And Just Like That Fans React To That Rosie O’Donnell Twist

While Carrie and Aidan’s relationship may be a little nebulous these days, Miranda’s love life is only heating up in delightfully unexpected ways.

Miranda Meets The Virgin Mary

In the And Just Like That... Season 3 premiere, Miranda meets a woman named Mary (played by a visiting Rosie O’Donnell) at the bar. In town for a work conference, Mary asks Miranda if she’d like to head back to her hotel room, an invitation she happily accepts.

“You are amazing,” Mary tells Miranda in bed the next morning. “I have never experienced anything like that.”

“Oh, this is a nice way to wake up,” Miranda says.

After Mary goes on about their “electric” connection, she surprises Miranda by revealing it was her first time.

Miranda thinks she’s referring to her first time with a woman, but Mary clarifies: “This is my first time with anyone. I’m a virgin. Well, I was a virgin... I’m a nun.”

After parting ways for the day, Miranda doesn’t quite know how to proceed — not just because of Mary’s unique background, but because she wants to do tourist-y things. Ultimately, Miranda heads to Times Square to meet up with Mary, who is donning a Wicked t-shirt and carrying a bag of custom M&Ms from the candy’s flagship store. “I mean, Wicked live? New York City, and you? This is the best week of my life,” she says.

Miranda politely declines spending another night together, though, urging Mary not to make any life-changing decisions in the midst of a great vacation. “Don’t leave God for me,” she says.

“Miranda, I would never leave God. We’re married,” Mary says. “Look, I always knew this person was somewhere inside of me — and now I’ve met her. Thanks to you.”

She then breaks out into a line from Wicked to really drive the point home: “Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.” An icon!

A Full-Circle Moment

Fans were surprised by O’Donnell’s guest role in the May 29 episode, with one viewer on X (formerly Twitter) declaring she deserves an Emmy for it. As another put it, “I wish I could go back and tell my childhood self that Miranda Hobbes slept with Rosie O’Donnell.”

Over on Reddit, several fans were reminded of the time in Sex and the City that Miranda’s housekeeper, Magda, replaced her vibrator with a Virgin Mary figurine. “Just can’t get away,” one commenter joked.

Fortunately, it sounds like the guest arc was as fun to film as it was to watch. As O’Donnell told Variety, she and Cynthia Nixon (who plays Miranda) are longtime friends.

“I laughed my ass off. I thought — I know how to play this character,” she said of being offered the role. “I was very, very happy to be doing all my scenes with Cynthia. It was not acting for me. I don’t have to act in love with her, because I’ve been in love with her for many years.”