Critics love to hate on Carrie and company. and their Sex and the City reboot, And Just Like That… I get it: the show is over the top. The fashion is fabulous, but it looks more like costumes than clothing. And the economics of their lives are wildly unrealistic. But that was always true.
When Sex and the City first aired, I was starting to practice as a therapist. Like many, I was captivated by the adventures of Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda. The series became, in a way, my “co-therapist.” Many of my clients at the time were young professionals—single, childless in their 30s, not marrying right out of college, navigating romantic lives different from that of their parents. Sex and the City made that experience visible, cool, and even aspirational. At the time, the idea that being a single woman in her 30s was appealing seemed downright revolutionary. It dove into the very dating questions my clients were asking, and rather than provide answers, the characters did something more important: They validated and celebrated the journey.
It was fantastical and relatable. Thirty-year-old me had never heard of Manolos until watching Carrie parade through a closet full of them—while supposedly living on a freelance writer’s income. In And Just Like That…, her finances make more sense after her marriage to Big, but the scale is still exaggerated. All of the characters’ lifestyles are glossy beyond recognition. And yet, that’s not the point. The fantastical backdrop makes room for the real questions the show has always asked.
Sex and the City celebrated an important idea: the process of becoming your own person and learning to choose relationships from strength rather than desperation. And Just Like That… continues that thread while adding another: relationships (even happy marriages) are never static. Like nature, people and relationships are always moving, growing, and evolving. Members of a couple, a family, or a friendship must adapt—or risk becoming stuck or stale.
This is, at heart, a systems theory insight. Systems theory, the framework that informs most couples and family therapy, holds that people don’t operate in a vacuum. We are shaped by—and shape—the systems around us. Like a mobile hanging from the ceiling, when one part shifts, the rest responds. Systems thinking helps us move from asking, “What’s wrong with me?” to “What’s happening around me, and how am I part of it?”
Seen through this lens, And Just Like That… is rich with systemic lessons. Season Three, which just wrapped up, is no exception:
- Charlotte and Harry may seem the most likely to have a happily ever after. However, they embrace but also struggle with their child’s gender explorations, they navigate Charlotte’s return to a career after years at home, and then they face Harry’s prostate cancer and the possible loss of their sexual life together.
- Carrie, widowed, admits that she always, through her entire adult life, imagined she would be with Big or Aidan. But she breaks up with Aidan and realizes she is, for the very first time, envisioning herself indefinitely on her own.
- Miranda discovers love with a woman and reshapes her family life into something unexpectedly beautiful. Just when life seems to settle, she must adjust to her son, Brady, preparing to have a child out of wedlock.
- LTW, Lisa, offers a realistic window into how even deeply happy marriages can be vulnerable to affairs—and what it takes to prevent it.
- Seema ends the season confronting her superficial veneer—can Seema still be Seema with a vegan Thanksgiving and a gardener boyfriend who doesn’t wear deodorant? (For the record, Adam’s singing “Bette Davis Eyes” to Seema was one of the most joyful and unexpected TV moments I’ve seen in ages.)
Each of these arcs shows how relationships, like all systems, adapt in response to change. They remind us that relationships don’t end with “happily ever after.” They are living systems, constantly negotiating losses, transitions, and new identities.
Full disclosure: In high school, I took jazz dance classes alongside Julie Rottenberg, the show’s brilliant writer and producer (and sometimes director). We never kept in touch, but I’ve admired her work through each incarnation of the show, and her grasp of intimacy and relational complexity continues to impress me. Perhaps this random overlap of our Philly childhoods and my subsequent fandom biases me in the show’s favor. But I think many of the show’s critics are overlooking how deeply this show’s characters have tracked the cultural conversations about intimacy and relationships.
Yes, I roll my eyes at the implausible wealth, the surgeries, the fantasy wardrobes. But I also enjoy them. And I also find myself moved. This season ended with a reminder that, in the end, we are all somewhat alone, regardless of our relationship status. The essential survival trick is to be authentically grounded—to be your own person, whether in or out of a relationship. That’s not just good television, that’s systems theory, brought to life.
