Breaking news: And Just Like That’s season 3 finale was absolutely terrible. Of course, you already knew this because the entire Sex and the City spinoff series has been on a downward spiral since it first started airing in 2021. Fans and critics alike have been slamming what we now know is the last And Just Like That (AJLT) episode to ever air (and to their credit, at least they’re consistent), and I have to agree that it’s high time to put Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Miranda’s (Cynthia Nixon) botched reunion out of its misery.
Of course, I’ve been complaining about AJLT as much as anybody else, but I’m surprising myself here by playing the good cop for once. Don’t get me wrong, I still think the writing is astonishingly poor, believe Joy Bird is the only worthwhile addition to the ensemble cast, and that the whole HBO Max show shouldn’t have existed in the first place. But in a weird way, the season 3 finale won me over slightly when it lost everybody else.
Was the season 3 finale actually worthy of a final farewell? No. But if you paid close attention, I think AJLT brought us closer to Sex and the City (SATC) than it ever has before. We’ve spent four years yearning to get back to that point, and we sort of did, if you view certain scenes in total isolation.
And Just Like That’s stinker finale still gave us some Sex and the City worthy moments
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Spoilers for And Just Like That’s season 3 finale ahead.
Let’s start with Miranda and Steve (David Eigenberg). They’re mid-spiral after their son Brady (Niall Cunningham) announced that he’s got a girl pregnant, making them grandparents way before they expected to become them. If we’re going by the fictional SATC timeline, Brady is still in his late teens, meaning their shared panic is more than justified.
But over their last dinner together in AJLT, Miranda and Steve talk earnestly just like they did as a couple all those years ago, deciding they are going to make sure their grandchild knows who its paternal grandparents are, finding a balance between active involvement and giving Brady some space. They’ve always worked well as a team when mutual respect is there, and we want to leave them in a positive place like this.
Then there’s the dynamics of the trio of besties, particularly between Carrie and Charlotte. As the pair walk down the street reflecting on Carrie’s singledom now that Aidan (John Corbett) has finally been given the boot and Duncan (Jonathan Cake) has left for England, you could close your eyes and feel as though you were joining them on the Upper East Side in the late 1990s.
It’s this level of honesty and connection we’ve been sorely lacking across AJLT’s terrible three season run, and given they all know how to tap into it well, it’s amazing how little of this the spinoff gave us. Normally, my cynical side would win out and I’d see the Carrie and Charlotte scene as a cruel jibe towards what we’ve missed out on, but instead, I’m relishing the moment to say goodbye to characters I’ve loved for so long in exactly the way I wanted to.
Of course, Carrie was always the biggest issue here. I wrote a few weeks ago that the best possible ending was for her to ditch men altogether and realize that she was all she needed to have a happy and fulfilling life. Her lifetime habit of chasing men who didn’t really add any value to her life needed to be culled completely for us to be able to leave her in the knowledge that she’s had any kind of growth, and I’m so pleased HBO followed through with that.
You might think it was lame, but the parting shot of Carrie in her apartment, on her own, wistfully staring out the window while wondering what the future holds is all I wanted in an ending. Set yourself free Carrie, just like you’ve finally set all of us free too.
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