We gotta hand it to And Just Like That—the show really knows how to keep Carrie and Aidan’s relationship intriguing. (Fair warning now: Spoilers ahead.)
In the sixth episode of this season, which was directed by writer and executive producer Julie Rottenberg, Aidan visits Carrie at their Gramercy Park apartment and tells her that he slept with his ex-wife Kathy after another incident with Wyatt. Apparently Wyatt wouldn’t get on an airplane, and it was so emotionally taxing for Kathy and Aidan that the parents ended up finding comfort in each other. Whatever you think of their decision—that’s a discussion for another day—Aidan tells Carrie that he and Kathy both know it was a mistake. Carrie is stunned but tells him that she understands how it could happen.
Aidan continues to apologize for betraying Carrie, but she doesn’t see it that way. (I know, right?) Aidan is confused and says, “We agreed to wait for each other, and I slept with someone else….” Carrie counters by saying that she didn’t agree to not sleeping with other people.
Here’s what follows:
Though Carrie understands why he slept with Kathy, she’s having a harder time understanding why they haven’t had this conversation about the ground rules of their arrangement until now. He asks if she wants to sleep with other people, to which she says, “No, I want to sleep with you. And I still want that.” Cut to later, and they’re in bed together.
At the end of the episode, Carrie via voiceover says that the bond with her and Aidan is stronger than any glass. (Remember, he broke the door window of their place when he first arrived.) He says he’ll call her when he gets back home to Virginia; she replies that he is home. He kisses her and goes to the kitchen to make coffee. That’s when the downstairs neighbor, Duncan, shows up. He gives Aidan a chapter of his book to give to Carrie, and a skeptical Aidan says he’ll make sure she gets it. Later, by the end of the episode, Carrie wakes up, sees the manuscript on the table, and is puzzled how it got there.
So, what did Sarah Jessica Parker think when she read the script for this episode and discovered what happened between Aidan and Kathy? “I was happy,” Parker tells Glamour. “I’m always happy for big stories and stuff that complicates things. I want all of that. I didn’t think that it was unrealistic. I didn’t think it seemed put on for a story. It felt like, Yeah, this is the ways in which people might reach for one another when things are so fraught, when it feels so scary, when you have such concerns about your child. It’s possible that this is the way you comfort one another.”
Parker goes on to say that Carrie’s reaction once again shows a level of maturity that is what you’d hope to see in a life lived. “When you’re in your 50s, you listen differently and you allow people to disappoint themselves, disappoint you, and that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the line.”
Rottenberg, who directed the episode, knows fans will be divided over Aidan’s confession. “I know many people who were so in love with Aidan and felt like he could do no wrong,” she says. “I know there’s still a divide, but I can’t believe so many people have turned so hard on him and then are very critical of him to the point of saying he’s making excuses for his kid and he’s too protective of his kid.”
As I myself pointed out a couple weeks ago, Aidan and Carrie’s blended-family storyline is the most realistic one the show has done to date. No one can totally understand how a child with behavioral or learning issues, no matter how old they are, impacts a family or relationship unless they’ve seen it up close or lived through it. The same is true here.
“I guess that means we’ve done our jobs well if there is such a heated debate on both sides of seeing both perspectives and just how messy those relationships become,” Rottenberg says. “The fact that he made her sleep in the guest room because he didn’t want to surprise them with that in the morning, that made perfect sense to me. But so many people were like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe he made her sleep in the guest house like that.’”
Below, Rottenberg explains how the writing team arrived at the decision for Kathy and Aidan to sleep together, what Carrie’s response really means, and where things go from here.
Glamour: That was quite the revelation from Aidan that he and Kathy slept together. As well as Carrie’s reaction. Tell me about that scene.
Julie Rottenberg: It was my writing partner, Elisa Zuritsky, who had the idea, “What if he slept with Kathy?” The whole room gasped. There was just this, ‘Oh,’ and we realized that’s what could happen.
As shocking as that felt, obviously, there’s all the past infidelity on Carrie’s part, so that plays into it. What we really drilled down to was his guilty conscience, which is played out over the first half of the episode. You see how out of adjustment he is from the window breaking and him desperately overcompensating. He’s desperate to fix this window, which is obviously about so much more…. It’s about this thing he’s carrying around weighing on his conscience. Finally unburdening himself of it isn’t the thing that really turns the scene; it’s when he says, “I betrayed you.”
We’re going back to that night of what they agreed to, and all this time that she’s been participating in this—let’s face it—insane agreement of being apart and “waiting for him.” What that brings up when she says, “Did you really think I was not going to have sex with anyone else?”
When she said that, I was like, Wow.
