‘And Just Like That …’ Season 3, Episode 2 Recap: Textual Relations

Season 3, Episode 2: ‘The Rat Race’

Here in the real world, it’s a common refrain from single people that dating apps are as tired as the tiramisu Seema’s date orders for her without asking. Everyone is sick of the swiping, the ghosting and the serial situationships. The virtual-first connections that seem essential to dating in 2025 have never played a major role in the “Sex and the City” franchise, mostly because the majority of this decades-spanning story has predated all that.

But Carrie’s former neighbor Lisette (Katerina Tannenbaum) shows up at the beginning of Episode 2 to reflect that cultural shift, lamenting to Carrie that, as a single woman of today, she is mostly in a relationship with her phone. Turns out, throwing it across a room may be a more effective way of it helping you meet someone.

Some of the characters, though, regardless of age, are no better than Lisette when it comes to phone addiction.

Starting with our star, Carrie is in something of a love-hate relationship with texting Aidan. Now that Aidan has cracked the communication door ajar, Carrie feels slightly more empowered to reach out to her “boyfriend.” (I insist on putting that in quotes because while Carrie may use that word to refer to Aidan, at this point, I simply refuse.)

First, Carrie drafts a long, meandering voice text to Aidan about a newly-discovered rat infestation in her garden, but she deletes it before sending. Considering Aidan’s request for no contact (or at least very limited contact), she determines it is best to leave him alone.

But without any such regard for the rules he set himself, Aidan lights his no-contact contract on fire with a surprise appearance at Carrie’s Gramercy townhouse, to her delight.

After a night of lovemaking, Carrie tells Aidan about the deleted text, confessing that she felt she couldn’t send it. “That’s crazy,” Aidan tells her, which is when I nearly threw my remote at the TV.

Aidan is trying to be a good dad, we get it, but the gaslighting is unreal. He decided to go no contact, then immediately clouded that with impromptu phone sex and an unannounced visit. Now, he is completely reversing course, telling Carrie she can “fire away” and reach out to him whenever she wants.

“You may encounter some Muzak” he warns her, as if to say, “Don’t expect too much; I don’t want you to start doing anything crazy like counting on me.” Aidan has now become the same type of toxic, avoidant playboy that made Lisette throw her phone across the bar, and I hate it.

But Carrie doesn’t, apparently. She feels comfortable enough to text her woodworking lover about a table she wants to buy, only to be met with a thumbs-down emoji. That’s not a relationship, she later tells Miranda. A relationship is two people standing across from each other saying, “What do you think?” and then “What do you think?”

Miranda has also become screen-dependent in her own way. She has discovered “Bi Bingo,” a reality dating show that taps into the same side of her that used to be obsessed with Tattle Tale magazine. She watches it on her phone even when she should be watching C-SPAN, and she can’t stop gabbing about it, especially with the cute server at a Mexican restaurant.

App-free, Miranda goes analog and asks out the “guacamole girl,” whom she assumes is also queer. (To be fair, the waitress certainly implies it, talking about her crushes on particular “Bi Bingo” women and suggesting that she and Miranda should be on the show.) It turns out, however, that she is straight and married with kids. Miranda slinks away, never to return for medium-spice guacamole again.

It is Seema who, whether she likes it or not, is talked into going full Luddite by meeting with a matchmaker, Sydney (Cheri Oteri). Sydney tells Seema to suppress nearly every natural instinct, pushing her into pastels and a reluctant state of demureness. It doesn’t last long — not even one full date. Bored and unimpressed by the man across the table, Seema removes her pearls and confesses that this isn’t the real her, only to be swiftly dumped.

Sydney tells Seema she blew it, but Seema tells Sydney to blow it out her ear. In a speech as dramatic as the one she gave Ravi, Seema kicks Sydney to the curb. I hope Seema does this to at least one person every episode. It’s a long shot, but we’re two for two.

Back to the rat infestation, for which exterminators have been called. They rip up Carrie’s lush garden, leaving no place left for rats to nest.

Notice that the exterminators are not conventionally good-looking. The landscape architect who shows up to replant the garden, however, is a dreamboat.

Standing in her dirt yard, Carrie asks the hot landscaper, “What do you think?” He predictably replies, “What do you think?”

I think Aidan should watch his back.

Things still taking up space in my brain

Is “And Just Like That …” self-aware? Self deprecating, even? Are they trying to normalize addiction to sub-standard TV by talking up “the joy of hate watching” with regard to “Bi Bingo”? We all have free will, too. Yet we’re still here.

Perhaps we should have a weekly award for cringiest moment of each episode. Last week’s winner by a mile would have been the one-way phone sex scene with Aidan. This week’s honoree is Principal Greg (Tim Bagley) and his “inappropriate Tuesday,” which appeared to include (I can’t believe I’m typing this) a joke about school shootings.
Welp, two episodes in and we still haven’t gotten even a mention of Miranda’s professor friend from the first two seasons, Nya (Karen Pittman). Last time we saw her she had a love connection going with a Michelin-rated chef. I guess she just … disappeared? (Yes, I know Pittman left the cast between seasons, but where’s her Samantha-style cameo that explains where the heck her character went?)

Yet again this week, Charlotte is stuck with an unfunny “comic relief” plotline that doesn’t have anything to do with anything. She and Lisa chase down the college adviser Lois Fingerhood (Kristen Schaal), a.k.a., the Ivy whisperer, only to end up having their high schoolers terrorized. What high jinks will Charlotte get into next week? So far it is, sadly, hard to care.

In conversation with Aidan, Carrie refers to the Gramercy house as “ours.” The idea that Carrie is calling the house she bought — with her own money, that he is not living in, while he barely communicates with her — “ours” is just sad.

Inspired by her new home, Carrie is, in fact, writing historical fiction. Frankly, it’s hard to blame her for making this pivot if it helps her escape the reality of her current relationship.