WARNING: This story contains spoilers from this week’s episode of “And Just Like That.”
All happy families are alike, but each unhappy family is crazy in its own way.
At least, that’s the lesson you’d learn from “And Just Like That” in its second season’s 10th episode, ominously titled “The Last Supper Part One: Appetizer.”
Everyone is struggling with their loved ones this week, whether single, dating, amicably divorced or not-so-amicably divorced. So let’s get into it.
Ladies first: Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) has had a banner couple of episodes while living happily ever after with long-lost lover Aidan Shaw (John Corbett), who left the original series as a frog but turned into a prince somewhere along the way.
As Carrie and Aidan prepare to move into their new four-bedroom castle in Gramercy Park, the princess — who prefers Manolos to glass slippers — plans a “Last Supper” party with 15 of her closest friends to say goodbye to her beloved old apartment.
Carrie tells Aidan she’s saving him a seat at her dinner — even though he still won’t set foot in the place because of all that had transpired between them there.
“I made some mistakes about us, too,” Aidan says during a heart-to-heart, referring to when Carrie blamed herself for their two previous breakups.
He apologizes for all those years ago when he was so insistent that they get married immediately that he scared Carrie away. He also admits that he was afraid to go back to her apartment in case being there made him angry at Carrie all over again.
“That was a mistake, too,” he confesses.
It’s a mature moment and a seeming resolution to the only tension their relationship has faced so far — which means it can’t last.
Sure enough, Aidan immediately gets a phone call from his ex-wife back in Virginia. His 14-year-old son, Wyatt, has broken his leg and his collarbone after fighting with his mom and trying to drive — drunk — to Aidan’s farm in the middle of the night.
Carrie’s man flies home immediately and breaks down to Carrie over the phone at the end of the episode.
“I should’ve been there,” he sobs.
Carrie can only offer meager consolation.
“Breaks heal,” she says meekly.
The first true fault line in their relationship has appeared, one week before the season finale. Will the city mouse and the country mouse be able to move past this?
As the episode’s title promises, this is only the first course.
After a few blissful weeks without a Miranda-Che interaction, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) decides it’s a good idea to surprise Che (Sara Ramirez) at their stand-up performance in Brooklyn. She’s been thinking about her tendency to cut her exes out of her life “cold turkey,” in Nya Wallace’s (Karen Pittman) words, and she wants to change her ways.
But at Che’s show, Miranda goes from cold turkey to Thanksgiving turkey. Much like the unfortunate bird, she learns it’s hard to enjoy yourself at an event where you’re on the menu.
Che’s entire performance is about how an “eight-month relationship with a married, straight, white woman” was a total disaster because the woman was a sad mess who brought a husband and a son along as emotional baggage.
Who on Earth could they be talking about?
Immediately after the performance, Miranda confronts Che, who seems apologetic at first — before becoming flat-out defensive.
“Why are you surprised?” Che asks in a somewhat jaw-dropping display of audacity. “I’m a stand-up comic — that’s what I do. I get on stage and I make jokes about the bad things that happen in my life.”
Miranda reacts pretty poorly to being called a “bad thing that happened” and tells Che off about how they’re a mess, too, before storming off. They’re both invited to Carrie’s “Last Supper,” though, which is on track to achieve levels of dinner-party awkwardness previously unknown to man.
Nya, meanwhile, is taking out her anger on her ex in a very different way: by buying a thousand-dollar baby stroller.
After being too diplomatic about the baby Andre Rashad (LeRoy McClain) is expecting with his new wife, Nya decides that revenge is a dish best served with her American Express. Now every time they use the new stroller, they’ll think of Professor Wallace’s full wallet.
Anthony Marantino (Mario Cantone) also has an ex-husband encounter this week when Carrie passes along news of Stanford Blatch (played by the late actor Willie Garson). Over a moving Cosmopolitan toast, Anthony and Carrie wish Stanford well in his new life as a monk in Japan.
Carrie reads Stanford’s letter aloud to Anthony, which details that he’s forgoing earthly attachments and giving all of his belongings to his ex-husband.
“I let it all go, with love,” Stanford writes.
Seema Patel (Sarita Choudhury) is in this episode for all of 90 seconds, but it’s enough time for her to panic about saying “I love you” to Ravi Gordi (Armin Amiri). After “30 years of smart dating,” Seema’s still scared of three little words.
Across town, Lisa Todd Wexley (Nicole Ari Parker) is grappling with her surprise pregnancy. She worries about what it could mean for her career, which is blowing up after PBS expressed interest in making a 10-part series out of her documentary.
She decides to keep the baby all the same, but at the end of the episode, Lisa realizes that she’s bleeding. She and Herbert (Chris Jackson) rush to the hospital — but it looks like it’s too late.
Last, but never least, is Charlotte (Kristin Davis), who is loving her gallery job. After selling a painting to superstar Sam Smith, playing themself, Char’s co-workers insist on taking her out for a drink — their tradition when someone sells a painting for more than $100,000.
But Charlotte realizes she wants to strangle her kids and husband when their insistent text messages keep asking when she’ll be home.
It’s enough to make a girl want to chuck her phone into a pitcher of margaritas — so she does.
Stumbling home wasted, Charlotte confronts her family about how they always expect her to be around.
“I am slaying at my new job,” she says emphatically to Harry (Evan Handler), Rock (Alexa Swinton), and Lily (Cathy Ang). “I am more than just your wife and your mom. You need to get that and get it together!”