My sister and I used to play a game with the original Sex and the City. Weâd watch the opening credits, the three seconds of the establishing NYC B-roll, and the first half of Carrieâs inevitable voiceover before Iâd hit pause. The challenge was simple: try to guess what horrible pun or corny metaphor Carrie would use to kick off the episode at hand. It was usually something cringe-inducing along the lines of:
âNew York City, where you can have anything delivered. But whoâs delivering us from singledom?â
The new show is a far cry from the original, and swings squarely towards the weird rich-tourist-fantasy-version of New York, in which everyone has a Birkin and adult women have best friends. Samantha has been swapped out for Seema âwhom I actually prefer, even though she says awful things like that she sends her exes emails that âstart off with âhope youâre well,â and end with a screenshot of my bank account.â Seema is at least the broad strokes of a real person as opposed to dear old Sam Jones, who always felt like what #tradwives have night terrors about becoming if they forget to do the kidsâ hair bows for church.
And Just Like That⊠is one million percent ridiculous, and yet I canât stop watching. So, here is the latest episode, broken down cringe by cringe.
Season 2, Episode 6: Bomb Cyclone
We open on Carrie doing a Zoom interview to promote her new book with a horrible Gen-Z influencer who definitely takes Threads really seriously and is still into FRIENDS. Gen-Z hasnât read the book and says âhilarious, Iâm dying!â when Carrie tells her the new tome is about her husbandâs (Bigâs) death. The influencer balks before quickly pivoting to âSo girl, what lipstick shades are you loving right now?â
Cringe Index: đŹđŹ
This scene felt a little try-hard, and if the newly-loaded Carrie can drop $100K on Enidâs Granny Substack or whatever, wouldnât she be able to buy a nicer laptop stand than an Amazon box?
We then find Miranda who has been crashing in Nyaâs estranged husbandâs music room waking up in a cold sweat because she thinks sheâs overslept and has to trot home to do all the laundry in their Brooklyn brownstone even though her son, Brady, is old enough to go to Amsterdam alone and work in a bar, and Steve is grayer than Father Christmas.
Naya calls her out for wearing insane heart pajamas that would make Urban Outfitters blush.
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Extra cringe because poor Nya deserves more to do then react to Mirandaâs PJs.
Meanwhile, on the UES, Charlotteâs daughter announces she plans to lose her virginity to some probably-Buckley student named Blake, and is annoyed her mom forgot to make them brunch reservations at Nobu. The rest of this storyline is about Lily asking her mom for condoms, and Charlotte trying to find them in a snowstorm.
For someone who once spent an episode fretting their dogâs unintended pregnancy, Charlotte would definitely have put Lily on birth control âfor crampsâ as soon as she got her first Gardasil shot, but the cringe here goes to teenagers namedropping Nobu like Heather âChampsâ Dubrow. Gross.
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And then an extra đŹđŹđŹ for Charlotteâs Old Navy Christmas pajamas, which pale only to the memory of Harryâs wig from the last episode.
Carrie has to buy a new computer which isnât interesting at all, and Seema asks to split a Hamptons rental. Fine.
Che makes a horrible sex pun then starts doing Cameos while Miranda is trying to sleep.
Cringe Index: đŹ
â because itâs more rude than cringe, I guess.
LTW and fam see Rockâs Ralph Lauren ad in bed and in all the excitement Gabby, their daughter, accidentally jumps on her dadâs penis. Wut? Herbert and LTW have an extremely unnecessary back and forth about it before we learn Herbert has a campaign event the same time as her MoMA panel.
Carrie learns she
a) used to be writing partners with Rachel Dratch
b) has to plug her book at a convention for women who have lost their partners, aka âWidowConâ.
She asks Che to go with her for some reason, during which conversation Che refers to Miranda as âmy mommy.â
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Carrie and Che wake up on the day of WidowCon to find â surprise! â itâs a bomb cyclone. Undeterred, Carrie uses the chance to trudge to the midtown Sheraton dressed as a Macyâs Day Parade Puffer Coat Float, and makes a lame Frozen joke about letting it go.
LTW refuses Herbertâs driver and chooses to walk through the snow to MoMA to be honored as a Black female filmmaker. She looks fab doing it. Her event goes well, and Herbert shows up at the end to show heâs not only a potential politician with a potentially broken penis, heâs a good husband.
Meanwhile, at WidowCon, Carrie is nervous to follow another widow-lit author who is (pun intended) killing it making light of everyoneâs partnersâ deaths. Carrie goes up and reads her earnest book passage, which everyone loves, even her opener and Che, who is inspired to move on from their failed Tony Danza pilot and finally break up with poor Miranda, who has just learned that while sheâs been doing Steveâs laundry, heâs been doing the Whole Foods girl.
Miranda starts writing divorce papers.
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â for Cheâs âhelpâ writing Carrie an opening joke about vibrators. Also, I want to know which Whole Foods is serving up âlocally sourced sex,â as Miranda puts it, like the Silverlake Trader Joeâs and if Steve will get alimony.
Carrie ends the episode by emailing Aiden, her ex-fiance whom she cheated on with her dead husband, a completely cringey âhope youâre wellâ kind of note that clearly sets up a future John Corbett cameo âif heâs not too busy shooting phone calls to the K.I.S.S. Academy for Kitty XO, Season 2â and ends with a play on her own name, âcarry on.â
Cringe Index: đŹđŹđŹđŹđŹ
End Note: Last weekâs clumsy tech bro character George Campbellâs (Peter Hermann) familiarity was gnawing at me, so I looked it up and yes, heâs the same guy Charlotteâs temple friend sets her up with in A Hop, Skip, & A Week in the original series. US Weekly noticed too. Further evidence that the HBO casting department finds actors they like and clings to them like Nicole Kidman to her coats in The Undoing, and that she wasnât available for this.