‘And Just Like That’ Producers Dish on Pivotal Split

And just like that, Carrie Bradshaw’s second chance at love with Aidan has come to an abrupt ending. Given their circumstances, with Aidan having committed to spending the next five years in Virginia raising his youngest son, maybe the writing was always on the wall. Neither of them is getting any younger, and asking someone to wait for you for half a decade seems pretty unrealistic.

In the end, it was Aidan’s trust issues that ultimately led to their downfall. According to a new interview with TVLine, “And Just Like That” executive producer Elisa Zuritsky, says that writers knew pretty early into working on Season 3 that the couple would ultimately split.

Aidan’s Jealousy Over Duncan Unraveled His Relationship With Carrie

Warner Bros. Discovery

In Season 3 of “And Just Like That,” Carrie has a new downstairs neighbor named Duncan, who just so happens to be a writer. The two have developed a pattern of meeting up in the evenings to share their work. In the most recent episode, Aidan started to show numerous signs of both jealousy and insecurity, which led to his intruding on their writing sessions. Carrie became furious that the man who had just recently cheated on her with his ex, Cathy, was now suspecting her of things that she wasn’t doing.

It all circles back to 20+ years ago, when Carrie first cheated on Aidan with Big on “Sex and the City. “How is it possible that I haven’t earned your trust by now? I was one hundred percent in.” Carrie yelled at Aidan. The emphasis was on the word “was,” with both Carrie and Aidan realizing that there was no way that this love could work.

Elisa Zuritsky tells TVLine of the duo’s ability to stay together, “It did feel like too much to ask of those two people, especially with their baggage.”

Why the Writers Took This Path With Carrie and Aidan

Warner Bros Discovery

“And Just Like That” EP Elisa Zuritsky says that “it wasn’t a fiery debate in the (writers’) room. I think it really came down to the way the previous season ended, with Aidan’s family proving to be such an obstacle. (The writers) really did want to play it out in the real world and think of [Carrie and Aidan] as real people, and take them out of the fantasy Disney prince and princess happy ending that we were kind of playing with in Season 2.”

Fellow executive producer, Julie Rottenberg, explains that Carrie and Aidan “are, in many ways, maybe older, wiser people” now, but “what comes out in that last scene, in a way, it’s like everything that’s always right under the surface. It all boils down to that. I think we all knew their problems were systemic enough that they would not survive.”

Just because it seemed like the obvious outcome doesn’t mean it was an easy decision to make. Rottenberg says, “When it came closer and closer to shooting that scene, the breakup scene, and I think part of it is Sarah Jessica [Parker] and John Corbett have such an incredible bond and chemistry and relationship as both actors and as the characters, I did start to worry. I got a little panicky. ‘Should we not be doing this? Should we not be breaking them up?’… I remember feeling a little panicked as it got closer, like: ‘Are we making a mistake?’ I almost felt like I was in the breakup!”

Zuritsky says that all through Season 3, writers planted little seeds of frustration so that the split didn’t really come out of thin air. “Knowing that at some point towards the end of the season we were going to break them up, we had to spend most of our time really getting into: What are the stepping stones to earn this mutual giving up? Really, no one breaks up with the other. They kind of reach a moment where they have to admit that they both feel exhausted by the trying of it. It took a lot of time to build the fracture that became the break.”

How do you feel about Carrie and Aidan’s split? Was it inevitable, or were you hoping that the second time around would work?

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