The treacherous journey
AJLT Season 3, Episode 3 winners and losers
The third episode of season 3 of AJLT, despite not being penned by MPK, still has some bumps (spikes?). Ominously, it’s titled “Carrie Golightly”—a joke of Seema’s—but Holly Golightly famously didn’t want to be put in a cage. The same could be said of Carrie, and I really feel like they could have done more with this metaphor—this would make Shoe “Cat,” another “no-name slob…[who belongs] to nobody.” The half-baked metaphors on this show are frustrating, and frankly, Holly Golightly would certainly have the wherewithal to not travel with a baggie of Adderall shoved into her bra, unlike our Heroine.
Anyway. I’m getting ahead of myself. The official episode overview from IMDB reads,
While Seema tags along on Carrie's trip to Virginia, Charlotte is caught between work and mom duties, and Miranda gets advice from her crush.
Let’s get into the winners and losers. Previous week’s ranks are included after each name!
Winners
1: Giuseppe (new):
the lone voice of reason when Charlotte is frustrated that art deals are being made at late-night parties without her, and offers a simple solution to her problem—just go to the party. He also suggests Carrie take Harry shopping for cool club clothes. I assume Giuseppe knows cooler people than Carrie, but out of our main cast, Carrie does historically have the most avant-garde sense of style.
And at the end of the episode, Giuseppe comes out of Hot Fellas retirement to help out Anthony when the bakery is struggling to take advantage of foot traffic. An all-around great episode for him!
2: Charlotte (+6):
after helping Carrie score some Adderall for Aidan’s son (at his ex-wife’s request) (the plotlines on this show are needlessly convoluted, more on this later), we are treated to Gallerina Char again! She realizes, in the year of our lord two-thousand-and-twenty-five, that her duties as a wife and mom are getting in the way of her career. In an effort to not be seen as boring, and at Giuseppe’s practical suggestion, she and Harry stay out late and she appears to be making inroads.
We’re treated to drunk Charlotte dancing, which is a great throwback to S3E1 of the OG show, in which Charlotte dances to "Bad Girls” at a bar, gets super drunk and screams “I’m getting married” on the Staten Island Ferry, and is so hungover the next morning that she utters the line that inspired the name of this very Substack. I love that Charlotte’s moves have barely changed despite the years that have passed.
Although Charlotte realizes her partying days may be (mostly) behind her, she still makes a sale—a fellow UES mom tells her she has the coolest job, and (we can assume) buys a painting from Charlotte. Charlotte, girl, your children do not need you as much as you (and they) think they do. They can do their own laundry while you build your client list at the gallery.
3: Grace, LTW’s editor (new):
surprises LTW by sharing that she got a job offer from “12 Years a Slave” director Steve McQueen’s team! After working with LTW on this docu-series for eight (8) years, it’s time for her to move on. Despite LTW’s displeasure, Grace remains steadfast, reminding LTW that the series is her vision and it’ll be a success (if it ever gets released) (my note, not Grace’s).
4: Shoe (new):
enjoys a new custom-built (by Miranda) kitty condo! Shoe is really living large in that Gramercy house with her own condo included.
5: Elliot (new):
is apparently the most energetic 90-year-old real estate agent in New York and finally decides to retire from his + Seema’s business!
Unfortunately, he’s selling his shares to a new guy, which isn’t ideal for Seema. I really want to know how Seema and this guy became partners.
6: Miranda (-2):
tries to gently tell Carrie that her situation with Aidan is weird, but Carrie continues to get defensive. Hey, Miranda’s trying here! She also goes on a faux-date with Joy from the BBC, under the pretense of wanting on-camera coaching tips. Carrie accuses Miranda of playing games, but who tf is Carrie to talk after she spiraled over a thumbs-down emoji text from Aidan last week?! She also establishes a great rapport with Joy which ends with Joy placing Miranda’s hand on her chest as she (Joy) demonstrates the intentional breathing that is apparently critical to not jumbling words on camera.
7: Joy (new):
I’m pretty sure we’re getting some chemistry between her and Miranda, which I love. She gives Miranda’s first (and so far, only) appearance on the BBC an A, but it’s an A “marked on a curve for beginners.” We get the aforementioned demonstration of intentional breathing, and Joy seems into Miranda as she places her hand on her (Joy’s) chest. I’m overjoyed at this love interest after the disaster that was Che (pun intended).
8: Lisa Todd Wexley (+/- 0):
shows some growth this episode! She’s initially very upset at Grace for ditching their docu-series (valid), but after talking to Herbert, realizes that a lot of her anxiety is because she’s not as confident in herself and her vision as she should be. Her apology to Grace is very heartfelt, and now she just needs to track down Michelle Obama—piece of cake!
9: Herbert (new):
continues to not be super cool, but tries to bring LTW back to earth as she shares her frustration with Grace with him. The man may not be cool but he’s a pretty supportive husband!
10: Adam the Gardener (-8):
seems to enjoy flirting a bit with Seema when she picks up Carrie for their flight to Virginia, and is also apparently known as “New York’s Plant Picasso” by the readers of vogue.com. I’m not sure that’s a compliment but I’ll let him enjoy it.
11: Ryan Serhant (new):
will now be the primary controlling partner of the real estate business! Good for him, not great for Seema. We also learn (from an off-camera discussion), that he (or perhaps Elliott) won’t allow Seema’s name to be included in the business name, which isn’t great and did bump him down a few ranks.
12: Mike, PR for the writers’ festival (new):
not only does PR for a Virginia writing festival, but also manages the Southern restaurant Carrie and Seema visit. Good for Mike!
