And Just Like That...

Overall, the toughest thing that And Just Like That has had to do is figure out how to be Sex and the City in the 21st century. (Yes, Sex and the City ran until 2004, but spiritually it never really left 1999.) Season 2 does so by fully embracing a truth most of us figure out after the age of 30: Your best friends are your best friends, that will never change, but as lives change so do friendships.

In its second season, it feels more content to be its own thing – a fun, frothy farce about women in their 50s navigating their lives with even more clumsiness than they did when they were in their 30s. It’s still intensely quotable, deeply meme-worthy and brilliantly watchable.

Season 2 is a delightful improvement over the first season. If you loved to hate And Just Like That... Season 1, there are still enough bonkers moments to fuel your hate-tweets. And if you’re a SATC diehard, you’ll find yourself swooning (and screaming) over where the decades-long saga takes Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda next.

The second episode, I’m sorry to say, feels a lot more disjointed. While nearly everyone was pulled together by the power of the Met in the premiere, everyone is off on their own side stories in episode two. [The score is the average of grades for the first two episodes.]

At least this season doesn’t have as many groan-worthy moments in how it handles race, but it’s a shame that it still doesn’t do these characters justice. Yet, what has improved most this season is the writing; the comic and emotional beats start to hit their stride in the third episode and beyond.

This is not the bold, ground-breaking telly that SATC was, but that doesn't matter. If you enjoyed season 1, you'll lap this up.

The instability is both the point and the problem, the thing that makes you want to watch and cringe at it simultaneously. It’s poignant, even. And Just Like That … is both in on and outside of the joke, but either way the sight of someone falling makes you laugh.

The writing, still, feels most alive when engaging with Carrie. Her constancy as a figure whose fundamental and defining trait is “she’s the protagonist” jangles somewhat awkwardly against the expansion of the show, but it also means that we have a steady center amid much wobbliness.

This is all to say that throughout the adrift but watchable first seven episodes of AJLT Season 2, I found myself most compelled by Miranda and Che’s rocky dynamic.

Whereas And Just Like That Season 1 was deliciously imperfect, Season 2 is imperfect and underseasoned.

Mostly, though, it’s now passable, rising up to the level of nostalgic mediocrity to which most of the recent boom of TV revivals seem to aspire. If you enjoyed Season One specifically for how strangely terrible it could be, this may be a disappointment. If you’re just looking to reconnect with your old friends in something that feels vaguely like the good old days, it’s much closer to the mark.

Carrie’s usually at her best when she’s merrily penning clichés, and there’s not that much of that here – things would certainly improve if she gets off the pod and back on her laptop. So far, it’s all just a bit dull.

In its second season, And Just Like That thankfully stops apologizing for its existence. Unfortunately, this only illuminates the show’s lack of purpose; it is indeed uncanny and lifeless.

The new season is just as smug, irritating and brimming with first-world problems of spoilt, rich, whiney clothes horses we've come to expect.

The new season does have a few things going for it. Carrie is thankfully less catatonic, and while some of her plots feel less than essential, she is thinking a lot about Aidan (John Corbett), her ex. .... It's not necessarily a problem that Che's arc ends up being more dramatic and interesting than Lisa's or Nya's or Seema's. It's definitely a problem, however, that I'm still not sure, seven episodes in, what any of these interesting new additions need, or want.

But what once seemed edgy for primetime TV now feels like a parody of itself.

Instead of sticking with Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte until then [when Samantha appears], the writers have made the duff decision to expand the list of core characters.