Why won’t “And Just Like That” let Carrie be single?

“The woman wondered what she had gotten herself into” is the opening line of Carrie Bradshaw’s latest work-in-progress, a novel set in 1846. The words came to her during a midnight crisis of faith. The date was set later, added in a burst of inspiration while enjoying the serene garden of her Gramercy Park postwar apartment. Carrie grinned and giggled and for one glorious moment savored her peace, until a rat stampede abruptly invaded it.

And just like that, the old garden had to go.

For a fantasy about the midlife and times of a writer, “And Just Like That” is stubbornly ignorant of metaphors and foreshadowing. The entire “Sex and the City” universe revolves around Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and, in better days, Samantha (Kim Cattrall, still a hero) sifting through New York’s rodent-infested dating pool in search of princes.

Many years and one dead financier husband later, Carrie is wealthy, can do as she pleases, and owns a palace that begs for a bit of renewal. Great stories have been spun from less.

But this is too deep a reading. The rats are simply a means to an end. A horrified Carrie has workmen clear the old foliage, then hires a sizzling snack of a landscaper, Adam (Logan Marshall-Green), to redesign the place. Once Adam meets Seema (Sarita Choudhury), the air between them crackles, and it’s only a matter of time before they get to plowing.

“And Just Like That” is a life sequel to “Sex and the City” that’s still clinging to parts of its predecessor’s formula. Charlotte and their new friend Lisa Todd Wexley (Nicole Ari Parker) are each married and content, making them the least irritating of the core quintet. Miranda has also paired up again, and her new girlfriend Joy (Dolly Wells) seems sane, confident and psychologically healthy.

But there must always be sex and the pursuit of it, so the show keeps Seema single, hunting and admirably uncompromising. Not like Carrie, and for reasons that make less sense than ever. Even now, she’s insisting that she’s still with Aidan (John Corbett), although he’s functionally absent. When the rats wrecked her calm, Carrie didn’t call on him because their five-year, long-distance relationship is entirely on his terms, and one of them is a ban on interrupting his focus on his troubled son Wyatt (Logan Souza).

Think about that. Aidan is a skilled builder, but when it comes to the place Carrie bought for the two of them, he is never there to lend a helping hand. One impromptu visit opens with him breaking a window pane dating back to the 19th century.

The seventh episode, “They Wanna Have Fun,” plunks down loud hints that Michael Patrick King and his writers will soon be correcting the show’s Aidan affliction and possibly replacing it with a new malady. You see, “And Just Like That” has been setting up Jonathan Cake’s Duncan, her new downstairs neighbor, to steal Carrie away from the moment they met. Duncan is curmudgeonly and British, which sets up all kinds of possibilities for sexy Edith Wharton cosplay — and this very observation feeds the irritating cycle this franchise refuses to break. Why can’t the writers allow Carrie to discover what it’s like to be by herself for a while?

It is a new day for women of a certain age — women of all ages, truly. According to 2021 data from the National Center for Family & Marriage Research, 29.1 percent of U.S. adults in mid-life, defined as being between the ages of 30-49, have never been married. The city with the highest share of never-married adults is Washington, D.C. The second highest? That would be New York.

By most accounts, single women within the “And Just Like That” target demo are just fine with that. They’re so secure, in fact, that some single men (who are probably single for good reasons) find their independence infuriating. Which is fine — like I said, these heroic women do not care. There’s even a fun new term a Stanford University researcher coined to describe the emotional labor women undertake to soothe their partner’s psychological boo-boos: mankeeping. That may be why 38% of single women are on the dating market in the U.S., compared with 61% of single men, according to Pew Research Center.

Since Carrie has been married — been there, done that — one would think she wouldn’t be in a hurry to sweep up some other dude’s thickened toenail clippings. But once Big was out of the way, the writers couldn’t shove Aidan into her work pile quickly enough.

But back to “They Wanna Have Fun”: Carrie orchestrates a birthday party for Charlotte, to which Miranda contributes cloying pink balloon clusters and a karaoke machine everybody comes to regret once LTW’s theater kid lays siege to the party.

Aidan doesn’t show up in this episode, but he doesn’t need to. His presence hangs over everything. He’s proven he could pop in at any moment to break a window or drop the news that he, oopsie, slept with his ex-wife, as he did in the sixth episode. No matter what, Carrie will let him hit it.

