“Party Of One” (Season 3 Episode 12 Recap)

Clocking in at 34 minutes long, this week’s And Just Like That episode had a lot of work to do if it was going to deliver a satisfying series finale (and yet, it was so much more than that, it’s a franchise finale, an end to a whole beloved universe of characters as we know them. It’s like Avengers: End Game for old gays and gals.) And yet, most of what happened during this episode was unexpected, throwing us new curve balls and literal piles of shit rather than resolving old issues. It’s not that it was unsatisfying –- oddly enough, it did feel like the ending landed, but it took a bizarre, clogged toilet-filled journey to get us there. (Who knew a new character named EPCOT, or Victor Garber’s kind of random art dealer characyer would feature so heavily in the show’s curtain call? Like, more heavily even than Anthony and Giuseppe who get all of 30 seconds this week? I was left feeling satiated, but I do have questions.)

The episode begins with Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) doing something that I feel most New Yorkers are often intimidated to do: take the elevator up to one of those second- or third-floor restaurants in Koreatown that look intriguing and intimidating all at once. Carrie herself admits she’s intrigued, and she’s also intimidated because the restaurant requires her to order her meal via iPad and the servers are literal robots. (The show has never managed to reconcile or explain the fact that Carrie’s work requires her to be on a laptop all day, and yet in every other way, she is truly a luddite.) But the iPad is the least nightmarish thing about the restaurant – when the hostess sees that Carrie is eating alone, she brings over a giant doll in the shape of a tomato for Carrie to dine across from. “What is that?” Carrie asks the hostess, who replies, “Tommy Tomato! You don’t have to eat alone!”

First Big dies, then her relationship with Aidan fails, and now Tommy Tomato. Carrie was born to suffer. (“Lunch with a side of shame,” she later tells the girls.)

If AJLT was not about to end for good, I can’t help but assume that LTW’s (Nicole Ari Parker) marriage might have been a bigger plot point in a future season. After Herbert’s (Chris Jackson) election loss, she has had to coddle this miserable, sulking man-child who hasn’t been able to get over his defeat, all while suppressing her crush on her editor Marion (Mehcad Brooks). And with precious little time to wast in this episode, a full season of Wexley marriage drama was resolved quickly and optimistically.

When LTW learns – while sitting in the edit bay with Marion – that there’s a slim chance that Michelle Obama will narrate her docu-series, she hugs Marion, who then suggests they go out for a drink to celebrate. “We can’t go for a drink or for dinner or anywhere outside this edit bay. This has to be about work, just work,” she says of their relationship. It’s blunt and seems to come flying out of her uncontrollably, but it’s also probably the most honest way a person can handle this tempting situation. Marion and Lisa are both attractive and passionate about their work, and collaborating professionally can be an intimate affair. She just doesn’t want it to be an actual affair, and he agrees that getting involved “would ruin everything for both of us.”

Steve Brady gets his last hurrah on the show over a delicious-looking plate of enchiladas suizas when he and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) get together to discuss Mia, the mother of Brady’s baby. Steve has declared that he’s not planning to attend Miranda’s Thanksgiving dinner, which means he’s squandering his opportunity to meet the farting Gen Zer carrying his grandchild, so he asks Miranda, “What’s she like?”

“I’m afraid she might be an idiot,” Miranda tells Steve, explaining that Mia told Brady that Miranda “violated her aura.” Have I mentioned how much I hate the way this show depicts people in their 20s? A better question might be have I ever not mentioned that?

Ultimately, as mad as Steve and Miranda are that Brady is having a kid before he’s ready, they vow that they will figure things out. They did it themselves, and now they’ll do it for their son. “There’s no way our grandkid is not gonna know us,” Steve says, and that’s it, right there. Whoever this baby is, whoever their mother is, they’re family now, auras and all.

In the show’s first instance of Too Much Bathroom this week, Seema, getting ready for work, tells Adam she’s putting in extra hours today so she can go to a bridal fashion show LTW invited her to tomorrow. A fully naked Adam starts peeing into the toilet as he tells her how he really feels about the construct of marriage, and while I’m all for sharing personal space and being free to pee, the audio effects make this sound racehorse level. “Adam stood there literally pissing all over the idea of marriage,” Seema tells Carrie when they meet at the bridal show the next day. “Do you have do get married?” Carrie asks, to which Seema replies, “I don’t know? Do I, or do I just think I have to?”

