Carrie Bradshaw has written her last. And Just Like That…, the latest chapter in the Sex And The City saga, came to an abrupt end Thursday night with the weirdly fecal-focused “Party Of One.” Our reviewer followed this slow-motion train derailment throughout the season, leaving A.V. Club staffers Danette Chavez, Saloni Gajjar, Drew Gillis, and Jacob Oller to sort through the wreckage in a Roundtable discussion to find out what exactly went wrong.
Danette Chavez: We are gathered here to figure out what went wrong in And Just Like That…, both in season three and the show more broadly. What began as a smooth-brained sequel series with flashes of potential among all the ludicrous fashion and podcast conversations turned into a slog—some might even call it a hate watch. (Not me, though, I just say I’m a completist.) Let’s start at the end, with our thoughts on the finale, “Party Of One.” My reaction, to quote Carrie Bradshaw quoting Peggy Lee, was: Is that all there is? What’d everyone else think?
Drew Gillis: As a finale to the Carrie Bradshaw saga that we’ve been following for almost 27 years, it was ridiculously inadequate. But as a finale to AJLT, it was about what I expected. When I realized the final ten minutes of this show were going to contain an extremely graphic shot of a toilet overflowing, I thought, “Well, of course it will.”
Jacob Oller: If the finale was supposed to be representative of AJLT, it’s perfectly fitting. Truly devoted to the “go girl, give us nothing” message.
Saloni Gajjar: To me, the finale was an ideal culmination of what Michael Patrick King and AJLT‘s writers have been doing all along anyway: hating the audience and our love for Sex And The City, finding unique and evocative ways to make us roll our eyes. The literal depiction of shit and piss in this final episode is proof enough. I am not entirely shocked by how frustrating this finale was, but I surprisingly enjoyed the post-Aidan episode (and the long overdue manner in which she dumps him). Those were some promising signs for AJLT. But these last 34 minutes were as excruciating for me as they ended up being for the lactose intolerant Epcot.
DC: Nothing was going to save this show, not even a whole other season, but there’s no way this was the planned series closer, right? I know MPK et al. have little respect for viewers, returning and new, but this finale leaves ellipsis all over the place.
JO: This didn’t even feel like a planned episode.
SG: No, I don’t believe for a second that they planned to end it this way, even if the ultimate goal for AJLT was for Carrie to realize that it’s okay to be alone (whenever it would conclude). I almost felt like they shoehorned that dancing bit at the end in a last-minute scramble.
JO: The looming threats of grandmotherhood, marriage non-believers, being (gasp) alone…these are all clearly threads put out for another season, that everyone expected to get.
DC: But Saloni, at least they answered the vital question of whether Carrie would learn to love Miranda’s karaoke machine!
DG: King claimed that it wasn’t the planned ending, but that when this ending emerged in the writers’ room, they realized it was as good a place to end the show as any, which could be true at this point. But on a series-wide level, it turns AJLT into the story of how Carrie goes from being happilymarried to apparently coming to terms with being a widow. Maybe that is in fact what they set out to do, but I have a hard time believing that was the story they set out to tell in 2020.
JO: They absolutely fell backward into this. The “alone” vs. “on my own” distinction made me scream, like pretty much everything in her novel.
SG: The $1,500 karaoke machine is one of five things in that gigantic apartment. It’s wild that, of all things, this was part of the pivotal final scene. Yet, in this so-called planned closing episode, we didn’t get a single conversation between the original trio of Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte. I kept waiting for it! No mention of Samantha, either—but good for Kim Cattrall, I suppose. I feel like a conversation or a round of drinks between them was the least we deserved to see for our suffering.
JO: That’s such a good point; they were intentionally scattered all episode.
DG: That’s how the original show ended too, I think. But I did expect at least a text or mention of Samantha. Even if we’re to believe that this was an ending that was somewhat premeditated, even in the “we just realized this is the end of the story” sense, was there no time to edit the script to add in something that small?
DC: Not to give the show too much credit, but there were signs that Carrie would end up embracing being single. The series premiere established her as newly single (well, widowed), and season two also set her up for a long-distance relationship with zero chance of succeeding. I was struck by her statement to Charlotte, about how, in this chapter of her life, the potential for another relationship isn’t as high as it used to be, so she has to figure out what life looks like when it’s just her. But I still think this resolution rings hollow.
DG: To Saloni’s earlier point, I think the hollowness is especially frustrating because I thought the show handled Carrie’s breakup with Aidan with surprising poignancy. I mean, it wasn’t Shakespeare, but the way the distrust from their original series arc manifested via Carrie’s downstairs neighbor was one of the better beats of the whole show. And the following episode where she experiences a new romance for the first time in a while was also one of the show’s best.
SG: It rings hollow for many reasons, partly it’s because they kept insisting on tying the whole thing to her terrible novel for some reason. Plus, the execution of her processing this feeling of being alone was so ridiculous, whether in the opening scene of her dining alone or her leaving Miranda’s apartment when Joy comes over. None of these finale moments carried any heft, unlike when she processes what Aidan tells her about trust and that makes her reflect on where she is at in life/in this relationship and just how much she doesn’t need him.
