You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. And what we had in the “Sex and the City” sequel series “And Just Like That,” which ends this week after three seasons, was a cringey, sweet, tone-deaf, moving, off-putting, captivating snapshot of its iconic characters’ late middle age. Whether in horror, delight or some mixture of the two, I watched every episode rapt. Most people I know had the same experience, saying as much on social media and in group chats. Now the ride is over, and the audience’s final collective response is one of mourning — like the old joke about terrible food and small portions, but sincere.
Perhaps this is because “And Just Like That” seemed finally, maybe, to be hitting its stride. When it began, the show felt like two concepts at war with each other: one an organic progression through time, the other an effortful, awkward attempt to update the series’ social politics, starting with a more diverse cast. Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte York Goldenblatt (Kristin Davis) couldn’t just age into the wealthy, out-of-touch white women they are. The trio — no longer a quartet, thanks to the abstention of Kim Cattrall and therefore Samantha Jones — had to expand their horizons, which came naturally neither to them nor, apparently, to showrunner Michael Patrick King. Each befriended a person of color who acted more like a designated guide to the 2020s than a protagonist in their own right. Charlotte mangled pronouns. Miranda slept with a nonbinary stand-up. Carrie had a podcast! It was modern Mad Libs, a language spoken with the tin ear of a non-native speaker.
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Slowly, though, the kinks were ironed out. Miranda’s friend Nya (Karen Pittman) and paramour Che Diaz (Sara Ramírez) disappeared, and with more space and time to establish themselves, Lisa Todd Wexley (Nicole Ari Parker) and Seema Patel (Sarita Choudhury) came into their own as ensemble members. Seema, a fiercely independent real estate agent, was an obvious structural substitute for Samantha, down to her especially close connection with Carrie. (LTW was more like Charlotte’s mom friend, a reasonable niche.) But Choudhury imbued Seema with her own flamboyant energy, fulfilling an assigned role while adding something to separate “And Just Like That” from its predecessor.
Once the show established a new status quo, it could do the work of illuminating a particular phase of life, however ridiculously. These women were insanely privileged, but also in their 50s, giving King and his writers a large expanse of little-explored ground to cover. Yes, it was laughable that Mr. Big (Chris Noth) keeled over on his Peloton. It was also rewarding to watch Carrie handle long-term grief and dating as a settled adult — a time when relationships are more likely to buckle under the pressure of pragmatic concerns like blending families than youthful whims like fear of commitment. Miranda gave new life to “Sex and the City”-style singledom by dating other women. Charlotte cared for a spouse with cancer and confronted mortality. These were real, resonant issues, even as the women facing them wore over-the-top outfits.
If anything, “And Just Like That” was more burdened by its past than its updated present. Carrie’s rekindled romance with Aidan Shaw (John Corbett) dragged on far beyond its obvious expiration date, miring the show in nostalgia instead of embracing its open possibilities. When she finally broke it off and rebounded with her dashing downstairs neighbor, it was such a positive sign that the surprise announcement the show was ending stung extra deep. “And Just Like That” teased us with the prospect of Carrie playing the field, only to see that improved version of the show ended before it could begin. Much like Carrie herself, an inveterate narcissist with an infectious sense of romantic optimism, “And Just Like That” could infuriate and allure in equal measure. But the balance seemed to be tipping, ever so slowly, toward the latter — whether from genuine improvement or viewers’ Stockholm syndrome, we’ll never know. In retrospect, the only thing worse than an uncanny echo of a classic is having nothing left to complain about.
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