‘And Just Like That…’ Sends A Revered Character Actor to His Eternal Rest With A Very Horny Storyline
In its day, Sex and the City did what The Mary Tyler Moore Show could only hint at: portrayed what dating is actually like for thirtysomething women. It certainly didn’t get everything right, and some of it looks cringey (or worse) today, but the people who made it have a chance others of its era don’t: It can try to do better in its sequel.
And Just Like That…, now in its third season, catches up with three of Sex and the City’s original characters — and adds a couple of their newer friends — to show what dating is like for people across the gender spectrum, age fiftysomething and up. The latest episode concerns itself with characters who are fiftysomething and way up, and if this ends up being Harris Yulin’s very last performance, we may all be glad it was so horny.
Yulin plays Morris Goldenblatt, father to Harry (Evan Handler); Charlotte (original S&TC cast member Kristin Davis) is his daughter-in-law. Morris is staying with the Goldenblatts while he’s in town visiting, and Harry is very concerned about him doing things like stepping out to get a paper at a newsstand that hasn’t been there “since the mid-‘90s” and such that he is “roaming around out there, lost in New Jack City?!” (“Honey, it’s Park Avenue,” says Charlotte.) Harry also seems dubious about Morris’ claim that his iPad won’t download anything. It’s hard to know whether Harry’s overreacting about Morris’ physical and technological feebleness, since this is Morris’ first-ever appearance on the show after (a) being an entirely off-screen presence named Harold in the original series; and (b) so estranged from Harry that earlier in AJLT, when he comes up in conversation, Harry says, “I thought my father died.”
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Harry can say that Morris is old and gets confused, but how well does Harry even know him? It’s possible they just met.
Anyway, by the time we actually see him on screen, Morris seems a lot more spry than the worries Harry’s voiced, and his complaints about Morris demanding a 5 p.m. dinner reservation, would suggest. (“Five for dinner is lunch,” says Charlotte) For one thing, Morris remembers that Charlotte is a convert, admiring her brisket with the quasi-compliment, “And my sister said you’d never be a real Jew.” (“I thought Rita liked me!” Charlotte exlaims.) Morris even involves himself in a discussion about a pushy neighbor on the apartment building’s online message board who’s trying to get her hands on the Goldenblatts’ aged banana. Literally: Harry is trying to stand on principle against giving 10F a bruised piece of fruit no one believes he really will use to make banana bread. But when 10F — aka Marilyn Scholl (Annie Golden) — shows up to demand the banana we presume Harry and Charlotte’s community-minded child Rock (Alexa Swinton) has promised, a flirty Morris not only hands it off but invites her to family dinner. The banana may have seen better days, but it hasn’t entirely outlived its usefulness, if you know what I mean.
At dinner, Morris is accepting of his granddaughter Lily (Cathy Ang) dating Diego (Eliazar Jimenez) while Diego is also dating an as-yet-unidentified boyfriend; the worst this character — who, if he’s not actually 87, is being played by someone who is — has to say when Rock explains what it means that Diego is “poly” is to ask him, “Poly want some brisket?” And soon we find out how Morris may have been exposed to sexual practices that were less common in his youth: Rock tells Harry and Charlotte the reason her “Pop-Pop” can’t get his iPad to work is that he’s taxed it with dozens of attempted downloads from Pornhub. Rock can’t, as Charlotte orders, return the iPad to Morris and not say anything because he’s currently in 10F and said they shouldn’t wait up.
So far, this hasn’t been a great season for Harry’s penis. In the previous episode, he had so much trouble wriggling out of the excessively skinny jeans he bought to look cool at an art-world outing with Charlotte that he ended up wetting his pants. This week, an attempt at sex with Charlotte fails because of the old age Morris’ visit has convinced him is imminent; then he finds out that Morris may be more virile, or at least more resourceful, than Harry himself is. It has to be a real kick in the nuts.
Over his long career, Harris Yulin — who died last week of a heart attack — amassed 130-plus screen credits, including roles in such legendary titles as Frasier and Veep. This one, which may be his last, shows him portraying a character who’s vital, open-minded, sex-positive and seducing ladies out in the streets (or in the elegant condo hallways) of New Jack City, having a hotter time than his son.
When Yulin’s bereaved survivors feel like laughing again and watch this episode, they should be very proud.
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