[This story contains spoilers from the 10th episode of And Just Like That season three, “Better Than Sex.”]
It’s true: Carrie and Aidan are over.
Last week’s episode of And Just Like That delivered the Sex and the City sequel series’ biggest breakup yet when Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Aidan (John Corbett) mutually decided to end their long-distance romance, as it was revealed that Aidan still couldn’t get over Carrie cheating on him with the late Big (Chris Noth) more than 20 years ago.
Julie Rottenberg and Elisa Zuritsky, the episode’s writers who are veteran scribes for the franchise, told The Hollywood Reporter last week that the emotional hour closes the chapter on Carrie’s love story with Aidan, and they promised a significant shift ahead for the series as it was entering its final three episodes of this buzzy third season.
“Frankly, I don’t think any of us were ready for Carrie to ride off in the sunset with anyone, yet,” said Zuritsky about Aidan not being Carrie’s ever after.
So, what now for Carrie?
In the this week’s 10th episode, “Better Than Sex,” Carrie struggles with her latent attraction to her sexy writer-neighbor Duncan (Jonathan Cake), worrying to Charlotte (Kristin Davis) if she is the only one who isn’t admitting to their sexual tension (Aidan surely picked up on it). Ultimately, Carrie makes a leap and spends the night with Duncan, but the show makes it clear that this is a fling. Duncan has finished his book and is leaving town, committed to saying goodbye to his biggest writing distraction: Carrie.
Duncan (Jonathan Cake) visits Carrie’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) closet in the 10th episode, “Better Than Sex.”
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When speaking to Michael Patrick King at the beginning of the season, the showrunner/writer had told THR that Carrie’s fiction novel — which she has been narrating in voiceover throughout the season — was essentially a stand-in for Carrie’s life.
“The reason Carrie’s writing a fiction novel set in the past this season is because she’s afraid to talk about her feelings in the present because they’re so fragile, confusing and private,” he explained. “In order for her to be able to do that thing that writers do, which is explore ideas without feeling guilty, she put the character in the past and didn’t even name her Carrie, which she’s done in all her other writing. She calls her ‘the woman.’”
If we heed King’s words, we could take a page out of The Woman’s novel in order to glean where And Just Like That is going next for its now final two episodes of the season.
When asked by Duncan how Carrie will end her novel, Carrie says, in her signature wit, “Well, she’ll die of loneliness, of course … or smallpox.”
But by the end of the conversation — which takes place post-coital as the pair are wrapped up in Duncan’s sheets — Carrie seems inspired by a plea from Duncan that she let her protagonist live. In the final scene of the episode, Carrie reads from her book in voiceover, “The woman sat in her garden. Even though summer had come and now gone, she could feel the warmth of its lingering touch on her face and body. How wonderful. How wonderful. How wonderful.”
Rottenberg and Zuritsky had told THR that Carrie being on her own “is always an exciting and, in some ways, daunting challenge,” with Zuritsky saying that the season post-Aidan “certainly felt like a shift.”
What does And Just Like That look like after both Aidan and Duncan? Rottenberg had teased in three words: “Surprise, fun and freedom.”
And Just Like That releases new episodes Thursdays at 6 p.m. PT / 9 p.m. ET on HBO Max.
