Minor spoilers for And Just Like That... Season 3, Episode 12 are ahead.
And just like that, And Just Like That… has come to a close on the 2025 TV schedule, and sadly, it didn’t go out with the glamour you’d likely expect from Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw. No, it ended by, quite literally, going down the toilet, and now critics are not holding back their brutal thoughts about how this Sex and the City reboot concluded.
The final episode of And Just Like That… left fans divided; however, critics aren’t so split. They, to be blunt, were not here for how this series ended at all. Slate’s David Mack, in fact, leaned into the toilet-related scene from the show, noting that it felt like that moment reflected the series as a whole, explaining:
For a show that tended to treat its characters, plotlines, continuity, and viewers like shit, it was rather fitting, I suppose, that And Just Like That… would go out with one final turd.
Toward the end of the Sex and the City reboot's last episode, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) was seen cleaning up a toilet that had overflowed. It was messy and gross, and Mack explained that it was an appropriate way to close the show that “seemed wholly unique in its apparent disdain for its own characters.”
To that point, as folks watched And Just Like That… Season 3 with their HBO Max subscription, it became clear that many were now hate watching the series.
Going back to the finale, specifically, Ben Travers' review for Indie Wire noted in the headline that this finale was “a disaster.” He even said it’s worse than the second movie. He explained that as a singular episode, “Party of One” is “fine,” however, as a series finale, that’s a different story. He wrote:
The optics, for starters, are appalling — both what we see and the context in which we see it. Episode 12 isn’t written like a series finale. It’s barely written to be a finale. And yet, HBO and showrunner Michael Patrick King would have us believe this was the plan all along.
He really didn’t hold back, calling the episode a “disgrace” and a “brimming bowl of shit.” As the excerpt explains, when it was announced that the series was ending, showrunner Michael Patrick King said he felt like this episode was “a wonderful place to stop.” Well, this reviewer called “bullshit” on that claim and was not buying this episode as an intentional series finale.
Over at THR, Robyn Bahr wrote about how the show went “out with a whimper.” She was also unimpressed by it and noted how she thought this shocking end reflected the rest of the series:
With exactly nothing going on and precious screen time devoted to frippery like an elite bridal fashion show and obnoxious idiots we will never see again, the concluding episode mirrors And Just Like That itself: frequently pointless, often meandering and bloated with fantasy wealth.
According to Adam White at The Independent, Carrie and her friends “deserved better.” Considering the history of Sex and the City, ending a story that’s been ongoing for such a long time is hard, no matter what, but to end it this way left some critics distraught. Like White, who wrote:
And Just Like That’s final episode was, to little surprise, abominable. It was by turns moronic and confusing, unfunny and hateful, and seemingly edited with a hacksaw – vague approximations of season-long story arcs were brought to abrupt ends, characters did things that made no sense, and Carrie herself relearnt a lesson she’d already learnt years ago.
While this episode seemed to leave some critics genuinely outraged, others were simply confused. Ali Trachta at NYT wrote:
Of all the mind-boggling choices the writers of And Just Like That … have made this season, perhaps the wildest is forcing us, the audience, to watch a disgusting toilet overflow in the ostensibly final moments of this decades-long franchise.
Trachta did note that the episode was “satisfying” in the sense that there weren’t loose ends at the end.
Overall, these critics were left wondering how this could be the end of not just And Just Like That… but also, presumably, Sex and the City. While the AJLT cast were reflective and sweet while reminiscing on the show’s end, these reviewers and fans were not happy with this conclusion, literally, going down the toilet.