AND JUST LIKE THAT: Happy July! It Is Snowing Now!
Listen! That’s not just snow swirling in the suddenly frosty July air! Those who are pure of heart and have ears to hear it will surely harken to a name whispered on the wind: Aidan! Aidan Ssssssssshhhhhhaaaaawwwww! Wwwwwwhhhooooshhhhhhh!
He comes! He approaches!
But not yet! First, all of this other stuff:
Carrie is in her apartment getting ready to Za-za-Zoom with someone. Wait, is this it? Is this the much-heralded Kimberly Cattrall Zoom cameo??? Is it really happening already????
Nope! It is just some foolish girl-child who is “interviewing” Carrie “about” her sad book about John Big being dead. Except this poor dumb-dumb has not read the sad book and doesn’t know that it is sad or anything about Carrie Bradshaw at all really. So, it’s real awkward, and the “interviewer” lady is like, “Say lipstick colors now yas queeeeeen!” But luckily Carrie’s laptop hurls itself from atop the pile of Vogues upon which she has perched it and dies by suicide just in time.
Let me pause here to say things about this scene: because at first, I was very DISGRUNTLED by it. I was like, “Fuck off, show, with your mean parody of journalistas!” I mean, I just get so annoyed when shows and movies do stuff like this. Like, when there’s a scene in which a FAMOUS RICH ACTOR gets all irritated by the stupid questions they have to answer at, like, a press junket or something, because it’s like, “Oh, how funny for films to make fun of the poor dumb slobs still trying to make a living as entertainment journalists (contradiction in terms?) while participating in the very system of inane publicity that Hollywood itself has set up, in which you get, like, 5 effing minutes to ask questions that probably 40 other dumb groveling slobs have already asked! So soooooo sorry we all can’t stimulate your pampered intellects within those absurd limits and under that kind of pressure! Plus, also, your publicists doesn’t even want us to ask you anything actually interesting anyway!” Bah!
But then we find out the dumb Zoom lady is just, like, an influencer or something, and I was like, “Oh, right, journalism is dead, and no one can pay real, experienced writers a living wage anymore, so websites just hire 20-something dummies with 20 million Instagram followers, who think they know how to write because they’ve been texting and posting on social media their whole lives!” So, hahah, fuck that influencer lady! (But if you are an influencer, I love you very much and everything you do is worthwhile and please recommend my dumb Substack to your 20 million followers!)
Over at Professor Karen Pittman’s house, Miranda wakes up and panics because she overslept and has to rush over to Brady Hobbes’s house to make sure he doesn’t murder himself still. But PKP is like, “It is Sunday.” Which is apparently the only day when Brady Hobbes—who I thought was cured of depression—is sure to not do suicide, unlike Carrie’s laptop.
Also, PKP is busily writing her divorce from Andre Rashida Tlaib, which gets the old gears grinding in Miranda’s brain about that divorce she keeps meaning to get from Steve…
Meanwhile, Nicole Ari Parker’s whole family is all in her bed together reading the newspaper (Why? See above re: journalism dead) when they discover Rock’s Rolf Laurén ad that they shot last week when it was Halloween. So, NAP calls Charlotte right up, and they’re all so excited about the ad and Rock being a supermodel now! This mood is quickly ruined, however, by all their various children: one of NAP’s promptly leaps upon President Christopher Jackson’s balls, crushing them, while over at Charlotte’s, Lily announces that she will be discarding her virginity with her boyfriend who we have never and will never see. Now everyone is in an uproar and all is chaos!
Charlotte quickly manifests her “Woke Charlotte” form and tries to bestow sex positivity upon Lily about how she should use condoms and focus on her own pleasure. But Lily is just interested in playing her sad teen angst keyboard and tells Woke Charlotte to scram.
That night, Miranda is staying over at Che Diaz’s apartment and wants to cuddle up to her beloved misunderstood boo. But Che Diaz is too depressed for cuddling due to their sit-com being terrible and I guess canceled? Except they are not too depressed to do Cameos, which is the only way they can make money now because they are too depressed and stoned all the time to do Comedy Concerts. Miranda is all worried about Che, because doing Cameos is annoying. But does she suggest Che go to Brady Hobbes’s tween therapist who can cure depression in mere seconds? No! Instead, she gets furious that Che is pretending to be all chipper on Cameo, while being all depressed at her in real life! Poor Miranda’s good-time midlife sex fantasy is crumbling before her very eyes, and she is DISGRUNTLED about it! So, she fucks right off I guess to go sleep at PKP’s leaving Che Diaz alone in their Cameo purgatory.
