And Just Like That: The Big Fight (or just round 1?)
Season 3, Episode 7: A birthday/dog cancer party, Carrie is Judas, Seema is me
I am once again asking you, three days after this episode aired, to forgive me for being late (as if anyone cares) with this recap, and begging my last few readers to stay with me. Turns out, the time demands of my regular job, being a mom, a thrower of swim team pep rallies, a night out with the girls, and occasionally working out are all things I’ve let be the priority this week over writing. I am utterly exhausted, this is going to be messy, but I’m still here.
At one point in this episode, Duncan reads aloud the opening sentence Carrie narrated in her head at the end of Episode 1: “The woman wondered what she had gotten herself into.” Duncan says that line stopped him dead in his tracks (and somehow, not in a bad way). Mind you, Carrie typed this after a sleepless night in which she tried to initiate phone sex with Aidan, and he rebuffed her.
That line stopped a large portion of the viewing audience dead in their tracks too. Viewers and readers have been dropping like flies because this show has gone so off the rails. My readership from the launch of this Substack increased gradually and significantly earlier this year. But once I started AJLT recaps, it’s gone down with each passing episode recap (by 69%, but who’s counting…).
I also have to state for the record that the previous seasons of AJLT had 10 episodes, and this season has 12 episodes planned. So, in many ways, I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. But I started this, dammit, and I am going to finish it. Even though the way life imitates art imitates life etc with Carrie’s Ultimate Delusional Girl Summer 2025™ is getting out of hand, I’m counting on the writers to course-correct by the end of the summer.
Directly from my show notes:
I correctly predicted (again) that a big fight between Miranda and Carrie was primed to explode, but I don’t want to be right this time. What we witnessed was a scorcher and I don’t think that was the end of it.
Harry feels like chop liver at his wife’s birthday party (as he should) because everyone is fawning over the dog they think has cancer instead of him (as they should).
If Bitsy really is a stand-in for Dorinda, she’d drink three martinis on an empty stomach, take a Xanax, and tell everyone what she doesn’t like about them. MAKE AJLT RHONY AGAIN. But instead, she hits on Giuseppe and forces him to do a karaoke duet of “Shallow” with her.
Literary Folie à Deux
The episode opens with Carrie knocking on Duncan’s door to announce, “I hate you,” because his book draft is too good. Duncan’s smoking a pipe (hard drugs, see below), and Carrie calls his first chapter thrilling. It’s somehow only now dawning on her that it’s going to be mortally embarrassing to hand him her draft of drivel. But she does anyway, because it’s still technically Carrie’s Ultimate Delusional Girl Summer 2025™ and delulu girls don’t care what other people think.
Days later, Carrie again knocks on Duncan’s door (do they not text? This could have been a text). He comes to the door with her draft in hand and tells her, in the biggest lie and plot hole of the century: “It’s brilliant.”
Now we know what the mysterious thing about Duncan is that we couldn’t quite put our finger on: he’s on drugs. There was crack in the pipe he was smoking in the opening scene. That’s the only reasonable explanation for why a critically-acclaimed writer would say that any of the following verbatim lines from her book are compelling:
Sitting in the sunlight, the woman felt the fog of the last few nights lift. She realized her tossing and turning and insecurities were remnants of another time. This is a new house, she reminded herself. A new life. This wasn’t her past… It was the present. May, 1846.
The woman threw open her windows to let the city in. She could hear the horses coming and going with their carriages, each one bringing an exciting possibility. The unexpected cool breeze on this hot afternoon reminded her that each day need not be an echo of the one before.
The woman held on to what she knew to be true.
I’m sorry. Where is the plot? This is just word salad. She typed into ChatGPT, “woman, historical house, pre–Civil War, no name, possibly lobotomized. Write me something,” and ChatGPT was like, “YAAAS QUEEN! Here’s some words in no particular order…”
Carrie invites Duncan to come to Charlotte’s birthday/dog cancer party (I know), and he says he loves karaoke... I. Don’t. Believe. It. This grumpy old writer who makes mutton and claims to only be in New York to work and doesn’t socialize is suddenly a karaoke-head? Also, you’ll note later in the episode he refuses to participate when karaoke is actually happening at the party and instead just flirts with Carrie and fuels her delusional streak.