To me as a director, that scene is both simple and very complicated because we didn’t want a lot of action. We literally wanted them just standing there. You see there’s some movement, but it’s mostly all about this dynamic where these two people who know each other so well and are trying to be, as Sarah Jessica said, mature, good listeners, but also trying to be as honest as they can. Walking that delicate line of showing some anger, showing some pain, and pushing the boundaries was all really important.
It was almost like we were driving this car on a very tight tightrope and trying to stay true to what would actually happen when you’ve been in a relationship for so many years. You know this person, you know the bruises, you know what the third rail is, and for them, this topic of infidelity is right there. It’s always there even if we’re not talking about it.
Absolutely.
It’s a really long scene for just two people standing there talking. I felt like both Sarah Jessica and John were so able to be really honest with each other as actors, as the roles they were playing. I think you saw that sort of desperate attempt to…when you’re really angry at someone but you’re also trying to show that you love them and to try to disarm them a little. When Carrie says, “This is so medieval,” she’s almost trying to defuse the situation without compromising her own feelings about it.
I can’t wait to see what fans have to say about it. Some will be confused why she’s not more upset with him, but I thought Carrie handles it so maturely. I’m so curious to see how this will land.
Yeah, I am too. It’s interesting when she’s thinking out loud, like, “I can see how that could happen.” It’s a very, you could say, cerebral response. Like, theoretically, she understands that and is trying to almost distance herself from a more visceral reaction. The visceral reaction comes a moment later. I would argue all this time she’s been a “good girl.” She’s been playing along. She’s been pivoting every time he changes the rules. “Okay, you’re going to call me?” Okay. I guess we’re talking on the phone. We’re doing phone sex. “Oh, surprise, you’re in my house?” Okay, I guess we're doing that. “Oh, you’re going back to Virginia?” I guess I’m okay with that. “Oh, suddenly I'm in Virginia? I’m being invited over?” Oh.
You get more of a window into her actual anger about what she’s been doing. It’s not a total combustion. We’ve got more episodes coming your way. But what I liked both as a fan and as the director was seeing her finally be able to push back a little and say no. It’s almost like, “I agreed to a lot, but not that. Let’s think about for a minute what you asked of me.”
Exactly.
As actors, they’re both so good at really listening in the moment and being able to think about it in different ways as they discovered the scene. Obviously, John and Sarah Jessica have been working together for, what, 25 years? So it felt like a catharsis, and Carrie and Aidan were able to get somewhere new after that conversation. They finally had a real conversation. After Aidan confesses and Carrie doesn’t lash out at him, it almost felt like he wanted more…like he wanted to be spanked or yelled at.
The opposite of what he thought she’d do.
Right. And just him standing there…we talked about whether they ever sit down? I really liked that they were trapped there with each other with no armor. No one’s holding a glass of water. No one’s fidgeting with anything. We wanted them really alone with this situation.
They’re talking about this real thing, the elephant in the room that they haven’t been talking about. That thing where you want to pretend something didn’t happen a long time ago, and then you have to face it. How different is it going to be now than back when she cheated on him? They’re different people now.
Very different people. Same chemistry, but very different people. Going forward, what can you tease as we see the fallout?
I’ll just say, keep watching. We were all there for the first series. I mean, not all of us literally. There were different writers, some writers, some old ones. But we made very conscious decisions based on everything we know. If you’re playing along at home, you’ve known these people for a long time. Some we’ve known longer than others, but everything comes into play.
This is the relationship we’re all most invested in. I think the fact that people also are like, “Why is Carrie putting up with this?” is so interesting to me. You learn a lot about people, let’s put it that way, from their response to these characters.
One other thing I want to say that’s important to me is that the whole episode, she’s trying to connect with Aidan. She just wants to be with him. She wants him to come to bed, she wants to have sex with him, and he’s not letting her in. So, I think in that moment when he says, “Do you want to have sex with other people?” and she says, “I want to have sex with you,” it’s like, “I’m right here in front of you, and you’re missing it.” It’s both strong and vulnerable on her part. It’s like, “That’s all I’ve wanted to do since you got here.” That’s the most painful part, I think. They almost can’t get out of their own way in this episode.
You know when you know something’s up with someone, but you don’t want to believe it? It’s frustrating, and so I think in a way…for her to just be like, “Can we talk about what’s actually going on? You’ve been weird since you got here.” That’s when you feel like you’re being gaslit, and then it’s finally like, Oh, it’s not just me; I’m not crazy—there was something going on. That’s the catharsis in this scene for me, the relief for her of having felt like, Is something up? What is going on? I’m not crazy. I’m not paranoid. Something was going on.
I also want to see how boyfriend Bob reacts to Kathy sleeping with Aidan.
That’s funny.
I want to see the fallout for that, Julie. When do I get that scene?
That’s hilarious. I’m going to write that just for you.
