And Just Like That… Was a Show About Nothing

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the series finale of And Just Like That..., "Party of One."]

And just like that, And Just Like That… is over. What a final season Michael Patrick King's mystifying series has had, the majority of which aired without fans knowing it would be the final season — a decision that was apparently made in order to not distract from the viewing experience by telling the audience that this would be the end, as if this show has ever adhered to the traditional rules of storytelling, or of time and space. But we all remember where we were when Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) slept with a Wicked-obsessed nun played by Rosie O'Donnell, and when Charlotte (Kristin Davis) got vertigo at the art exhibition, and when Lisa Todd Wexley's (Nicole Ari Parker) father died for the second time. We all remember the inception of The Woman, and when Aidan (John Corbett) broke the old rainbow glass, and that hat Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) wore. And those oddities only cover what happened in Season 3; lest we ever forget the singular Che Diaz (Sara Ramírez). 

In much the same manner in which it darkened our cultural doorstep in 2021, And Just Like That… ended with a whimper rather than a bang. Its series finale, "Party of One," is the last half of the show's big, chaotic Thanksgiving two-parter, a holiday that feels so irrelevant in the scheme of the show that it's barely worth mentioning. Victor Garber and Brady's baby mama are there — sure, why not? After leaving Miranda's muted festivities, Carrie stands in the kitchen of her massive Gramercy home, shoves a spoon into the center of one of the many pies she purchased in the previous episode, and sits down in front of her laptop to revise the epilogue to her long-teased novel. "The woman realized she was not alone — she was on her own," she says in a contented voiceover, before dancing off down one of her endless hallways. The series fades out, but AJLT has one more method of torture up its sleeve, playing the iconic Sex and the City theme over the closing credits, a final reminder of why we all let this series hold us hostage. By this point, I was left with only one question: Why?

This deep into its run, opining on AJLT's flaws just feels redundant. It will certainly take years, maybe decades, to unpack the peculiar blend of contempt and affection that AJLT inspired. It was a television show that could often make you feel like you were being mocked by King and his writers, but if you stuck it out until the bitter end, there's no denying your status as a loyal viewer with the capability of withstanding a lot. And yet for all the agony that it caused, it was ultimately just a blip. When it comes down to it, And Just Like That… was a show about nothing. Not in the way people love to describe Seinfeld, which was, of course, a character study of four antisocial cranks. Rather, AJLT was its own truly unique brand of nothingness.

This series alleged to be a sequel to Sex and the City, though its core group of women — the three who remained, anyway — behaved in ways that felt untrue to what we knew about them, and also untrue to how people act in real life. Some storylines fell flat, others fell apart, and others simply went nowhere. It never settled on a tone, pinballing erratically between comedy (if you want to call it that) and drama. Efforts to bring diversity into the SATC universe were rightfully met with accusations of tokenism. Details were added, seemingly at random, and never explained. (Why was Carrie taking all those Tums earlier in the season?) It resented the younger generation but held a similar distaste for the older generation. Characters created for AJLT were never treated with the same level of importance as the main trio (did anyone even notice the absence of Karen Pittman's Nya Wallace in Season 3?), while legacy characters were run into the ground (goodbye forever, Aidan) or disrespected (the crimes committed against David Eigenberg's Steve will never be forgotten).

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And Just Like That... did not seem to care what had happened in Sex and the City — that was both the stupidest and the boldest thing about it. This is the same show that killed Mr. Big (Chris Noth) in Episode 1 and proceeded to forget about him entirely by the time the series finale came along, with Carrie repeatedly referring to her rocky relationship with Aidan as something that had been going on for "22 years." In Season 2, Carrie wondered whether Big was "a big mistake," a question that was never answered or interrogated. Early in Season 3, she complained that she'd never met a man who was interested in her mind until she met fellow writer Duncan (Jonathan Cake), which might have been an intriguing thread to tug at if it were true: As badly as her romance with Berger (Ron Livingston) infamously ended, he and Carrie did connect over their writing. Carrie being "on her own" at the end of AJLT is an obvious attempt to cap off this strange series with a false message of girl power, but the moment provides no triumph for her character, because she's been rendered unrecognizable by this revival. And Just Like That… ignored major parts of her history to get her to a convenient ending, stripping it of any possible meaning. How are fans supposed to find any satisfaction in it?

The thing is, any effort to interrogate the why behind AJLT inevitably leads to a place of and who was it all for? Maybe it was a social experiment designed to force people to be more careful what they wish for. Maybe it was only for Michael Patrick King, or Sarah Jessica Parker, or Cynthia Nixon. Maybe it was for no one. And maybe that is the only logical explanation for this show about nothing.

And Just Like That… is now streaming on HBO Max.