“And Just Like That” Che Diaz Gets Done So Dirty
This And Just Like That review was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors who are currently on strike, tv series like this one would not be possible, and Autostraddle is grateful for the artists who do this work. This And Just Like That recap contains spoilers for season two, episode eight, “A Hundred Years Ago.”
It was obvious from the beginning of the season that AJLT’s writers were determined to do Che Diaz dirty. Not only did the show refuse to course-correct on some of season one’s most grating Che characteristics, including the awful stand-up, they doubled down on it, forced Miranda to completely lose her character inside the relationship, and now! Now! Che has received the worst fate a person could possibly suffer in this universe. They are being forced to stand around — in their own apartment! — and watch Carrie and Aidan act like loved-up youths, and not two exes who absolutely decimated each other’s lives.
When Che asks them what happened to them, they hug like the sweetest secret you never knew, and Carrie takes full responsibility. You’re thinking maybe Che deserves this fate because of going to pound town with Miranda in Carrie’s kitchen last season, exorcising the demons of heterosexuality from Miranda’s body while Carrie peed the bed. But I would argue that’s just being a bad friend. This has got to be some kind of Geneva Conventions violation.
You don’t have to try to crush my fingers just because my pronouns confuse you, man.
Anyway the reason they’re even at Che’s is because they’ve decided to rent it out when Aidan’s in town because it’s getting expensive to live out of a hotel. They can’t rectify this expense by going to Carrie’s apartment because Aidan still won’t do that. They can’t rectify it by hanging out at Aidan’s farmhouse in Virginia with his three children (one of whom is TWENTY YEARS OLD) because he has a chicken that lays eggs in human beds as a joke, which Carrie doesn’t think is very funny. So they buy a Nespresso machine and some plates and live out of Che’s place. V. healthy. I can sense that all the things that kept these two lovebirds apart have simply vanished and been resolved with time.
Miranda’s worried, even Charlotte’s worried, and they get even more freaked out when Carrie starts talking about how she’s having the best orgasms of her life. Orgasms so good that she’s thinking she could never have had them when Big was alive because she couldn’t let herself go with Aidan when Big existed, and now she’s thinking Big was a mistake and Aidan was actually meant to me the great love of her life. Miranda turned her life upside down and shook it like so many pennies out of a piggy-bank over some good orgasms too, so she gets it, but maybe actually the truth is that all the dopamine, mixed with Carrie not drowning in grief for the first time in two years, sprinkled with the familiarity and Aidan’s — admittedly — still luxurious head of hair — maybe those things are causing Carrie to not think straight.
Yes, this is three sweaters on top of each other, so what?
She’s wandering around town in a very expensive bathrobe, gym socks pulled over her joggers, and Gucci Birkenstocks. But Miranda, who is clomping around in some magenta Carmen Sandiego boots, doesn’t seem to think there’s anything off about this. It appears to me she’s testing out a “Virginia Look,” but what do I know? I’m writing this in a baseball cap with a brontosaurus stitched onto it.
Miranda changes out of her brunch suit and puts on her librarian suit and heads on over to the Human Rights Watch. You know, the place with the coveted internship that she was ready to eat her own arm off to secure last season? And then she just left to go to Los Angeles to scissor with Che in a bungalow? Well, not only does she get that internship back, but when the boss goes on maternity leave, Miranda gets the boss’ job. If you think that’s sitting well with these actual intern-aged kids who’ve been busting their asses while Miranda rides around in a purple pickup truck on the beach, you are incorrect. They already kinda hated Miranda. And now they super hate her. JUST LIKE HER OWN SON. Miranda tries to bond with them by explaining that she does have 30 years experience in corporate law, but also that she’s “a sexually confused alcoholic who’s in the middle of a divorce.” It does not endear her to them. She simply cannot get a win!
That pink dress is a bit theatrical, but hey, who am I to talk?
Always winning? Lisa Todd Wexley. Now, see, she is dressed like Sexy Joker and it’s really working for me. Er, for her. Working for her. Purple knit dress and leather gloves, green fanny pack, some kind of bright yellow cape thing. She’ss out shopping for Charlotte’s new job at The Victor Garber Gallery. Charlotte wants to look like she did when she was in her twenties, like a “gallerina,” so she keeps biting off the head of all the nice girls who try to sell her clothes because nothing they’re suggesting is going to make her look decades younger. Charlotte, Aidan has a child who is TWENTY YEARS OLD! Relax! This very tiny woman decides to wear Spanx to her first day on the job, but when she gets there and sees a plus-size woman who is not wearing Spanx, she learns a lesson and takes off the shapewear and tosses it in the trash. Kinda condescending lesson, show, but at least someone’s out here learning something!
Hey, it’s Che Diaz.
Anyway, all of that to say that at the end of the day: Aidan Shaw doesn’t really “get” they/them pronouns, because of course he doesn’t, and of course he also makes zero effort to learn anything about it. I suppose he thinks they don’t have they/them pronouns in Virginia where he assumes Carrie will soon be moving to finally fulfill his fantasy of shaping her into a doting housewife. I honestly just want to meet that magic chicken.