We’ve all had the painful duty of telling a friend they’re dating a loser. For Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), that intervention is long overdue.
This week’s episode of And Just like That finds Carrie waking up in hell, aka the guest house on boyfriend Aidan Shaw’s (John Corbett) farm in Virginia.
Last week, Carrie headed down South for a memoirist convention, thinking it was a good chance to visit her quasi-partner, only for him to treat her like an afterthought.
Why does Aidan act like this, when he is the one who walked back the “five-year break” that he requested at the end of Season 2? Good question.
Aidan is selfish, not a very good partner, and, dare I say it, maybe not so great of a parent—at least not to his son Wyatt (Logan Souza) in this episode, who is struggling with his mental health and some alcohol-related issues.
During her visit, Carrie tries to bond with Wyatt and Homer (Corbin Drew Ross), Aidan’s middle child. She goes fishing with them. She plays virtual-reality zombie tag. She even joins his family for the birthday celebration of his eldest son, Tate (Jason Schmidt), which includes Aidan’s ex-wife, Kathy (Rosemarie DeWitt), and her boyfriend, Bob (Tony Crane).
Everything boils over during a game of Apples to Apples, when Wyatt loses control and smashes a window with a shovel. The incident sparks a heated argument between Aidan and Kathy over Aidan’s refusal to let Wyatt take Adderall for his ADHD diagnosis.
Aidan insists to Kathy that outdoor manual labor and limiting screen time are better solutions than medication due to Wyatt’s history with substance abuse.
It’s kind of giving, “rub some dirt on it,” you know?
When Aidan checks in with Carrie after his fight with Kathy, she asks why he even invited her to stay.
“I felt guilty because you came all the way down here, and if I couldn’t ask you to stay, what does that say about us?” he says.
This should have been Carrie’s wake-up call. Aidan was right back in Season 2. He needs to focus on his family, and it’s not the right time for her to be in his life. More tellingly, he didn’t ask her to stay because he missed her. He did it out of guilt.
For fans who already felt Aidan hasn’t been treating Carrie well this season, this moment was the final straw.
On X, people demanded that they break up, like yesterday.
“Carrie needs to leave this joke of a relationship with Aidan,” a user wrote.
Others pointed out that Carrie would never be in this situation if Samantha (Kim Cattrall) was still around, because there’s no way would she would let her best friend suffer this kind of relationship.
Not to mention, it’s weird for Carrie to be involved with a family’s drama, when she barely knows them.
In the end, Carrie dashes all our hopes and dreams. Instead of breaking up with Aidan, she gives him a key to her, sorry, *their* Gramercy apartment. She tells him: “Use it when you can. Use it when you need, but don’t use it out of guilt.”
Please Aidan, just don’t use it. For both your sakes—and for ours—just don’t.
