Can Cheri Oteri and Kristen Schaal Save an Episode of “And Just Like That”?

The most recent episode of HBO MAX’s long, baleful gaze into the heteronormative abyss we call And Just Like That … was a little bleak. Miranda continued walking into queer dating rakes by making a doomed pass at a straight woman with a husband and kids, just in time for Pride month. Seema had the second epiphany about her identity and self-worth in two episodes, signaling that the writers have no idea what to do with her. Despite being rich and powerful New Yorkers, Lisa and Charlotte were shocked (simply shocked!) that parents are hiring a consultant to get their kids into Ivy League schools. Carrie and Aiden got minor personality transplants and decided to have an actual adult conversation about their long-distance relationship, presented with a breathless reverence that insists this perfunctory romance is compelling. Against this mountain of uninspired, lazy choices stood two guest stars who desperately deserve better vehicles. Can Cheri Oteri and Kristen Schaal save And Just Like That… from itself?

The episode in question (“The Rat Race”) finds Seema regrouping herself after her righteous break-up with Ravi, a man who couldn’t stop scouting piers to take her to a nice lunch. Despite realizing in the premiere that she deserves better because she’s a 15/10 person, Seema is once again considering lowering herself for unworthy men. She meets with Sydney Cherkov (Cheri Oteri), a pint-sized hurricane who works as a matchmaker to the high-powered set of New York. AJLT is terrified someone won’t get their route-one joke, so the show makes sure you know “Cherkov” sounds a lot like “jerkoff.” Sydney is a personification of The Rules with advice as regressive and dated as her matrony matched separates. Seema could not be more fabulous and aspirational, but to Sydney, she’s woefully clueless. All of Seema’s fun animal prints and hot metallic dresses are just too much and too overpowering for men. Sydney convinces Seema to not only turn her style downward into washed-out pastels but to subdue her personality too.

While on a date with a tepid gentleman who monologues endlessly about himself, Seema reaches the end of her rope and lets her true, dominant, opinionated self out. The man, too small-minded to understand what a queen he’s dining with, makes some flacid excuses and bounces. As if waiting in the rafters like a Michael Kors-branded bat, Sydney descends to scold Seema. Oteri is fantastically charming in the role. She smiles stiffly, asks for her martini “five minutes ago,” and steeps every word that comes out of her mouth in condescension. Oteri is perfection, if only her character and the storyline she’s in could rise to her level. This Seema plot serves the same function as the episode before it: she realizes she’s great and storms out, so it all feels a bit like wasted time and wasted talents. The few moments AJLT gives Oteri to shine left me screaming for a better showcase.

Unfortunately, the dizzy plotline we meet Kristen Schaal in performs no better. Lisa and Charlotte are being ridiculously rich ladies at the ridiculously rich school where their kids go when they see a gaggle of well-heeled moms whispering frantically about college prep consultant, Lois Fingerhood (a rejected name from Pushing Daisies). They simply cannot believe that the ruling class of Manhattan is paying someone to get their kids into elite schools. Never mind that we live in a post-Operation Varsity Blues world; it’s a revelation that the rich and powerful will use extra resources to get their kids ahead. Anyway, AJLT brought in the bottled zaniness that is Kristen Schaal to glower through a pair of cat-eye glasses and not much else. When the school principal (Somebody Somewhere’s Tim Bagley) spoke of Fingerhood, she sounded like some force of nature to be feared, but what we get falls pretty short. The two brief scenes we get to see Lois, she’s given scant lines to dryly, tersely deliver without much payoff or fanfare. Lisa and Charlotte convince her to meet with their respective kids, but the apparently devastating consultation happens entirely off-screen. We’re told that Lois tore into both kids, putting down their hobbies and making some truly yikes-worthy comments about their racial identities. She’s summarily thrown out, barely a character with barely an impression made. Why bring in a comedic wonder like Schaal, someone who regularly delights on shows like Bob’s Burgers or What We Do in the Shadows, to grumble a few lines and leave? Why rellegate what seemed like her glory scene entirely off-screen?

Like Sarah Michelle Gellar on Dexter: Original Sin, Cheri Oteri and Kristen Schaal are big guns that And Just Like That… has no idea how to use. Both of these hilarious, talented actors are entirely able to elevate the middling material AJLT gives them, but it’s ultimately not their fault that they fail to save the episode. Their presence is minimized and their powers are severely yoked by poor plotting and disastrous writing. To draw another comparison, And Just Like That… shares a strange honor with Mid-Century Modern: a terrible series that couldn’t find a laugh with a maglite, but has excellent taste in guest stars.