There’s complicated, and then there’s complicated. In the Sex and the City universe, things between Carrie and Aiden have always been messy. But Carrie’s semi-disastrous trip to Virginia in the most recent episode of And Just Like That…—complete with a full Shaw family shouting match— seems to have taken them to a whole new level. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Sarah Jessica Parker reveals that the dynamic between Carrie, Aidan, and his family is “not as simple, not as fixable, or far more complicated” than it may appear on the surface.
“The interesting thing about writing a character who is rich, and successful, and smart, and savvy is they’re also human, which means that there is not perfection,” adds series creator Michael Patrick King. King admits that Carrie can be “a tough nut to crack,” and writing her is even more difficult given the history of her relationship with Aiden. “This is the third go-around with Aidan. So if our writing room rule is not to repeat, we have to find a new way to create it,” says King. “The thrill of this season in the writing room was creating the maze of Carrie and Aidan. They will, they won’t. They should, they shouldn’t. Is he right? Is she right? What does Carrie want? What does he want from her? What do they owe each other?”
In the sixth episode of And Just Like That… season three, King and company throw Carrie a major curveball when Aidan tells Carrie that he slept with his ex-wife Cathy (Rosemarie DeWitt) in a moment of weakness. Rather than ending their relationship right then and there, Carrie surprises everyone by taking the news in stride and continuing to date Aiden. “It’s a very complicated relationship,” says King. “Carrie has evolved to this place of grownup responsibility.”
Of course, Sex and the City has never really been about the men, but the friendships between its central women. While the show’s women have always been fiercely independent, in the Sex and the City days, they also had more in common as mostly single 30-somethings. Sure, the ladies of And Just Like That… come together for Lisa Todd Wexley’s father’s funeral—but at this point in the season, their lives have also grown increasingly separate. Carrie’s either down in Virginia with Aiden or downstairs eating mutton with her neighbor. Charlotte’s taking care of her children while dealing with Harry’s unexpected cancer diagnosis. And Miranda’s giving love a chance with her newfound girlfriend, while also trying to find a new apartment. With so little to tie them together in the present, we can’t help but wonder: if Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda met at this point in their lives, would they even be friends?
“It’s very possible they wouldn’t see the affinity that actually exists,” says Parker. “I think you tend to assume your dance card is pretty full at a certain age, so someone has to be pretty extraordinary for you to move people around and make room. And I don’t know that we all give each other occasions where we’re meeting new people as much as we used to.”
Fittingly, Nixon has a more Miranda approach to answering the question, focusing on who brought the group together in the first place. “When Kim [Cattrall] was on the show, these three friends of Carrie’s were all there because they were friends of Carrie’s. They each represented something that Carrie wanted and needed and was interested in,” she says. The friendships, Nixon thinks, don’t necessarily extend beyond Carrie. “Would Charlotte and Samantha have become friends alone? Would Miranda and Charlotte have become friends alone? No.”
Davis also thinks that the trio might not have connected if they met in their twilight years. “I think that’s very, very accurate,” she says. She believes that the more traditional Charlotte would have been the odd woman out as well. “If you think back to the old show, they were similar, and Charlotte was different. Yet they were still friends and were there for her, though they weren’t exactly the same as her. They didn’t want the same things as she did.”
Whether or not they’d like each other if they met now, the beauty of And Just Like That is that the relationships between Charlotte, Miranda, and Carrie are already baked in. “This is what happens in life. Your life will take different avenues, and hopefully you’ll be able to hold onto those relationships that are important to you,” says Davis. “I do think that’s a through line.”
The character’s differences, Nixon believes, are also the ties that have bound them since the very beginning. “So many of our ideas were so diametrically opposed, and we really like to fight and debate about it. And it did make the question, even in the original show, how did these people become friends again?” Years later, their friendships aren’t a question but a given. “What is it?” says Nixon, searching for the famous rhyme. “Make new friends, but keep the old.
“If they were meeting now, it’d be more miraculous that they should come to know each other in the ways in which they do, and love each other the way they do,” says Parker. Thank goodness they met way back then—because whatever happens with Aiden, Carrie will always have Charlotte and Miranda.
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