Losers
13: Carrie’s Agent Amanda (new):
has gotta be frustrated with Carrie’s lack of productivity. Despite not having any real new work, Carrie is still getting speaking requests, but much to Amanda’s confusion, Carrie turns down Google and SXSW for a speaking engagement in Williamsburg, VA (conveniently an hour’s drive from Norfolk!). Dealing with temperamental artists has gotta be tough, but at least she’s got her romantasy to keep her company.
14: Anthony (-13)
despite a slow start at the Hot Fellas soft opening (only Charlotte, Miranda, Seema, and Carrie are there at first), things pick up when LTW leads a gaggle of UES moms in. We get a few not-well-placed MPK puns from him this week (“Ripped Van Winkle,” “you’re Hot Fellas, not dead fellas”) and at one point he literally shoves a woman into his bakery.
I don’t love how he tried to keep convincing Giuseppe to don the Hot Fellas onesie, but I suppose all’s well that ends well for Anthony this week.
15: Lily (-8):
tries to tell Charlotte she doesn’t have to be home with them every night, but Charlotte promptly mocks her with a running list of requests Lily plies her with: clean laundry, her favorite green beans, and so on. She also makes fun of Harry’s jeans. It’s a universal truth: teenagers will always think their parents are uncool.
16: Seema (-10):
unfortunately, her partner Elliot decides to sell his shares and the controlling interest in their company to some other random guy. There was allegedly a plan that Seema would buy out Elliot in a few years, but she’s not prepared to make an offer yet, which is really not ideal. She doesn’t want to be in a situation where she’s once again #2 to a man—it is wild that after 20 years, she gets completely shot down when she asks to be a name partner.
Throughout the episode, she deliberates whether or not to open her own firm (at one point, over a shared bucket of chicken with Carrie during their trip to Virginia), but the name partner piece seems to be the deciding factor in striking out on her own.
Seema is upset enough about this to totally disregard the many warning signs in the parking lot, and she drives right over the spiky things. She then promptly leaves her luggage in the rental car after it’s towed. Come on.
17: Carrie (-7):
Carrie is going through it. She’s “writing, but not really. It’s not memoir, it’s fiction,” she reluctantly shares with her agent. She and Aidan continue to have terrible communication, and despite scolding Miranda for “playing games,” she’s unable to just tell Aidan she wants more than just a lunch with him in Virginia.
She continues to be a not-great friend to Miranda, shutting her down when Miranda tries to gently ask Carrie how she can consider the Gramercy Park house Aidan’s house as well when he’s only been there twice. For fuck’s sake, Miranda is living in an Airbnb (which, by the way, are effectively illegal in New York City), while she wanders and slips around that huge house by herself! Let Miranda live with you for a bit, Carrie! Lord.
She reluctantly agrees to be a drug mule for Wyatt (at Kathy’s request) without talking to Aidan about it, which strikes me as odd. It’s also odd that Aidan’s ex-wife Kathy thinks Carrie would just have access to Adderall because she lives in New York, but it does take Charlotte approximately 2 minutes to track down 30mg of extended-release addys so maybe Kathy was onto something.
These writers also expect us to believe that Carrie Bradshaw, the woman who famously owned 100 pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes (that she admitted to), is traveling to Virginia with just “two outfits in a carry-on, a laptop and a lip gloss in her purse.” Absolutely not.
I do believe that Carrie would be a shitty drug mule, carrying the Adderall in a baggie in her bra. Seema witheringly points out that she could have put the pills in a Tylenol bottle, which…duh. She also opens her laptop as their plane is pulling away from the gate, which I’m confident is not allowed under our current federal regulations.
Once in Virginia, she tries to rent a car with a driver’s license that expired in 2017. Why do these writers insist upon treating these characters like the are unable to function in society.
18: Aidan (-7):
despite coming to Carrie and Seema’s rescue, picking them up from the golf place after their rental car disaster, he reveals at the end of the episode to Carrie that he hasn’t told his sons that she’s visiting! These two really need to get their communication together. Carrie wanted him to want to ask her to stay over, but because she didn’t come out and say that, it happened too spontaneously and he doesn’t want to spring it on his kids.
19: Lena (new):
one of Charlotte’s gallery coworkers who has a drug-aided ability to party until the wee hours of the morning. She is very horny for one of their clients (more on him later), and also apparently has good coke. Unfortunately, she is not the client’s type.
20: Harry (new):
in an effort to project a more hip image, he decides to join Charlotte at her art-world parties. But first, Carrie takes him shopping for new clothes for “da club.” Unfortunately, the button-only fly on his new stiff skinny jeans betrays him, as he can’t undo them quickly enough and he promptly pees himself in the men’s room. On the bright side, the jeans are dark enough that he can still get a pic “for the gram” without betraying his pissiful situation. (OK sorry that was very MPK of me.)
21: Rock (new):
apparently doesn’t wear enough deodorant, which Anthony calls them out for. Ouch.
22: Kathy (new):
Aidan’s ex-wife has some pretty major balls to ask Carrie to bring Adderall to Virginia for her son. That’s all.
23: The Flight Attendant (new):
has to deal with vomit in a barf bag and also Seema being a bitch about a tequila soda. Be nice to flight attendants, y’all!
24: Rolf (new):
a Dutch art patron who Charlotte and her gallery coworkers are trying to sell a painting to. He parties a lot, scores some good coke from Charlotte’s coworker Lela, but then gets shoved by Charlotte when he kisses her without consent. Not the best look, even in a drug-addled state.
What did you all think?
I thought Herbert was a total winner this episode for pushing back but also helping LTW through her feelings.
Loved drunk Charlotte - I hope we see more of her work adventures!