Then, Seema asks Carrie perhaps the most important question in the show’s existence. “You were married. Why did you want it?” I had to pause the episode here before hearing Carrie’s answer because her love life flashed before my eyes. The last few episodes have been devoted to Carrie’s fate and whether she’d end up alone but for the entire run of Sex and the City, the real question was whether or not she’d end up with Big. Why did she want to marry that man? The obvious answer is for love, but really, Big was her white whale. So she tells Seema, “Because it meant I was chosen.” Chosen instead of Natasha, instead of Napa, chosen after years of being held at arm’s length. It means she was finally that man’s priority. And without him in her life, Carrie is left wondering what it means to want to be chosen by someone else.

LTW and Charlotte (Kristin Davis), seated next to Carrie and Seema, are having their own conversation about what marriage means to them, and LTW is appropriately annoyed by the idea of it at the moment, with Herbert still acting depressed. “Someone needs to tell these sweet, unsuspecting girls that marriage is about way more than the gorgeous dress,” LTW says to Charlotte. “It’s about confusion, not knowing how to help, and holding your tongue.”

“And cancer! Don’t forget about cancer,” Charlotte adds, as her husband’s cancer is now her defining trait.

LTW seems bitter as she describes Herbert to Charlotte and asks her friend, “If you knew what you know now, like, the way it really is, would you still get married?” (Again, this is why, as much as this show frustrates me, I would have loved a fourth season to explore LTW’s conflicted feelings – we’ve never seen one of our main characters have a brazen affair while married, it could have been an interesting avenue for the show to explore.) But after Charlotte answers, “Absolutely,” LTW does the neat and tidy thing by replying, “Me too.”

So she goes home to a dour Herbert and recites her wedding vows to him to show him how committed she is to him. “I’ll get over this,” he promises. “We’ll get over this,” she shoots back. This scene only underscores the point LTW made to Charlotte at the bridal show, when she asks, “Is it ever about us?” LTW is forced to do the work to pull her marriage out of a dark place, making up for whatever her husband can’t manage right now, just like Charlotte all season long, supporting Harry’s cancer diagnosis without being allowed to wallow or acknowledge how the situation made her feel. This is the reality of marriage, and it’s an interesting foil for Carrie’s own dilemma – she’s so anxious about being alone in this world, but just look at the struggles of her two married friends. Their mental load is unbearable. Maybe life all alone in a big house with a cat ain’t so bad?

When Thanksgiving Day finally rolls around, Charlotte, a master baster if ever there was one, pauses her turkey roasting when Harry announces to her that after months of recovery from surgery, he’s finally gotten hard. It’s truly a reason to give thanks in the Goldenblatt house, and so the two abscond to the bedroom to have Turkey Day sex. Their daughter Lily just laughs as she realizes what’s happening, to which I say, ew, weird. When Carrie arrives to their apartment to drop off a pie that she ordered from Jackie Hoffman (thus beginning a fun holiday montage of Carrie as delivery gal), Lily gleefully tells Carrie, “Mom’s busy in the bedroom!” Double ew, weird.

Carrie drops pies off to Lisa, Anthony, and Seema, who is dressed super casual in jeans and a beanie because to Adam and his family, who she’s visiting, this is not Thanksgiving, this is just a Thursday. Here for this whole look.

Carrie finally arrives at Miranda’s, where Brady is cooking their meal. Miranda informs Carrie that her big Thanksgiving feast is getting smaller by the second because now, even Joy can’t come, her dog is “sick” – but Miranda just thinks Joy is lying because after witnessing Miranda and Brady’s fight last week, it does seem like the Hobbes family dynamics are kinda fucked up and who can blame her for getting scared off? Ultimately, after Miranda calls Joy, she learns the dog really is sick and is in the process of getting emergency surgery after swallowing a Lego so she races to the vet to be with her, bailing on her own meal.

Remember how the season two finale featured Carrie hosting a fabulous meal at her old apartment flanked by every one of her close friends? Well, this season finale features Carrie flanked by her best friend’s kid and four randos, one of whom has to keep explaining that his parents were “Disney freaks,” which is why he is named EPCOT. Listen, I am a borderline Disney Adult and I take offense to all of this, mostly because there are way better names besides EPCOT that Disney nerds would name their kids, like Sassagoula or Figment. (And yes, I’m capitalizing EPCOT because it’s an acronym so maybe I was lying about being a borderline Disney Adult and I just fully am one?) Carrie, Brady, Mia, her friends EPCOT and Sylvio, and Mark Kasabian, the art dealer played by Victor Garber, all find themselves together, a bizarre pairing that is only going to end in a literal shitstorm. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

When Brady sees Mia, he greets her kindly, and Sylvio is like, “Oh, he’s a ginger? No, girl.” Then EPCOT announces that he’s lactose intolerant, and Mia says she only eats “cucumber, brown rice and seaweed.” When Brady says “I don’t have any of that,” Mia says, “Well, no one asked me so that’s on you.” I write all of these specific quotes down to ask, why does this show want us to actively hate all these people?