It’s during the party that Duncan pulls Carrie aside for a smoke and to gas her up about her book. Duncan gets kinda handsy, and Carrie grabs his glass to take a swig. In this moment, I am Fleabag (the character) in the penultimate episode of Fleabag (the show), saying, “Oh my god, we’re going to have sex!” right in front of the priest. That’s what this moment is.
And Miranda notices, and this sparks the late-episode barn burner, but we’ll get to that…
Send Lilly to military school
Within the first two minutes of the episode, we get rocked by a hard cut to Lilly screaming in her bedroom because her poly boyfriend broke up with her. SHOCKER.
Days later, Lilly refuses to go to her mother’s birthday. There’s a scene in Real Housewives of New Jersey Season 2 where Dina Manzo famously says about someone’s awful teenage daughter, “Have you tried beatin’ her?” and I think about that every time Lilly is on screen.
Lilly eventually gives in and goes to the party, but is such a dramatic brat. She storms off after Miranda just asks her to sing karaoke with her. Lilly is a labubu. Possessed by a demon. Exorcism for Lilly.
I am Seema, Seema is me
I have another theory! (Readership tanks by another 10% at the threat of another one of my theories.) Seema and I are the same person. I don’t have enough space here to explain it, and also you don’t care. But the evidence is everywhere.
Her story this week starts with her trying to save money since she’s between ventures and, instead of taking a car to her usual, expensive lash place, she finds an open appointment at a random spot nearby.
Tomas Matos of Fire Island fame is Seema’s aesthetician. Seema wonders how Tomas can do lashes with three-inch-long nails and doesn’t seem to be alarmed by how Tomas says there are three people waiting and the appointment is going to be quick.
Every woman watching knew from the jump how this was going to end. Taking a last-minute random appointment, or trying to save money, or (dear God, no) using a Groupon for anything aesthetic- or beauty-related always ends in disaster.
Seema goes over to Carrie’s later that day, and her lashes are already molting and causing an eye infection. Adam the landscaper happens to be there, in Carrie’s kitchen, helping himself to things in her house. Which is VERY interesting considering how Carrie snapped at Miranda for taking a yogurt and a banana.
Carrie invites both Seema and Adam to Charlotte’s birthday/dog cancer party. Adam notices Seema’s inflamed eye and approaches her face. He pulls off a lash and tells her to make a wish. She won’t blow the lash away and make a wish, so he does. Carrie’s just sitting there watching. Once again, a “good” friend might say to her hired contractor, “Um, please step away from my friend and stop telling her to blow,” but Carrie’s not here to be a good friend this episode.
Carrie picks up on a vibe between them, but Seema seems to have already had a few too many Delulu Girl Summers of her own under her belt. A wise sage, she says she’s too busy for a fake relationship.
Later, Seema shows up to the birthday/dog cancer party wearing a c*nty** Louis Vuitton eye patch to cover her inflamed eye. No one in the history of the world has ever looked good in an eye patch until this moment. She turned an LV fanny pack into the eye patch. I love her so much. How did she do it? Does she have a sewing machine? Give me a Seema capsule episode now!
Adam, dressed for a frat party, makes a pirate joke about Seema’s eye patch. She blames him for the infection in her eye after he tried to get the loose lash. He then says, “Are you gonna make me walk the plank, Cap’n?”… Seema is showing unprecedented levels of restraint here.
Later, Seema and Adam chat on the steps, and Seema snorts at a stupid joke he makes. Those of you who know me know I, too, snort laugh.
She says, “I’m sure your yoga lady doesn’t snort,” but Adam tells her he ended it with the yoga lady after he first smelled Seema’s perfume. Seema basically slides off the steps to go refill her drink.
Feeling her restraint start to dwindle, Seema tries to pull an Irish goodbye (THIS IS ME! I told you!) because she might “make a mistake” with Adam. Before she can go, Adam jumps on the karaoke machine and says, “This goes out to the girl who has the most beautiful EYE I’ve ever seen,” before belting out an embarrassing, but endearing rendition of Bette Davis Eyes.
This, unfortunately, would work on me. And it works on Seema. Smash cut to them making out fiercely in a cab after the party.
God damn, finally something good happened on this show! Let her enjoy a bit of Delulu Girl Summer too, why not!
