And Just Like That.. - Season 3, Episode 7

"The woman is the most fascinating woman in the history of women."

"They Wanna Have Fun"
Original airdate: 7/10/2025

Episode summary: Carrie hosts a birthday party for Charlotte in an effort to cheer her up as she copes with Harry's cancer. Guiseppe's mother meets Anthony and is less than impressed. Adam makes a move on Seema.

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Recap: Carrie stands in Duncan's doorway and grumbles, "I hate you", then explains that she just finished reading his first chapter of the Margaret Thatcher bio and found it to be "thrilling, polished, and ready to publish". As Duncan looks visibly relieved by her positive feedback, Carrie agonizes, "How am I supposed to hand you my work-in-progress now?" as she hands over what looks like a ridiculously ginormous manuscript. 

Lily is on her phone when she suddenly shrieks in horror...and when Charlotte rushes into her bedroom to ask whassup, Lily glumly explains that Diego just broke up with her via a text message. Charlotte's all, "Oh no.." and winces faux sympathetically [or maybe that was more what my reaction would be].

Later at Hotfellas, Charlotte reports on Lily's breakup to Carrie and Miranda - just as Anthony wanders over to express his nervousness about the imminent arrival (from Rome) of Guiseppe's mother. After he wanders off, Charlotte wails that with everything currently on her plate, the last thing she needs is her "easy one" to be suffering an emotional breakdown. A bemused Miranda asks what exactly she has on her plate...and as Charlotte looks momentarily panicked, Carrie interjects to steer the conversation to the new ring she just purchased. While that's happening, Guiseppe and his mother (Patti LuPone) enter the bakery. Guiseppe introduces Patti LuPone to the AJLT gals, to whom she admits that she was born in Buffalo and that her phony sounding Italian accent is a needless affectation [the writers somehow thought would be a source of amusement to viewers]. She spots a hunky Hotfellas clerk and looks hopeful as she asks Guiseppe if that's his boyfriend - just as Anthony wanders over with a large plant obscuring his view, grumbling about the stress of having to impress his boyfriend's mother. When he puts the plant down and sees that both Guiseppe and his mother have arrived and are standing in the middle of his bakery, Patti LuPone gives him an unimpressed once over and mocks his height...and Anthony is forced to concede that he has unwittingly (or maybe somewhat wittingly) made a very bad first impression.

While strolling down the street, Carrie tells Miranda she'd like to bring some fun into Charlotte's life by hosting a birthday party for her next week. Miranda asks whassup with Charlotte needing extra fun, then immediately assumes that she and/or someone in her family is sick. Carrie scrambles to throw Miranda off the scent of Harry's cancer by fibbing that Mr. Burton is gravely ill with an incurable dog tumor, and warns that she's not to say a word to Charlotte about it. Miranda looks like she buys that story and agrees that, yep, Charlotte definitely deserves a party in her honor.

The financially strapped Seema has downgraded the quality of her eyelash care and is getting extensions at the local branch of Lattes and Lashes, which soon proves to be an unsanitary dump.

Miranda is in her new apartment, happily hanging out with Joy. She invites Joy to be her plus one at Charlotte's upcoming birthday party, then blabs that the party is intended to lift Charlotte's spirits 'cause her dog has an incurable tumor. Joy looks sad at the prospect of anyone losing their beloved pet and agrees to accompany her to the party.

Anthony calls Carrie to lament about what a nasty person Patti LuPone is...and Carrie argues that she actually found Guiseppe's mom to be rather endearing, and in fact is about to meet up with her for lunch. Anthony perks up at that tidbit and asks Carrie if she wouldn't mind putting in a good word for him, and Carrie half-heartedly promises to do her best.

Over lunch, Patti LuPone regales Carrie with the tale of how she fell in love with Guiseppe's father (Alexander), who was nearly thirty years her senior. She adds that his teenage children (from a previous marriage) hated her intensely..and Carrie shares that she too is going through the same thing with Aidan's weird son. Patti LuPone advises, "Don't waste years trying to be who you think they'll accept", then points out that shit always gets complicated whenever a new love enters an established dynamic. Carrie chews on those words of wisdom for a few seconds, then dutifully talks up Anthony by describing him as loving and authentic. This prompts Patti LuPone to wonder aloud if perhaps she misjudged her son's vertically challenged boyfriend.

"My husband's children hated me with the passion of a thousand suns."

"Then you're in good company. Or bad company, as the case may be."

