I can imagine a Carrie Bradshaw voiceover telling me that some things are just worth the wait. She’d be talking about a waiting list for a pair of great new shoes, an aging wine or a New York apartment, but we’d know that she was really telling us that a woman in her 50s, like her and her friends, were the subtext. This character loves a strained metaphor at least as much as she loves luxury accessories. And perhaps she’d try to persuade me that this metaphor also applies to her show, HBO Max’s “Sex and the City” reboot with the equally strained title “And Just Like That …,” which is returning Thursday for its third season in a wildly uneven run thus far.
As I approached watching this time around, I couldn’t help but wonder: How many chances are too many chances to grant a beloved franchise’s frenzied reboot?
After watching the first six of the season’s 12 episodes, I still don’t know the answer. But I do know that, miraculously, the series seems to finally click into place in a way that it hasn’t previously. It spent its first two seasons juicing watercooler discussion mostly by being infuriating and, at times, unwatchable, stuffed with too many new characters in an effort to seem hip and diverse, to answer previous criticisms that its original run from 1998 to 2004, as well as its follow-up movies, had been too white and too privileged. In the process, it has wrecked our memory of the sensible Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) by making her into a blithering idiot as she discovered her attraction to women and left her lovable husband, Steve (David Eigenberg), for one of the most show-devouring monster characters in recent memory, the narcissistic and unfunny comedian Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez). But as someone who wrote a book about “Sex and the City,” and as a devotee who can’t quit this show any more than Carrie could quit Big, I continue watching, and I probably will until they stop making these things.
With Season 3, “And Just Like That” faces down a choice: ante up on the hate-stoking elements just to keep the discussion going, or mature into a series that succeeds on the storytelling and character elements that elevated the original beyond its splashier features:, the shoes, the clothes and the New York City hot spots. It admirably goes with the more dignified option, simplifying and focusing. It doesn’t always succeed, but in its best moments it becomes a watchable, grown-up soap opera featuring some of our favorite characters from the past.
We return in the third season to a newfound focus on a mere five main characters: Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte (Kristin Davis), Lisa Todd Wexley (Nicole Ari Parker) and Seema Patel (Sarita Choudhury). It’s still a lot, and the show continues to struggle to make us fully care about Lisa and Seema, despite the glamorous and capable actresses playing them. It’s just too hard when they’re up against our 27-year (!) relationship with the other women, though this slight feels more egregious given that they are both women of color.
The first episode back is still doing too much to get us to care. I watched it on a bus ride into New York City and found the traffic jam at the Lincoln Tunnel more interesting than what was on the screen, an episode that felt like a meeting that could have been an update email. Carrie’s still waiting for Aidan while he works out family stuff in Virginia; Charlotte’s dog is in a fight with another dog at the park; Lisa’s making a documentary; Seema’s breaking up with the director she was seeing. Everyone continues to be extremely rich, like unfathomably so, especially in 2025. Miranda has an interesting fling with a character played by Rosie O’Donnell, who comes with a fun reveal that I won’t spoil but is underused here.
This show, like many reboots, can feel adrift and without much purpose (besides squeezing money from a franchise). The original had a vital energy, exploring the fresh territory of women enjoying independent sex lives and speaking frankly about them with each other. When “And Just Like That” is at its best, it delivers the message that being in your 50s is at least as embarrassing as being in your 30s, if not more so, and is also just as confusing, whether you’re in a long-term or new relationship, a new job or old. At other times, we’re not sure why we’re watching.
As a reboot, it doesn’t quite hold up against excellent current shows that are mining the same territory — middle-aged wealthy people with problems — most notably Apple TV’s excellent “Your Friends and Neighbors,” anything starring Nicole Kidman, and even the recent season of “The White Lotus.” While it was that show’s weakest season so far, I’d watch an entire series about the “Sex and the City”-esque threesome of sparring female friends in their 40s. “And Just Like That” just isn’t as self-aware as these other concurrent series about the extreme wealth of its characters, a shortcoming in, as we say, these times. It also seems to be stubbornly and pointedly refusing to address the menossaince, exactly the kind of thing that would give it modern relevance and feel like an obvious fit for a show once known for its honesty about women and sex. Some things about this reboot defy reasoning as it wrestles with its own long history.
The original was a polished gem of compact storytelling, guided by Carrie’s thematic columns. This made the episodes work in even the unlikeliest of circumstances — in one of the best installments, Samantha dates a wrestler, Miranda’s mother dies, and Carrie’s computer goes on the fritz, but it all works together, and quickly. Roll your eyes all you want at Carrie’s cloying voiceovers, but they kept things neat.
The second episode of Season 3 snaps things into place by going back to basics. It’s written by Julie Rottenberg and Elisa Zuritsky, the only two current writers (besides showrunner Michael Patrick King) who worked on the original, and their comfort with the series shows. They establish a clear running theme of all of the characters struggling to maintain authenticity: Carrie tries to play it cool with Aidan (John Corbett) even as she gets frustrated with his long-distance communication, Seema sees a “Millionaire Matchmaker”-type (Cheri Oteri, nailing it) who urges her to be more passive and traditionally feminine, and Charlotte and Lisa hire a high-end college consultant (Kristin Schaal, also in her element) who tells their kids to completely change themselves. In this same episode, Miranda discovers the joys of hate-watching, which has to be one of the first genuinely funny, self-aware moments on this reboot. Interestingly, Rottenberg and Zuritsky’s script even mimics Carrie’s old voiceover by having her repeatedly dictate, and then erase, text messages to Aidan expressing her true feelings.
From there, while there are lulls in subsequent episodes, plots actually begin to feel propulsive at times, especially as Carrie and Miranda develop new possible love interests played by very appealing, but not focus-pulling, and for some reason both British, actors Jonathan Cake and Dolly Wells. The episodes grow more serious as they progress, tackling issues like old age, sickness and death, as well they should to act their age.
We’ve still got six more episodes in this season, so anything can happen. Here’s hoping that “And Just Like That” continues to age gracefully.
“And Just Like That” Season 3 premieres Thursday, May 29 at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT on Max.
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