The Cognitive Dissonance of Watching And Just Like That…

There's a scene 15 minutes into the most recent episode of And Just Like That… that finds Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) sitting in her office at Human Rights Watch, where she works as a lawyer. The monitor on her desk is showing C-SPAN, but Miranda is not paying any attention to it. Instead she's staring at her phone, watching an episode of Bi-Bingo, a fictional, bisexually-focused knock-off of Love Island, and yelling at the vapid contestants inside her tiny screen. 

This brief sequence perfectly (and, presumably, unintentionally) encapsulates the current season of And Just Like That…, the Sex and the City sequel now in its third season. That's partly because the 6 episodes provided in advance by Max — there will be 12 total — commit the same sin as Miranda: They willfully ignore what's happening politically and act as though the world is not on fire at the moment. 

While the show never outright states exactly when this season is taking place, it is reasonable to assume that the answer is present day, an inference supported by the fact that Chappell Roan's "Hot to Go!" appears on the soundtrack less than two minutes into the first episode. This is a time when a lawyer working at Human Rights Watch should be overwhelmed by the abundant number of injustices occurring at home and abroad. Yet Miranda is not. In fact, not one single soul in this series even mildly alludes to the fact that democracy might be dying faster than Big (Chris Noth) croaked after that fatal Peloton class in Season 1. 

The closest And Just Like That… gets to addressing what an abysmal time it is for reproductive rights in this country is during Episode 5, when Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) argues with the writer living in the basement below her Manhattan mansion about the loud clomping of her high heels. "I have rights," she tells her lady friends over lunch. "A woman's right to shoes." If there is a time to tell this punny joke — for the record, I've thought about it, and I am not sure there is — it definitely is not now. One of the few nods to current events (sort of) also comes in the most recent episode, when Miranda's crush Joy (Dolly Wells), a journalist, explains, "The BBC sent me to find out why you Americans haven't fixed the world yet." That's when I wrote the following sentence in my notes: GEE LADY, I DON'T KNOW, HAVE YOU LOOKED AT THE NEWS??

Of course, the Carrie Bradshaw-verse has always been something of a fantasy. Both And Just Like That… and Sex and the City are rom-coms that subsist on unrealistic portraits of what it's like to live in New York City and function generally in the world. Obviously most Manhattan writers aren't able to afford Manolo Blahniks in every color and high-priced cocktails multiple times per week. But there were some occasional nods to reality when a crisis loomed large enough — the adding of a title card acknowledging 9/11 at the end of the "I Heart NY" episode of SATC or the nod to the pandemic in the very first episode of AJLT. Even the way that showrunner Michael Patrick King, a Sex and the City veteran, retooled its follow-up to include more people of color and embrace sexual fluidity speaks to an interest in more accurately reflecting reality than the show's predecessor did.

It is impossible to be alive right now and be unaware of the chaos that the Trump administration continues to cause. But it's the kind of crisis that is less in-your-face than, say, a global pandemic. Especially for white and/or wealthy people who may not be as directly affected yet by what's happening — or, worse, support it —  it's easier to just act like everything is fine, which is exactly what the ladies of And Just Like That… — who are (mostly) white and definitely flush with cash — are doing, assuming they live in the same version of 2025 that we do. 

One can understand why King has taken that approach. It would be tonally jarring if And Just Like That… started devoting long brunch conversations to concerns about unlawful deportation and the eradication of DEI programs. ("I couldn't help but wonder … what the hell was DOGE doing, exactly?") But it feels more maddening than usual to act as though the show's core quintet — Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte (Kristin Davis), Seema (Sarita Choudhury), and Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker) — simply live in some alternate version of New York City. The escapist flavor of And Just Like That… — the fact that the main characters exist in a bubble — is what most reminds us of how appalling it is that people are still trying to do that in reality. That, in turn, may make some viewers feel guilty. What will I say I did while Rome was burning? Watched And Just Like That… and texted my best friend to tell her that Sarah Jessica Parker was wearing a hat that looked like a supersized Strawberry Shortcake bonnet that deflated on her head? (It really did, though.)

On the other hand — and I know I'm about to sound like a hypocrite, but please, join me on this self-contradictory journey — there are times when it's remarkably easy to compartmentalize and just sink into the comfort of watching something as light and familiar as And Just Like That…. One could even credibly argue that we need this show right now precisely because the world is so terrible. It's a reprieve from all that, the equivalent of a Bizarro Handmaid's Tale. And it does have pleasures along with its flaws.

Sure, the ladies on this show, especially OGs Miranda, Carrie, and Charlotte, are like high school friends whom you've known forever and don't have much in common with anymore. But seeing them again still triggers a gentle burst of serotonin. (It helps not to think at all about the Sex and the City movies, which are, officially, not canon.) 

It's also freakishly satisfying to watch them deal with high-class problems that are easily solved in 44 minutes or less, like a rat infestation in the back courtyard of Carrie's impossibly gorgeous brownstone, or Charlotte's attempt to be a party girl so she can keep up with her much younger colleagues. As Anthony, Mario Cantone continues to drop some of the funniest lines on the show; in one episode, he has legitimate reason to suddenly shout, "It's a Pippin funeral?," a question that made me laugh for five solid minutes. There are even some legitimate problems in the relationships between Carrie and her back-on boyfriend Aidan (John Corbett, as laid-back and folksy as ever), as well as Charlotte and husband Harry (Evan Handler), that suggest there may be more poignant moments in the back half of the season.

That's the thing about And Just Like That… and Sex and the City before it: Both comedies have dealt with profoundly sad things in ways that didn't completely destabilize their tonal balances. (See: Samantha's [Kim Cattrall] breast cancer, or Big's death.) The potential demise of democracy is also an incredibly sad thing. A person can't spend all day, every day, thinking about it. We need breaks, our own versions of Bi-Bingo to take our minds off of what's going down on C-SPAN.  And Just Like That… provides one, and maybe that's all it should aspire to do. 

My problem is that I still think highly enough of the women in this glossier version of Manhattan to think that they would actually care that democracy is dying, and would find it too sad to completely ignore, too.

New episodes of And Just Like That... Season 3 premiere Thursdays at 9/8c on Max.