I Couldn't Help But Wonder...
What if AJLT's most egregious sin is what it makes us reconsider?
The WORST part of And Just Like That (besides the plot, acting, wardrobe, inauthentic virtue signaling, and absurd character development) is that it slays the myth of “the One Who Got Away.”
No one wants to hear it, but the One Who Got Away doesn’t exist. And even IF they did, Aidan and Carrie certainly weren’t that to each other.
It’s rare that I would condone choosing cigarettes over human connection, but Season 4 Samantha was correct in her “granola. So not you” assessment. Carrie and Aidan should have had a laugh about their differences and then proceeded to leave each other alone.
Of course, there wouldn’t be much fun to that, and one could make the case that Aidan’s character is a necessary contrast to Mr. Big. The original SATC built an impressive tension between the man who doesn’t care enough and the man who cares too deeply.
In fact, the most brilliant thing about the original series was that every character was deeply flawed. And yet, the show’s writing portrayed their flaws with a compassion and awareness that made them more relatable to the viewer. This is a primary pillar of what the spin-off writers fail to achieve the most spectacularly.
In the original series, we could recognize toxic behaviors or dynamics without extrapolating it to mean that the characters themselves were fundamentally irredeemably toxic. It’s how we could make it to the end of the series with a vague sense that yes, Carrie bagged Big, but Aidan was ultimately the OWGA (yes, this piece needed an extra acronym).
Whether intentional or not, that notion is exactly what AJLT unceremoniously dismantles. Over the course of its three seasons, I’ve been more and more convinced that Big and Carrie may have been the perfect fit.
Is there ever a “One Who Got Away?”
The human experience is varied and nuanced enough that nothing can be true for everyone at every time. That being said, it is common human nature to romanticize the past, to fixate on what could have been as an alternative to truly embracing the unknown.
We’re wired to be uncomfortable with endings. Our biology keeps us hesitant over going off script. Letting go is an often messy, tangled process. (Funnily enough, I see this trait as being part of the reason why spin-offs are usually at least financially successful).
And so we create archetypes, stories we can use to soothe ourselves. Often in the wake of a painful breakup, we turn the other person into an idealized version of themselves. They become our OWGA.
And while we can rely on internal strategies to mindset hack our way back down to earth, sometimes the most effective way to get there is actually letting what could have been play out in reality. Experience isn’t always the best teacher, but sometimes we have to let ourselves get hurt in order to truly drive the point home.
That’s what Carrie and Aidan do for us in Season 3 of AJLT.
They play it out.
And in doing so, they prove once and for all that going backwards doesn’t work.
Now let’s see if this week’s episode turns them into a metaphor for the whole entire show.
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