The truth about the Aidan and Carrie reunion is hidden in one terrible jacket.

Warning, friends. There are spoilers ahead. Both for the latest episode of And Just Like That, and for what's going to happen when you go out for dinner with an ex after 10 years. 

Aidan is wearing a ridiculous jacket. 

That's the most important thing you need to know about the most-hyped moment of And Just Like That, Season 2, Return Of The Ex. (It's not called that, humour me). 

After a drawn-out mini-drama of will-they-won't they (we know they will, we've seen the publicity shots), in the last 10 minutes of episode 7 Carrie Bradshaw and Aidan Shaw set eyes on each other for the first time in 10 years and... Aidan is wearing a ridiculous jacket. 

This is always the risk. 

Exes, from a distance, are perfection. Perfection, and potential. All the reasons you crazy kids never made it work in the first place have been smudged beyond recognition by time, experience, and nostalgia. You remember them at their hottest, their most passionate, their funniest, cutest and most caring. You've rewritten the script of What Went Wrong and it was definitely mostly, kind of, certainly you, not them. They were great, weren't they?

And then you meet up after 10 years and maybe they still look good (Aidan does) and maybe you still good look (Carrie does), and maybe the spark is still there but... there's a really stupid jacket in the picture, reminding you that reality always brings a touch of ugliness.  

More spoilers: Carrie doesn't care about the jacket. The za-za-zu is real. The last time they saw each other was in a souq in Abu Dhabi, but it seems they are as keen to forget the second Sex And The City movie as we are, so we'll all go along with pretending the last time they saw each other was outside some bakery in Manhattan, and Aidan was wearing a baby called Tate. Since then, we have found out, he had two more children, moved to Virginia and sold his furniture business to West Elm. And got a divorce. So this makes him long-distance, available and rich. Tick, tick. 

Image: Max.

"I'm sorry about John," he says, in a graceful mention of the man Carrie cheated on him with and with whom he once had an unedifying fight in a puddle of mud. 

Carrie thanks him, and thoughtfully neglects to mention that she did not dump Aidan for Big (John), she dumped him because he was dull. 

And it might be the most realistic storyline in this enjoyable but entirely unbelievable series that they both pretend to forget that they had several attempts, over several years, of convincing themselves they were right for each other, and failed, over and over.

But this time, right here in midlife, this time things will be different, right? OF COURSE they will. 

Ever since an Internet site called Friends Reunited launched in the year 2000 — back when Carrie Bradshaw was just two TV years old — people have been looking up their long-ago exes and trying to convince themselves that they had the right person all along, they just... lost them along the way. 

There isn't a midlife woman who — regardless of relationship status — has not spent some hours lightly internet stalking somebody that they used to know. Revisiting who you were together, revisiting who you were, full stop. 

Sometimes, you just desperately want to get back to who you were, then. Before life knocked you, before you knew that you could love someone but not forever. Maybe this ex really, really loved you (see, Aidan) and you want to see yourself through their eyes because since then, you've been looked at differently by partners who did not. Maybe you were wild with them, and the version of you who could be reckless with yourself has long ago been stifled by responsibility. Maybe they knew your family, and your family is now gone. Maybe you just remember how it felt to be... younger. 

It's a particular type of ex who can drive a woman to open an email, or a chat window, and type 'Hey stranger... remember me?'

The kind who you know remembers you.

The kind with whom there's baggage but not ongoing drama. The kind who you don't have hand your kids over to on Wednesday nights and every second weekend. The kind who doesn't frighten you. The kind whose name, if it popped up on your phone, would push your stomach into a little flip, even if your beloved life partner is sleeping next to you. 

Apparently, for a widowed Carrie, that ex is Aidan. And now, we are left to wonder if this time, finally, they are going to make it work. 

This is despite the fact his kids live several states away. And that he can't walk into her home without the ghosts of rejection and floor-sanders past triggering a panic attack. Despite the fact that judging by the dinner-table banter, he's still, yes, a bit boring. 

The truth about the Aidan and Carrie reunion is hidden in one terrible jacket.

And maybe the ridiculous jacket is the sign that it's just never going to fit. 

Feature image: HBO.

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