As soon as Charlotte York Goldenblatt (Kristin Davis) and Lisa Todd Wexley (Nicole Ari Parker) began buzzing about a powerful Ivy League whisperer named Lois Fingerwood on this week’s all-new episode of And Just Like That…, I knew the character was going to be incredible. The name “Lois Fingerwood” is too quirky, too insane, too hyper-Manhattan to be played by anyone but a comedy powerhouse. So I wasn’t so much surprised, but absolutely delighted, that the MAX show cast Kristen Schaal as “The Finger” in And Just Like That… Season 3 Episode 2 “The Rat Race.”
**Spoilers for And Just Like That… Season 3 Episode 2 “The Rat Race,” now streaming on MAX**
And Just Like That… follows three of the original characters from Sex and the City as they tackle what life throws at them in their fifties. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Charlotte, and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) still have relationship woes, comical set backs, and crazy designer wardrobes, but they also have new problems to contend with. Case in point: Charlotte has to worry about getting her daughter Lily (Cathy Ang) into a good college.
Luckily for Charlotte, she has emotional support from new pal Lisa Todd Wexley. When the two moms realize that other parents at their Manhattan prep school are secretly using the services of “The Finger,” they panic. When the school’s principal reveals that, yeah, their kids probably need Lois Fingerwood’s help to land an Ivy League offer, they panic even harder.
But Charlotte and LTW are nothing if not resourceful women. They discover Lois’s private Instagram and stalk her to her son’s little league game. Cornered, the Finger relents and agrees to appraise Lily and Herbert Jr. (Elijah Jacob). Unfortunately, it goes terribly!
When Charlotte and Lisa regroup with their kids, they learn that Lois Fingerwood thinks they’re approaching high school all wrong. Lily’s penchant for playing piano and Herbert Jr.’s athleticism push them in to Asian and Black stereotypes. Every single part of the kids’ personalities has been nitpicked into oblivion. Because Charlotte and LTW are loving mothers, they immediately booster their kids at the expense of reaming into “The Finger.” Unfortunately, she overhears and leaves in a storm of insults.
In any other actor’s hands, this would be an unbearably pointless character. However, because Kristen Schaal is one of the greatest comic actresses of her generation, this caricature becomes an instantly iconoclastic creation. A true reflection of a hyper-specific type of New York woman. A weird and ruthless sniper, perfectly attuned to put otherwise confident rich people in their place. I loved Lois Fingerwood.
So much so, I hope And Just Like That… has plans to bring her back later in the season. Someone with Schaal’s pedigree — you probably recognize her from What We Do In The Shadows, Flight of the Conchords, or The Last Man on Earth — deserves to be a recurring AJLT character. After all, Lily and Herbert Jr. still have to apply to universities. Is Lois so powerful that she could get them blackballed from their preferred Ivies?
Is Lois Fingerwood so powerful that she can’t come back to dabble in a little light vengeance?