"And Just Like That..." Is at Its Best With Carrie at the Center

The latest episode of And Just Like That… begins just as the previous one did: Carrie Bradshaw is sitting in bed talking to a shirtless Aidan Shaw. This time, he’s back from Virginia at their makeshift Airbnb residence in New York. It’s Carrie and Aidan, so disaster seems likely to be on the horizon, but for now their probably too-good-to-be-true renaissance is steaming ahead. Aidan is still too emotionally scarred to enter Carrie’s old apartment—which seems like a great basis for a healthy relationship, doesn’t it?—so she deals with this the one way she knows how: by throwing money at the problem and buying a much bigger apartment.

For the first half of season two, I found myself sitting in stunned silence at the end of each episode of AJLT, wondering what the hell I’d just watched. I started asking myself how long I could soldier on with it. (The answer? Until the end of time, obviously.) But since the Valentine’s Day episode, “February 14th”—when Aidan reappeared in Carrie’s world—the episodes have been noticeably better. Promising, even.

The show seems to have solved what I call its Carrie problem: In the Sex and the City–verse, it’s the law of the land that all can be well only when Ms. Bradshaw is the center of attention. This season, she’s spent too much time as a spectator to her friends’ lives. But now, Carrie is back to her scene-stealing best—and the show is reaping the benefits.

As a person who regards SATC as a formative influence—one I can quote endlessly—I let out a shriek of anguish when AJLT’s social accounts posted photographs of Carrie and Aidan walking through NYC earlier this year. Honestly? It felt a little bit lazy. And even more honestly? I never liked Aidan. I know we’re supposed to feel sorry for the suspiciously rich and annoyingly corny furniture designer because Carrie broke his heart, but I prefer even Berger—the insecure and slightly misogynistic writer who broke up with Carrie via Post-it Note. I had horrified visions of him dragging Carrie back to that cabin in the woods or trying to knock through one of her walls again. But even I must admit it’s no coincidence the quality of season two shifted up a gear when Aidan reappeared in that bizarrely cinch-waisted Barbour jacket. I might not like him, but right now he’s good for the show.

Carrie and Aidan reunited

In the first season of AJLT, Carrie dealing with Big’s sudden death was the overall focus. But in season two, she had only a handful of her own storylines at first. There was a short-lived “friends with benefits” arrangement with her podcast producer, and then she kissed a cyclist she almost killed when she walked in front of his bike. She spoke at Widow Con and reconnected with people from her past, like her former editor Enid. But these plots felt very low-stakes and transient. Dare I say it, their distinct vibe was “This’ll do”—particularly when, in the back of our minds, we knew a reunion with Aidan was in the cards. Carrie seemed to be giving her friends space to tell their stories, which felt strange, given how self-indulgent she used to be. (Remember when she sent Aidan to pick up an injured and immobile Miranda off the bathroom floor, because she had a meeting with her editor? Then brought Miranda “cheer me up” bagels afterward, but only so she could talk about herself?)

Now, it seems like the real Carrie is back. We love her the most when she is alternating between happiness and teetering on the edge of potential disaster, led purely by her emotions, without much concern for what is going on in her friends’ lives. As she attempts to draw a line under her troubled past with Aidan and forge a new future, that’s exactly what we’re getting. She completely forgot she rented a house in the Hamptons with Seema. And she didn’t even offer Miranda—who is camped out on a single mattress in a box room—a place to stay in her palatial new apartment. That’s our (selfish) girl!

HBO

Now that Carrie is officially the main character of the show again, I’m finding it much easier to connect with the others. Carrie’s circumstances suddenly changing was the perfect way into a deeper connection with Seema. Outside the hair salon in the pouring rain, when Seema smoked and told Carrie she needed space, it was the best scene of the season so far. This was the moment that Seema became a proper character in my eyes, with a story I feel genuinely invested in. (It’s a shame that Lisa Todd Wexley and Nya Wallace—whom the writers seem to have forgotten about—haven’t reached that point yet.) Even Che Diaz is becoming much easier to watch, now that they’re where they should be: on the periphery!

Carrie’s life has changed a lot since we first met her. So has the TV industry. But one thing that remains the same is that, sometimes, it’s the more basic and relatable dilemmas that are most interesting to watch. Here, we have a classic: What if the one that got away … shouldn’t have gotten away? A lot of viewers must have pondered this from time to time, but have never had the opportunity to explore, because—well, life isn’t a TV show where people actually reenter each other’s lives that often. Also, not everyone can afford to rent an entire apartment and spend thousands on new kitchenware just to play house with an ex. The privilege of it all might not be relatable, but the core dilemma is: Can two people get it right the second time? Or are they doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past?

With the return of Aidan, we’ve learned several things: First, the characters of AJLT, like us, are pretending that the second SATC movie doesn’t exist. (Seriously, they’ve not mentioned that Abu Dhabi kiss once—and thank goodness for that). Second, AJLT can just about hold it together when Carrie is the main character. For the audience to fully invest in the new world of AJLT, she has to be the central prism through which we view the other characters. And just like that … now that the show has solved its Carrie problem, I’m (tentatively) enjoying it.

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