What Is Going On with Carrie in And Just Like That?

Carrie Bradshaw has been accused of many things, but subtlety has never been one of them. Arguably Sarah Jessica Parker’s most iconic (and most polarizing) character, this is a woman who routinely runs away from people and screams at the sight of rain. She owns multiple tutus, fastens belts around her bare skin and has a thing for nonsensical chapeaux. To her core, she is a lover of dramatic declarations, and this overbearing quirk is part of her charm. So why, then, is she trying to rebrand as “chill” in And Just Like That season 3?

The series finds Carrie Bradshaw in an existential predicament. She’s tinkering away on a vague “fiction” novel. She’s staring down the barrel of a five-year no-contact period with Aidan. And overall, she seems a little bored. Luxuriating around her Gramercy Park house in Manolo Blahniks and satin tunics, she’s a far cry from the scrappy career-minded journalist who once approached dating as a social experiment.

A few episodes in, we see Carrie doing mundane tasks in over-the-top outfits. She wears a Simone Rocha flower dress to draw a heart on a postcard for Aidan. (A sad loophole for his “no communication” request.) While out to brunch with Miranda in a bustle-like denim skirt, she sends him a single eye-roll emoji in response to his thumbs-down text. In episode 3, she attempts to cope with these stunted interactions  by embracing a pared-down (for her) wardrobe rotation and a new motto: “Easy breezy!”

The episode starts with her at home in a peach-coloured button-up robe. On the phone with her agent, she passes up lucrative speaking opportunities in big cities to go to a writer’s conference in Williamsburg, Virginia—which happens to be an hour away from Aidan. At brunch with her friends, she lays out her plan meet up with him for “lunch” while conveniently in his state. When asked why she doesn’t just, you know, stay over, she explains that she wouldn’t want to “invalidate his space,” before adding, as if on cue: “No pressure. Easy breezy.” Very!

In this scene, she wears a billowy Chanel blouse and flowy skirt; a look imbued with old-Carrie nostalgia. It’s the shirt she styled backwards and paired with tie-dye capris in season 3 of Sex and the City—the episode when she enters a brief dalliance with a weed-smoking comic-book store clerk. This time, though, she wears it the right way around—though her decision-making skills are just as skewed.

The episode follows Carrie as she attempts to embody her new unruffled attitude. When Seema (who she convinced to come along to Virginia) picks her up for the airport, Carrie holds up just a carry-on containing two outfits. The ensemble she’s wearing is her version of dressed-down; a pink strapless gown with a zig-zag striped cardigan. “I’m travelling light,” she coos as she descends the steps of her brownstown. “Also known as easy breezy.”

Indeed, throughout the trip, her two packed outfits are light and pastel-hued, but even they can’t conceal her Aidan-related anxieties. In a white floral blazer sipping martinis, she laments about being “number four” in Aidan’s list of priorities. In a satin nightgown eating fried chicken on her hotel bed with Seema, she wonders why Aidan hasn’t asked her to stay over.

The next day, she’s back in her cardigan plane outfit to meet Aidan. When the car she’s rented is crashed and towed—with all her luggage inside—she’s left with no extra outfits or emotional-support accessories.

Aidan picks her up in his truck, which he calls a “Goober” (Hillbilly Uber)—something old Carrie would hate but this Carrie inexplicably finds endearing—and at the very last minute, asks her to sleep over. She is giddy—her easy-breezy act worked! Except, he waits to pull into the driveway to explain that he didn’t tell his kids she was coming, and she’ll be sequestered in the guesthouse. She feigns nonchalance, looking down at her Vivienne Westwood tote with an empty smile on her face.

Much has been made of Carrie’s mistreatment of Aidan in Sex and the City. She famously cheated on him with Big, and she had a tendency to turn every sweet gesture he made into a problem revolving around her. (Throwing up at the sight of your engagement ring? Girl…) But in efforts to amend her unfavourability, And Just Like That season 3 is over-correcting. Aidan is, at this point, blatantly mistreating her. And her attempt at cool-girl costuming, instead of true Carrie idiosyncrasy, is a reflection of this.

The episode ends on a note of despondence. It’s dark out and Carrie is alone in Aidan’s guesthouse with not even a change of clothes to bring her comfort. She sits on the bed in her plane outfit, pulls out her laptop and writes about a (fictional?) protagonist facing a “cold, uncertain night ahead.” Thumbs down emoji.