Charlotte is at a designer boutique, shopping for a sorry you got dumped gift for Lily, when she happens to run into Harry. She calls out his name, and he looks freaked by the sight of her and tries to rush off...and when she races after him, she's startled to see that he's in the company of an attractive blonde woman (Bonnie). Harry sheepishly tells Charlotte he never intended for the two of them to ever meet, then introduces Bonnie, aka his personal shopper. As Charlotte looks visibly relieved by the personal shopper part of the intro, Bonnie politely greets Charlotte and compliments the red blouse she's wearing (which she personally selected), then gushes about Harry's bravery at this trying time. After she sashays off, Harry admits to a suspicious looking Charlotte that, yep, he did confide in Bonnie about his prostate cancer 'cause it was driving him crazy not to tell anyone. Charlotte argues that she too should be allowed to confide in her friends - but Harry points out that it's not comparable, 'cause Bonnie isn't actually part of their personal lives. 

Seema arrives at Carrie's townhouse mansion sporting a badly damaged eyelash, and explains to Carrie that her cheap lash extensions didn't take. The two then head over to the kitchen, where Adam is languishing while on a break from landscaping. Carrie invites both Seema and Adam to Charlotte's upcoming birthday party...and Adam looks enthused by attending anything with Seema present, then gets all in her personal space and flirtily removes part of her deteriorating fake eyelash. After he heads back to his landscaping, Carrie raises an eyebrow at their smittenness, which a blushing Seema casually brushes off. 

Party day! As a team of workers sets up party chairs in Carrie's townhouse mansion, Miranda arrives early wearing a silver jumpsuit and carrying pink balloons. Brady follows her carrying a karaoke machine, which Miranda assures Carrie will generate a whole lot of fun for Charlotte's party. 

Carrie heads downstairs to apologize to Duncan in advance for the noise nuisance of her soon-to-launch karaoke party...and invites him to join the festivities. Duncan informs her that he just finished reading her first chapter and was utterly enthralled by the triumphs and travails of "the woman". He then assures Carrie that he actually enjoys karaoke and would be delighted to drop by.

As the caterer arrives at the mansion townhouse, Miranda clears off space on the kitchen counter and comes across Carrie's first chapter of her "the woman" novel and nosily reads the first page. 

Lily insists she's far too depressed to attend the party - but Rock tells her she needs to peel herself off the bed and show up for their mother, who they've heard privately sobbing about something. When Lily insists that she can't/won't, Rock tears off the bedspread and orders her to get out of the fucking bed. Kudos to you, Rock.

Party time! Miranda is taking several shots of Charlotte holding Mr. Burton, who looks festive and adorable in his party hat. Charlotte suggests taking some group shots with her family members - but Lily has dramatically stretched herself atop a nearby couch and complains that she's still too depressed to show an ounce of decorum or respect towards the party's host and/or the other guests.

"Let's take a family photo."

"I would if only I could manoeuvre myself upright."

When Joy arrives at the party, Miranda ushers her over to Charlotte and Mr. Burton...and Joy fusses over the pooch and waxes on about how important it is to spend every moment she has left with him. As Charlotte stares back at her in confusion, Miranda nervously explains, "She's a real dog person."

Lisa arrives with Herbert and their son Henry, who expresses great excitement about the karaoke machine. In the next scene he's enthusiastically crooning for the partygoers...and while that's happening, Bitsy Von Muffling arrives and wishes Charlotte a happy birthday.

Anthony, Guiseppe, and Patti LuPone arrive at the townhouse mansion - just as Miranda forcibly grabs the microphone from Henry to prevent him from performing a third song. She announces that she'd like to belt out Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and urges her gal pals to join her - but neither Carrie nor Charlotte look interested in publicly embarrassing themselves. When Miranda tries to enlist Lily, she snappishly retorts that she just wants to be left alone and flees the room. Miranda temporarily throws in the towel on providing karaoke entertainment and decides it'd be fun for everyone to stand around idly and watch Charlotte open her gifts. 

Seema arrives at the party wearing an eyepatch and sassily tells Adam she blames him for her eye infection from when he stuck his dirty finger in her eye while the two were exchanging flirty banter in Carrie's kitchen earlier.

Duncan arrives and suggests to Carrie that they sneak off to the back terrace so that he can smoke a cigarette, and she happily follows him out.

Patti LuPone admonishes Anthony for sexually exploiting his well-endowed Hotfellas employees by forcing them to wear ultra skimpy uniforms, and Anthony nervously mumbles that it's just a fun gimmick to attract ogling customers...then looks all hangdog as he admits how much he really really wants her to like him. She stares at him curiously while murmuring, "Interesting.." [Is it though?]

Out on the terrace, Duncan tells Carrie that her flawlessly written chapter about "the woman" transported him to 1800s New York, and wankingly adds that she's definitely onto something magnificent with this genre. 
 
