And Just Like That, Aidan Is Back

And his coat is universally hated.

The official podcast for And Just Like That interviewed Michael Patrick King and several of the writers about this week’s Return of Aidan — I’m assuming they pre-recorded these before the strike, unless there is a podcast exemption? — and there are several morsels in this coverage of that chat to discuss. One is that it SOUNDS like almost the entire writers’ room was (politely) against this idea and MPK was the primary one arguing for it. Episode writer Samantha Irby is either the lone Aidan ally, or just a really, really good team player, because she said:

“Aidan, in the original series, was Carrie’s best boyfriend. He is the one who should have won,” explained Irby on the show’s official And Just Like That… The Writers Room podcast.

She continued:

“Aidan is so hot. He’s so nice. He builds furniture with his hands. He and Carrie had such an insane chemistry, it was like jumping off the screen. They just looked so good and perfect.”

I love Samantha Irby and think everyone should buy and read her books many times over, but on this point we do not concur. Saying Aidan was Carrie’s best boyfriend on Sex and the City is a little like saying that mice are the best rodents to have in your walls, or that you think any one major Florida college football team is better than the others: In fact, there ARE no winners in that company¹. But Aidan really isn’t it. After they got back together, Aidan SMACKED that nicotine patch on Carrie’s back so hard that I’m surprised he didn’t leave a handprint. He punished her until she begged him to tell her that she was absolved. He clutter-shamed her when he moved into her apartment and said shit like, “What’s up, Pop Tart, where ya been, what’cha been doing,” and, “Are you cuckoo now? Are you going cuckoo on me?” He DIDN’T NAME HIS FURNITURE STORE. At least John J. Preston most likely didn’t work at a finance firm called “Finance Firm.” Aidan was the regular dude who represented the things Carrie tried to make herself want, but deep down, didn’t; he is where Carrie goes to settle for something she thinks will be easy or when she wants a shot of self-esteem, because she knows he can’t resist her. MPK said in that podcast that Carrie never would have thought twice about Aidan if Big were alive, and in that he and I are in agreement. We’ve discussed this before, but MPK said this was his main idea for season two, and added:

“So here we are now, bringing Aidan back, again, and we have tricks up our sleeves as to how he is new and what we can actually do with the storyline considering — and it’s a very big consider — all the water under the bridge, all the pain they’ve already been through, how much Carrie has hurt him in the past — according to fan boards… twice — and how badly he took the break up.”

Point of order, sir: Carrie has hurt him twice according TO YOUR OWN SHOW. First, she cheated on him with Big, for months, and second, she accepted a marriage proposal she knew she wasn’t ready for just because he had gotten her a nicer diamond. then barely wore said diamond and kept publicly avoiding telling anyone she was engaged, and… I don’t really need to go on, but whether Aidan was a good person or not, and whether he deserved it that second time or not, Carrie definitely hurt him twice. This whole “well, SO SAY THE FANS, at least,” is bizarrely blinkered.

Then:

“We gave John [Corbett] a makeover. We cut his hair, we took the turquoise jewelry away. We told him he had to be rock-hard when he came back²,” said King. “It was a story choice: If we’re bringing somebody back, we have to find some way to bring him back in a new way.”

Reader, as you may have seen, this was that way:

Sometimes he looks like the way South Park draws Canadians.

Rarely has a garment been so widely reviled by the Internet. I have avoided reading any specific analyses of Aidan and the Cramazing Technicolor Shitcoat because I had my own to write, but multiple headlines and comments have skated past my eyeballs that liken it to a WWII uniform. They’re not wrong. He looks like it’s slowly suffocating him. It’s so snug. Why is it belted on top of that? What needs to be cinched? I assume this is supposed to have the aura of armor — Aidan is protecting himself against Carrie — but why does he own that coat AT ALL, and why is he still wearing it after 40 minutes alone in a restaurant? And why does the only “new way” they could think of to bring back Aidan involve aesthetics? First, they already did the haircut trick when they brought Aidan back for season four, and that one was way shorter than this, so what is MPK even saying. Second, what is even happening with his hair in this scene? Did he fall ASLEEP in the red booth? Third, really, Aidan has to be “rock-hard”? Was Big “rock-hard”? Carrie liked him just fine back when he wore chambray, and technically she’s the only person here who has to care. Fourth, yes, the turquoise was a point of mockery, but not the source of his problems, and was at least one of the few things that made him stand out. By taking away the things that made him Aidan, what are they leaving him with? And fifth, AARGH.

Let’s get deeper into it, alongside a guest spot from Miriam Shor, Seema being insufferable, Charlotte getting the episode’s two best lines, a stuffed crotch that seems potentially logistically impossible, and of course: Aidan.

Miranda

There is a germ of a normal, interesting story here, in which Miranda isn’t sure exactly how to label her sexuality because she has loved Steve, and she has loved Che, and Che is non-binary, and now she is single and puzzled. It starts at a meal with Carrie and Charlotte right before Valentine’s Day, where Charlotte asks if Miranda has any hot ladies on the horizon and Miranda asks why they’re assuming it would be only ladies. “Should we NOT be assuming only ladies?” Carrie says, blankly, a former sex columnist who appears not to think bisexuality exists and who clearly did not take Che’s pronouns or the words “non-binary” to heart. Worse, Charlotte then tells Miranda that she should figure out whether she’s gay or not, so that she can finally be happy. This show has never been high on bisexuality; when Carrie’s boyfriend was bisexual, Miranda and Charlotte both negged on that idea and it was Samantha who praised his openness to experiences. Wouldn’t this have been a great time for Miranda’s friends — one of whom WAS A SEX COLUMNIST — to support her in the fact that she doesn’t HAVE to label it AT ALL if she doesn’t want to, because it’s freaking 2023 and we are supposed to have a richer understanding of the scope of sexual yearning? Samantha would have.

Later, Miranda and Nya pop by a bookstore³, and right when Nya observes that Valentine’s Day decorations and books get like four times as much real estate as Black History Month, Miranda once again ignores Nya’s conversational needs and pivots to herself: “Am I a lesbian?” she wonders, before expounding at length about how many options there are on the dating apps and yada yada yada Nya escapes to look for a cookbook so that she doesn’t have to listen to MEranda anymore. At that moment, Miranda is captivated by a voice she hears behind a curtain doing a reading, and she is correct, because that voice belongs to Miriam Shor: