Sarah Jessica Parker ponders And Just Like That... and Carrie Bradshaw's legacy

Sarah Jessica Parker does not love to cry for the camera.

- Alexis Soloski

NEW YORK - But while shooting the final episode of And Just Like That..., the three-season HBO Max show that premiered in 2021 and followed three of the four main characters from seminal TV series Sex And The City (1998 to 2004) into middle age, she could not help herself.

"Carrie's not weepy," the American actress said, speaking of her character Carrie Bradshaw, the dizzy, fizzy, feelings-forward, fashion-very-forward sex columnist she has played off and on since 1998. "She is sentimental, but she's not an insipid, treacly person. But it was really hard."

The final episode, which premiered on HBO Max on Aug 14, finds Carrie at home, once again in tulle, grooving to American R&B singer Barry White, strong enough to stand on her own in high heels. This was, in its way, a happy ending, but Parker still had complicated feelings about saying goodbye.

"I don't know what it means yet, and I'm not sure I will for some time," the 60-year-old said, speaking by phone the day before the finale aired. She was gracious — even when asked about the show's more awkward moments — and appropriately wistful.

And Just Like That... was not an unqualified success. Four new main characters were introduced, all people of color, but they seemed often like accessories to the main characters rather than protagonists in their own right.

Its tone, like some of Carrie's more outre outfits, was often all over the place. The series opened with Carrie's husband Big (Chris Noth) dying of a Peloton-induced heart attack. This meant that the first season was largely a grief-com, though the subsequent seasons had more bounce and pop. And while the revival centered on middle-aged women, it did not always know how to generate a story for them. The final plotline for Kristin Davis' Charlotte involved renovating her hallway.