Patti LuPone
I just have to say from the jump, having a karaoke machine be the centerpiece of the entire party sequence and then having every side character except Patti LuPone jump on the mic was not what I saw coming when she showed up this episode. What a tragedy. It’s like they did this on purpose, they put the karaoke machine there to make us think we’d get Patti singing. But it’s like Chekhov’s gun: you can’t put Patti and a karaoke machine in the same room and not do something with it.
Giuseppe’s “shrink” mother is visiting from Rome to meet Anthony for the first time. The mom arrives at Hot Fellas Bakery, and it turns out she’s originally from Buffalo and very much not Italian. And also she’s fucking Patti LuPone. But she’s still half-speaking with an Italian accent, which is mesmerizing.
One of the Hot Fellas studs walks over in his little denim romper, and Patti (it’s easier this way) gasps and says, “This must be the gorgeous Anthony I’ve heard so much about!” Giuseppe redirects her attention to actual Anthony. Patti immediately height-checks him and clocks makeup not blended well on his neck. Brutal.
Later, Anthony calls Carrie to gripe about his faux pas with Patti. But Carrie (Judas) is too busy to talk because SHE is meeting PATTI for lunch. When did they exchange numbers? Carrie is the worst. This is just like when Carrie stayed friends with Che after Miranda broke up with them. She also notably didn’t leave Che’s “comedy concert” after they made terrible jokes at Miranda’s expense.
This is the Carrie we know. The bad friend, creeping back in.
She has to hang up with Anthony, who called for moral support, to go have lunch with the reason he needs moral support (Brutus). Anthony pleads for her to put in a good word for him, which is the least she could do.
Carrie and Patti have lunch, and Patti reveals she was 21 and Giuseppe’s father was 50 when they met in Italy. Patti says it wasn’t all magic. He had teen children, and they hated her. So she dropped her passion for art and got into psychology just to try to figure out how to be a stepmom.
I’ve got to tell you, if I was in my teens (already a hormonal ticking time bomb), and my dad brought home someone just a handful of years older than me, I would have made The Parent Trap look like an episode of Sesame Street, OK? She wouldn’t have lasted a week.
Carrie can’t help but draw parallels from Patti’s life to her own situation with Aidan and Wyatt. Patti tells her, “Don’t waste years trying to be who you think they’ll accept. Inauthentic beings never win.”
Carrie does her best to put in a good word for Anthony. But Patti says she still has reservations and she’s holding them close to the chest. We find out later, through a series of passive-aggressive maneuvers, that she thinks Anthony is predatory for being with her much-younger son.
I thought they did this in a clever way. She’s revealing a lot more about herself in this moment. How her relationship and marriage with a much older man wasn’t all magic and romance. It was an anchor tied to her ankle and thrown into the sea. You see in a flash that she’s projecting her own regrets and pain on Anthony and Giuseppe. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Patti.
The Big C
Carrie suggests to Miranda that they should throw a party for Charlotte’s birthday (but secretly to cheer her up about Harry’s cancer). Miranda picks up on something being up with Charlotte. She interrogates Carrie, and THIS is deeply female. You just know when something is off with your friend. My friends know when I’m spiraling because I’ll go quiet for a bit and then reappear in the group chat with a completely non sequitur meme or TikTok with absolutely no explanation.
Like this!
Or this!
Or this!
Or this!
Miranda basically pulls it out of Carrie. But Carrie fibs and says Richard Burton, Charlotte’s bulldog, has terminal dog cancer.
Later, Charlotte goes shopping and spots Harry in the handbag department. Caught red-handed, he tries to run away, but then they are approached by Bonnie, who is revealed to be his secret personal shopper. He admits that Bonnie actually picks out all the gifts he gets Charlotte. And that’s actually a kind thing to do, because many men are TERRIBLE at this. At least he’s self-aware.
But the bigger reveal is that Bonnie knows about his cancer, which is twisted when Harry insisted Charlotte had to keep it a secret. Charlotte looks like she’s going to kill Harry, and she should. She should be allowed to sabotage his prostate cancer surgery recovery for this.
But the Big C is basically out of the bag anyway. Carrie’s fib about the dog having cancer gets increasingly out of hand until Miranda pulls Harry aside at the party later and says, “When the moment happens, of course, Charlotte will be devastated by the loss, but we’ll be there for her.” Miranda’s talking about the dog, and Harry is thinking she’s talking about him, and this is actually pretty funny. And it’s exactly what Harry deserves for telling Bonnie the personal shopper while making Charlotte take a vow of silence.
