Spoiler Alert: This story contains spoilers from “Party of One,” the series finale of “And Just Like That,” now streaming on HBO Max.
New York’s ultimate single woman is single once more — and, at last, she’s at peace with it.
The series finale of “And Just Like That” — the revival series following “Sex and the City” and the two theatrical sequel films — brought Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) in for a soft landing. After a challenging and awkward Thanksgiving dinner, during which Charlotte (Kristin Davis) tried to set her single friend up with the pompous gallerist Mark Kasabian (Victor Garber), Carrie returns home. (She’s only spared further interaction with Mark thanks to a well-timed toilet explosion dousing his shoes in excrement.)
She’s been going through a rough patch: Carrie began the episode having been seated across from a child-sized doll at a ramen shop, the restaurant’s attempt to ease her solitude that only emphasized that she was, well, a party of one. But, invigorated by time with friends and reflection that she has it pretty good, Carrie blasts Barry White — and even sings along! — and finishes up the epilogue to her season-long-gestating novel. “The woman,” about whom Carrie has been writing all season, “realized she was not alone — she was on her own.” As she struts down her hallway like a catwalk and turns a corner, we begin to zoom in on her mirror… and then the credits roll, switching the music to the theme from the original “Sex and the City” series. The story, perhaps, has come full circle, as Carrie can finally see her situation clearly.
Changes in the finale in her friends’ lives seem more evolutionary than revolutionary: Charlotte, who, earlier in the episode, finally rekindled her sex life with Harry (Evan Handler), finally feels secure in Rock’s (Alexa Swinton’s) gender identity. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) gets the chance to deepen her commitment with Joy (Dolly Wells) after showing up when her dog has a medical emergency — a well-timed bit of emotional support as Miranda prepares to become a grandmother. And Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker) and Seema (Sarita Choudhury) recommit to and commit to, respectively, exploring further their own relationships, Lisa by affirming that she cannot cheat on Herbert (Christopher Jackson) and Seema by embracing the oddity of life with Adam (Logan Marshall-Green).
Michael Patrick King is ready to talk about it all. The showrunner of “And Just Like That,” King directed and co-wrote (with Susan Fales-Hill) the final episode, just as, in 2004, he wrote the ending of “Sex and the City.” Back then, Carrie’s series-ending contentment came from understanding that she was enough… even as she couldn’t deny that Big returning to New York to be with her was pretty exciting, too. Twenty-one years later, Carrie ends her story very intentionally not paired off. And, King says, it will be left to fans to imagine what lies ahead for her. While this franchise has shown a Shoe-the-cat-esque nine-lives resilience to this point, King says that this ending should be taken as his last call for Carrie and company. “Anyone else could keep going,” he says. “I can’t.”
Variety spoke with King ahead of the Aug. 14 finale. In conversation, King was animated and reflective, touching on why now is the time to end “And Just Like That,” how this finale speaks to criticisms the ending of “Sex and the City” received — and why Carrie’s final half-hour included an overflowing toilet. Thinking aloud about what this franchise and its protagonist have meant in particular to single people — “it’s mostly for someone who feels bad because they don’t have someone” — King got choked up, and tears appeared in his eyes. His mind-meld-like connection to the character and to her journey in and out of singledom over decades is part of what fans have responded to, and its ending is emotional for more than just King.
I’m pleased to be speaking to you, but sorry about the circumstances.
Well, I always like the fact that you wish you were getting more. The idea of leaving a party while it’s still happening is the most elegant thing you can say for a TV series. I never wanted to be like, Oh, that storyline again — which is the one rule we’ve had in the writing room: Don’t repeat. And we’ve done a lot. The one thing we haven’t done was get Carrie to the point where she says, “Maybe I’m enough.”
Before we get to that, I want to discuss how the decision to end the show was made. Was it before this season was written?
The reality is, the decision was not made at the beginning of the season. The third season was going gangbusters in the writing room. And as the stories go, and the stories go, and the stories go, there’s a reason I started saying, “Don’t repeat.” You start to realize — and it’s part muse, part smarts — “This is where it’s going.” When Susan Fales-Hill and I were writing the last episode, which is in the middle [of the season’s production]all of a sudden we came up with that moment for the end of the series and the season. “The woman realized she was not alone — she was on her own.”
The resonance of that felt so profound that I knew it was a very significant end to the season as we wrote it. And then… wait, more is coming? Can we do more? I talked to Sarah Jessica and said, “I think this is it. This feels like where we should leave Carrie Bradshaw.” She said, “Then we stop.”
Courtesy of Craig Blankenhorn/HBO
How did she take it?
Well, she’s my partner! We’ve built the show together. I had the exact same experience with her when we were doing “Sex and the City.” Season 6 — it couldn’t have been a hotter show. And I said to her, “I think we have to stop,” and she said, “OK.” It’s because we don’t just want to do it. We want to do it well, or do it when there’s something kind of dangerous and exciting to say.
