And Just Like That EPs Defend The Polarizing Series Finale ('It Felt Like The Most Honest Way To End' It), Respond To Fan Backlash
And Just Like That... wrapped up its three-season run last week — and, well, many fans were not happy with the way it wrapped up.
The series finale of HBO Max's Sex and the City sequel earned a big old "F" from TVLine readers, with fans complaining that it didn't feel like a proper series finale, with Carrie embracing life on her own and dancing to Barry White with no man in sight. (Read our full recap here.) But AJLT writers and executive producers Julie Rottenberg and Elisa Zuritsky — who also wrote together on the original Sex and the City — see the ending as a classically Carrie declaration of independence. (Showrunner Michael Patrick King wrote the finale along with EP Susan Fales-Hill.)
Each season, the And Just Like That writers treated the finale like it could be a series finale, and "of all the possible endings of the three seasons, this one definitely rings the most true for me," Zuritsky tells TVLine, "as a fan of the show and as a fifty-something woman in the world. I think it's sort of extra poignant and feels authentic to [Carrie's] character that she would reach this moment. She's metabolized her grief of being widowed. She's gone back, in a real way, to relationship-land. She's decided that she'd rather be on her own than in a not-ideal partnership and, like so many women we know, are really quite happy in their own space, in their own home, in their own friendships."
For her part, Zuritsky adds, "I feel really gratified that that's the grace note for now, that she feels really full, and fully realized, and like a happy person living a happy life and a grateful person in the world that she created for herself. It feels ultimately gratifying, and I can't say we've seen a ton of that in movies and television. So I feel like it's kind of a beautiful punctuation mark to a life well lived."
Rottenberg agrees that "it felt like the most honest way to end" the series, with Carrie facing head-on the prospect that there might not be another man in her life: "I think the strength was leaving her in a moment where she says, 'There might not, and I'm OK with that.' I think that's what we responded to, and that's what felt like the clearest way to end, maybe the cleanest way to end." And as Carrie herself pointed out in the finale, "it's not a tragedy. She's got a pretty freaking great life, and she has these friends, and we felt like we were leaving her in a good place."
Fans were surprised when HBO Max announced And Just Like That was ending just two weeks before the series finale aired, and the writers themselves didn't know it was ending until they had written the rest of the season, Rottenberg and Zuritsky reveal, with King making the ultimate call while he was penning the finale. "Michael is obviously his own person, and he has his own instrument, you know," Zuritsky says. "We're brought in on a lot of it, and then not. So I feel like he had a method to his timeline."
But if this was meant to be the last time we ever see Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte, why didn't we get even a single scene of the three of them together in the finale? Rottenberg calls that "a Michael Patrick King question," but she offers a theory: "I think the idea is the whole series is based on the strength of those friendships. So even if you're not in the same room... we have those bonds, and we feel the support and strength of those friendships. I think that the feeling was those bonds are stronger than anything, and they're there even when they're not there, those friends."
Yes, Rottenberg and Zuritsky have seen the fan response to the finale, and "I think it speaks to the fact that no one wants to say goodbye to Carrie Bradshaw," Rottenberg offers. "And we share that, the bittersweet moment of seeing her and knowing she's not going to be around every Thursday night at 9 p.m." But she sees the outrage as a sort of compliment, in a way: "We should have been worried if there weren't a cacophony of responses to the fact that this was the end. We know better than anyone you can't please all the people all of the time, but we felt like we had to do right by them, and leave all of those characters in a good place, and then say adieu."
Zuritsky admits, "I doomscroll with the best of them, and I've stopped to read enough headlines that my algorithm sends me" about fans' negative reactions to And Just Like That. But stepping away from the computer and into the real world can be a powerful antidote, she says: "Sometimes it will surprise me and stun me and sort of wake me up a little bit when I interact with the world of people who I see face-to-face in life, a lot of whom are not on the same algorithms that I'm on, who are really quite passionate about loving the show and actually have no idea... All they know is, these beloved characters are back, and they're really happy to see them again."
Did And Just Like That's ending feel like a fitting goodbye to Carrie Bradshaw? Sound off in the comments!