And Just Like That recap: A waking nightmare nears its end

This story contains spoilers for season three, episode 11 of And Just Like That...

Is this what you see when a shared waking nightmare nears its end? Tap dancing and pies and shoddily erected partitions?

As last week’s episode aired, AJLT showrunner Michael Patrick King announced this season would be the show’s last, and episode 11 would mark the first instalment in a two-part series finale. Without the announcement, I would’ve felt it coming. There’s a sombre air to Carrie and Anthony’s storylines, in particular, this episode, and a loving finality to Seema’s that echoes the later seasons of Samantha and Smith’s romance in Sex and the City.

But with the news of the series ending in the front of my mind while watching this week, I couldn’t help but wonder what everyone else is doing here.

Darling Charlotte, who’s had little to do these past few years besides fall over and be verbally hounded by her awful children, is experiencing a kind of wistful gender confusion while watching her non-binary child perform in a flapper costume.

When she’s not corralling her friends to the high school performance (just as she did in the series premiere, leaving Big to die on his Peloton alone at home), she’s feeling Harry’s iPad jab into her back in the morning because he’s not only incontinent but impotent too, and fell asleep “showing [his] dick some porn”.

Not to be as pearl-clutchy as Ms York once was, but my god. I’m a Harry fan, but I’ve had enough of his penis being her whole storyline.

Charlotte did have one moment of clarity this episode, when she told Carrie visiting her cold, empty, enormous Gramercy house was like being on a historical walking tour. She’s ready for The Woman to return to a cosier locale, and so am I.

The house has given Carrie everything it had to give: a scotch-soaked romance downstairs, a CGI rat infestation, a trillion new chairs and one final finale with Aidan. She invokes him while talking to Anthony about accepting a marriage proposal neither of them really meant, deep down. “Aidan and me, a street, a dog, a ring. A yes.” When the writing and performances are this good, it makes the rest of the show’s visual and emotional clutter feel even more clunky.

Anthony loves Giuseppe, but does he want to spend his twilight years mothering “a 29-year-old extremely well-hung baby”? As a single woman on dating apps in 2025, let me tell you: it could be much worse.

Over drinks with Seema, Carrie learns she has the option to buy the basement apartment. Duncan’s not renewing the lease, and the entire property will be a more attractive listing if (when) she’s ready to sell.

Is that the last we’ll see of Duncan? I can’t tell if I’ll be sad for that hunky Brit to be gone for good. On one hand, I’d appreciate this show having the confidence to do what its predecessor never did and leave Carrie single and happy – the kind of ending she’s trying to write for her novel. On the other, watching Duncan and Carrie connect as writers breathed new life into the story of someone we’d seen do it all before.

Carrie’s as clouded by the news that Duncan won’t be back under her floorboards as she is by the realisation that everyone – her friends, herself, The Woman, me – is judging her for having bought the enormous home in the first place. She’s nostalgic for her old place on Perry Street, and pops back there to visit Lisette – who is now my mortal enemy for what she’s done to the apartment!!!!! A subdivided studio apartment?! Because you’re scared of living alone?! Did the writers forget this party girl was rolling in at all hours to crash in her old place downstairs?

Carrie says she’s more “scared of what’s already happening to her” than of living alone. Honestly, Lisette should be the scared one knowing her roommate has guns stashed “somewhere” nearby. Blink twice if you need help, girl.

We end the episode in classic Carrie fashion: she’s writing the epilogue to The Woman’s story at the upstairs window. (All she’s missing is a cigarette.) Would it be such a tragedy for a woman to end up alone? Do we need Carrie to get Little Women’ed into pulling a romantic resolution out of thin air? I guess it’s one of the many things we’ll find out next week, over Thanksgiving dinner.

Some of the final storylines we’re leading up to: Miranda trying to Parent Trap Brady and his baby mama, Seema meeting Adam’s sister over tofurkey, the Wexleys still talking about that bloody campaign (Lisa is too beautiful for this moping; WHERE IS MARION AND HIS PAPAYA?!) and Carrie ordering too many pies.

It’s closing time on the Upper East Side. To paraphrase the words of some (other) old guy: You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

And Just Like That... streams each Friday on HBO Max. You can catch up on all of our recaps here.

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