Since the audience cannot stage an intervention, it falls to Miranda (yet again!) to have the hard conversation. While helping to clean up the champagne flutes and leftover cake, Miranda brings up the flirtatious spark she noticed between Carrie and Duncan, which Carrie resents.

“It’s just . . . sometimes it seems like . . . like you’re working so hard with Aidan,” Miranda replies carefully. But Carrie will not be placated.

“Well, yes, I guess I am. Not all relationships are effortless!” she spits, adding, “ . . . Aidan and I are over 20 years in, and it’s complicated right now.” Yes. Entirely by choice.

Now that nearly everyone suffering through this show is stuffed into the same Aidan-hating lounge, we get the impulse to throw Carrie to Duncan, a direwolf of a man. Duncan isn’t any old ground-level renter. He’s a very famous writer who initially detests Carrie’s vivaciousness (read: noisy heels clacking on her hardwood floor) before grudgingly agreeing to co-exist and inevitably warming to her charms.

It’s a classic rom-com dynamic: two successful people who can’t stand each other at first before finding common ground. Somebody call Nancy Meyers!

Carrie and Duncan’s attraction to each other originates in their mutual love for wordsmithing. Carrie also has a soft spot for emotionally unavailable men; this one spends half of his life in London, making him physically unavailable for half the year as well.

Anyway, they’ve exchanged first drafts of their books, which is the writer’s version of getting naked in front of a stranger. And although “The woman wondered what she had gotten herself into” screams “discount bin beach read,” Duncan has nothing but praise. “It’s brilliant!” he whispers, complimenting her writing as propulsive.

The many women who have fallen for the alluring words of a gruff European probably understand the appeal of a man who says what a woman needs to hear.

I’m referring to Eros Brousson, the bearded, tattooed Frenchman who recently became TikTok famous by posting a series of monologues revealing an uncanny understanding of modern women.

Somebody’s been talking… pic.twitter.com/ZLhJyIJw4D

— Morgan ❤️💜💛🐝 (@kilday_morgan) April 21, 2025

“Some women have been single for so long, they don’t date anymore,” he said in a post that went viral this spring. “ . . . You think you’re gonna be her boyfriend? Bro, she’s sleeping diagonally in her bed for three years. She’s not giving up that territory because you opened the door and paid for her coffee.”

He continued, “You’re not competing with other guys. There are no other guys. You’re competing with a weighted blanket, her peace, her cat named Chairman Meow and the simple joy of not having to share her fries. And the second you cause even 0.0001% stress? Gone. Vanished. Back to her solo adventures and 87 unread therapy newsletters. ‘Are you okay?’ Yes, she’s thriving. She just booked a solo trip to Iceland while you were still composing your ‘Good morning, beautiful’ text.”

This man really needs to be writing for this show.

Start your day with essential news from Salon.Sign up for our free morning newsletter, Crash Course.

Brousson also shared an accurate reading of menopause, a topic in which Carrie & Co. should be invested. “You’re hot, but not in a flirty way,” he says. “. . .Let’s not forget: still horny. But also, tired. But also, angry. But also, deeply invested in true crime documentaries . . . Menopause is not a breakdown. It’s your villain origin story, your glow down, glow up, zero f**ks given soft launch into your ultimate era.”

You know who knows this best? Women like Charlize Theron, who recently announced, “I’m not missing a relationship. I’m not missing the partnership that I think people think you miss when you’re me.”

Imagine the possibilities if someone were to give us this Carrie Bradshaw — the ultimate era edition, who isn’t waiting for Country Lurch or trying to be swept away by Basement Heathcliff.

This is not to say a lady can’t have her cake and eat it too; there’s nothing wrong with a carefree, single-again life that includes the occasional visits downstairs for a homemade dinner of mutton stew with spotted dick for dessert.

But one wonders if a show that exists to supposedly please its audience is up to the task of surprising us by sending its heroine down a path that doesn’t require her to compromise her independence, again, by settling down with another difficult man.

The audience may not be wondering what this woman is about to get herself into again. Indeed, a segment of viewers are surely hoping Carrie starts a new chapter with Duncan, for reasons similar to campaigning for a candidate solely because the other guy is worse.

I’m hoping more viewers are invested in Carrie choosing herself once she’s written the ending to an affair so many wish had stayed in the history books. There may be reason to hope. The glimpse of Adam’s new garden, which is also a work in progress, looks modern and spacious. Everything has room to grow, including the lady in charge of watering it.

New episodes of “And Just Like That” stream Thursdays on HBO Max.