The team behind And Just Like That is defending the controversial series finale despite not knowing ahead of time that the show was ending.
Executive producers Julie Rottenberg and Elisa Zuritsky addressed the backlash from viewers after Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) was shown embracing the next chapter of her life solo in the August 14 finale.
“Of all the possible endings of the three seasons, this one definitely rings the most true for me,” Zuritsky told TVLine on Wednesday, August 20. “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.”
Zuritsky, who worked on the original Sex and the City alongside Rottenberg, defended And Just Like That’s vision for Carrie to stay single.
“Carrie has metabolized her grief of being widowed. She’s gone back, in a real way, to relationship-land,” she continued. “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.”
Zuritsky encouraged fans to give the finale — which was crafted by showrunner Michael Patrick King and EP Susan Fales-Hill — a chance.
“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,” she continued. “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, meanwhile, called Carrie’s journey “the most honest way to end” the series.
“I think the strength was leaving her in a moment where she says, ‘There might not [be another man for me], 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,” she explained. “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.”
Sex and the City, which ran on HBO from 1998 to 2004, focused on Carrie (Parker) and her dating life in New York alongside her friends Charlotte (Kristin Davis), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Samantha (Kim Cattrall). Sex and the City expanded with two movies before Max revived the show in December 2021 — without Cattrall’s involvement.
Earlier this month, King confirmed that And Just Like That would not return for a fourth season. The news came as a shock to fans — and apparently, to the show’s writers.
“Michael is obviously his own person, and he has his own instrument, you know,” Zuritsky noted. “We’re brought in on a lot of it, and then not. So I feel like he had a method to his timeline.”
Rottenberg also weighed in on why Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte didn’t share a scene together in the finale, which she called “a Michael Patrick King question.”
“I think the idea is [that] 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,” she detailed. “I think that the feeling was [that] those bonds are stronger than anything, and they’re there even when they’re not there, those friends.”
Despite the overwhelmingly mixed response to the finale, Rottenberg and Zuritsky are glad the show started conversations.
“I think it speaks to the fact that no one wants to say goodbye to Carrie Bradshaw,” Rottenberg noted. “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.”
She continued: “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 has found herself stepping away from the internet to avoid the negative comments surrounding the end of AJLT.
“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,” she added. “All they know is, these beloved characters are back, and they’re really happy to see them again.”
Sex and the City and And Just Like That are currently streaming on HBO Max.
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