And Just Like That finale review – a sad, heavy-handed and far too faecal farewell

The Guardian

a day ago

And just like that: it's over. A mere two weeks ago, it was announced that the Sex and the City spin-off was ending imminently, with showrunner Michael Patrick King having decided season three was 'a wonderful place to stop'. It felt more than a little abrupt, leading to tabloid rumours that HBO was pulling the plug on the much-maligned series. An Instagram post from Jonathan Cake, who played Carrie's (Sarah Jessica Parker) latest love interest was jokey, but – equally – didn't read like the words of someone who knew he had signed up for a bit part ('Wait, did I JUST KILL [the series]? Duncan finally has one night of passion with Carrie Bradshaw and the shows [sic] over … FOREVER???')
In any case, the fact that anyone cared at all showed that we had come a long way. Back in 2021, this Samantha-free reboot was sternly judged, with critics using words like 'cringey' and 'cloying'. Efforts to diversify the cast felt cynical, while Carrie's pivot to podcasting and Miranda's foray into queer romance with non-binary comic Che Diaz led to scenes that made even those two mortifying SATC films seem bearable by comparison.
But somewhere along the way, And Just Like That got good. Not Sex and the City good, to be clear. But it became the sort of warm, absurd escapism that slipped down like a classic Cosmopolitan. Nowhere was this more apparent than when Charlotte (Kristin Davis) braved a fierce snowstorm to buy condoms for her teenage daughter; when Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) deflowered a Wicked-obsessed nun played by Rosie O'Donnell; or when the writers accidentally killed off the father of fabulous side character Lisa not once but twice. Straight-shooting real-estate broker Seema (Sarita Choudhury) proved a solid stand-in for Samantha, and then some – which was lucky, because the closest we got to Kim Cattrall was an awkward one-minute cameo. By the time we reached the second half of season three, the show had found its stride – even if a post-Big, post-Aidan Carrie was consumed with writing her turgid historical novel about a lonesome woman who definitely isn't just a stand-in for her. And then, alas, came the news that it was almost over.
Some viewers may have arrived at this point with a sense of relief, but for many there will definitely have been disappointment. Why give us this ludicrous curate's egg, only to snatch it away? And how, dear God, do you wrap it all up? Luckily, all TV writers know that setting an episode at Thanksgiving means teary resolutions in the company of friends and family. Sadly, this is the And Just Like That writers we're talking about, so that didn't happen. Carrie spent the holiday chez Miranda, who was navigating the news that she was to become a grandmother with the same shrill hysteria and general alarm that Nixon has long brought to the AJLT universe. Miranda then legged it to hang out with her uptight British girlfriend, Joy (Dolly Wells), whose dog Sappho was undergoing emergency surgery (noooo!), leaving Carrie to play host to bland gallery boss, Mark, as well as Brady's lactose-intolerant baby mama, Mia, and her corral of obnoxious gen Z pals (as ever, the episode delighted in caricature). The crescendo of the evening involved a toilet overflowing with lots and lots of poo. Could this have really been the intended finale to the entire franchise?
And yet, well … it was sort of perfect, a fitting fever dream of an ending where this most lovely of holidays and a chance for human connection ends with a vile plumbing disaster. Elsewhere, the plot about our heroine and 'the woman' from the novel concluded. Carrie began the episode at a Chinese restaurant where a well-meaning waiter plopped a stuffed toy in the booth opposite her as a lunch companion, sending her into a tailspin. Speaking of unsubtle: Seema, Lisa, Charlotte and Carrie then spend an afternoon at a bridal fashion show, nattering about relationships. Lisa and Charlotte's view was more or less that marriage was hell on earth but that they'd do it all again anyway, while Carrie was more hesitant: 'I have to quit thinking, 'maybe a man', and start accepting: 'maybe just me'.'
She would later pull a French exit from Miranda's faecally charged party to strut around her apartment in heels one last time, serenading herself to a karaoke version of Barry White's You're The First, The Last, My Everything. It was a clear callback to the final moments of Sex and the City, when – over a remix of Candi Staton's You Got the Love – Carrie declared that 'the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself'. Except that she ended that line with, ' … and if you find someone to love the you that you love, well, that's just fabulous'. Here, there was no such coda, as she finished her novel with the words: 'The woman realises she was not alone – she was on her own.' It was emotional, but let's just say it wasn't exactly convincing based on previous evidence.
And so, the weirdest reboot of them all ended with a whimper, as though the anaesthetic was finally wearing off and we were all collectively coming to. Really, it deserved something bigger, sillier and camper, instead of this sad, heavy-handed farewell. Still, at least they didn't bring Che back to pay their respects.
And Just Like That is on Now TV in the UK, HBO Max in the US and Binge in Australia.