And Just Like That.. - Season 3, Episode 9

RIP
Carrie's and Aidan's Shitty Relationship

"Present Tense"
Original airdate: 7/24/2025

Episode summary: Miranda comes clean to Joy about her alcoholism. Seema uses a rock crystal as deodorant and gets BO. Carrie gives Aidan the heave-ho.

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Recap: Carrie returns home with her dry cleaning. She roams around her ginormous townhouse mansion looking for Aidan, and is annoyed to find him sitting in the courtyard, chatting it up with Duncan.  

When Seema wakes up after sleeping in, Adam enters the bedroom and leaps atop the bed for a morning smooch. He then presents her with a rock crystal to use as a deodorant stick - but she makes it clear she's not interested in risking stinking of BO.

Later, while primping for the day, Seema studies the rock crystal and foolishly decides 'why not give it a try?' 

Aidan asks Duncan what "the deal is" with his pipe smoking, so Duncan explains that he recently picked up the habit when he started writing the Margaret Thatcher biography. He says he considers it a touchstone to the people of Britain, and that it's a ritual that gets him in the mood to write. A vexed Carrie warns Aidan to drop the topic - but Duncan doesn't seem to mind Aidan's questions and reveals that his ex-wife hated the smell of pipes. When he mentions that they had no children, Aidan sanctimoniously retorts that having kids was the best thing he did with his ex. Carrie somehow restrains herself from irritably telling Aidan to shut his dumb pie-hole, tells Duncan she'll meet up with him later for their writing session, and heads back inside.

Charlotte is stumbling around her bedroom tidying up as she continues to suffer from vertigo. Harry, who's still pretty immobile himself due to his ginormously swollen balls, reminds her that she's supposed to be off her feet until the meds kick in. A few seconds later she falls over, but assures Harry she's OK...and please let this be the last time we ever hear about Charlotte's Sudden Onset Vertigo problems.

Carrie drops by The Patel Group, aka Seema's new loft office for her newly established real estate firm. While munching on sushi takeout, Carrie complains about Aidan chatting it up with Duncan, despite her expressed wish to keep them separated as much as possible. She tells Seema she's worried that Aidan is threatened by Duncan, adding that she cheated on Aidan with Mr. Big before moaning, "It was awful." Yes it (meaning your shitty behavior in Season 3) was indeed awful, Carrie. Seema says that that totally explains why Aidan was peppering both her and Adam with questions about Duncan during the previous episode, then urges her to have a heart-to-heart with Aidan about all this. Carrie gives that a hard no and says she can't bring herself to broach the topic, 'cause she's just so happy he's now able to spend a lot of time with her in New York. A few seconds later, Seema's assistant rushes in to inform her that he just scored her a meeting with the Atlas Telemarking Director (Martin Salizar) - and that it's in forty minutes, way across town. Seema looks alarmed by the tight timeline and immediately gets up and rushes out.

"I once cheated on Aidan by having sex with Big all over Manhattan."

"You're a bigger garbage person than I had originally assumed."

Herbert looks inside the fridge and starts railing about how much cheese there is, which he considers a tempting food/snack that's surely going to result in him regaining all the weight he recently lost. [I haven't noticed much of a difference in his physique, but OK.] His son Henry gives him a strange look and asks if he's talking to him - just as Lisa breezes into the kitchen. Herbert chides her for stocking angel hair pasta in the pantry...then goes more berserk when he finds a package of Nutty Buddies. Henry points out that the Nutty Buddies are his, and that he can safely eat them 'cause he's not fat - a remark which doesn't go over well with Herbert - and then Lisa dismissively tells Herbert to shut it and just start taking Ozempic like everyone else. 

Seema has raced across town, and is right on time for her meeting with Martin Salizar. When the waiter takes their drink orders, Martin comments on how pungent the guy's BO is. Seema looks aghast at the mention of BO, discreetly sniffs her pits, and realizes that she's the one emitting the stink. She hastily excuses herself to head over to the ladies room - but finds it occupied. She then fishes through her purse to find her travel sized deodorant stick...and is liberally applying it under her pits just as a woman exits the ladies room and looks visibly icked out. Seema needlessly natters to her, "I'm not this woman. I've seen this woman. I'm not this woman", then returns to her meeting. As with Charlotte's vertigo, I can only hope this is all the mileage as the writers were planning to squeeze out of Seema's deodorant vs. rock crystal conundrum.

Over at Miranda's apartment, Joy asks where her bottle of gin went, so Miranda sits her down and solemnly informs her that she threw it down the garbage chute 'cause she was too afraid to have it in the house [and didn't think to just promptly return it to her, like a normal person might]. She explains to Joy that she's an alcoholic who can't simply enjoy a cocktail here and there. Joy absorbs that uncomfortable truth for a few seconds, then muses about how she likes to drink whenever she feels bad about herself...and has suddenly realized that she might be using booze to dull her emotions. Miranda jokingly assures her that there's lots of room in her new apartment to house both of their emotional baggage.

Lisa and Marion are in the studio, continuing their work of editing the never-ending sheroes docuseries when Herbert calls Lisa to complain that he gained a pound. An exasperated Lisa reminds him that she's too busy to take these kinds of stupid calls, and urges him again to take Ozempic if he's so worried about his weight. 

Carrie and Duncan are in Duncan's apartment, immersed in their writing session, when Aidan drops by to cheerily announce, "I got steaks!" Carrie irritably tells him that she and Duncan are working, but that he should feel free to grill the steaks and start dinner without her. Aidan whines that he doesn't want to eat alone, then offers to grill the meat and then bring it downstairs so they can all eat together. Carrie nixes that idea and firmly says she neeeeeeeds to get back to work, and Aidan sulkily goes back upstairs. 

