Okay, so maybe no one is watching And Just Like That… primarily for the character of Steve Brady, barkeep and longtime husband of lawyer Miranda Hobbes. But surely I’m not the only viewer who feels protective of the character, who is being treated rather shabbily in season two?
In season one, the show did Steve the courtesy of spotlighting his overall levelheadedness. (Some of us are still a little swoony recalling the way he gets Carrie’s ring out of a sink drain in “No Strings Attached.”) And Steve responded to Miranda’s “I want a divorce” announcement with the constitutional decency that defines the character as David Eigenberg has always played him: with a loose, naturalistic style that doesn’t overdo the “dem”s and “dose”s that signal his blue-collar background. And here’s where I admit that my soft spot for Steve has doubtlessly developed in part because I’m married to someone like him: a working-class guy who’s a good dad and can fix anything, including me when I’m feeling wobbly.
Steve and Miranda’s miles-apart socioeconomic statuses made for substantive and well-crafted scenes in And Just Like That… predecessor Sex and the City. (Remember season two’s “The Caste System,” when Steve is embarrassed because he can’t afford to buy a nice suit for Miranda’s fancy work party?) On the other hand, And Just Like That… seems to have sacrificed any nuanced depictions of class for an over-broadcasting of diversity and inclusivity. So far this season, characters’ problems have included not having an outfit for the Met Gala, an expensive new phone’s erratic behavior, and not wanting to be a third wheel at a Hamptons-house rental. You may be unsurprised to learn that none of these problems were Steve’s.
It’s not just that I find myself missing Steve’s once-reliable presence—I get that since he’s representing Miranda’s past, he is, by plot necessity, getting less screen time. But the show seems to have betrayed his very nature in the interest of shoring up sympathy for the monumentally self-absorbed Miranda. A few weeks back, in the episode “Bomb Cyclone,” Steve informs Miranda that he flat-out lied when he announced that he would move out so that she could be the lone adult living at their Brooklyn house with their son, Brady. I wanted to report a case of body snatching: What happened to Steve? The writers have turned him into something he has never been before: devious. (Granted, he cheated on Miranda in the Sex and the City movie, but let’s set that aside for the moment; the movies are a special case.)
To explain her affair with Che in season one, Miranda tells Carrie that her marriage “isn’t enough.” The reason she gives brokenhearted Steve for leaving him is “I want more.” Is no longer sharing passion a good reason to end a marriage? As Samantha Jones was telling us all along, not everyone is cut out for monogamy. But those of us who are should understand that marriage isn’t an endless Valentine’s Day at Disneyland; it’s a small business—two people working together to create a self-sustaining enterprise. The tedious conversations that I’ve had with my husband about signing the kids up for summer camp or scheduling their dental appointments can be a little demoralizingly dull, but we long-marrieds bore each other like this all the time because it’s the only way to ensure that the business runs smoothly.
From where I sat watching the first season of And Just Like That…, it looked as though Miranda and Steve were operating a successful business. They seemed simpatico—ultimately agreeing on what TV shows to watch, deriving something resembling pleasure from comparing notes on frozen dessert toppings. Before Che came into the picture, Miranda and Steve apparently spent their free evenings together, as in voluntarily. Maybe my head was in the freezer getting more frozen dessert, but I counted no scenes in which one of them stormed out of the house, repulsed by the sight of the other.
Of course I miss the dewy-with-new-love feeling, like the one that Miranda experienced when she first became involved with Che—and with Steve, for that matter. But losing that feeling is the price you pay for the reassurance that the other person will be around to watch British crime dramas with you and put your retractable pens back together after they explode in your purse.
And Just Like That…, like Sex and the City before it, isn’t a show that traffics in stark realism, but I find myself harboring an impossible plot fantasy: What if Miranda and Steve got back together at the end of this season? It’s not lost on me that the writers would expect the viewer to interpret such a development as tragic for Miranda—the reduction of her adventurous spirit to rubble. But there are some of us who would find a Steve-Miranda reconciliation not sad but admirable, and maybe even a little thrilling.