Warning: spoilers for season 3, episode 3 of And Just Like That…
Some And Just Like That… episodes ask questions, while others strive to answer them. Just kidding, this show rarely provides answers, let alone satisfactory ones. But, with that in mind, the third episode of the season—”Carrie GoLightly”—is full of questions. Some questions I asked because I was genuinely confounded: Why is Anthony opening a horny bakery and why is Kathy, Aidan’s ex-wife, begging Carrie to source off-market Adderall for her son? And Carrie slips in some rhetorical questions. While driving down Virginia State Highway 201, she wistfully asks Seema, “Remember Maps?” Yes. We remember maps. She also self-deprecatingly asks Seema, “Who goes out of state for a casual lunch?!” The answer to that is Carrie, of course.
This week, New York City’s preeminent sex and relationships writer (who is currently working on—gasp!—fiction!) is invited to a literary luncheon in Williamsburg. No, not the hipster enclave across the East River, but the Civil War reenactment town in Virginia. (Another question I asked myself at one point: Is the Virginia tourism board getting a kickback from this episode?) Much to my dismay—and despite Carrie’s penchant for large floppy hats—we were not treated to Carrie wearing a tricorn. Alas. She attends this luncheon mostly to attend another lunch the next day with Aidan, her boyfriend, who previously asked that they not really be in touch for five calendar years. He also did not drive the one hour and six minutes (I used a map!) to attend the Williamsburg luncheon with his girlfriend. Perhaps Carrie should have donned a clown wig instead.
On this southern jaunt with Carrie is Seema, who just learned her 90-year-old business partner, Elliot, is retiring and is promoting a smarmy-looking man named Ryan instead of her. Hurt and insulted, she cashes in some PTO to reflect on what she actually wants from her career. Bravely eating fried chicken in bed wearing silk pajamas, Carrie and Seema discuss Seema’s options. Does she stick it out as number two in the company for longer? Does she strike out on her own? Would that be naive this late in her career? I found the conversation notably touching. The discussion also avoided the show’s signature quips and puns, which let Seema access a level of vulnerability we don’t often get with her. Plus, it’s the sort of glass-ceiling issue that actually plagues aging working women—more so than deciding between being flown out to SXSW or Google’s Palo Alto campus (a brief dilemma Carrie faced at the beginning of the episode).
Career woes are a recurring theme for all of our working women in this episode. Charlotte learns her younger coworkers are making huge art deals late into the night at after-after parties and laments to her family that her role as a mom and wife is keeping her from keeping up. She and Harry decide to put on their party pants—literally, in Harry’s case, who buys raw Japanese denim—to fit in with the hard-partying youth. Charlotte’s night ends after she’s blasted off espresso martinis and staving off the advances of a Dutch man named Rolph (“or a Rolph man named Dutch?” her assistant, Lela, wonders). Harry’s night ended much earlier with my favorite line of the episode, “Here’s an interesting twist—I just pissed myself.” He did indeed soil his new pants, unable to unbutton them in time in the bathroom. Charlotte, exhausted, does not make a deal that night. But does sell a painting the next day to another woman, a fellow mother, proving true the age-old wisdom: that nothing worthwhile happens at an after-after-party.
Meanwhile, in the editing bay, Lisa’s longtime editor, Grace, is offered an opportunity to work for Steve McQueen and decides to take the gig. Lisa is upset, and it takes her a moment to accept the situation. Grace kindly reminds her that she’s been patient through the stop-and-go nature of Lisa’s gig while Lisa raised her kids. But for Grace, work is her baby. (Grace handles this resignation with so much, well, grace, she could start a side job as a career coach.) Lisa admits the question circling her mind, “I don’t know if it’s me or you who makes it [the docuseries] as good as it is?”
Miranda is flirting with an HR violation by taking her colleague crush, Joy, out to happy hour to ask for tips on improving her on-air skills after she wasn’t immediately asked to host another BBC segment. Career advice careened into deep breathing exercises, which led to the women holding their hands on each other’s chests, which I think technically counts as lesbian foreplay. Hot!
Back in their Virginia hotel, Carrie gives Seema some shockingly (for Carrie) sound advice. “You don’t ask, you don’t get,” she says. Questions! They’re important, see! Seema ought to ask for the raise she thinks she deserves. Carrie quickly recognizes the irony of giving this advice while she’s meekly waiting for Aidan to extend lunch to an overnight visit, though she can’t bear to outright ask him. But before she has the chance to follow her own advice, Aidan makes the offer himself after her car breaks down. So maybe the more accurate advice is, “You don’t wonder out loud to your friend and get yourself in a really inconvenient situation, you don’t get.” Aidan, not wanting to disturb his precarious home life, asks if Carrie doesn’t mind sleeping in the guesthouse. So, I suppose, she still isn’t getting exactly what she wants.
Overall, I actually really appreciated the episode’s focus on the myriad of questions that follow women through their careers. Am I successful enough? Did having kids set me back? Did not having kids keep me from something? Can, dare I ask, women have it all? Is saying yes to a literary luncheon and bringing my long-distance boyfriend’s teenage son Adderall a good idea? Like in real life, a lot of these questions don’t have succinct answers (except maybe the last one…). But that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth asking, and I’m grateful in this episode they were.
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