Sarah Jessica Parker isn’t losing sleep over And Just Like That’s detractors.
The Sex and the City spin-off’s third and final season reached its conclusion on Thursday, with many viewers left underwhelmed by the ending.
Along the way, And Just Like That received lacklustre reviews and faced widespread viewer complaints about mishandled plot arcs and divisive new characters.
In a new interview with The New York Times published Friday, Parker — who has played series lead Carrie Bradshaw since 1998 — was asked about the revival series being described as a “hate watch” by many.
“I don’t think I have the constitution to have spent a lot of time thinking about that,” she responded.
“We always worked incredibly hard to tell stories that were interesting or real. I guess I don’t really care. And the reason I don’t care is because it has been so enormously successful, and the connections it has made with audiences have been very meaningful.”
Indeed, the series debuted as HBO Max’s most-watched series premiere at the time, but its viewership has declined as the seasons have progressed.
The spin-off sees the return of sex columnist Carrie, who in the first season is navigating grief after the death of her husband, Big (portrayed by Chris Noth), who was her on-and-off boyfriend throughout Sex and the City.
The sequel also sees the return of Carrie’s two best friends, Miranda Hobbes (portrayed by Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte York-Goldenblatt (portrayed by Kristin Davis); however, the fourth member of the friend group, Samantha Jones, portrayed by Kim Cattrall, did not return.
In a comment piece for The Independent, Adam White expressed his genuine sorrow over the series’ treatment of characters he once adored.
“What a sad, depleting end for the fictional Manhattanites who raised me. By the end, Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte had been rendered dull lunatics on a series that never successfully justified its own existence. I thought I ended up despising And Just Like That. I now realise it broke my heart,” writes White.
“And Just Like That’s final episode was, to little surprise, abominable. It was by turns moronic and confusing, unfunny and hateful, and seemingly edited with a hacksaw – vague approximations of season-long story arcs were brought to abrupt ends, characters did things that made no sense, and Carrie herself re-learnt a lesson she’d already learnt years ago.”
However, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, series creator Michael Patrick King explained that the final line delivered by the show’s heroine Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) provided “an answer” to her years of grappling with singledom.
*Warning, spoilers for the ‘And Just Like That’ finale ahead*
In the closing scene, Carrie is seen dancing alone in her luxury duplex to a karaoke version of Barry White’s “You’re The First, The Last, My Everything”.
Parker’s character then concludes her book with the words: “The woman realises she was not alone – she was on her own.” The music switches to the original Sex and the City theme tune as the credits begin to roll.
“It's like an answer, it's a callback, it's an echo,” King explained. “All these years later, she's finally at the place where she sees that that is true. You're not alone, even if you have no one. You're on your own. That's when I knew we were gonna wrap it up.”
Despite reports of declining viewership, King told EW that the decision to end the series was purely “a creative” one.
“We did everything we wanted to do fully for that expression of the individual versus society,” he said. “Each of the relationships is in a place where you can fan-fiction the rest of it yourselves.”
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