There’s a scene in the opening episode of And Just Like That, season two, that I can’t seem to erase from my brain. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is desperately trying to shimmy her way into a full-body, horse saddle-sized strap-on. Her partner, Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez), is sprawled across the bed with their T-shirt still on, casually watching in the way you might a sports channel. There is no foreplay. “Can we move this along?” Che says, bored and impatient. “I’ve got a set at the Comedy Store at nine.” Miranda continues struggling with her leather contraption, as Che takes a phone call.
It’s an excruciating watch, although it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why. Maybe it’s because Che Diaz is so profoundly grating that you can’t believe Miranda would be, quite literally, bending herself backwards for them. Maybe it’s because, as a person of lesbian experience, I know that there is absolutely no need for a strap-on that mathematical and complex. Still, I found myself unable to look away, continuing to binge-watch all available episodes late into the night. As one viewer wryly noted on Twitter: “And Just Like That is so wild because I watch every episode through my fingers like a horror movie and when it’s over I wish it was five hours longer.”
Since And Just Like That arrived on our screens in 2021, it has been defined by its cringiness: a self-consciously “woke” script, bizarre plot points and some unlikable new characters. But it’s not a straightforward kind of cringiness – one that might mean people would stop watching. It’s a compelling, compulsive, almost campy kind of cringe, which has somehow only fed into its undeniable and now quite mammoth appeal (the first season was HBO Max’s most streamed show ever, with season two figures down slightly, but remaining healthy so far).
Every episode brings with it new, agonising treats. In episode four, Harry (Evan Handler) tries to ejaculate on to Charlotte’s (Kristin Davis) breasts, but nothing comes out. You watch this play out. It is captivating. As the Guardian’s Rebecca Nicholson wrote of the first season: “Are the people who claim to hate this watching it anyway? I suspect the answer is yes.” Or as one Twitter user put it last month: “This season … truly awful. I can’t wait for the next episode!”
Some have theorised that the writers of And Just Like That are making painful television on purpose. Consider the self-involved Che, whom fans appear to unanimously despise. There is now even more Che Diaz throughout, and they’re even worse. In a recent piece for Rolling Stone, a writer questioned whether the show was joyfully trolling us. Indeed, its creators may not be as clueless to its awfulness as we think. In a Vulture roundtable last year, And Just Like That writer Samantha Irby, who is also a comedian, commented: “I do think one of the least charitable takes is that we’re not in on some of the jokes the internet is making.”
This isn’t the first time a TV show has garnered success precisely because of, rather than in spite of, its so-called deficiencies. Consider Riverdale, the over-the-top high school Netflix drama that baffled and delighted audiences with its random, improbable storylines spanning seven popular seasons. Or The L Word, which helped to mainstream lesbian and bi culture, sure, but was also widely beloved for its characters’ hideous outfit choices and awkward acting. More recently, reality shows such as Love is Blind and The Ultimatum are undoubtedly appealing in part because of their crapness, which frequently tips into the absurd. It’s true: watching something “sort of bad” can feel indulgent, freeing, more interesting than something standardly decent, where everyone behaves in cool, acceptable ways.
And Just Like That isn’t all terrible – especially during this season. Some of the best, most rounded episodes are those directed by Nixon herself – episode five and six, so far. The outfit choices, too, are typically impeccable (when Sarah Jessica Parker was papped last year carrying an $890 JW Anderson pigeon clutch while filming, it very quickly became a “moment” and sold out.) The original cast remain, by and large, faithful to their original, well-drawn characters – bar, perhaps, the newly submissive Miranda. And there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments that recall what made the original Sex and the City so sparkly (Charlotte’s daughter Lily, played by Cathy Ang, scheduling and announcing the loss of her virginity around the kitchen table feels like a very Charlotte thing to do).
But there is no denying that the show is still, thankfully, mainly excruciating. And I couldn’t help but wonder … maybe that’s a good thing?
