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Well, friends, it seems as though Carrie stepped onto Aidan’s farm in Virginia and directly into a serious family drama. The swings in tone this show takes! It’s very hard to keep up with. At the very least, this time out of the city and smack dab in the middle of Aidan’s life does make the status of their relationship much clearer for both Carrie and us. In short, things seem worse than Aidan has let on. Much worse! Ugh, can we just go back to the virgin nun singing Wicked songs in the middle of Times Square? Things were simpler then!

Things at the Shaw residence start out pretty well, to be honest. Aidan has his two younger sons, Homer and Wyatt, up painting the outside of the guest house, and they are aware Carrie is around, and no one has had any teenage meltdown as of yet. (It is early.) In fact, Homer is especially welcoming and offers Carrie some of his clothes since, as you’ll recall, she and Seema lost their luggage when their rental got towed. (I mean, I think you’d be able to reclaim that luggage but it’s probably best not to interrogate the logistics here.) Homer is very sweet! Wyatt, unsurprisingly, is cold and moody.

Since Aidan asks Carrie to stick around for a few days, so she’ll be there for his oldest son Tate’s 21st birthday dinner — after all that stressing about whether Aidan may or may not want her to stay overnight, dear lord — Carrie decides it’s best if she finds some additional clothing outside of teenage boy sweatpants. (Although she does look pretty chic here.) Carrie takes Baby’s First ATV ride into town to the closest clothing store, which she describes to Miranda as “a sister wives dress shop” and the woman isn’t wrong. She makes the prairie attire work and Miranda assures her that Wyatt’s just acting like a typical teen. One family outing to a zombie VR room and while Wyatt and Carrie aren’t exactly friendly, everything seems to be going about as well as one could expect.

And then there’s family dinner. Tate, like Homer, is nice enough, and Kathy and Boyfriend Bob are nothing but friendly. Kathy does kind of owe Carrie for trafficking those drugs to her and she knows that. And Bob seems cool although his “advice” to Carrie about how it took four years for him to sort-of fit in with the Shaw family is ominous! Carrie’s also not exactly thrilled when she discovers that Aidan is against Wyatt using Adderall or any other prescription drug, and Kathy neglected to inform her about that little detail. Aidan doesn’t blame Carrie, but the tensions under that roof are certainly rising.

Nothing like a little game of Apples to Apples to ratchet that tension up tenfold. Apples to Apples is intense as it is, let alone with heaps of resentment and anger just lying around. It’s not long before Wyatt is completely freaking out that no one ever picks his cards. He gets even angrier when his parents refer to this as family game night — Carrie and Bob are not his family. Aidan and Kathy are fighting over how to best handle their youngest son — to medicate or not to medicate, that is the question. Tate and Homer are clearly over their brother’s outbursts, and the more Aidan and Kathy try to contain it, the worse he gets until ultimately throwing a large object through the window. It’s distressing for everyone and Carrie is silent and alarmed as she watches this all play out.

The silver lining here is that it leads to Carrie and Aidan having a very truthful heart-to-heart. It would’ve been nice for Carrie to have all the information before, but it’s clear that Aidan was trying to shield her from the worst of it. But now she can see that Aidan really does need to be down here with Wyatt and he needs to do that without Carrie — he wasn’t exaggerating or avoiding her or being overprotective. Wyatt is struggling, and Aidan needs to put him first. Aidan takes this as a breakup speech — which maybe it should be — but Carrie assures him that no, she will be in New York waiting for him when he’s ready, even if that takes a while. She gives him a key to their place to emphasize where she stands.

On the one hand, at least Carrie now feels like she doesn’t have to wait around for Aidan to make decisions about their home or moving forward with her life in every other aspect. The woman can buy furniture now. On the other, she leaves Virginia not exactly knowing if this new information means she and Aidan are closer than ever or further apart. What a fun, sexy summer Carrie’s having, huh? (No, but seriously, can Carrie start having fun this season? This is getting depressing.)

Hey, at least Miranda walks away from this episode very clear on where she stands with the person she’s into at the moment. Sure, things look dicey when Joy gives Miranda a shot to go on-air for the BBC and she fumbles her words just enough that it sounds like she says “wild cunt-ry” and it goes viral. Miranda worries that this has turned Joy off, if she was even attracted to her at all in the first place.

When Joy cancels plans to come to see Miranda, who is staying at Carrie’s while Carrie is away because she’s going to be out with friends visiting from the U.K., it’s Carrie who suggests Miranda invite the whole group over. If Joy says no to that, then she might have a good reason to worry. Joy says yes! But when she and her friends arrive and her friends realize Miranda is the “wild cunt” lady, the cunt jokes fly freely and Miranda notices that Joy gets quiet. This thing might be over before it starts.

When Joy goes to leave, Miranda decides to confront this thing head on and it’s a good thing because it turns out that Joy simply shuts down a little when she realizes she’s attracted to someone. Which yes, means she is attracted to Miranda. They proceed to make out on Carrie’s (new) stoop. Now, that is the kind of clarity a person needs when it comes to their romantic relationships. Quick, someone tell Carrie and Aidan.

This and That

• If the pissing in his tight pants escapade wasn’t enough of a sign, Harry’s worried about what growing older will do to his virility. He feels much better about things when he learns that his dad is a regular on Pornhub and is hooking up with Marilyn in 10F. Harry is weird, and I love him.

• Harry’s neuroses regarding the use of his dick also leads to a conversation between him and Charlotte about how they’ll always be connected with or without sex. These two are reliably adorable.

• LTW is stuck in a storyline that is perhaps about her angst over hiring a highly qualified male editor named Marion Odin for her Black feminist trailblazers documentary, but also perhaps about how her angsting while asleep is keeping her husband awake and almost leading to a “sleep divorce.” Neither is that compelling, but Marion is quite handsome, so that should be fun.

• Seema once again turns down the opportunity to work for Ryan and says good-bye to her office. She performs a real half-assed Jerry Maguire speech to see if her assistant wants to work for her while she starts her own real estate company, but in the end, Seema is on her own.

• I have no idea where “Lily dates a poly ballet dancer” is going and it’s probably best that way.

• I would absolutely love to never hear Aidan use the phrase “going to the guest house to ball my calendar girl” again, please and thanks.

 Carrie goes to Aidan’s farm, and — surprise! — his family drama is much worse than he let on.