JO: I’m with y’all that the blow-up with Aidan had some impact, but the show had too many irons in the fire to figure out what came next.
DC: See, I thought the Duncan stuff was bad! At some point, MPK (or Sarah Jessica Parker) decided everyone would just fawn over Carrie—Patti LuPone, Jackie Hoffman, Julianne Nicholson’s husband.
SG: Ooh, Danette I would love to hear about why you thought the Duncan stuff was bad because, like Drew, I thought it was season three’s and maybe even the show’s strongest point, which is not saying much, but still.
Photo: Craig Blankenhorn/HBO Max
DC: I saw the Duncan storyline as a Berger do-over: Carrie sparks with a fellow writer, but one secure enough to let her have her success. But that made him a plot point, not a character, and I just never bought the chemistry between the two. Maybe it’s because Duncan (played by Jonathan Cake) is supposed to be this serious biographer but he loses his mind over truly bad fiction writing.
JO: To your point earlier, Danette, he’s so rah-rah about Carrie that it becomes ridiculous. And that’s before we even get to the worst of her fiction.
SG: I agree that him praising Carrie’s writing was laughably bad, but I was trying to see it as him looking at her through rose-colored glasses because they share a bond that it seems like he hasn’t had before? I did totally see the chemistry between them though, particularly in episode 10 when they’re both at the party and at home after that. I was invested because I assumed it’s a one-time/short-term thing and Carrie was just having fun, without any pressure or confusion that she was facing from Aidan. In that sense, it felt at least slightly like a SATC episode, which I saw as a win.
DC: But the show insists that he appreciates her mind first and foremost!
DG: I was honestly just so happy to see someone who wasn’t Aidan that I was willing to take basically anything else. I used to love Aidan in the original series but after this he is really someone I never want to think about again.
JO: In order to really compare the two, I need to know Duncan’s stance on ADHD meds.
DC: Jacob, you came into this with the freshest set of eyes—you never watched SATC, right? So, why did you take a chance on AJLT?
JO: Like with movies, I enjoy the good stuff and the really bad stuff—it’s the mediocre that I can’t stand. My partner was big into the original series so I caught a little glimpse of how awful AJLT was in passing and I was hooked. It seemed like every episode was an experiment in how bad a show they could possibly air. It was clear that the original characters had been pushed aside so that the creator could better air personal grievances about young people, demographics he didn’t understand, etc. I did discover that I loved Charlotte, though. Kristin Davis gives the best performance in the series.
SG: She had my vote as soon as I saw her and Harry dress up as Elizabeth and Philip Jennings from The Americans for the Halloween episode.
DG: For what it’s worth, I do think AJLT improved over the course of its run. Season one felt almost like what I imagine an army boot camp to be like, where they deliberately break you down so they can remake you in their own image. Season one was character assassination after character assassination, with Miranda receiving the worst of it. It felt like a horrible slog to watch. But by season two, it seemed they had figured out how to make it more fun. Or maybe I had just been trained by that point to accept so little that I was willing to eat it up. I agree, however, that Charlotte was far and away the best part of this show.
JO: I know just from being around folks who care that Miranda seems to have had some sort of head injury throughout this new series. Did Carrie stay true to herself?
DC: Yes and no. She was always a self-centered person and a bad writer—the free-standing hyphen in place of closed em dash in her epilogue is her final crime, hopefully—but making her über-wealthy took away what few layers she had. I watched AJLT season three alongside The Gilded Age season three, and neither MPK nor Julian Fellowes knows how to write meaningful conflict anymore.
JO: The pie-in-the-face resolution to Anthony’s cold feet was very much some writers realizing they’d accidentally come up with some conflict they didn’t want to deal with. Same with the co-worker flirtation and Miranda’s kid’s terrible baby mama and….
SG: I felt the same way about Seema and Adam’s marriage conversation, one that they barely had with each other but individually had with Carrie. Seema’s arc ties back into the portrayal of wealth that Danette brought up. Throughout the show, she’s this fabulous and successful real-estate agent. Carrie even points out she takes on high-profile clients and can’t help Miranda find a place. And yet we’re supposed to believe her big conflict is she has no money for Ubers and eyebrow appointments? And then, she’s also found a big, empty office space? I was personally invested in her character a lot but was continually disappointed in the many ways in which AJLT failed her, as well as its new characters, who often felt like an obtuse way to overcorrect SATC‘s criticisms about having mostly white leads.
JO: I love Sarita Choudhury. Who doesn’t love Sarita Choudhury? But her character was all over the place because her status always seemed so unclear. Her getting with a woo-woo dirtbag was fun, but moved so slowly that, again, conflict never really got a chance to come up. Also, it has to be so frustrating to be working for Carrie: “Yeah, I guess I’ll just redo this whole garden I’ve been putting together for you.”
