<i>And Just Like That…</i> Ends on an Anticlimactic Note

Spoilers below.

And just like that, it’s over. I couldn’t help but wonder…did I even enjoy that? And if I found myself hate-watching this Sex and the City reboot, like many other fans, why am I sad it’s over? Most importantly, what the hell was that finale?

There have been some high highs and some very low lows in this new iteration of Sex and the City. The show sought out to reinvent itself when it returned in 2021: in a more dramatic format, with longer episodes, a more diverse cast, and without Carrie’s voiceover as the link between storylines. Most glaringly, we made do without Samantha (mostly), writer Darren Star, and costume designer Patricia Field. Nevertheless, And Just Like That… persevered for three seasons, bringing us the divisive Che Diaz, Lisa Todd Wexley’s father dying twice, and this season, the desecration of Aidan Shaw.

Looking back, the Sex and the City series finale, which aired in 2004 after six seasons, ended on a huge emotional high. Carrie had moved back to New York from Paris to reunite with her friends, and in a final voiceover to the viewer after answering a phone call from Big, she says: “The most exciting, challenging, and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that’s just fabulous.” In some ways, the And Just Like That… finale also ends with revelations about Carrie’s relationship to herself. It’s just missing the fabulous part. And with the big Aidan breakup already behind us, we’re left with the anticlimactic feeling that this season’s emotional highs have come and gone—much like the heroine at the end of her novel.

The best parts of And Just Like That… have been when the show remembers its roots as a radical entry into the canon of shows about adult single women; navigating sex and relationships in a cosmopolitan city; and the deep, nourishing friendships made along the way. There have been flashes of this throughout the series, particularly in Seema’s character, who most significantly embodied this ethos in her arc as a single woman until she found Adam. Carrie, most recently, has had to reexamine the relationship she has with herself after years of serial monogamy. Moments like these gave the show an emotional resonance that brought me right back to some of the most iconic Sex and the City episodes, like “They Shoot Single People, Don’t They?” (Single and fabulous, exclamation point!) These arcs transcended the broad, awkward comedy that dominated And Just Like That… and reminded us that the core of Sex and the City as an exploration of singlehood in New York can still occasionally peek through.

The finale had a few such moments. The episode opens with Carrie at Haidilao, a popular Chinese hot pot chain that she wanders into for a solo lunch. The server seats a giant doll across from her so that she doesn’t have to eat alone. In a nod to her editor’s response to the last chapter of her novel, Carrie recalls the mishap to Charlotte, Lisa, and Seema on their way to a bridal fashion show: “Not only is it tragic for women to be alone in the past, but it’s also an issue in the future.” She later admits to Charlotte she is trying to navigate the grief of being on her own. Naturally, Charlotte encourages her to get back into the dating pool, later secretly setting her up with the recurring but mostly unremarkable Mark Kasabian at Thanksgiving. Her resistance to immediately jump into a new relationship sets Carrie up for a transformative evolution. Unfortunately, it doesn’t feel quite earned, after serving us a season-long love triangle between Aidan and her hot downstairs neighbor. Yes, we’ve seen Carrie on her own a lot this season, but she’s always been someone who sets her sight on love.

These ruminations continue during the fashion show, quite rudely while the ladies sit front row. “If you knew what you know now, the way it really is, would you still get married?” Lisa asks Charlotte amidst her journey with Harry’s struggle to get an erection post-cancer surgery. “Oh absolutely,” Charlotte says. Seema and Carrie have a similar conversation about the weight and symbolism of marriage in the context of Adam shrugging off the idea. Carrie also concludes she would do it all again, despite ending up on her own. Unfortunately the episode doesn’t quite maintain this depth, pulling us in a few different directions before trying to stick the landing.

Which brings me to my broader issue with And Just Like That…: The writers constantly tried to take too much on as an ensemble series, giving us lopsided episodes that neglected to hone in on its strengths. In this finale alone, we spend so much time with Lisa, who still hasn’t finished her documentary series, just to give us tepid scenes where she sets boundaries with her hot film editor and rekindles things with her husband—side plots that are completely disconnected from the rest of the series.

Meanwhile, Harry finally gets an erection, narrowly avoiding any “Trey can’t get it up” callbacks for Charlotte. Although she ends the season on a happy note with a more stable relationship with her kids, she wasn’t quite given a structured arc like Carrie or Miranda. For the latter, we get one final scene with Steve over Mexican food to strategize on how to handle their future grandkid. Brady’s pregnant hook-up Mia and her friends are invited to Thanksgiving, which ends up being a flop when everyone’s chaotic lives force them to attend at different intervals. Even Miranda, the hostess, has to leave at one point to be with Joy while her beloved dogs receive medical attention at the emergency vet. In a comedy cliché, Carrie takes the turkey out of the oven too early.

I kept checking the time left throughout this very short episode. There are only 10 more minutes, why am I having to meet new characters? I wondered. Why is there someone voguing in Miranda’s living room? What is this entire Thanksgiving sequence? They felt like strangely offbeat choices for a series finale—neither true to the characters nor memorable enough to serve as a meaningful goodbye for the group. And don’t get me started on poor Mark being the one to flush an already-clogged toilet, inspiring one of the show’s weaker metaphors about Miranda handling everyone’s shit.

In the final three minutes, we check in with loose threads via Carrie’s previously delivered Thanksgiving pies: Anthony gets pied in the face by Giuseppe in a playful but out-of-character fight about marriage, Lisa’s husband tells her to put her feet up while he cleans up, Seema tells Adam she doesn’t miss gluten as a sign she has fully leaned into their relationship, and Miranda has a moment of calm with Joy. Between each scene, Carrie eats a spoonful of pie filling in her kitchen by herself, jamming to Barry White. Finally, she deletes the epilogue she was writing to satisfy her editor, replacing it with a new line about “the woman” not being alone, but on her own.

Regardless of my frustration with this series and the finale, I still felt a pinch in my heart to see it all come to a close. Sex and the City has meant so much to me in different iterations of my life. That nostalgia made me want the three original women in a chic bar together at the end of this season, clutching cosmopolitans, reflecting and laughing at everything they’ve been through together, only to get a text from Samantha saying she had landed and would join them soon. What we got instead were characters that have moved on, and most importantly, characters who have changed, for better or worse. And Just Like That… was never Sex and the City. We’ll never move back into Carrie’s old apartment, or hang out with Samantha, who notably wasn’t mentioned in the final episodes. And maybe, in the end, it’s okay to move on, and to reflect on how far we’ve come as the Sex and the City theme song plays during the closing credits. At least we got some fabulous outfits along the way.