My jaw is bruised from hitting the floor when Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) tells her gal pals that her boyfriend, Aidan (John Corbett), asked for “no communication” while he deals with family issues — and that she is just fine with giving it to him. No communication. For five full years. And this is supposed to be love?
Let’s review how we got here. At the end of Season 2 of “And Just Like That …,” the on-again lovers Carrie and Aidan found themselves at an impasse when Aidan’s son, Wyatt, hit hard times. Wyatt needed paternal supervision — so much so, apparently, that Aidan felt compelled to devote himself to it entirely back home in Virginia. The Gramercy palace Carrie had just purchased for the two of them became a reluctant bachelorette pad, and their love was relegated to a long-distance situationship.
At that point, we knew Carrie and Aidan were going to hold onto their love connection but weren’t going to visit each other — as implausible as that seemed alone. What was less apparent until the first few moments of Season 3 was that they weren’t going to speak, period. No texting, no FaceTime, not even the occasional Instagram like. The only hellos they’re exchanging are blank postcards, which they’re each sending back and forth between Virginia and New York, and for Carrie, this is apparently enough. Right.
This no-contact-but-stay-together setup was never realistic — even if we suspended every possible disbelief. It is even more absurd that Carrie plays along.
It doesn’t take long for Aidan to break his own rule, though. All he needed were three beers and a good, old-fashioned “ache.” He buzz-dials Carrie out of nowhere and lures her into one-sided, rather frantic phone sex. (Carrie may have been more enthusiastic if not for the beady eyes of her kitty-cat, Shoe, who was watching from the edge of the bed. But between that, Aidan’s intoxicated grunts, and a disruptive horn-blare, she just couldn’t quite get there.)
Not long after, Carrie calls up Aidan for Round 2, but the time is no good for Aidan. He is back on Wyatt patrol, lying in bed beside his sleeping son. Carrie hangs up in shame.
We learn quickly in the season premiere that Carrie isn’t the only one prioritizing her man’s needs over her own.
Seema (Sarita Choudhury), much like Carrie, is the victim of an absentee lover. Like Aidan, her filmmaker boyfriend, Ravi (Armin Amiri), is doling out mixed messages, as men keeping their lovers at arm’s length are wont to do. He and Seema haven’t spoken in a week, and Seema, tired of his antics, nearly burns down her apartment waiting for his call.
She gives him an ultimatum: Show up or shut up. Ravi appears at Seema’s door with a bountiful bouquet and a promise to give her his focus. Instead, he essentially slots her into a production assistant role on his location scout, leading Seema to dump him on a derelict industrial pier with satisfyingly dramatic flair.
Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker), already on edge about her documentary series pitch to PBS, finds herself forced to throw an impromptu dinner party at Red Rooster, in Harlem, that will make her husband, Herbert (Chris Jackson), look like the coolest City Comptroller candidate around. She is already boiling with stress about whether she is about to get her big break — which now seems predicated on whether she can involve Michelle Obama, per a PBS request. Now she is also expected drop everything to become her husband’s booster whenever his campaign, and his ego, require it.
By contrast, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is untethered, which is not to say she doesn’t have romantic hassles. With her relationship to Che (Sara Ramirez) — who was Miranda’s first queer partner — over, she is now single and soberly mingling with Sapphic barflies. She meets Mary (Rosie O’Donnell) at a lesbian bar around closing time and agrees to head back to her hotel, only to discover the next morning that Mary is a virgin — and a nun. This kicks off a series of signature Carrie puns about the “Virgin Mary” and a “holy ghost,” as well as a deluge of invitations from Mary to cringy New York tourist traps (Tavern on the Green, a Central Park carriage ride, a performance of “Wicked”).
But there in Times Square, surrounded by King Kong, Batman and hundreds of tourists, Miranda is compassionate but direct. She tells Mary to pump the brakes and sends her back to suburban Winnipeg.
So here we are at the beginning of Season 3, teed up with stories centered on what has historically been the essence of the “Sex and the City” franchise: the (mis)adventures of single women in New York. Miranda and Seema embody it fully. Carrie is in love, sure, but at this moment, I refuse to call what she has with Aidan a committed relationship. A woman deserves a man who talks to her, and not just when he is drunk and horny.
The one exception continues to be Charlotte (Kristin Davis). Charlotte is married, so she doesn’t fit the theme. But she also doesn’t seem to fit anywhere. Originally, Charlotte provided “Sex and the City” with a layered portrait of a woman trained to seek marriage above all else, while also struggling with the ways it made her abandon herself. But in this sequel series, the character has largely been relegated to comic relief — in a way that isn’t even comic.
In Season 2, that seemed briefly to be turning around. Charlotte had re-entered the art world as a top gallerist, and by the finale, was giving impassioned monologues that dismantled the patriarchy in her own home. But in Episode 1 of this new season, Charlotte’s entire story line centers on some crazy Karen who is cyberbullying her dog. Let’s hope for a little more depth for Charlotte as this season continues.
Things still taking up space in my brain
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Unpopular opinion: I miss Che. Che had rizz, at least. Miranda deserves a little rizz.
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Anthony (Mario Cantone) was actually being a good friend by being a bad friend when he called out Carrie for her dumb setup with Aidan. We listen, but we also judge, and that’s the right thing sometimes.
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This first episode ends with Carrie sitting down at her laptop to do something we’ve never seen before: write in third person. Carrie Bradshaw, budding fiction writer? We shall see.
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