And Just Like That EPs Respond To The Series Finale Backlash

After three seasons, the Sex and the City spinoff, And Just Like That…, aired its final episode. The ever-passionate fan base said another goodbye to Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Charlotte (Kristin Davis), and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), and they didn’t do so quietly. Many viewers took to social media to complain about how AJLT ended.

AJLT EPs Respond To Backlash

Rest assured that fan feedback has been heard. And Just Like That writers and executive producers Julie Rottenberg and Elisa Zuritsky spoke to TVLine and addressed the divisive finale. Though they admitted they didn’t know the show was ending as they worked on Season 3, they defended the series finale written by fellow EPs Michael Patrick King and Susan Fales-Hill.

Zuritsky said every season’s finale was written as a potential series ending, and the one for Season 3 “definitely rings the most true” for her. The last episode saw Carrie embrace being on her own rather than in an imperfect partnership, and Zuritsky found that “extra poignant” and “authentic” to the character. In her eyes, Carrie was left as “a grateful person in the world that she created for herself.”

“It feels ultimately gratifying, and I can’t say we’ve seen a ton of that in movies and television,” Zuritsky said. “So I feel like it’s kind of a beautiful punctuation mark to a life well lived.”

Rottenberg called it “the most honest way to end” the series and highlighted how fans saw Carrie reach a point where she was OK with the possibility of ending up without a partner. “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 said.

Seeing Fans’ Criticism

After the finale aired, countless AJLT viewers shared their reactions on social media. On Reddit, one thread describing the last episode as a “dumpster fire” garnered hundreds of comments. Numerous fans were horrified by the toilet scene, others were disappointed they didn’t see Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda together, and many complained about the questions left unanswered. The latter point left some convinced that the series was canceled by HBO, despite King’s earlier announcement that he saw the final Season 3 episode as “a wonderful place to stop.”

Rottenberg and Zuritsky told TVLine that they had seen fans’ responses to the finale. For Rottenberg, however, the backlash was more of a compliment. “We should have been worried if there weren’t a cacophony of responses to the fact that this was the end,” she said. “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.”