They’re currently viewing yet another rental, a place that goes for $37,000 a month??? It’s been three weeks of viewings and Seema is at her wit’s end. When she confronts Ravi on what more he could possibly want, it turns out it’s Seema herself and they enjoy a quickie in the staged bed.
While she insists that things between her and Ravi are just about sex, Seema does take him to dinner with Aidan and Carrie, where the Virginian has a mini-meltdown meeting the director of his kids’ favorite film, Nepal Kapow. Seema tells Carrie that beautiful girls are always slipping into her famous lover’s DMs and things could never be serious between them, but she doth protest too much. Carrie tells Seema she’s really finally ready to sell her apartment. Doth she?
Speaking of real estate, Miranda’s still staying at Nya’s apartment, but their roommate relationship has deteriorated since Nya discovered the efficiency of Tinder. She is getting all sorts of action from a broad-shouldered blond man and the sound proofing in Miranda’s bedroom isn’t doing much to keep the noise out.
Miranda’s life outside the apartment isn’t going great either, at least where Brady is concerned. He is still working double shifts at Scout bar, making fries, and Miranda has been silenced on the subject of college. Brady just doesn’t want to hear it. So, she decides to recruit Charlotte’s hardworking Lily to give him a talking to. Turns out, that’s not all Lily gives him. Miranda walks into her old brownstone to discover Lily coming out of Brady’s bedroom pants-less.
Two people who are surprisingly not having sex are Anthony and Giuseppe, who have been on five dinner dates without a single night of action. Giuseppe is baffled by Anthony in his own blasé Italian way, and Anthony is suspicious and riddled with self-doubt. He seems convinced that the poet is only after a green card.
Charlotte is back at the gallery when she hears about Lily and Brady’s alleged liaison, and while she is initially shocked and defensive, she and Miranda decide to investigate the possibility. In Charlotte’s mind, the kids grew up like cousins. However, they’re all grown up now and not actually related.
Meanwhile, Harry can’t be bothered with what the kids are doing because he is overwhelmed planning a meet and greet for Herbert’s comptroller campaign. Ordinarily, this would be Charlotte’s forte, but she has a job now. Harry is discovering how much work goes into finding kosher dumplings and he’s not handling the stress well.
Herbert seems fairly unstressed about the big night, but he is annoyed with Lisa who keeps falling asleep in random places. She blames it on work, but when she passes out in her shoe closet and almost misses the event, he’s downright pissed. When Lisa finally shows up, she reveals that she has been to see a doctor about this sudden narcolepsy, and it turns out she’s pregnant. Herbert giggles stupidly in front of his supporters instead of making a speech, so it seems like good news.
Other plot points come to a head at the political soirée. Giuseppe tells Anthony that he has dual citizenship already and the only thing he wants from him is, well, him. Preferably naked. They drop trou in the kids’ bedroom.
Charlotte and Miranda watch Brady and Lily interact over the appetizers to see if they can confirm they’re kissing cousins. Miranda doesn’t think Brady would have even come to the party for any other reason and he does make a beeline to Lily. Finally, Charlotte tells Miranda she doesn’t want to know.
“I had a lot of sex her mother didn’t know about and everything worked out,” she explains, and Miranda finds the wisdom in these words.
For Nya, the sex isn’t working out exactly as she hoped. She was enjoying her Tinder guy, especially the part where they can scroll on their phones without pretending to be interested in each other as people. But she’s in bed with him when she see’s her ex-husband Andre Rashad’s Instagram post about expecting a baby with Heidi of the floppy hat. Suddenly, sex on demand doesn’t really fulfil all her needs and she kicks Tinder guy out.
The show also checks in briefly with Che, who has a cute encounter with a concerned cat rescuer named Toby. The prospect of getting some action motivates Che to do some stand-up again so they have something to impress potential lovers with. And they are ready to move back full time to Hudson Yards, since being a vet office receptionist pays so well.
Carrie’s big confrontation happens in a café with Aidan’s ex-wife, Kathy. The concerned mom has read Carrie’s most recent book about losing Big and was touched by what she read. Also alarmed. She warns Carrie that she doesn’t want her kids to become material, and Carrie says she understands. Then Kathy makes another demand: Carrie can’t hurt Aidan again.
According to classic TV storytelling drama structure, this must mean that Carrie and Aidan must have some sort of conflict up ahead, but at this point, how could it dare come from Carrie? Everyone is telling her not to hurt him, and she’s clearly scared that she might even though she’s doing everything in her power not to.
She takes him to see a potential apartment, with four bedrooms for his visiting teens. Aidan is touched by Carrie’s thoughtfulness, but he also catches a whiff of her fear. He tells her she doesn’t have to get rid of her old place just for him; it has to be her decision. They’re older now, experienced, with perspective, and he doesn’t think things will be the way they’ve always been.
“Life is short and we deserve to be happy,” he tells her, and she knows it’s time to move to a new home.
And just like that, Carrie might really have changed their future by letting go of the past.
Aimée Lutkin is the weekend editor at ELLE.com. Her writing has appeared in Jezebel, Glamour, Marie Claire and more. Her first book, The Lonely Hunter, will be released by Dial Press in February 2022.