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‘And Just Like That’ Wants Us to Pretend Carrie’s Lazy Novel Is a Work of Genius

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For fans who’ve embraced and enjoyed “And Just Like That“, the goofy aspects of the “Sex and the City” sequel are part of the enjoyment. Over three seasons, we’ve laughed heartily at Mr. Big’s demise via Peloton, cringed deeply with Miranda’s relationship with Che Diaz, and cheered on Charlotte and Harry’s quirky “The Americans”-inspired romance. Not long ago, we delighted in Carrie, the shoe enthusiast, stubbornly refusing to take off her high heels at home following a tiff with her downstairs neighbor and potential love interest, Duncan Reeves.

In the seventh episode of Season 3, airing on Thursday, And Just Like That… seemed to step over the border between entertaining fiction and outright manipulation. Throughout the season, Carrie, a former sex columnist, podcaster, and memoirist, has been experimenting with historical fiction. The episodes often feature Sarah Jessica Parker’s voiceover, mirroring the witty narration from Sex and the City. However, these passages are poorly written, which isn’t necessarily an issue given that we all know Carrie is a mediocre writer. What pushed me over the edge on this storyline was the scene where she exchanged manuscripts with Duncan, a renowned biographer. His enthusiastic response to her writing shatters any notion that Carrie’s clunky prose is meant as an in-joke between the show’s creators and viewers. Instead, we’re expected to believe that the novel is of high quality.

The story begins with a distraught Carrie knocking on Duncan’s door. She angrily declares, “I can’t stand you!” She’s frustrated because his initial chapter is captivating, polished, and ready for publication. Now, she feels unable to share her unfinished work with him. However, she gathers her courage and visits him again to extend a (rude) last-minute party invitation. To her surprise, he has already read it and offers his praise: “It’s exceptional.” (Perhaps, given the popularity of authors like Colleen Hoover and E.L. James, it could be publishable. Exceptional, though?) The opening line particularly caught her attention: “The woman questioned what she had signed up for.” (That line certainly grabbed my attention, too, but only because it seemed to echo every clichéd, attention-grabbing beginning from every creative writing workshop since their inception.) As for the storyline, Carrie found the pacing to be very engaging. (We can’t comment on the plot; AJLT only shares the emotionally charged, thoughtful passages with us.)

Perhaps Duncan is attempting to win Carrie over, but it seems unusual for someone as arrogant as him. However, his actions don’t add up in a logical manner. For instance, moving to one of the most costly and distracting cities globally just to write about Margaret Thatcher, without any connections there, seems questionable. One might think he could rent a quiet cabin in the woods instead. But considering he appears sincere, let’s explore that angle. However, the idea of him deceiving Carrie goes against the usual narrative style of AJLT, which tends to avoid such complexities.

It’s plausible that he is right, given that art is subjective. Therefore, it’s important for us to scrutinize thoroughly the significant parts of the novel AJLT that Carrie has presented so far. Let’s pay attention to the passage she typed in her garden during a work session disrupted by a group of rats.

Basking in the sunshine, the woman found a sense of clarity as the lingering mist from recent nights dissipated. She understood that her restless sleep, doubts, and apprehensions belonged to an earlier era. This was a fresh abode, she reminded herself. A fresh start. This wasn’t her history… It was her present. May, 1846.

This narrative exhibits common flaws in writing style. It excessively employs weather as a symbol of the protagonist’s mood, who is repeatedly referred to as “the woman.” This repetitive label comes off as pretentious. The thoughts we are privy to through Carrie’s close third-person narration appear as mundane exposition disguised as internal dialogue, suggesting our unnamed heroine might not be the sharpest tool in the shed. It’s unnecessary for her to constantly remind herself of trivial details like her house being new or living in the present, considering everyone on earth has always experienced their current moment in time. Furthermore, it seems there are more elegant ways to establish that the story takes place in May, 1846.

Episode 5 featured an even longer excerpt:

The woman flung wide her windows, inviting the city inside. She could pick up the sound of horses clip-clopping with their carriages, each one hinting at a new opportunity. An unexpected gust of cool air on this sweltering day made her realize that every day doesn’t have to be a carbon copy of the last. There are countless adventures waiting, if she only dared to choose them. One foot in front of the other, she departed from the usual route and pledged to follow wherever the day might lead her.

This analogy about the summer breeze is a bit confusing; it doesn’t immediately connect with concepts like spontaneity or repetition. Similarly, a carriage horse might as well bring mundane deliveries as an exciting possibility. While we can forgive poetic license for figurative language, it should still make some semblance of sense. Lastly, the closing sentences read like overused motivational phrases and feel out of place in a 19th-century setting. Additionally, there’s a slight inconsistency in verb tenses that could cause confusion: “There are endless adventures to be taken, if she simply dared to take them.

Instead of scrutinizing every detail of the prose we’ve encountered so far, I choose not to delve deeply into it. It might surprise you to know that I am fully cognizant of the fact that examining a fictional work by a fictitious author is an absurd use of one’s precious time when there are countless real-world issues demanding attention. Moreover, I understand that Carrie’s novel serves as a narrative frame, and as such, the unnamed protagonist and awkward metaphors serve less as elements of an engaging story and more as windows into Carrie’s thoughts and feelings.

A viewer who is both a reader and a spectator may tolerate limited amounts of literary manipulation. This week’s installment concludes with another empty declaration from the book: “The woman clung to what she believed was genuine,” Parker states, as we observe Carrie holding her cat (are pets capable of determining truth?). However, there’s one certainty this woman holds: Carrie Bradshaw is not an exceptional novelist.

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2025-07-11 05:06

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