Brady runs out and find those things for Mia, leaving Carrie to cook the turkey (she does a terrible job and it’s still raw come dinnertime) and at this point in the episode, there’s only ten minutes left and I’m wondering, are they going to make Carrie try to fall in love with Victor Garber in the last moments of the show? Because as he flirts and mentions how he wants someone to share his big East Hampton house with, it’s clear this man is not for her but why is he even here? Charlotte pops in for a moment to drop off some stuffing, and explains that she wanted to set Carrie up with Mark because, as she says, “I thought you had a connection,” adding, “I just hated the fact that you think there’s no man out there.” Charlotte has been a great friend to all throughout this whole season, but her logic that she thinks Carrie will like Mark because he has his own plane feels misdirected and out of character.

Miranda finally returns to the apartment after consoling Joy and learning that Sappho the dog will be just fine, and that’s when EPCOT, who previously announced they he was lactose intolerant, makes a run for the bathroom after mainlining all the cheese. When Brady sees Mia also eating cheese (after she told him about her limited diet) he rightfully gets annoyed and flips out on her, so Miranda tries to calm him down, which Mia appreciates. And that’s how that whole story, the one that threatens to blow up all their lives, ends. Miranda proves to Mia that she’s not crazy or bipolar, Brady is mad at Miranda, and that’s the end of that…forever. We’ll never have to think about farting Mia ever again. Shitting EPCOT, on the other hand, has only just become a problem.

After the meal, all the 20-somethings take off, leaving just Carrie, Miranda, and Mark and the second instance of Too Much Bathroom in this episode. Carrie explains to Miranda that this whole meal was Charlotte’s attempt to set Carrie up with Mark, and she dreads having to say no to him when he inevitably asks to take her home. Turns out, Carrie doesn’t have to worry about that because while Mark is in the bathroom, peeing – we see the stream! It’s not necessary to see the stream! – the toilet, clogged from EPCOT’s cheese intolerance, starts to overflow.

Mark exits the bathroom to tell Miranda, “The toilet is overflowing and there seems to be no end,” adding that it totally wasn’t him, he has no issues digesting French cheese. And then, to Carrie’s relief, he tells her, “I’ll see myself out,” because he knows that in life, when it comes to bathroom stuff, the one who denied it supplied it.

As Miranda scrubs her bathroom floor, Joy shows up to her apartment later to thank her for being there for her at the vet. It brings Miranda to tears and yet, as gross as it is to image that they’re both kneeling on a floor that is most definitely a biohazard, it solidifies their relationship and if Miranda’s love life had to end this way, I don’t have any complaints.

Earlier in the episode, Carrie asks Charlotte, “Who will I be alone?” as she’s still unsure what her next chapter is going to be. “I have to quit thinking ‘maybe a man,’ and start thinking ‘maybe just me.’” And so, when Carrie returns to her big, empty house, she walks in the door – keeping her shoes on, like in the old days before Duncan – and turns on the karaoke machine Miranda had left there, cranking the music up to Barry White’s “You’re The First, The Last, My Everything” (my heart skipped a beat when I thought we might actually hear SJP sing! We don’t, not really.) As the music plays, we get a montage of everyone else in the cast as they end their Thanksgivings. (Most significantly, we see Giuseppe throwing a pie in Anthony’s face because off-camera, Anthony told him he has mommy issues, and Rock telling Charlotte she’s comfortable with Charlotte saving photos of them dressed as Millie from the school play, to soothe Charlotte’s guilt over this issue that sprang up last week.)

In the final moment, we see Carrie erasing the epilogue she wrote for her novel’s main character last week, revising it so that there’s no hint of a man coming in to save her heroine from a life of solitude. She writes, “The woman realized she was not alone. She was on her own.”

Yet it wasn’t this new epilogue, this reframing of Carrie’s situation that gives her agency over her singleness and her independence, that made me feel something as the show ended. No, it was the fact that the Sex and the City theme song played over the credits, which is the true nod to our love for these characters, that made me realize I’ll actually miss this show. At its worst, the show, at least seasons two and three, often felt out of touch and awkward, rewriting history for some of TV’s most beloved, iconic characters. At it’s best, it was a reminder that we’re constantly evolving, and that process usually involves growing pains, even in a fictional setting. And now, we can consider this show something like an old friend that now lives on an opposite coast (or, say, in London) – it’s not a daily presence, but I’m glad we had our time together.

And Just Like That Series Finale Honorable Mentions:

• “Who are those people with Mama Mia?” “Her backup singers.”
• “The turkey is raw.” “I guess the dark chestnut umber deceived us!” Victor Garber’s role is pretty thankless but I appreciate his delivery of this line.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.