It’s finally hitting viewers that the Sex and the City universe is ending, for good.
What made this reality sink in? The absolute carnage unleashed on Carrie Bradshaw’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) iconic old apartment.
The penultimate episode of HBO’s And Just Like That’s final season aired last night, and we have much to discuss.
First, Carrie seems to have a Peloton-sized hole in her memory when it comes to Big (Chris Noth). Why else would she claim her relationship with Aidan (John Corbett) lasted “22 years”? Did her entire marriage to Big just... not happen?
Sigh, then there is her novel. Let’s set aside her agent’s questionable review (she describes it as “fan-f---ing-tastic,” but like, come on, it sounds very mid) and address the real problem. Why does she think tragic endings in romance novels don’t sell well? Case in point: Colleen Hoover’s novels. Heck, what about Nicholas Sparks?
Carrie, I think it’s time to get a new literary agent.
And finally, the thing that everyone can’t stop talking about. Lisette (Katarina Tannenbaum), the ex-model turned jewelery designer, and the person Carrie sold her old apartment to, absolutely destroyed the place. Destroyed!!
You know, the amazing Upper East Side apartment that Carrie traded in for her Gramercy town house, because Aidan (this man is always at the scene of a crime) couldn’t bear living in an apartment which held “bad memories” from their previous relationship.
During the episode, Carrie receives an invitation to attend Lisette’s Pre-Thanksgiving party. Despite being in a bit of a mood because of her agent’s opinion on the novel’s ending, Carrie decides to head to the party anyways. When she arrives, Carrie discovers that her old place has become unrecognizable.
Everything has changed.
To afford rent, Lisette divided the apartment in half, which allows her to split the cost of the lease with another person. squeeze another person into the lease to help pay for it. As if seeing the place bizarrely shrunken down wasn’t upsetting enough, Lisette also destroyed everything that was beautiful and chic about Carrie’s old place.
The cute wallpaper Carrie had? Gone. It’s been covered up by black paint. The nice layout? Destroyed. To get to the kitchen, Carrie now must go through the bedroom. And for some bizarre reason, Lisette also swapped the apartment’s old doors out for a cheaper pair.
After the episode premiered, the reaction from viewers about the apartment renovations has been nothing short of outraged.
“We didn’t need to see the apartment being ruined like that. That was just evil to end the series like that,” a viewer wrote on Reddit.
“Travesty. TRAVESTY. 😒," another person commented.
People also pointed out that destroying Carrie’s old apartment is basically a metaphor for what And Just Like That writers did to original Sex and the City show.
At the end of the day, we have to agree with Carrie’s response to the whole thing: “I guess whoever said you can’t go home again was right.”
Carrie can’t return to her old apartment. And maybe, we just have to accept as viewers that And Just Like That also can’t go back to the Sex and the City days either.
