How Will 'And Just Like That' Season 2 End? A Wild Theory
As this week's episode of And Just Like That drew to a close, Carrie listened helplessly while Aidan cried with regret about being out of state while his son was badly injured in a car accident. Conventional wisdom says that this would put off or cancel Aidan's partial move to New York City, which would signal the beginning of the end for Carrie and Aidan. But what if the plot point is setting viewers up for something entirely different? We couldn't help but wonder…is the penultimate episode of And Just Like That's second season preparing us to watch Carrie Bradshaw leave Manhattan once and for all?
Here's all the evidence we have to support our (hopefully wild and baseless!) theory that Carrie isn’t going to break up with Aidan—she’s going to break up with New York City.
Related: 6 Ways the 'AJLT' Was Gloriously Reminiscent of 'SATC' in the Season 2 Premiere
Sarah Jessica Parker teased something major for the finale
If you're reading this article, we don't have to tell you that yes, Kim Cattrall will be back as Samantha Jones in the AJLT finale, and no, she didn't actually have to be in the same room with Sarah Jessica Parker in order to film her cameo. But what you may have overlooked (or forgotten) is that Parker has called the cameo, "a very opportune moment in a very specific story, in a sort of consequential event in Carrie's life." That has to be something bigger than Carrie selling her longtime apartment and leaving behind the Upper East Side for Gramercy Park, right? There are no real stakes to a phone call where Carrie just calls Samantha to tell her she and Aidan are back together—or broken up. That's an announcement, not an opportune conversation. But if that's not evidence enough…
The last two episodes are literally called "The Last Supper"
The Sex and the City universe is often over-the-top and dramatic just for the fun of it, but those bombastic vibes don't often cross over into the names of episodes—usually, the titles are either a straightforward summary of what's going on in the overall episode (like "An American Girl in Paris" or "Chapter Three") or a cute nod to a smaller moment ("Tragically Hip" or "The Chicken Dance"). Calling an episode "The Last Supper"—let alone calling TWO episodes "The Last Supper"—doesn’t line up with those past naming conventions. As such, the title itself feels like a clue…as does the echo of da Vinci's "The Last Supper" painting in the originally released poster for this season.
Big has been reduced to a big mistake
More than once this season, Carrie has said that she feels like she made a mistake by initially choosing Big over Aidan. Setting aside all the ways her revelation sorta rewrites history, if Carrie believes all the years she spent with Big were years with the wrong man, why wouldn't she be willing to completely uproot her existence for the right one? A new ZIP code is nothing compared to decades more of active mistake-making.
Carrie is suddenly, magically OK with children
You know the John Mulaney bit about how he'll never be President unless everyone in the world gets really cool with a bunch of things really quickly? Carrie's reunion with Aidan feels like her getting really cool with a bunch of things a little too quickly. She's always been a pretty avowed childfree-by-choice woman (she went so far as to say being a mother was "not who she was" in the second Sex and the City movie). And now she's somehow OK with buying a home big enough for Aidan’s sons without having so much as an (on-screen) discussion with Aidan or her friends about whether she’s ready to be a de facto stepmom?
Keeping these conversations off-screen makes it seem like AJLT wants us to believe that Carrie's choice to get back together with Aidan was, above all, a simple one, a no brainer. By that logic, leaving New York for him would be, too. (She also apparently no longer minds country living, because Aidan has a nice farmhouse now. Relatable.)
Related: Who Plays Aidan's Ex-Wife Kathy on 'AJLT'? Turns Out She Has a Connection to the Original 'SATC'
Stanford randomly gave viewers an episode in spiritual non-attachment
In last night's episode, we learned that Stanford won't be returning to his life with Anthony, or to New York at all—he's become a Shinto monk and is staying in Japan. In his farewell letter to Anthony and Carrie, he writes, "I want no attachments. I have let go of all things that no longer serve me, and I let it all go with love." Maybe giving this moment so much weight is the show's way of giving Willie Garson a loving send-off, but it feels an awful lot like foreshadowing. Maybe Carrie's ready to let go of some major things, too.
The city has been scenery
New York City has always been the special something at the heart of SATC and AJLT, but this season it just feels like the show's setting. Sure, there have still been only-in-New York set pieces (like Steve's new clam shack in Coney Island), but they've been places, not characters unto themselves. On top of that, one of Carrie Bradshaw's main traits has always been that you simply couldn't picture her living anywhere other than New York (this helped nervous SATC viewers breathe a little easier at the end of Season 6, because there was simply no way Carrie would last in Paris). But this season, even Carrie could imagine herself elsewhere (she went to Brooklyn twice!). All she had to do was click on an adorable brick house in the countryside and just like that, she saw a future outside of New York.
Find out how Season 2 ends when the finale airs Aug. 24 on Max.
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