‘And Just Like That …’ Season 3, Episode 5 Recap: Heels

Season 3, Episode 5: ‘Under the Table’

I’m sorry, there’s a crappy apartment below Carrie’s lavish Gramercy Park palace? With a tenant — her tenant — she has never met or heard of? This is an unexpected (and, like many things on this show) somewhat unbelievable twist.

Sure, garden apartments are common, but Carrie is a rich person who bought this house from another rich person. Would either owner really leave the bottom floor in such shambles? Maybe so if it doesn’t bother the sexy biographer Duncan Reeves (Jonathan Cake) who lives there only six months of the year solely to write — and smoke a pipe, apparently, which is a detail that took the brooding London author thing a step too far.

The only thing that does bother Duncan is the clickity clack of little Carrie heels, which keeps him up all day long as he is trying to sleep. (Brooding London authors can write only at night, see.)

It’s this complaint that kicks Carrie into her petty era.

Duncan requests that Carrie please remove her shoes when she is home, which offends her to her core. He even gifts her a pair of slippers, which she impolitely declines. “It’s New York. There’s noise,” she tells him, and continues to click-clack away, albeit with a bit more tiptoe.

From there, Carrie’s pettiness only grows. When Miranda’s Airbnb neighbor comes at her half-naked with a meat cleaver, Carrie insists that her friend come stay in the safe harbor that is Gramercy. Miranda obliges, and then Carrie immediately begins to pick at her for consuming the last yogurt, the last banana and the last Mexican Coke. Again, Carrie is a rich person. And they are best friends. Why is Carrie acting as if Miranda should put down a credit card for incidentals?

However, Miranda is rich, too, and she has been divorced from Steve for what, three years now? (Season 1 was a long time ago!) Why she still hasn’t found a permanent place to live is perplexing to say the least. Remember the first time Miranda left Steve in the first “Sex and the City” movie? All she had to do was walk through a gentrifying neighborhood and say the incredibly regrettable line “White guy with a baby. Wherever he’s going, that’s where we need to be, and boom, she had a new apartment. (Where was Woke Charlotte when we needed her?)

Speaking of Charlotte, she is the only woman in this episode with any real problems. After weeks of mostly clownery and little story line, things take a turn when Harry tells her he has prostate cancer. Charlotte understandably freaks out, but he assures her the survival rate is high and everything will be fine. Harry has just one request, which is that Charlotte not tell anyone at all — not the kids, not her friends, no one — about his diagnosis, which is, in fact, really unfair. This is big, and scary, and a lot to process, and usually in those situations, a person could use a confidant.

And lo and behold, holding it in just leads to more problems. Charlotte makes a huge deal of the family glamping trip to Governors Island, mostly to make Harry happy — even though Harry doesn’t really want to go. The forced quality time goes over like a lead balloon. Eventually Lily leaves to go hang out with her poly boyfriend, and Charlotte defects with Lisa to the spa.

Yes, the Wexleys — who are perpetrators of petty arguing in their own right this week — are part of the glamping weekend as well. As they squabble over whether Lisa was told to bring certain S’more supplies, Charlotte slips and blurts out: “What is the big deal? It is chocolate, not cancer!”

See, Harry? This is too much.

Ultimately, the Wexleys may, too, have bigger problems than chocolate. While at the spa’ with Charlotte, Lisa cops to having a “work crush” on Marion. She denied this to Herbert when he found a cute selfie of her and Marion on her phone, but his Spidey sense is telling him he is right to worry.

Aidan may also have reason to worry. In last week’s episode, Carrie doubled down on her commitment to him, even though they are all but back to no contact. How is that going to work out if Carrie and Duncan suddenly start getting along? Despite their “auspicious beginning,” by the end of the episode, the neighbors are sharing a meal and a bottle of wine at a neighborhood restaurant. Then Carrie takes off her shoes when she gets home. Maybe there’s something to that whole brooding London author thing after all.

Still I hate to think that Carrie may once again attach herself to a difficult man.

Things still taking up space in my brain

It turns out that Aidan bought Carrie’s dream table as a grand gesture. Sure, that’s nice, but Aidan is a furniture designer. Why has he not yet sent her a whole truckload of furniture for “their” apartment? This man truly does the bare minimum.
And can we all agree that table is fugly?
It is awkward when pets bust up a romantic moment, but I had more faith in Miranda and Joy to push past the whimpering and get it on. Come on, ladies. Don’t let the fire turn to embers that easily.
Usually, houseguests refrain from walking around naked, but Miranda apparently doesn’t play by that unspoken rule.
In a conversation with Seema, we learn that Adam is seeing someone — a Vinyasa yoga instructor, to be specific. This can’t be a serious relationship, though, can it? Adam’s character must be there to do more than get yelled at by Duncan.
Whoever wrote the line, “It’s a man’s name, too, Chalamet,” should be writing this whole show.
Samantha makes another ghost-cameo this episode, seen only via text when she tells Carrie that Duncan is known around London to be “fun.” Similarly, Aidan shows up only via the aforementioned table. Is this a sign that he, like Samantha, has been relegated to offscreen mentions? And if so, why can’t he and Carrie simply break up?