Photo: Craig Blankenhorn/HBO Max
DC: There was always something unrealistic about life in SATC, but there were also recognizable/relatable moments. Nothing about AJLT seems to apply to actual humans.
DG: To that point, Danette, I was wondering if getting rid of the narration from Carrie was the main thing that really ungrounded AJLT from SATC. Watching the original show, the acting and the scenarios were often pretty broad, but Carrie would basically just explain what everyone was feeling in the moment. Here, the acting and the scenarios are even broader, and rarely do we get that bit of interiority. The framing device of these all being stories for Carrie’s column, I think, created some distance that allowed for a bit more suspension of disbelief. The way AJLT is presented, we’re meant to believe that everything really is happening just as we see it.
DC: Well, we have the time of death for this show—approximately 10:30 p.m. Eastern on August 14—now we just have to rule on the cause. What would you say killed the show, or your hope that it might eventually get back on track?
JO: For me, it was DOA. The appeal was that it was a shambling zombie from the start. From the moment I met Che Diaz, I knew I was witnessing something special (derogatory).
SG: The show was DOA for me pretty much when it began, particularly with Carrie of all people not being able to say vagina on her podcast. Throw in Che Diaz and it’s all terrible. But I think the true moment AJLT collapsed for me was when Carrie peed in a bottle after watching Miranda and Che in her kitchen. I knew then this show had no respect or care to meet these women we’ve known and loved at the place/age they are in right now. I convinced myself to keep watching because I am also a completist like Danette and because I was morbidly curious to see how much worse it could get. On the other hand, if the show kept going for several more seasons, I would happily tune in and torture myself.
DG: I think the premise was rotten from the start. The movies that came after the original series were horrible. Then, when we found out that Kim Cattrall, who was far and away the most charismatic part of the original, would not return, it seemed impossible for the show to be at all decent. And as I’ve said, I think season one was pretty much unforgivably bad—the first episode of the series ending with the sentence “And just like that, Big died” was really a moment that I could not believe what I was seeing. But I genuinely do think it improved, even if it only became a more effective hate-watch.
SG: There were brief moments I thought it would get back on the tracks, and there are things I enjoyed seeing, like Charlotte’s evolution. (For me, she stayed somewhat true to her SATC character but also matured with time.) And it was lovely to watch Sarita Choudhury strut around on my screen. But I don’t want to give AJLT more credit than that. The fact that we started this discussion with mentioning the literal turds in the finale…well, that’s quite a legacy for the show to leave.
JO: AJLT and its creators live on another planet that I would love to visit. Presenting the most homophobic Gen Z-er I’ve ever seen, overflowing a toilet filled with shit, and then name-dropping Michelle Obama all in the same episode. This cognitive dissonance is what the show is all about. Total trash thinking that it’s still relevant.
DC: For me, it was the fundamental misunderstanding of who Carrie Bradshaw was that kept the show from being able to see who she would become. For good and ill, and as much as we might like Charlotte in her 50s and be distracted by Miranda being replaced by an alien, this has primarily been Carrie’s story. She was a mess of contradictions in the original series, and while it’s nice to think that she would have that sorted out in middle age, it’s also bullshit. Carrie was lying to herself in the original series when she said she wasn’t the marrying kind—turns out, she was just not the marrying-Aidan kind—and she’s still lying to herself in the final moments of AJLT. She tells Adam she wants the garden to be “wild” again, just like she is (and like she claimed to be when she scoped out Big and Natasha’s engagement party in SATC season two). But everything about Carrie has become so incredibly mannered, from the labored outfits to the pursing of the lips after every other alleged bon mot. Carrie cyberstalking Natasha in AJLT season one rang truer for me than her waltzing through her big empty house to Barry White in “Party Of One.”
JO: Do you think it’s because the creator/showrunner has also been separated from reality thanks to time and wealth?
SG: I have often wondered while watching, and I know SJP must be quite involved, but how different AJLT would’ve been had a woman helmed the show or if that would’ve been a more interesting, realistic lens through which we could see these women. I don’t know if it’s also because I read about how Candace Bushnell also felt disconnected to AJLT‘s version of Carrie.
DC: Maybe that’s the overlap in all of our critiques—this show ultimately wasn’t very curious about any of its characters.
JO: It was maybe most curious about an aging man dealing with dick problems and children around him who were engaging with the world in ways he didn’t understand.
SG:AJLT also never understood how New York City is a character (cliché, I know, but it’s true!). Why is it that a Thanksgiving-themed episode is so glossy and sunny and not seemingly cold at all? The Central Park fashion show in this weather made no sense whatsoever. And I think it’s details like these that the creator maybe deemed unimportant that made it so easy to disregard the show overall.
DG: I agree with that point about the city, Saloni. So much of the old show was just them walking around having conversations in the park, and it feels like so much of this version was in a manicured restaurant or café or apartment. There was a certain grit that was lost and severely missed.
DC: So, that’s our finding: bad sex and no real city.
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