When Joy reveals to Miranda that she gifted Charlotte a box of special dog treats appropriate for a dog with an incurable tumor, Miranda gasps and says she wasn't supposed to reveal Mr. Burton's condition to anyone. Joy's like, "Er, you might have mentioned that before now" [right?], then rushes over to rescind her gift before Charlotte can unwrap it. She weakly explains to Charlotte that she accidentally brought the wrong present. 

Lela (Charlotte's brash gallery colleague) belts out a karaoke-fuelled song and passes it off as her personal birthday gift to Charlotte.

Miranda chats with Harry about how devastated Charlotte will be when the unthinkable happens...so then Harry proceeds to pull Charlotte aside and ask her if she told Miranda about his prostate cancer. She assures him she hasn't said a word about it to Miranda.

Bitsy Von Muffling takes over the karaoke entertaining and ogles Guiseppe as she convinces him to join her in a flirty duet.

Charlotte pulls Carrie aside and asks her if she blabbed to Miranda about Harry's prostate cancer. Carrie assures her she didn't - but does explain that when Miranda was getting close to guessing the truth about someone in her family being sick, she made up a fib about Mr. Burton suffering from an incurable dog tumor. Charlotte gasps in horror at that prospect and mutters, "That's almost worse" to a stunned looking Carrie. 

Patti LuPone glares disapprovingly at Bitsy's brazen ogling of Guiseppe and tells Anthony she considers it "tragic" when a person lusts after someone who's much younger [which, by her own admission, would include her late husband]. Anthony declines to share what he thinks about that sentiment and stalks off. 

Charlotte explains to Harry that Miranda thinks Mr. Burton has an incurable dog tumor, which prompts Harry to wince and remark, "That's almost worse for you." Lol. Charlotte then confesses that she couldn't stop herself from confiding his condition in Carrie, 'cause keeping it to herself was driving her nuts. 

"Let's be grateful that our dog isn't the one suffering from cancer."

"That would be a tragedy of incalculable magnitude."

Harry gathers Carrie, Miranda, and Lisa in the kitchen and openly tells them he has prostate cancer. As they look alarmed and gasp, "OMG!", he assures them that the disease has been caught early, and that after his surgery next week, he's expected to make a full recovery. He sheepishly calls it a tragedy that he asked his wife to keep such serious news a secret from her best friends...and that he's A-OK with them freely talking about it. Charlotte thanks him for letting the cat out of the bag and calls it the "best birthday gift ever" before leaning in for a smooch. 

Adam flirtily tells Seema he broke up with his yoga loving girlfriend after he smelled her (Seema's) perfume for the first time. [Seems like a weirdly rash thing to do, but OK.] Seema stares back at him in stunned silence, then gets to her feet to unsteadily fetch herself another drink.
 
When Guiseppe finally finishes his karaoke number with Bitsy, Patti LuPone informs him that she intends to stay in New York for another week...and also that she really really wants to leave this lame party asap. 

Seema tells Carrie she's somewhat panicked about Adam being available and clearly very interested in her - just as Adam picks up the karaoke microphone and starts singing Bette Davis Eyes as he stares intensely at her from across the room. Yeesh.

Later, Seema and Adam are smooching in the back seat of a cab on their way home from the party.

While hanging in the kitchen, Carrie tells Miranda she loooooved meeting Joy, so Miranda happily describes their budding romance as effortless. She then remarks on how much fun she (Carrie) was having with Duncan and couldn't help but catch a vibe there, and Carrie instantly prickles and bitchily reminds her that she's in a relationship with Aidan. When Miranda's like, "OK then, I'll just stop talking now", Carrie refuses to let the topic go...and so Miranda points out that she seems to be working overtime keeping things afloat with the monster that Aidan has become in this spin-off. Carrie rolls her eyes and caustically retorts that not all relationships are effortless, and that her coupling with Joy can't be compared to her and Aidan, with whom she claims "we're over twenty years in". Miranda somehow refrains from pointing out that she only dated Aidan for, at most, two years during the full run of Sex and the City...and that it's wholly misleading to attribute the passage of time between their hookups to the length of the relationship. Miranda comes right out and asks her if the first sentence of her book - "the woman wondered what she had gotten herself into" - is a red flag about her dysfunction with Aidan, and Carrie angrily insists that it's merely a piece of fiction she's currently writing. As Miranda breathes a sigh of faux relief that her life isn't mirroring that of "the woman", Brady ambles into the kitchen to tell Carrie he took out the trash. Carrie thanks him and hugs him bye, and assures Miranda that their friendship is still on stable ground [despite her increasingly yucky habit of treating Miranda like her personal punching bag]. 

After everyone has gone home for the night, Carrie finds little Shoo curled up in a chair. She picks up the kitty and cuddles her in her lap while nonsensically voice-overing, "The woman held onto what she knew to be true."

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