“And Just Like That”... Review: Sarah Jessica Parker Is Just About Perfect (Even If Her Series Isn't)

Let’s commencement pinch an imaginary speech betwixt 2 friends, Emma Glass Half Full and Cassandra Glass Half Empty, arsenic they luncheon successful SoHo.

EMMA I deliberation And Just Like That... has conscionable gotten amended play by season. And this mimosa is divine.

CASS. But it still isn’t terribly good. The show, I mean. For that matter, neither is my salad. I haven’t seen this overmuch dressing since nan Met Gala.

EMMA I’m conscionable saying, if you liked it astatine nan start—

CASS. The salad? I conscionable said—

EMMA The show. If you liked nan show astatine nan start, you’ll for illustration it moreover amended now. I whitethorn moreover emotion it — nan measurement I do that handsome young waiter who’s been giving maine nan eye.

CASS. If you didn’t for illustration nan show then, you may for illustration it amended now — but you still won’t like like it. What waiter? Not that overgrown boy artifact pinch nan man bun!

In different words, it remains difficult to cognize what to make of Sarah Jessica Parker's Sex and nan City spinoff arsenic it starts its 3rd go-round.

On nan positive side, nan show is overmuch smoother, much polished than erstwhile it launched successful 2021. You nary longer moreover miss Kim Cattrall’s Samantha — you're excessively engaged whirling successful and retired of nan lives of these middle-aged Manhattanites, each accomplished, each stylish (although 1 of Carrie’s hats is simply a correction — it sits connected her caput for illustration a immense crushed pastry).

And Parker remains an utterly bewitching romantic-comedy star, moreover if you wish Carrie would springiness up connected nan presently out-of-town Aidan (John Corbett). He’s not worthy of her playful humor, her touching, thoughtful silences, her caramelly blonde hair. (She deserves to beryllium spun disconnected — again.)

Maybe she should attraction her attraction connected 1 of nan caller men — some rough-edged, cut-the-small-talk types — introduced this season: There's her hip, handsome landscaper (Logan Marshall-Green) and her caller neighbor, a celebrated biographer (Jonathan Cake) pinch Hemingway stubble and nan musk of authorial gravitas. This is not a spot for Timothée Chalamet.

But Just Like That... is frustratingly lumpy, still. To immoderate grade (perhaps a ample degree), it will ever beryllium hampered by nan problematic algebra of juggling 5 women alternatively of nan original's four. (In classical drama, that's nan perfect number of characters for a brunch scene). Even now, nary 1 seems to cognize what to do pinch Nicole Ari Parker's Lisa.

The show feels strangely graceless, arsenic if everyone had been squeezed into Sex and nan City Spanx.

And truthful overmuch of nan dialogue, a smart but not superb banter, sounds dated. When existent property agent Seema (the entertainingly silky Sarita Choudhury) phones Carrie to kick astir a day that’s taken her truthful acold retired of municipality she’ll miss getting backmost for luncheon astatine Jean-Georges, Carrie says: “Hang up. I’m sending a chopper.” Seema, sensibly, calls for a car.

Sometimes you person to wonder: Do immoderate of these women ever inquire themselves whether their glasses are half quiet aliases half full? Do they region and consciousness a shiver of mortality — nan ashy fluttering of a moth astatine dusk? (True, moths are difficult to travel by successful Manhattan. Carrie's bigger panic is complete a rat infestation successful her spot connected Gramercy Park.) Then again, my thoughts present are based connected only nan first six of 12 episodes. There are hints that much superior crippled twists are successful nan offing. Bring them on!