This article contains spoilers. Do not read on unless you have watched season two, episode seven of And Just Like That.
Of all Carrie Bradshaw’s great loves in HBO’s Sex and the City, Aidan Shaw was a fan favourite. Played with masculine rusticity by John Corbett, his sturdy furniture and sturdier forearms charmed viewers – and Carrie – into thinking he might even oust Mr Big from his lascivious limo.
Aidan whisks Carrie into a Mills & Boon world of woodland cabins, leather love seats and sunset sidewalk proposals. “Wow it’s like a Danielle Steel novel in here,” chuckled Carrie in season three’s incredibly titled episode, Are We Sluts?, bursting into a tableau involving candles, opera music, bath bubbles and leather thong necklaces. Then, she cheats on him – an act that was virtually unheard of in a romantic comedy at the time (now more than 20 years ago). It redefined Carrie as an antihero, and the show as something much more dangerous and intelligent than a spicy late-night sitcom. And, ultimately, it all ended in tears (unless we count a furtive souk snog in the inexcusable second movie, but the less said about that, the better). Carrie married Mr Big, while Aidan started a family with someone else.
Now, Aidan is back. Carrie has by no means been resting on her Manolos since Mr Big died in a shocking Peloton-related incident in the opening episode of And Just Like That season one. Single again, she has since recorded an audiobook, been fired from a podcast and had a tryst with a tech millionaire (haven’t we all), and is feeling fresh and ready to date. She even reached out to her most significant ex over email: “Hey Stranger… Remember me?”
We found out that Carrie’s ex-lover has seamlessly transitioned from dashingly handsome farmboy type, to dashingly handsome ageing-country music star type. He has got a lionish mane of hair that puts Liam Neeson’s to shame, and – in stills from a later episode – somehow seems to be wearing violet chinos without coming across as Manhattan’s answer to Michael Portillo.
Aidan commits a classic romcom error by “accidentally” asking Carrie on a date on Valentine’s Day. Carrie, being Carrie, is already having an existential crisis. “What if he’s different?” she frets in the foyer of a spa that looks like a branch of Oliver Bonas. “What if I’m different.” She heads off to meet Aidan at the wrong Italian restaurant, but when the two finally do meet, the chemistry is palpable. Sarah Jessica Parker, always consummate in this role she was born to play, does the first date/first reunion jitters wonderfully, and Corbett brings new emotion to the often fairly staid Aidan character.
After the date, a heart-rending scene, which again feels familiar, takes place in front of Carrie’s apartment. Aidan is initially triggered and trepidatious at seeing the same old front door and steps, with bad memories flooding back and throwing today’s world into sharp relief. But things come to a romantic conclusion. It’s another deftly meta move in a season that has commendably – for the most part – got meta right.
Aidan is back to stay, for now. He is a welcome addition but the show is already teeming with characters and storylines. Assuming he becomes part of the (leather-upholstered) furniture, viewers now have nine main characters to keep track of, and that’s not even counting the kids. We also have Samantha Jones’s internet-breaking return on the horizon, although rumour has it that that’s likely to be no more than a phone-in.
Will Aidan’s reintroduction delight fans? This season of And Just Like That has ironed out many of its previous mistakes with a fresher script, an engaged cast and smart plot decisions. But with a waning audience and still some slight bemusement among diehards, the reintroduction of the Sex and the City love interest might not be enough to keep viewers happy. As Carrie mused at her laptop back in 2003: “I couldn’t help but wonder … why do we keep investing?”
And Just Like That is streaming now on NowTV, Sky and HBO Max. Dylan B Jones is co-presenter of So I Got to Thinking, the UK’s biggest Sex and he City podcast.