The next day, Carrie goes to visit her publisher, where she is informed that she will be reading her sad book at the Grande Gathering of the Widows soon. “Did somebody say WIDOWS?” cackles Rachel Dratch, who suddenly appears in a puff of black smoke! See, Rachel Dratch is the Grande High Widow in charge of the Gathering. But, surprise! She’s also Carrie’s old writing partner who we’ve never heard of before, but is yet another person whose life Carrie utterly ruined! Turns out, back in the 1790s, they were writing a romantical comedy film together, but Carrie was such a drunk slut all the time that she forgot to go to a meeting once and their careers were destroyed forever.
Rachel Dratch is v bitter—DISGRUNTLED!—about it to this very day, so she lays a curse upon Carrie: “Come thou to the Gathering at the appointed hour, or else be forever cursed!” she curses her!
Carrie is like, “Eeeeep!” So, she calls Che Diaz and is like, “The Widow Dratch just put a curse on me! You have to come to Widowstock and protect me with your FEARLESS comedy!” And Che Diaz is like, “Blechhhh! Fine!”
Later, Carrie and Charlotte go to PKP’s house for dinner with PKP and Miranda. (Which like…Why are only Miranda’s friends invited? Does PKP not have other friends? Actually, come to think of it, did any of the new characters have preexisting friends before the Sex and the City bozos came into their lives?) So, they’re all sitting around talking about how PKP and Andre Phylicia Rashad are trying to stay friendly, and Miranda is like, “I wonder if Steven Hobbes and I will remain friends after the divorce I’m never going to ask him for?”
Carrie is like, “Oh, hun, no. He’s in love with you forever and never moving on because that’s what he told me one time last season, remember everyone?” And then, because Carrie is incapable of not making everything about her (relatable), she’s like, “Remember my ex-fiancé Aidan Shhhhhhhhhhhhaaaawwwww….”
(He comes! His approach is as a thickening of the very air, a gathering of clouds on the distant horizon!)
Apparently, Carrie has been Facebook stalking Aidan and info-dumps that he is living in Virginia, very rich (because obviously, no scrubs, etc.), and is conveniently divorced now. Then when she gets home, she drafts a friendly email to him, which she knows how to do now unlike in 2001 (remember that was a whole plot point in SATC?), but doesn’t send it. She just leaves it open on her new laptop for Seema to find the next day when she comes over.
See, Seema has asked Carrie to do a Hamptons share with her this summer, and I feel irrationally ATTACKED by this scene as well, because none of my friends want to do Fire Island trips with me anymore apparently, and I’m experiencing a full-on mental breakdown about it this summer. Anyway, they’re looking for houses online, when Seema finds the email. But actually, she’s not at all interested in hearing about Aidan Ssssssshhhhhhaawwww…
(His tread is like thunder rolling in the distance. A hush falls upon the land. The beasts of the earth, the birds of the sky still themselves. His coming is foretold…)
The next day, everyone wakes up to Snowpocalypse, which is hilarious because I guess this show exists in an alternate universe where it still snows in New York. Che Diaz calls Carrie and is like, “We can’t go to Widows Gathering in this snow!” But Carrie is like, “What about Widow Dratch’s curse!?” So, they decide to walk to Widowpalooza in a blizzard.
NAP and President Christopher Jackson also have places to be today that are not their home! He has a fundraiser for his comptroller compaign and she has to go get an award or something for her film at MoMa. But oh no! NAP’s car is canceled due to Snowmageadon. PCJ is like, “Cool, forget your thing and come to my thing!” And NAP is like, “Fuck directly out here, sir!” So, he offers to take her to MoMa in his snowmobile, but she’s like, “NO! I will WALK to MoMa!” (In the snow. In heels. But wigless!) Because FEMINISM! (I think?)
