The second season of And Just Like That, HBO’s controversial, heavily criticised Sex and the City revival, manages to do the unthinkable: it is even more lavish and unreservedly ridiculous than its first go-around. Here is just a small sample of some of the more daft things that happen in its first seven episodes: Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker) lust after a student at their children’s school; Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) spends a scene mulling over the word “jizz”; Seema (Sarita Choudhury) dates a guy who uses a penis pump; Who’s The Boss? star Tony Danza has an extended cameo as himself, in which he worries he will get cancelled for appearing in Che Diaz’s (Sara Ramirez) sitcom pilot. And that barely scratches the surface of all the ludicrous high jinks Carrie and co get up to this season. It would seem that the showrunner, Michael Patrick King, having seen all the memes about its (often unintentionally) hilarious first season, has decided to plunge head-first into unfettered bonkersness. And the show is all the better for it.
Much of the criticism of And Just Like That’s first season centred on the ungainliness of it all: early episodes groaned under the weight of 10 years’ worth of exposition, plot points were introduced and abandoned with impunity, and the show’s discussion of gender and racism was deemed clunky and out of character. I don’t necessarily agree with the last gripe – the well-meaning but out-of-touch way Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) discussed, say, transgender issues or Black Lives Matter, reminded me of the way my extended family would discuss these subjects – but both criticisms have largely been dealt with this time. Che is no longer a walking, talking infographic, and Miranda no longer sounds as if she is reciting sections of the book White Fragility from memory.
As for the plotting, King now seems content to deal with smaller issues, in the style of the original Sex and the City. Larger plotlines, such as Charlotte considering a return to the workforce or Miranda’s protracted breakup with Steve, coexist nicely with episodic concerns, such as Charlotte’s daughter’s desire to lose her virginity – leading to Charlotte having to buy condoms in a snowstorm – or Seema’s dalliance with the guy who uses a penis pump. The show’s best subplots seem to have been developed exclusively to write in scene-stealing cameos from brilliant character actors – such as Saturday Night Live veteran Rachel Dratch playing a frazzled former writing partner of Carrie’s, or Younger star Miriam Shor as a suave lesbian voiceover actor. That’s fine by me – this isn’t high-stakes TV, so why not just use it as an excuse to create as many fun, purely entertaining moments as possible?
Given the lack of a gamechanging plot event – in season one, it was the untimely death of Mr Big (Chris Noth) – it takes a couple of episodes for the show to find its rhythm, to move things along. But once it settles into its new groove, season two feels far more natural than season one, and a lot more like the original show: a forum for a few well-drawn characters to talk their shit while wearing Loewe and drinking lambrusco. Although trailers implied that the return of Carrie’s one that got away, John Corbett’s Aidan Shaw, would be this season’s animating force, that is far from the case – he arrives late on, a smart plotting move that upends the show’s status quo just when a shake-up is needed. (The breathlessly anticipated one-scene return of Kim Cattrall as Samantha Jones was not in the episodes made available for review.)
After being (haphazardly) introduced in season one, Nya (Karen Pittman), Lisa and Seema now feel like real characters rather than caricatures, and they introduce interesting new contrasts for the show to play with: imperious, confident Seema against the somewhat meek, still grief-stricken Carrie; career-driven Lisa against stay-at-home mother Charlotte; strait-laced Nya against a newly liberated Miranda. There is still a little unevenness in the way each woman’s plotlines are written – Charlotte’s plotlines manage to be uniformly funny, sensitive and insightful, while Miranda’s sometimes feel like a chore, and Nya’s an afterthought – but that doesn’t feel like much of a loss, especially given the fact that the show is clearly prioritising its strengths. The misadventures of Charlotte, her husband Harry (Evan Handler) and their two children provide the strongest moments of nearly every episode – I would watch a York-Goldenblatt family spin-off – so it’s hard to blame King for leaning on them.
And Just Like That is still, by no means, a masterpiece; it will probably never live up to its predecessor, one of the savviest and most chic television shows ever made. But in its second season, it feels more content to be its own thing – a fun, frothy farce about women in their 50s navigating their lives with even more clumsiness than they did when they were in their 30s. It’s still intensely quotable, deeply meme-worthy and brilliantly watchable. As I hit play on the last of my review episodes last week, after mainlining the first six in one sitting, I couldn’t help but wonder: does it need to be anything more?
• And Just Like That is on Thursdays on Sky Comedy in the UK, HBO Max in the US and Binge in Australia
