It’s official: For Carrie Bradshaw, Aidan Shaw is a real estate curse—both in Sex and the City and, now, in And Just Like That’s Season 2 finale.
This week, we joined Carrie and her 15 closest friends for an intimate catered dinner at her soon-to-be former apartment—an event she’s nicknamed “The Last Supper.” Samantha was apparently going to try and make it, but as we learned from Kim Cattrall’s quick cameo at the top of the episode, she got stuck at Heathrow thanks to fog. (We could call this “fan service,” but if I’m being honest, it was mostly just bizarre.)
Carrie has lived in the same apartment throughout Sex and the City and And Just Like That—although for a minute, she was in peril of losing it. During her second try with Aidan on SATC, he bought the apartment and the one next door, so they could expand into it. But when her fear of marriage blocked him from breaking the wall down, they split, leaving her scrambling to buy a place she could really only afford to rent.
Now that they’ve reunited and Carrie bought a huge apartment for them to live in together off of Gramercy Park, Carrie seems ready to release everything that no longer serves her. But what if she’s just wandered onto a ledge again?
Everyone’s a little on edge heading into this dinner. Miranda is worried about seeing her terrible ex, Che Diaz—who, frankly, Carrie would not have invited if she had any idea how friendships are supposed to work. Herbert and Lisa Todd Wexley are still reeling from her miscarriage last week. Harry and Charlotte are still feeling their way through her return to work—which has diminished the amount of time she can spend running the household, much to Harry’s chagrin. Carrie’s friend Seema can’t believe she said “I love you” first to her boyfriend, the ever-busy director Ravi Gordi, and Anthony is fretting over losing his “ass virginity” to his beau, Giuseppe.
And Carrie? She’s obviously worried about Aidan, whose 14-year-old son got drunk and wrapped his truck around a tree last week.
But this week’s episode is all about letting go—of old grudges, of toxic habits, and perhaps most of all, of fear.
And so, after much acrimony (and one truly traumatic fight) Miranda finally makes the trip to Coney Island to meet Steve at his new pizza and clam bar for peace talks. The two decide to remain friends, on the provision that she doesn’t “flip it around and go straight again” and try to date him.
Things have been rough between Miranda and Steve all season, especially after that explosive argument in which Steve told Miranda to “get the fuck out” of his and their son Brady’s lives. Probably because of that blowout, Miranda tells Steve this week that he was right about a lot of things—like having Brady and moving to Brooklyn. “The only thing you weren’t right about was us.” (Why is she still so keen on talking about this relationship as though it was not the healthiest on Sex and the City for many, many years?!)
“No,” Steve replied—speaking for basically all of us. “I was right about us for a long time.”
For some reason, Brady is bicycling around Coney Island as well, and he rides by just in time to see his parents making nice. This should make for a nice discussion in family therapy, for once!
Miranda’s friend and roommate Nya Wallace, meanwhile, has just been elected to the American Law Institute with impressive swiftness. Unfortunately, she’s still too broken up about her divorce to really soak this moment in—that is, until she shows up at Carrie’s dinner and recognizes the chef. Isn’t that the same guy whose flirtations she briefly indulged when her marriage was on the rocks? Hmm...
If I may, however: As delicious and fussy as this meal seems, it must be said that Carrie’s guest list is utterly incomprehensible. Why did she invite so many people from the podcast she barely seemed to like, and how on Earth did her downstairs neighbor make the cut? Does she really have this few friends?!
Speaking of Carrie’s podcast buddies: When Miranda confronts Che about their awfully mean, unfunny stand-up routine about her, they’re pretty receptive. But when Miranda says she thought they ended well, Che points out that she ghosted their calls—which helps explain the sour grapes, even if they fermented into downright nastiness onstage. In the end, it seems like these two might just patch things up after all. Meanwhile, Giuseppe keeps trying to get through to Anthony—and not only about his tightly clenched butthole.
“This is not about your ass wall,” actor Sebastiano Pigazzi says—one of countless impeccable line reads he’s delivered this season. “This is about your other walls.”
In the end, everyone seems to go home happy from Carrie’s dinner, and just as the season began with everyone having sex, that’s where the finale leaves us: Seema regains confidence in her relationship with Ravi, even as he prepares to fly off to Egypt for a shoot; Nya beds the hot chef; and, yes, Anthony finally lets go of his fear of being “the woman” and lets Giuseppe penetrate him.
There’s just one catch: Once everyone has gone home, Aidan surprises Carrie at her apartment. He’s hemmed and hawed all season about how he’s never setting foot in this apartment, so things are obviously serious.
It turns out, Aidan’s son Wyatt was not just drunk when he got into the car accident after stealing Aidan’s truck; he was also on mushrooms. After spending months flying up to New York every other week, Aidan has realized that his boys still need their father, so he’s decided to stay planted in Virginia until Wyatt is no longer a teenager. (For those keeping track, that’ll be five years from now.) When Carrie proposes that she spend time with everyone in Virginia, he resists, saying he’d still “only be thinking” of her.
“I can’t believe we're back here again,” Carrie says.
“Hey, we’re not ‘back here again,’” Aidan replies. “...The only thing that I love more than I love you is my boys. I made a commitment to them. But I won’t lose you again.”
Welp! There goes the dream life in the fancy apartment Carrie just purchased. (If only someone had warned them they were moving too fast...) On one hand, some distance absolutely seems like the right call for Aidan, whose sobbing over Wyatt’s accident last week was almost as heartbreaking as Carrie’s surprising inability to feign concern, saying only, “Broken bones heal.” On the other, could they really not find any middle ground between gallivanting through New York every other week and... *checks notes* breaking up for a full five years?!
As sad as Carrie seems, she also appears to accept it. After all, she just finished a party game in which she promised to let go of “expectations.” Still, it seems that Carrie and Aidan’s real estate hex has struck again.
Carrie has the money to absorb this major hiccup with grace, but she’s now stuck with a massive apartment for herself and the world’s tiniest kitten (named Shoe!). Maybe Seema can help her offload it next season, or maybe she’ll just bide her time for half a decade to live out her dream life with Aidan. In the meantime, at least she and Seema get to have the beachy summer they always dreamed of—not at the Hamptons as they originally planned, but in Greece. Maybe she can break a few plates while she’s there.
Read more of our And Just Like That coverage HERE.
