A Fond Farewell to Carrie and Friends
The story of Carrie Bradshaw and her friends will end once again, this time for good. HBO Max has decided that And Just Like That—the much-anticipated Sex and the City revival series—will not return for a fourth season. The show wraps up with its third season, marking a bittersweet goodbye to characters who have shaped TV pop culture for over two decades.
Fans hoping for more cosmopolitans and dinner table confessions got their answers on August 1, 2025. Showrunner Michael Patrick King publicly confirmed that the upcoming 12th episode will serve as the series finale. This finale drops on August 14. That’s two extra episodes than they originally planned, giving the show a bigger sendoff with a dramatic two-part ending.
The Decision Behind the Curtain
There wasn’t backstage drama or ratings disaster leading to the end. Instead, King—a driving force behind both the original Sex and the City and this revival—explained that he, star Sarah Jessica Parker, HBO boss Casey Bloys, and Sarah Aubrey, who heads up original content at HBO Max, made the decision together. They felt they’d reached a natural finish for these characters. King said, “While I was writing the last episode of And Just Like That... season 3, it became clear to me that this might be a wonderful place to stop.”
The showrunner also shared that he and SJP chose their timing carefully, not wanting the label of “final season” to weigh down viewers’ enjoyment. Their focus: let fans watch and savor the last adventures in the moment rather than mourn the end early.
The show has always lived with big expectations—fair or not. When Sex and the City left TV in 2004, it closed a major chapter on New York City friendship and modern romance. Then came two big films, and, years later, the revival. For some, And Just Like That... tapped into nostalgia with fan-favorite callbacks and fresh storylines. For others, especially with critics, it never quite recaptured the original’s magic. But it certainly took risks, giving space to both beloved and new faces as they tackled dating, identity, and friendships at a stage in life where TV often goes silent.
Season 3 has focused on the seismic shifts facing these characters—like changing career goals, evolving relationships, and the quirks of modern New York. Whether everyone was on board or not, nobody can say the writers didn’t let these women grow and face the world’s changes head-on.
When episode 12 airs, the last chapter is officially written. But, as anyone who’s followed the Sex and the City universe knows, lasting influence doesn’t end when the credits roll. Somewhere out there, we’ll all keep guessing what Carrie would have written for her column next.
5 Comments
Jess Bryan
August 10, 2025 AT 22:16 PMLet’s be real-HBO Max didn’t cancel this because the story was done. They killed it because Sarah Jessica Parker’s salary was eating the entire content budget and the streaming numbers were worse than a 2007 MySpace profile. They’re just too scared to admit they wasted $200 million on nostalgia that didn’t translate to ad revenue. The ‘natural ending’? A PR bandage over a financial hemorrhage.
And don’t even get me started on how they ‘gave space to new faces’-that’s code for ‘we forced diversity into a show that never asked for it.’ This wasn’t evolution. It was corporate box-ticking with a Manhattan skyline filter.
Next up: ‘And Just Like That... But With More Subtitles and Less Chemistry.’
Ronda Onstad
August 11, 2025 AT 02:27 AMI think the decision to end it here was actually really beautiful, even if it wasn’t perfect. There’s something honest about letting a story breathe its last when it’s still got dignity left-instead of dragging it out until everyone’s cringing at the same old jokes. I remember watching the original in college, staying up late with my roommate, crying over Carrie’s red shoes and laughing at Miranda’s deadpan delivery. This version didn’t capture that magic, sure-but it tried to grow up with us, and that’s more than most shows do.
Season 3 gave us Charlotte navigating motherhood without losing herself, Miranda redefining success on her own terms, and Carrie… well, Carrie still writing columns about men who don’t deserve her, but now with therapy receipts. It’s messy. It’s real. And sometimes, that’s enough.
I’m not mad they ended it. I’m just sad I won’t get to see them all sit around that table one more time, sipping something pink and pretending they’re still 28.
Thank you for the memories, even the awkward ones.
Steven Rodriguez
August 11, 2025 AT 13:38 PMLet me be perfectly clear: this cancellation is an outright betrayal of American storytelling values. The original Sex and the City was a cultural monument to individualism, urban ambition, and the unapologetic pursuit of happiness-values that are being systematically erased by woke bureaucrats and streaming algorithms obsessed with ‘representation’ over narrative integrity.
And now, after three seasons of pandering to demographic checkboxes and diluting the essence of New York’s most iconic women into bland, performative identity politics, HBO Max has the gall to call this a ‘natural ending’? Natural? It’s a surrender. A capitulation to the mob that thinks a woman in her 50s can’t have a complicated love life unless she’s also a non-binary yoga instructor with a podcast.
They didn’t end it because the story was complete. They ended it because the real story-the one about American cultural decline-was too painful to watch. The writers didn’t lose their way. We lost our way.
And now? Now we’re left with nothing but reruns and a hollow echo of what once was. Shame on them. Shame on all of us for letting it get this far.
Zara Lawrence
August 13, 2025 AT 01:33 AMIt is, of course, entirely unsurprising that HBO Max has terminated this production. One need only examine the financial disclosures from Q2 2025 to deduce that the series was operating at a loss per viewer, exacerbated by the exorbitant remuneration of its lead actress, whose public persona now appears to be inextricably entangled with the character she portrays-thereby rendering the show less a fictional narrative and more a prolonged, ill-advised publicity stunt.
Furthermore, the decision to extend the season by two episodes was not an act of artistic generosity, but a transparent attempt to artificially inflate metrics before the ax fell. The so-called ‘natural conclusion’ is, in truth, a euphemism for contractual obligation fulfilled and investor patience exhausted.
I must also note, with grave concern, that the inclusion of a character with a non-binary identity, introduced without narrative cohesion or thematic relevance, suggests a deliberate prioritization of performative inclusivity over narrative coherence-a trend which, if left unchallenged, will render all future television productions indistinguishable from corporate diversity training modules.
One can only hope that the next cultural artifact to emerge from this industry will be less a product of algorithmic compromise and more a testament to human truth.
Ashley Hasselman
August 13, 2025 AT 14:51 PMThey ended it because no one watched it, and the only people who did were crying over Carrie’s third divorce while their own dating life is a Netflix documentary waiting to happen. Congrats, HBO-you just spent $300 million to make a 12-episode soap opera for people who still think ‘I’m a walking contradiction’ is a personality.
At least the finale had a good outfit.