**This article contains spoilers from episode three of And Just Like That…**
“And just like that… I walked myself home.”
These are the words that Carrie closes episode three of And Just Like That… with, and it was… emotional.
After a night out with the girls, Carrie walks to her apartment where she lived with Big, but she doesn’t go inside. She tells the doorman that she’s “going for a walk”. Her walk takes her all the way back to her iconic Upper East Side brownstone apartment — located in the show at 245 East 73rd St between Park and Madison (in reality, it’s located in the West Village at 66 Perry St) — that we’ve seen her live so much life in, throughout the entirety of Sex and the City‘s run. It feels nostalgic and emotional. It feels right.
I can’t explain it, but as I watch Carrie walk up those familiar stairs to her old front door, a sense of empowerment comes over me. It feels a bit like relief. To me, this shows Carrie taking back her independence, her life, not the life of Mr and Mrs Preston. It’s just so goddamn satisfying to see women reclaiming their space, and finding comfort in the things that identify them, and only them.
Of course, it’s really nice and totally healthy to share your life with other people. When you fall in love and make a commitment to someone, you commit to living a life shared with them and things become more entwined, just like it did with Carrie and Mr Big. They both kept things they loved; she had her shoe closet, he had his record collection — but they brought them together into each other’s space.
Carrie’s apartment is all Carrie. She went through so many relationships and heartbreaks there, so many late night epiphanies that turned into successful novels, so many heated phone conversations, endless champagne, early morning cigarettes, so much mess and so much love. I love that she kept her apartment. After all, she fought to keep it, first when she had no money to pay the rent and then when she hustled to buy it back from Aidan… and it was where she came back to after her moment in Paris. That apartment is Carrie, it has special meaning to her, so it only makes sense that that is where she feels the most comfortable now, post-Big.
I get the sense that this is where the story begins. The first two episodes were necessary, tying up loose ends with Samantha, ending Big’s storyline and now, the real story can begin.
Because let’s be honest, we don’t want to see Carrie and Mr Big in a blissfully happy marriage, because where’s the drama and excitement in that? We’re happy for them, for their happy years, for their love story that finally played out to become simply two people in love and doing life together. After all those years of chaos, they deserved it. But this Carrie is the Carrie we know, an independent, single woman in New York City with new adventures and the excitement of the unknown just a walk (in heels) away at any given moment.
We can already feel that there is so much more ahead for this character and the fact that she’s going to be living those new experiences out of her original apartment, is just the most special thing. It’s a good reminder that no matter how many years go past, and how much you grow and learn, you are still you. You don’t lose the things that make you who you are and you can go back to them, you can go home and you can always start again.