Casey [Bloys, CEO of HBO,] is always very concerned about the brand and the quality. When we went to him to do “And Just Like That,” he was at first hesitant. He doesn’t want to duplicate anything either. And I said, “Let me tell you: Mr. Big dies in the first episode and Carrie’s single at fiftysomething.” He goes, “OK, that’s new.” When we went [to tell him the show was ending] this time, he said, “I think you brought them all to a great place. Whatever you want.”
Right.
That’s why you work at HBO! The numbers are insane, the chatter’s off-the-charts, the conversations are big, it’s memes, it’s everything. And they went, “OK.”
And then we didn’t tell the press — people do tell, to get a bump. And I didn’t need the bump, and I didn’t want people looking at the Carrie-Aidan relationship with the word “final” over it. I don’t think they would have invested. They would have said, “All right, just end it.” If the word “final” had been in the mix, you would have seen everything differently. You would have seen Harry’s prostate cancer as final. And we never wanted that to be final.
If we had told the press at the premiere “final,” they would have said “How does it end?” Guess what? We didn’t know. None of the actors knew. We were just following the feelings of the writing and story and where we could bring Carrie that would be enough of a finish that people could continue with their fan fiction writing on their own.
I know that you are very alert to what fans are thinking and feeling, and that there was a line of criticism of the 2004 finale of “Sex and the City” that it ends a show about female friendship with all four women paired off romantically. Is this “on her own” ending for Carrie responsive to that?
Yes, it’s a call and response. It is something that I’ve always thought about. Because, as much as I made sure in the “Sex and the City” finale that they weren’t all married — because the anarchy of “Sex and the City” was that, at that time, that being 34, with someone, but unmarried, was unacceptable…
It’s the Time cover. “Who Needs a Husband?”
So Samantha was not married. That was my loophole. But Carrie did say that beautiful last speech about the most significant relationship of all being the one you have with yourself — while holding a phone, with Big calling. My step forward was to make him real by calling him “John.”
So this [on “And Just Like That”] is the real, real, this-is-now Carrie. Many, many years later, having gone through deaths, heartbreaks, new romances, saying, “I’m grown-up enough to face this, because I’ve created a life that’s so magnificent for myself.” She’s on her own. And that sentence is for everyone who has someone, and for everyone who doesn’t have someone, and — I’m going to get emotional — it’s, primarily…. Wow. I’ve never said this. It’s mostly for someone who feels bad because they don’t have someone.
That’s really what it is. It’s to say: Look at her, how fabulous she is, and she’s exactly where you are. That’s what it’s for.
Seeing how emotionally connected you are to Carrie, I have to ask if there’s any openness to her ever coming back. Not anytime soon, of course — but is this the pause at the end of a chapter, or the end of her story?
It is closed. Because I care so much about what we’ve done. And I got emotional not because of letting go of Carrie, but because of the people that care about Carrie. I just realized “care” is in “Carrie.” People care so much about her that I feel for them. That she’s this this hero in her late 50s, wearing a Hindenburg hat and eating sherbet in Washington Square Park. She’s made her mark, and, as a writer, I feel we’ve made our mark. I never thought once about continuing. Telling it like it is: It’s an instinct. Anyone else could keep going. I can’t.
Craig Blankenhorn
The conversation around the show you mentioned earlier — people love the show, question decisions you’ve made, love to hate it, feel angry, try to give Carrie advice through the screen… Will you miss that chatter?
That is a real double-edged sword. What I’ll miss is the fact that we created something that was so alive that there was a dialogue with the fans at the time — or the audience, or the non-fans. If I didn’t want a reaction, I would write haikus and put them in a drawer. Unfortunately, I’m in the Colosseum. I run out there and go, “Here we are again!,” and people have a reaction, and it’s thrilling and harrowing.
It’s not Zen, but it is a mirror to a lot. The good mirror is: It’s a mirror to the work. It’s a mirror to the beauty of what the entire cast and crew is doing, the magnificence of those actresses, the laughs, the heartbreak. That’s all thrilling. The cracked mirror is: “This isn’t my show. What did they ruin [“Sex and the City”] for”? You look at yourself in a cracked mirror — it’s not attractive!
One thing that feels true about “And Just Like That” is a certain pie-in-the-face sensibility — whenever a character is flying high, they’re brought down a little. And, not to be crass, but I’d close by observing that I never expected Carrie Bradshaw’s final moments with her friends in New York City to involve an overflowing toilet.
Whenever anyone in this universe, “Sex and the City” or “And Just Like That,” stands on a soapbox to make a speech, the soapbox breaks. We cannot take ourselves too seriously. For the gorgeousness of Carrie’s pink, sparkly top and tulle skirt — that’s the high — the low is a toilet filled up with shit. Because guess what? Being single, there’s a lot of shit, and relationships are a lot of shit. It’s the comedy, with the drama, with the romance, with the fairy tale. I guess it’s a response to the fairy tale.
This interview has been edited and condensed.