Despite telling Charlotte (Kristin Davis) that her father had died the year before Big’s (Chris Noth) untimely demise, the series nevertheless introduced the legendary Billy Dee Williams as LTW’s dad in the second season. But killing him, reviving him, and killing him again was a bridge too far for AJLT fans, who have been through enough already. There was a lot of fandom snark about double-dead dad online, but AJLT has an answer. A “source close to the series” told IndieWire (also confirmed by Entertainment Weekly) that the dead dad of the first season was LTW’s stepdad, while the dad whose funeral she attended in the third season is her biological father. Duh, guys!
Never mind that And Just Like That… failed to specify, in-universe, that she had a stepdad at all. (Lisa does clash with her dad’s girlfriend, played by Jenifer Lewis, over the funeral arrangements.) The worse sin is that it’s leaving viewers like The A.V. Club‘s recapper Lauren Chval unsatisfied. “We’re halfway through the third season of And Just Like That…, but it does not feel like we are in the middle of a strong narrative arc. Or any narrative arc,” Chval writes in her C-grade review of the latest episode. “It even seems like the hate-watch value is slipping, doesn’t it? I know we all hated Che Diaz in previous seasons, but at least we could make jokes. Now I’m just bored.”
For her part, Parker recently told Variety she “didn’t realize the fans were so insane about this show” when she signed on to play the new character Lisa. Over the course of three seasons, “I think they have not calmed down, but they can’t stop watching. They’re mad about age, they’re mad about races, they’re mad about Samantha being gone,” she said. “The show has always had this cheeky, subversive quality of showing, in a sweet, naughty way, what you don’t want to admit about yourself. People don’t always want a mirror. They want a selfie with a filter on it. [Carrie and Aidan] is a girl and her ex-boyfriend narrative, and we love and we hate that it’s exposed. It makes you nervous.”
