‘And Just Like That…’ Contemplates Ending With a ‘Tragedy’

“Forget About the Boy” had the rudiments of a great episode, but couldn’t quite stick the landing. Perhaps, hopefully, the landing is waiting for us next week in the series finale. This week, though, everyone is getting ready for, dreading, or bailing on Miranda’s inaugural Thanksgiving meal at her new apartment. Carrie puts in pie orders from a bakery clerk played by the underutilized Jackie Hoffman. Seema backs out of turkey-day plans after Adam goes down on her in the shower (!!), tells her he loves her (!!!), and then asks if she’d like to have Thanksgiving with him and meet his sister—a rollercoaster run of events, but I’m still rooting for these two. Harry pleads with Charlotte to have the meal at their apartment so they can watch football and not be subjected to Miranda’s NPR antics (feels slightly lesbophobic but…). I had no idea Harry had such a distaste for Miranda! Why are we only learning this now? 

Meanwhile, Ms. All Things Considered was decidedly inconsiderate when she decided to invite Mia, the young woman carrying Brady’s child, to Thanksgiving without running it by anyone. Brady understandably flips out on his mom as Joy awkwardly takes her dogs into the next room to avoid confrontation. This does not get resolved at all during the episode, and I’m left wondering who, between Brady, Mia, or Joy, won’t be attending the holiday feast. Hopefully, Brady, who is cooking the meal, won’t be the one to bail. 

Meanwhile, Charlotte isn’t just dealing with her husband’s secret resentment of her best friend (not that she seems to care all that much). Her nonbinary child, Rock, is starring as Millie in her high school’s production of Thoroughly Modern Millie, and their femme flapper costume triggers some of Charlotte’s deeply held and since rightly abandoned gender-aspirations for her young teen. After begging Carrie to sneak a photo of Rock in their costume, and admiring it alone in her bedroom, Charlotte decides to delete it. I found this touching, and while I think ultimately it was probably for the best she didn’t harp on this tender point too long (and certainly not in front of Rock), I’d have loved for her to vocalize some of these feelings to her friends. Between suffering from vertigo and generally being disrespected by everyone in her family, Charlotte wasn’t really given any meaty plotlines this season. This was one of the first times we saw her truly contending with some of the internal disappointments of the mom-wife-life fantasy she’d imagined for herself. Again, she was right to delete the photo, but we could have lingered on this moment a little longer!

Someone else who didn’t linger much longer is Duncan. His lease has ended and he’s back in London. Toodaloo! I can’t say I’m too mad about this. I was hoping we wouldn’t waste the last two episodes on this romance. Not that it didn’t have its sweet spots, but it never felt monumental enough to warrant being our last chapter with Carrie. Speaking of… Carrie’s agent isn’t satisfied with the final chapter of her novel. The woman ends up…drum roll please…alone. “A woman being alone at the end would be a tragedy,” she tells Carrie, which Carrie repeats to Charlotte and Miranda over drinks at her house, indignant that her agent would suggest such a thing. But the sentiment rings in Carrie’s head throughout the episode, as she visits Lisette in her old (and now renovated) apartment and as she discusses the resale value of her home with Seema over drinks. Is it OK for a woman to end up alone? We’re getting meta, folks! 

The original Sex and the City ended with Carrie and Big together. I’ll walk into traffic if Aidan somehow reemerges in the finale, though I think that would be very unlikely. Carrie probably won’t be coupled up when we part ways with her, which is, well, cool. This episode throws us a bit of a red herring, however, when it ends with her writing an epilogue about her protagonist meeting a new man. It feels like a cop out, one I’m hoping she backtracks on. A woman being alone at the end would be remarkably normal. We know it. Carrie seems to know it. Hopefully, she can stand two Jimmy-Choo-decked feet down in that decision when we bid her adieu.