Anyway, she makes it to MoMa safe and sound and puts her wig back on and gets awarded. Plus, PCJ shows up because it took so long for NAP to walk to MoMa in the snow that his whole fundraiser or whatever is already over by the time she even gets to 53rd Street. But she is v moved because he supports her. Which I guess is their story arc? Like, they both have careers and sometimes they conflict, but they always support each other?
Charlotte also has a snowy adventure, and here is why: Lily has decided that Snow Day is also Have Sex for the First Time Ever Day! She goes over to her phantom boyfriend’s house to focus on her own pleasure just like Charlotte told her to, but wuh-oh! She forgot to buy condoms! So, she calls Charlotte, who sets out on a quest to find condoms and bring them to her teenage daughter. Which is hard because everything is closed due to snow. Let this be a lesson to us all: when everyone is buying milk and eggs and bread before a snowstorm, we should also be buying condoms!
Finally, Charlotte finds a CVS or something and buys every single kind of condom in ever dreamed of and brings them all to Lily, who is so grateful she gives her mommy a big hug! Awe!
Carrie and Che Diaz make it to the Widows Gathering and discover that Carrie is reading her sad book right after Julie White, who is hilarious! Just cracking all the widows up with jokes about her dead husband. And Carrie is like, “Oh no! My thing is being sad now, not funny puns anymore! Write me some jokes, notoriously hilarious comedian Che Diaz!” But Che is like, “My thing is also being sad now, plus I was never funny, remember all the reviews of Season 1???”
So, Carrie just gets on stage and reads her sad book. Which, SURPRISE! IT’S A HIT! All the widows love it! Even Julie White and Widow Dratch, who, with a single tear, grows a heart that can love again, which beats so hard and with such warmth that it shatters her brittle frame, thus releasing Carrie from her curse.
Meanwhile, Miranda is at the Hobbes House doing laundry when suddenly Steve arrives. She’s like, “So, hey, why don’t we go ahead and get that divorce, so you can move out of this house that I own and you don’t, huh?”
But Steve is like, “Actually no, ma’am! This is my house because I built it with my bare hands!” And then he says a lot of mean things which, let’s be honest, are all basically true, and are also basically everything I said in this brilliant thing I wrote during Season 1! Hooray, me!
But also, awe! Poor Miranda! She is so sad that Steve is so mad at her for jerking him around for 25 years and destroying his life that she starts crying and tries to flee into the snow. Steve feels bad though and stops her and they go lie down in their bed to be sad about their broken lives together. It’s actually a very tender and moving moment, so of course the show has to ruin it by having Miranda discover a used condom on the nightstand, which she gets DISGRUNTLED about!
She’s like, “I thought you were sad and still in love with me, not doing sex all the time!!!”
And Steve is like, “I can be both, you weird sociopath.”
Miranda: “No you can’t! We’re divorced now and you’re homeless! Good night to you!”
She storms off over Hudson Yards hoping to find solace in the arms of Che Diaz. But here’s the thing: Carrie’s sad reading to the widows also broke the spell of Che’s depression! And now that they’re thinking clearly, they’re like, “Listen…I’m an up-all-night party time 40-year-old teenage comedian stoner, and you’re a lady having a midlife crisis, so maybe you should stop trying to find fulfillment in the novelty of me and, like, maybe do therapy or something?”
So, they are broken up now too, and I guess Miranda has to schlep all the way back to PKP’s house in Brooklyn from Hudson Yards in the snow again. Maybe on the way there, she’ll remember that her thing at the beginning of Season 1 was that she was political now, and all her storylines going forward will be about her being a public defender and giving away all her millions of dollars to poor people. But probably not.
Over at Carrie’s apartment, a name hangs in the air like the echo of an ancient bell that someone rang in a dream: Aidan Ssssssshhhhaaawww… Ears twitch that shouldn’t be listening. Aidan Sssssssssshhhhhhaaaaaawwwww… Something stirs within her. She moves toward her laptop. Aidan Sssssssssshhhhhhaaaaaawwwww… Something is calling to her. She gazes at the email bearing his name. Aidan Ssssssshhhhaaawww…
She clicks send.
And just like that…WE HAVE ENTERED THE AIDAN ZONE! (Not to be confused with the AIDEN Zone, which is gay porn and…I want to say poetry?)