The And Just Like That Finale Destroys The Legacy Of Sex And The City

Spoilers for “Party of One,” the series finale of “And Just Like That…” follow, insofar as a show like this can even be spoiled.

The series finales of “How I Met Your Mother” and “Game of Thrones” can officially step aside. There’s a new winner of the “worst series finale” award, and it belongs firmly to “Party of One,” the last episode of the “Sex and the City” revival and sequel, titled “And Just Like That…” Indeed, to say this episode is a huge, steaming pile of crap is an understatement. Beyond that, in the last 34 minutes of this interminable, consistently illogical, and often downright awful series, it betrays literally everything that “Sex and the City” once proudly represented.

I’ve already talked at length right here at /Film about how “And Just Like That…” absolutely sucks and why it flat-out fails, on every conceivable level, to live up to the highs and even the lows of “Sex and the City.” I’ve also previously discussed the fact that, two weeks ago, we learned that “And Just Like That…” would be coming to a close at the end of its third season. Frankly, I probably should have anticipated that whatever the same writers behind plotlines like “Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) seduces a virginal nun played by Rosie O’Donnell who then sings a song from ‘Wicked’ at her in Times Square” would cook up for the last episode of the series would be annoying and horrible, but wow! I truly did not anticipate the literal s**tshow we’d get, and I feel like an absolute clown!!!

I will, of course, get into the nitty-gritty about why this abrupt and meandering episode (pick a struggle!!!) is such a bad and weird finale, but let me tackle the “destroying the legacy of ‘Sex and the City'” bit first. Throughout the original show, our protagonist Carrie Bradshaw, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, dates a bunch of guys … but she also enjoys her independence and always prioritizes her friendships with Miranda, Charlotte York-Goldenblatt (Kristin Davis, who returned for “And Just Like That…”) and Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall, who pointedly did not return for the revival series). In “Party of One,” Carrie, for literally no apparent reason whatsoever, seems to start from square one when it comes to the “daunting” prospect of being “alone.” Seriously?!

At the beginning of “Party of One,” Carrie heads to hot pot hotspot Haidilao, a restaurant in Queens, for a solo lunch. The first issue with this is simply that, if you have any passing familiarity with the geography of New York and its boroughs, you know that Queens is pretty far away from Carrie’s inexplicable Gramercy Park mansion, but she says she was “just walking by,” which, okay? The second issue is that Carrie acts like she’s never eaten at a restaurant before, even though that’s one of her main hobbies (besides buying shoes and writing seemingly awful historical fiction), judging by the baffled way she interacts with the server and iPad menu. The third and final issue, though, is a narrative one — which is that Carrie seems horrified and upset to be dining alone, which is compounded by the hostess putting the restaurant’s mascot Tommy Tomato across from her in her booth without asking.

I’ll get to the rest of the episode’s goings-on now, but it’s important to note that the finale literally kicks off with a mini-storyline that boils down to “Carrie is by herself, and she doesn’t like it.” Elsewhere, the characters are supposed to gather for what I can only describe as the worst Thanksgiving dinner in history, perhaps second only to the first one where European settlers infected Native Americans with smallpox. Miranda’s son Brady (Niall Cunningham) is understandably furious that his meddling mom invited his now-pregnant former fling, Mia (played by Ella Stiller, whom I was just informed is the daughter of Ben Stiller), to the festivities — but what’s worse is that Mia brings two Gen Z stereotypes, one of whom is distractingly named Epcot (Spike Einbinder). Epcot clogs the toilet, and a side character named Mark Kasabian, played by stage and screen veteran Victor Garber, is left battling said clog. This is, without exaggerating, at least four to five minutes of this episode’s 34-minute runtime.

Beyond that, though, if you look at the final plotlines of Seema Patel (the great and totally underutilized Sarita Choudhury), Lisa Todd Wexley (Nicole Ari Parker), and Charlotte, they all center around some form of romantic love or intimacy. (I’ll let Miranda, who has a genuinely sweet moment with her girlfriend — Dolly Wells’ Joy — slide, although that whole thing feels unfinished at best.) Let me explain.

Throughout season 3 of “And Just Like That…,” we have learned so, so much about Harry Goldenblatt’s (Evan Handler) beleaguered penis. First, he pissed his pants. Then he found out that he had prostate cancer and got treatment for that, only to become temporarily impotent. While it was at least a little emotionally resonant to watch Charlotte deal with the horrible news of Harry’s diagnosis, their entire resolution is that they have sex because Harry’s penis works again. (I cannot stress this enough: Everything I learned about Harry’s penis this season was against my will.) Meanwhile, Lisa Todd Wexley feels attracted to the guy editing her documentary, Marion (Mehcad Brooks), but they agree to not deal with it, and she goes home to kiss her husband Herbert (Christopher Jackson, whom I keep referring to as George Washington because of his role in “Hamilton”). As for Seema, she’s worried about her boyfriend, Adam Karma (Logan Marshall-Green), not wanting to get married, even though she has not, at any point before this, expressed a deep desire for marriage; nothing comes of this at all before the episode ends.

Frankly, a lot of “And Just Like That…” has centered romantic relationships in a way I personally find off-putting and weird. After killing off Chris Noth’s John “Mr. Big” Preston — Carrie’s husband for multiple decades — with a Peloton in the series premiere, the show made the absolutely baffling choice to reintroduce Carrie’s doomed fiancé Aidan Shaw, as played by John Corbett. Aidan finally stopped emotionally terrorizing Carrie towards the end of season 3, but do you see my point here?! Why was Aidan even brought back into the fray after Big’s death? Why did Carrie have to relitigate one of her worst and least healthy relationships just so the show could pair her off with someone?

In the series finale of “Sex and the City,” Carrie says in voiceover, “The most significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the love you love, well that’s fabulous.” If she had a voiceover at the end of “And Just Like That…” (aside from a milquetoast edit to her distractingly bad novel), it would probably be something like, “You have to end up with somebody and it’s bad to be alone, but I guess if you are alone you just have to deal with it somehow.” If you want to watch a show that has its problems but is typically pretty good, go watch “Sex and the City.” If you want to watch Victor Garber stare at a toilet full of turds, go watch “And Just Like That…” because both series are on HBO Max now.