The creator of And Just Like That has heard your complaints

The Age

27-05-2025

And just like that, Carrie has found her voice again. Missing for the first two seasons of the Sex and the City spin-off, Sarah Jessica Parker's iconic voiceover – 'I couldn't help but wonder …' – has been reinstated, thanks to New York's favourite heroine.
'[Showrunner] Michael [Patrick King] said that I had mentioned to him in season two that I missed that,' says Parker, who is with King and co-star Nicole Ari Parker, who plays documentary maker Lisa Todd Wexley, in New York. 'I do like it. I think it is a kind of connection as well for the audience. I think it obviously can be overused, and we don't want to do that, but I think it's particularly interesting and helpful this season as Carrie is writing fiction, so it's now sort of folded into this other professional exercise.'
Now in its third season, And Just Like That … still focuses on sex and the city, though both are a bit different these days. Marriages end, children grow up, sexuality and careers evolve. And just like that you're in your 50s, embracing whatever this new chapter holds.
For Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), those changes were the most striking – she came out as queer, ditched her husband Steve and took up, and broke up, with stand-up comedian Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez). In some ways it felt like Miranda had also lost her voice, with fans and critics dismayed at what had happened to a once forthright character who now seemed clueless as to how the world operated.
'My belief is that over the space of time between Sex and the City and And Just Like That … people sort of imagined Miranda was a happy-go-lucky married lady just because she moved to Brooklyn, and everybody loved Steve, and she had a child,' King says. 'And what people forgot – because Sex and the City, when it was cut into syndication, they cut a lot of the edgy stuff out – was that Miranda was an anarchist. She was the one who was always saying, 'Why are we talking about men? This is crazy.'
'So what was interesting about And Just Like That … is, post-pandemic, we had Miranda blow her life up, or excavate the new version of her life. And that meant calling on her sexuality, ending what she felt was a not fulfilling relationship with Steve, and moving forward. And the bumps and the potholes that she hit along that road created quite a vibrant dialogue, which I so embraced because it meant people were paying attention.'
This season, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) must rely on her not-so-inner Pollyanna to endure what life throws at her. She still adores her husband, Harry (Evan Handler), and teenage daughters. They're facing the Olympics of private schools in Manhattan – university applications.
Charlotte's close to Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker), whom she met through the kids' school. They all live a pretty rarefied existence.
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Lisa is every mum intent on doing it all. Few, though, do so while wearing haute couture and looking fabulous. LTW is highly disciplined and committed to her family's success. This season she hires a new editor for her finally-going-to-be-released documentary, and that editor is played by Mehcad Brooks. (This series doesn't bother with unappealing men.) As much as Lisa loves her husband Herbert (Chris Jackson), she can't help but have her head turned. This could lead to so many places.
'What women like LTW [Lisa Todd Wexley] go through is that there's a drive, a drive, a drive,' Nicole Ari Parker says. 'But that doesn't change your humanity, right? You still are worried, you still are nervous, you still have sexual desire, but you've compacted it down so much to do and complete the tasks at hand that when they come to the surface, you don't really know what to do. So I think it's great that she has Charlotte to rely on.'
That sisterhood – more than the clothes, the real estate and maintaining A-list status for the swankiest events in a glittering Manhattan – is what we have always loved. Well, that and the Manolos.
Those heels provide a recurring plot point this year. In Carrie's new posh Gramercy Park neighbourhood, she has a cranky downstairs neighbour driven batty by her clacking about in stilettos. Sarah Jessica Parker, more than anyone, is the ambassador for high heels, on- and offscreen. But does any woman (except Carrie) wear these torture devices once she's home?
The montage of heels is mined for comedy, as is a NYC horror moment. While writing in her teeny garden, hordes of rats scurry out from under a bush. Carrie displays lightning reflexes, grabs her laptop, repeatedly screams, 'Oh my god', and scales the twisty staircase to her apartment – in heels, naturally. Still, she loves this apartment and it's inspiring her work.
When this season concludes (no word yet on renewal), Parker will have played Carrie for 33 episodes, plus 94 times on the original series and in two films. How does she continue to keep Carrie fresh after all this time?
'I rely enormously on Michael Patrick and the writers,' Parker says. 'If the stories didn't feel fresh, if they didn't feel interesting, I think it would be very effortful. I feel as if the burden is far more on them. I feel a burden to be good. I worry all the time, every scene, all day long: is it good enough? Am I? Am I nearing the destination in which all these writers imagine this story to be? But I think we only returned to this idea because Michael felt that there was something to say. And it feels as if there's been something to say.'