i couldn't help but wonder
And Just Like That... ended on Thursday, and while I'd heard of the cancellation, I had no plans to catch the series finale since I neither enjoyed love-watching nor hate-watching it.
I hold a special place for Sex and the City. The show came out when I was a teenager, and a closeted kid in the suburbs I had no one to dialogue with about love lives. I wanted to be a writer, and so a show about New York City featuring a columnist who candidly inspected relationships inspired me in ways that feel almost embarrassing.
Even as the show transformed from a cynical take on romance in Manhattan to a Vogue-ified princess fantasy, I stuck with the show because it took female friendships seriously. This updated version had consistently made odd choices for its characters, choices that not only felt detached from the characters we'd seen on Sex and the City over six seasons (and two iffy films) but also simply detached from actual human beings.
However, when people started labelling the two-part finale as not just awful, but one of the worst, I became curious. The original series finale, which aired in February 2004, more or less stuck the landing, returning Carrie from a calamitous trip to Paris back to Manhattan, while underscoring the meaningful relationships Carrie had to her best friends, Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha, and to New York City, often described as the fifth character of the show.
The show was many things at once, but the strongest undercurrent was how we show up for one another in moments big and small. While sometimes this was played for laughs–often Samantha's plotlines, such as dealing with the "funkiest spunk"–the heart of the show was in tenderer moments, like at the funeral for Miranda's mother, Charlotte appearing post-miscarriage for Brady's first birthday party, Samantha's cancer diagnosis, or Miranda caring for Steve's mother when her dementia became apparent.
Two decades later, that solidarity has dissipated: most notably, in the finale, set on Thanksgiving, every character except Carrie bails on Miranda's gathering. Not having anyone show for a special occasion could have been an echo to Carrie's birthday in the original series, which ended with a declaration at their familiar haunt, the coffee shop, that they would be each other's soulmates. Instead, we spend too many scenes with a motley crew of random, unlikeable side characters1.
The series, rather than ending with the friends together, concludes with a montage as couples eat pie together, all except Carrie, who eats pie alone while blasting music from her karaoke machine. The closing shot parallels the one from Sex and the City, with just Carrie, but whereas in the first series she is in New York surrounded by people before receiving a call from her future husband, now she is alone in her expensive house.
Even Carrie's beloved relationship with New York City has faltered. In the 12th episode, the writers send Carrie to Flushing to try hotpot, as if there aren't a dozen others in Manhattan. The reason for the trip to Queens is more so because that's the sole New York location of Haidilao, where you can ask for a giant stuffed version of their mascot to sit across from you if you're dining alone2. Rather than laugh it off, she treats Tommy Tomato like a scarlet A (and the A stands for alone).
Where Sex and the City felt like a vibrant guide, the writers for And Just Like That gave up and threw spaghetti at the wall. Eater's list of real-life locations spotted in the show is unfortunate. Speaking of food, I got irrationally upset that the show had Carrie flummoxed by how much pie to order for a gathering, right after the baker, portrayed by Jackie Hoffman, pointedly notes how Carrie has ordered pies consistently since the bakery opened–even during the pandemic! which she didn't even pick up?!?
I was barely in my 20s when the first show ended, and I immediately looked up the song that plays over the final scenes, "You Got The Love (Now Voyager Radio Mix)" by the Source and Candi Staton, and listened to it on repeat. Tellingly, the show used the remix that omits lines such as "When my friends are gone, I know my Savior's love is real," ostensibly so that the song as used can be about the power of love between people, including ourselves.
I paid special attention then to the new series's closing song: Barry White's "You're The First, The Last, My Everything." Since we hear it as Carrie writes that the woman in her novel (and, by proxy, herself) was not alone but on her own, it's obvious the song is not about someone else but herself.
It's a twist on the first ending, where before she observed that "the most challenging, exciting, and significant relationship of them all" was with oneself, this second ending suggests that it's because there will be no one else–not even the people who once called you their soulmates.
The thing is, relationships are difficult. They require effort, and more often than not we make mistakes, bump up against each other, and have to find ways to mend what we break. It's even harder in a hyper-competitive city like New York, and it would have been fascinated to see how these characters, new and familiar, navigate the ups and downs together.
By chance, a YouTube rabbit hole last night brought me to another HBO series finale: the closing minutes of Six Feet Under, featuring "Breathe Me," a devastating Sia track that I used to sob to, while showing the dying moments of each character.
The show finished nearly two decades ago, on August 21, 2005, and rewatching the closing montage, it deepened my thinking around what it meant to grow old with someone. Before, I felt like the emphasis was not growing old alone, which resonated with me as a young queer person unsure if he'd ever meet anyone. Now, it's more about showing up for someone again and again and again--whether it's a lover, a family member, or a friend.
Someone who reassures us that pie alone is perfectly fine, but solo karaoke? Well, I can't help but wonder: are you Carrie-ok?
[1] The less said about a thrice-repeated Epcot joke and a ginger-hating demon twink, the better. Same for the toilet overflowing with shit, and Victor Garber's character leaning more Legally Blonde than Alias
[2] This idea is already at least a decade old, with Moomin in Tokyo going viral in 2014 for doing this