Anthony is hosting Patti LuPone for dinner in his studio apartment...and the spartan-ness of it surprised me, 'cause I thought he had inherited more of a luxury pad from Stanford when he bailed on the marriage to become a Shinto monk. When Anthony asks Patti LuPone why she seems to hate him so much, she tells him that-a her husband, with whom she fell a-passionately in love, was thirty a-years her senior...and that when she was in the prime-a of her life, she was forced to become his full time nurse-a-maid. Anthony points out that he's not all that old (sixty-two), and that he can offer Guiseppe "bread and love". Patti LuPone finally decides to drop her phony Italian accent and talk more like the American from Buffalo she is when she wearily suggests, "Let's cut the shit, shall we?" [yes please] and asks him how much money he wants in exchange for getting out of Guiseppe's life. Anthony calls her out on her bullshit fancy airs and likens her to "my manipulative Aunt Miccolina, the Boston bookie with the beard". Patti LuPone reacts to that insult by springing up from her chair, snapping at him to get his "old man ass" out of her son's life, then swipes everything atop the dining table and sends it crashing to the floor. As Anthony looks at her in shock and suggests she seek out a therapist asap, Patti LuPone looks horrified at her violent action and makes a weak attempt to tidy the mess. She begins tidying up by picking up a large knife - just as Guiseppe happens to enter the apartment at that exact moment and is all, "Ack! Mama!" Anthony accusingly barks, "I told you! She's trying to kill me!" while Patti LuPone looks dazed and discombobulated. She spacily tells Guiseppe (in Italian) that if he wants this mess of a relationship he can have it - but that she'll no longer support him financially, or ever be willing to speak of this chapter in his life. After she ambles out, Guiseppe fibs and tells Anthony she had merely expressed her thanks for the home-cooked dinner, and Anthony just kind of shrugs and says, "OK, let's think that." Yes. Let's.

"You're too old to be dating my young son."

"There are so many more compelling reasons to find me objectionable."

Carrie returns home after her hours-long writing session with Duncan. She notices that Aidan left out a plate filled with raw steaks (instead of putting them in the damn fridge), and quickly heads upstairs. She finds Aidan brooding in bed and thanks him for being so understanding of her wanting to provide Duncan with literary feedback for his Thatcher bio. When she tries to canoodle him, he sniffs her and snaps, "Get away from me. You smell like smoke" and bitchily tells her to shower. Carrie absorbs the verbal smack by silently leaving the room while he stares after with an irked expression.

After showering, Carrie retires to the guest room...and a few seconds later, Aidan enters the room and urges her to return to their bed. She refuses and coldly tells him to shut the door behind him. Ouch.

The next morning, Carrie makes clear to Aidan that he irritated the shit out of her for even talking to Duncan in the courtyard. Aidan weakly claims that he was on the terrace when Duncan emerged from his hovel, and that it would have been weird to not say hello - but Carrie correctly assumes that he was on the terrace specifically waiting for Duncan to show himself so that he could figure out if anything resembling hanky panky was going on between them. Aidan snaps, "This is such bullshit, Carrie", and Carrie crankily tells him she's going for a solitary walk.

Carrie finds herself in a nearby shoe store, where Andy Cohen works as a clerk. This cameo seemed fairly random - until I Googled and learned that Sarah Jessica Parker and Andy Cohen are long-time friends. A few seconds later, Carrie gets a text from Aidan, inviting her to meet him at 2pm at their favorite outdoor patio.

When Carrie arrives at the patio restaurant, Aidan admits that, yep, he definitely has trust issues with her when it comes to other men. Carrie stops him and asks him to specify whether he means has trust issues or had trust issues, then says he should have said had. She goes on to insist that she's done nothing (lately) to be ashamed of, and that he just sounds jealous and suspicious. Aidan grumbles, "Can you fucking blame me?" to which she counters, "Can you stop fucking blaming me?" then gets up and rushes off. Aidan gets up and runs after her, so she whirls around and incredulously asks, "How dare you?" and reminds him that she's done everything to earn his trust and show her commitment to him, not least by buying a ginormous townhouse mansion to accommodate him and his kids. She cries, "I was one hundred percent in! One hundred percent!", and Aidan stops her and asks, "Was or am?" Carrie shakes her head and declares that she can't give him any more than she has...and that she also hated having to deal with his family problems (mostly creepy Wyatt). Aidan mulls that over and says he needs one hundred percent, and she quietly retorts, "So do I." He suddenly looks mournful and tells her he feels sad and was sure they'd make it this time, and Carrie admits that she too is sad and leans against him for a goodbye hug. Phew and thank goooooooodness this train wreck of a badly rekindled relationship is finally over. 

"I once opted to be 100% into this deteriorating relationship."

"Did you say deteriorating or deteriorated?"

Later, Carrie takes down all of the Virginia postcards Aidan had mailed to her earlier in the season. She then tidies the guest room and cuddles Shoo.

Later, Carrie gussies herself up and heads out to a fancy restaurant, where she meets up with Charlotte, Miranda, and Seema. She caps off the episode voice-overing about how "the woman" realized her love with "the man" was locked in the past, which meant that they had no future. The camera then pans out as she happily chats it up with her gal pals...and I can't help but wonder why Carrie is so weirdly stubborn about naming the characters in her new fiction novel.

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