Shall we talk about And Just Like That?

What had I been looking forward to: the second season of And Just Like That. The first season was a major disappointment, but after some better perseverance, it still managed to charm me. The houses, the outfits, and just the weather in my life with my old friends, that was nice. Maybe it didn't come close to the perfection of Sex and the City, but the recognition was there again. I also have friends who have to get used to the idea that their child is having sex, and oh how I laughed at the scene where Charlotte, in a cream-colored Chanel dress, sits on the toilet for hours with daughter Lily to help her insert a tampon so she can go to that swimming party in The Hamptons.

Still, I had some resistance to watching the second season. Or maybe fear is a better word. There were rave reviews, but I heard Leonie ter Braak, someone I often agree with, say on Jinek that you really didn't need to get an HBO subscription because this season was better skipped. Strangely enough, that was the trigger to open that laptop anyway. Let's go for it. Look the beast in the mouth. It couldn't be that bad, could it?

But it was. Dialogues of likemevestje. Storylines that just don't add up. Carrie is in bed with her podcast producer who is watching a post-coital video on his laptop. A cooking video. All nice and well, but later you learn that they've only been having sex every Thursday for three weeks. After a third horizontal date, I don't think you're casually watching a cooking video; you're busy with very different things.

Also something like that. Carrie answers her last listener question with a ‘if you know he wants more, a sign will come.’ Something like that. And whoosh, there's the shot of the significant look from her producer (the one from the cooking videos, of course) and you can feel the next scene coming from a mile away. He asks her out to an event of a friend of his. A public date, in short. A step towards a real relationship. A relationship that the grieving Carrie obviously doesn't want.

And then there's the Met Gala that they all go to. It's also connected by nonsense. For example, Carrie's dress isn't finished on the day of the gala. She chose an unknown designer and they made a mistake. Of course: for the most important event of the year, you didn't have a fitting a week before the event? And you don't have a plan B dress because you took into account the inexperienced state of this designer? And then, whoosh, Carrie pulls Vivienne Westwood's wedding dress out of the box. Also something: Harry, Charlotte's husband, really wants to go to the Met Gala, but when he finds out at the very last moment that he won't be seen on The Stairs, he drops out. Because Harry is suddenly a huge attention seeker? And then Anthony gets to go anyway. The silliest part? That you ultimately never see them at all at the Met Gala. Or maybe I fell asleep then.

On Thursday, two fresh episodes will be released. Am I going to watch? I'm afraid so. They are still my friends. They can't help it either.