'And Just Like That' Season 3 Episode 8 Recap: Loving Papaya and Hating Deodorant

And now, onto the And Just Like That recap…

Another week, another chance for And Just Like That to beat us over the head with metaphors more transparent than Saran Wrap. We have LTW bringing Harry macadamia nuts as a gift following his prostate cancer surgery and LTW being undone by her hot editor Marion slurping papaya during their lunch break. We also have Charlotte’s art exhibit, featuring women lying in bed in varying states of put-togetherness.

What does it all add up to? I’m rooting for one of these broads to have an affair — even if Miranda gets messy and ends up going back to Che. Sarah Jessica Parker hinted on Watch What Happens Live with her bestie Andy Cohen that Carrie might end up back at her old apartment. I could see the season ending with her kissing Duncan Reeves and deciding that she can’t handle having a hot biographer living under her stairs, and retreating to her sad old place where her cat can’t have its own room and she has to store sweaters in her oven. Even though her new place is completely ridiculous, something feels wrong about Carrie being so rich and living in the old apartment. At the same time, that scenario is so illogical that it would make sense for this show.

Ahead, Back Row’s character-by-character recap.

Carrie

Carrie still finds herself betwixt hottie British biographer Duncan Reeves and cringe pickup truck masturbator Aidan Shaw. Duncan lavishes her writing with praise in a way that Aidan never has. Carrie rewards him by laying a purple carpet runner on her stairs to dampen the sound of the high heels she enjoys clomping around in in the comfort of her home. Meanwhile, she can’t be bothered to give Aidan any of her closet space when he comes to stay for an extended period of time. When he pushes her clothes aside, she says, “I don’t like horror movies!” Then shoves him into the cat’s room with a small closet with plastic hangers.

So many times during this series, we have asked ourselves, What on earth Carrie is wearing? But perhaps at no point in the show was that collective questioning as loud as when she was in her closet, in this bizarre shorts romper.

This is what she wears around her house casually when she’s not wearing heels. This!

In bed with Aidan after doing it, he says he wants food. Since Miranda ate it all, she has none. Then Aidan reveals the reason he gets to stay with her for longer than a weekend is because his son Wyatt has decided he wants to live with his ex-wife Kathy instead of him. Carrie asks why, and Aidan says he doesn’t know, Wyatt just loves her more. (Same, really.) Carrie is like, hey, it’s kind of weird you didn’t tell me about this incredibly major life development sooner! But then quickly turns her focus back to more important matters like her outfits.

Now that he has no kid at home to worry about and can clue into Carrie’s life more, we see Aidan’s jealousy over Duncan rev up. He suggests they invite “Dunkin’ Donuts” to dinner but Carrie says no, she barely knows him anyway, it’s not like she’s gazed deeply into his eyes over a casual dinner of venison stew or anything. Later, Aidan asks Carrie’s gardener Adam about the “cat who lives under Carrie.” And Adam — ever articulate — says he’s “a meanie.” That’s because Adam didn’t divine the sentence, “The woman wondered what she had gotten herself into.” Then Duncan Reeves would have treated him like a god.

Carrie ends the episode typing in a normal font (Arial, what a relief): “After what seemed like forever, the women felt happiness had arrived at her doorstop.” Me too, in part because this episode was only 35 minutes.

LTW

LTW confesses to Charlotte that she had an explicit sex dream about her editor Marion. It involved a farm where vegetables were growing. She claims she has a great sex life with Herbert, who has the personality of one of Anthony’s bread loaves. Charlotte says that sex dreams are fine, even she has them. She says flirting with coworkers at work — with she odiously names “flirking” (flirting + working) — is also fine. She does it with the guys who hang things at the gallery — who doesn’t?!

Later, we are subjected to a cringe scene where LTW tries to engage in morning sex and says, “Put it in me.” Herbert says he has to pee because, “It’s early, you know?” Contrast this with Lisa on her lunch break at work with Marion, who’s sexually eating papaya, his favorite fruit. “I love papaya,” he says to a transfixed LTW who insists she’s fine with her dry, crouton-less salad — a salad as charisma-less as her husband.

Marion tells her to come to a screening of a documentary that was produced by the Obamas because one of their development executives will be there, and he can introduce her. LTW at first says she can’t because of Charlotte’s gallery opening, but then changes her mind. At home, she tells her family she didn’t get the pink seltzer her daughter likes because she has to go to this movie screening. I struggle to imagine a New York family as well situated as LTW and Herbert who would not have hired help to run errands for them so she doesn’t have to. What does feel real is that Herbert would expect anyone other than him to procure an item for one of their children.

During the screening, Marion’s leg touches LTW’s leg, and she rushes from the theater like she just learned Aidan is messing with her closet, too. But since there are hardly any stakes in this show, she gets to talk to the Obama producer anyway later on Marion’s phone.

Miranda

Joy shows up to Miranda’s new apartment with a bottle of gin only Canada sells and asks to keep it in Miranda’s cabinet. If she likes gin that much and it’s that good, wouldn’t she want it for her own place? Anyway, we learn Miranda hasn’t had the conversation with Joy about how she doesn’t drink because she’s an alcoholic. The bottle of gin causes Miranda to wonder if she can handle a little booze here and there. At Charlotte’s gallery opening, she says maybe she’s “alcoholish,” and then holds a glass of champagne, alarming Charlotte. Back at her apartment, she works while watching that terrible reality show, the gin beckoning sensually to her from within the cupboard like Duncan under Carrie’s stairs. This is the most Cynthia Nixon has had to do, as an actor, so far this season. After she eats a spon con Pepperidge Farm cookie, she pours the gin into a glass, smells it, then dumps it out and throws the entire bottle down the garbage shoot in the hallway.

Charlotte

Charlotte spends the whole episode tending to her loved ones and her gallery opening. She cares for Harry at home after his surgery; overseas the injection of fake semen into a condom for the art installation; assures LTW that it’s alright for her to have the hots for Marion; and tries to keep Miranda from falling off the wagon. She is rewarded with vertigo that causes her to collapse at her own opening. Who will be there to care for Charlotte if, god forbid, this is foreshadowing her coming down with a major illness? Not her narcissistic friends, that’s for sure!

Seema

Seema wins for most ridiculous storyline of the season, which is really saying something! She’s now in a full-on situationship with Adam, the Vogue-endorsed gardener. We see them doing it, then Seema chuckles and says she’s “never laughed after sex.” As though to ensure that doesn’t last long, Adam then aggressively — disturbingly — nuzzles her armpit with his full face.

Later, they go to dinner where they see a woman sitting in a nearby booth applying deodorant so obviously she could have been filming a TikTok deodorant ad. Because how else would the writers bring up the topic of him not wearing deodorant? There was no other way!

Wearing a necklace and brown dress shirt, Adam talks about how he doesn’t use deodorant, he uses a rock crystal. Seema (good woman) says, “You should have told me about this crystal shit before we even got involved.” At the art opening, Seema looks at the naked woman on the floor mattress and says, “See, this would be my life if I stopped wearing deodorant.”

Next week, Seema goes “from WeWork to she work.”

Speaking of going from WeWork to she work… you know who literally did exactly that? Gwyneth Paltrow! Whose company Goop was once housed in an L.A. WeWork. Read all about it in my soon-to-be-published book Gwyneth: The Biography, which People called a “bombshell” book (not because of the WeWork, because of other reporting relating to Madonna, Winona Ryder, Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck, and more). I would be so, so appreciative of your pre-orders! The book is out July 29, and every single sale helps authors like me immensely. If you can, head on down to your local indie book store and preorder a copy there.