He realizes the jig is up, and lying is actually making things worse, so Harry brings all the girlfriends into the kitchen to announce that he has cancer. Which is what he could have done from the beginning. He finally admits it was wrong of him to ask Charlotte to keep it a secret from her friends.
OK, we don’t have to kill Harry now. This reminded me of Big at the diner with the girls at the end of Season 6. I like when the writers admit that it’s girlhood first, boys second.
The Big One (the party and the fight)
Miranda shows up to Carrie’s house on the day of Charlotte’s birthday/dog cancer party with pink balloons and a karaoke machine. Carrie already seems irritated with Miranda, even though this whole thing was her idea.
Anthony, Giuseppe, and Patti show up, and Anthony begs Charlotte to lie about his age. “58, final offer.” There’s a BRIEF blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment of gut-wrenching betrayal. Carrie is Judas again. Anthony goes to Carrie for damage control too and tells her if Patti asks, he was never married (to our beloved Stanny!) before. And Carrie says, “Neither was I.”
BITCH, WHAT? There’s more Big erasure later too… As a Big apologist, I have to clarify that I’m not a Chris Noth apologist. I’m not saying Big was great. I’m saying Big and Carrie deserved each other. And I don’t like AJLT trying to erase that.
Miranda tries to get her friends to come up and sing Girls Just Want to Have Fun, but none of the girls want to. Miranda brought her manic personality from Abu Dhabi in the second SATC movie to this party. It’s a little over the top, even if she thinks it is to distract Charlotte from dog cancer.
After the party is over and the guests are gone, Miranda and Carrie wrap up in Carrie’s kitchen. Carrie says she likes Joy and then negs the karaoke machine (I do think it made the party, and she doesn’t want to admit Miranda did something right because she’s already pre-mad at Miranda).
Miranda says she picked up on a little vibe between Carrie and Duncan. Carrie goes from zero to 100 and gets VERY defensive VERY quickly.
Miranda thought they were just having fun girl talk, and Carrie says cuttingly, “Miranda, I’m in a relationship.”
(How much you wanna bet Carrie didn’t tell ANY of her friends about Aidan sleeping with Kathy after last week? I am going to bet myself a day at the spa that she hasn’t told a soul. I should just book my facial now.)
Miranda says it was nice to see Carrie having fun, and Carrie snaps back, “I DON’T HAVE FUN?!?”
Miranda has stepped into a hornet’s nest and Carrie will not stop stinging her. The way she’s speaking is bordering on cruel. Miranda admits that it just seems like Carrie’s having to work so hard at the relationship with Aidan. Carrie admits, yeah, it is work.
Then Carrie shits on Miranda’s relationship with Joy saying they’ve only been together a minute, but “Aidan and I are over 20 years in…” This feels like Carrie has Alzheimer’s. I’m sorry, did she forget the part where she was married to Big for 13 of those 20 years??
Carrie says it’s complicated right now but insists, “I am allowed to laugh and sip scotch!”
Carrie demands to know what Miranda is getting at, because deep down Carrie doesn’t want to admit she’s attracted to Duncan and she feels guilty about it. She’s insecure in her relationship with Aidan, but can’t face that it’s doomed. She doesn’t want her friends in her house or questioning her choices or shining a light on everything she’s trying to hide from.
Miranda admits she saw the first sentence of Carrie’s book sitting on the counter (“The woman had no idea what she had gotten herself into”). Duncan doesn’t know Carrie, but Miranda does. And she knows that even if Carrie’s calling it fiction, it’s really all about her. Carrie backpedals, saying she wrote it ages ago.
Miranda tries to apologize, but Carrie ices her out. They somehow get over it, and this was a little blurry for me. Carrie got to vent her rage and insecurities at Miranda, and then they end the night saying “I love you” to each other.
Carrie knows she’s wrong. She knows Miranda is on to something. But this is Delulu Girl Stick Your Head in the Sand And Suffocate Summer 2025, and Carrie’s not ready to throw in the towel just yet.
I’m not convinced this fight is over. Poor Miranda, stung up by all the hornets, kind of hobbled away. But I think this might just be round 1. I’m looking forward to that facial I bet myself… and round 2 of this fight.