'And Just Like That...' Is Shallow 'Sex and the City' Fanfiction in Season 3

At the end of last season’s And Just Like That…, Carrie Bradshaw led her many pals to let go of something that was in their way: distrust, the past, guilt, all classic roadblocks any given adult has encountered at some point. Ultimately, Carrie chose to leave expectations behind because no one can predict the future, and hoping to change or control what’s coming is a fool’s errand. Like Vulture writer Maggie Fremont, I realized that this was fantastic advice as a viewer of this series. And Just Like That… changes episode to episode, scene to scene, and moment to moment. To expect things like complete plotlines, fleshed-out characters, and a recognizable relationship with Sex and the City is to invite madness. The series makes choices that defy sanity, like writing Stanford off the show by suddenly committing to Shintoism in Japan, or debuting the legendarily disastrous character Che Diaz, or bringing back Aiden only to put him in a weird jacket. And Just Like That… is a shallow fanfiction that wonders what becomes of the SATC characters after the events of the movies and makes completely insane choices while doing it. That’s fitting for IP-maintenance nostalgia bait within Zazlav’s janky empire we call HBO HBO MAX MAX HBO MAX, but as of the beginning of its third season, AJLT is stilted, underwritten, and thinly plotted.

On paper, AJLT’s plotlines in its premiere are promising, but a deeply mixed bag. Let’s start with the good stuff first. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is muddling her way through dating as a newly single lady by sipping phony Negronis in a lesbian bar. She meets Mary (Rosie O’Donnell), a sweet nun visiting New York who becomes besotted with Miranda and credits her with discovering a new sexuality within her. It’s a fascinating turn for Miranda, someone who similarly discovered her sexuality when she met Che.

Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker) is pitching her docu-series on unsung Black women throughout history. PBS wants Lisa to swap out one of her choices with Michelle Obama. She tries to explain that Obama is “very sung” and that this wouldn’t fit with her vision, but those smiley PBS execs are pretty firm on this. This sets up an interesting conflict for Lisa that asks her to stand up for herself to protect her artistic vision and to protect her peace. Seema (the radiant Sarita Choudhury) is experiencing the usual ups and downs of long-distance dating with her film director beau Ravi. Ravi comes to New York when Seema asks, but he’s not there just to see her; he’s also there to scout the perfect dilapidated pier for the grand finale of his apocalyptic wasteland movie. Ravi is full of promises and love-you’s, but Seema feels as underserved as ever.

Speaking of “underserved,” viewers get scant time on any of AJLT’s decent plotlines because the series is much more interested in Carrie’s airless, plotless malaise. Her newly rediscovered love, Aiden (John Corbett), has left New York to be with his son for what could be a 5-year trip. They send each other postcards (his are blank, hers have hand-drawn hearts) and stumble through a couple of attempts at phone sex. Carrie mopes around, shrugging to her friends about her situation with Aiden. Everyone seems pretty doubtful about this arrangement working, but at least Charlotte (Kristen Davis) makes an effort to be encouraging. Anthony (Mario Cantone) is the one friend to voice his concerns, and Carrie is briefly mad at him. Carrie’s home security alarm keeps going off erroneously. Carrie wears one of the worst hats ever to inflict itself on human eyes.

These moments are littered throughout the premiere, but they don’t add up to much aside from melancholy vibes. It doesn’t feel remotely earned when Carrie sits down at her laptop to type out, “the woman wondered what she had gotten herself into.” It implies that some major turning point has been reached without putting in any forward motion. Carrie begins sad, stays sad, and ends sad. There’s very little rise or fall, just an emotional plateau. It’s a B-plot’s worth of story being stretched over an A-plot frame, and the richer plotlines are compressed to make room for it. Charlotte’s plotline stands apart because it’s a slight tale given just the right amount of attention. A woman in the park campaigns to cancel Charlotte’s adorable pooch for dog-on-dog crimes he did not commit. It’s silly stuff that’s threaded throughout the episode for comic relief.

These imbalanced storyline priorities make AJLT feel thin and shallow. The series gives precious little time to its most interesting parts, which forces its writing into a weak spot. Aside from Carrie’s situationship blues, there’s simply no time to spread out and explore its much more interesting characters. This renders all dialogue into blunt-force weapons and scenes into rushed vignettes. Even without high expectations, And Just Like That… disappoints by keeping its attention squarely on its least interesting element: the lead character.