HOLLY WAINWRIGHT: 'There's a reason even the Aidan 'Lick Ick' will not kill And Just Like That.'

A grown man licks his hand and shoves it down his pants.

He's sitting in the front seat of a ute, and he's a few beers down.

"Are you touching yourself?" he slurs into a phone, before accidentally bumping the horn and dropping his bottle.

Welcome back, Sex And The City Universe. And welcome back, one of television's most famous boyfriends.

You've seen more disturbing things on TV than Aidan Shaw masturbating in a Virginian field.

A grown-man poop in a suitcase in The White Lotus.

Nicole Kidman doing a TikTok dance in the opening credits of The Perfect Couple.

But still. It's a lot.

Several states away, Carrie Bradshaw is equally unimpressed, "faking phone sex" to make. Him. Stop.

He gets the hint, gets on a plane and by episode two Aidan is touching Carrie IRL and, we're encouraged to know, nothing needs faking.

Watch: Holly, Mia, and Jessie talk about the Aidan 'Lick Ick' on Mamamia Out Loud. Post continues after video.

But then, oh, here comes the Hot Gardener, fancy enough for Carrie ('Adam' did Liv Tyler's yard, and no, he won't dish about her), fanciable enough for the rest of us. Carrie is re-inventing herself as a historical-romance fiction author, and it's clear Aidan's days are numbered.

Some of you have declared yourselves done with And Just Like That after the "lick ick", but honestly, if you've stuck with the show until this moment, you can handle it. It gets better.

And anyway, it's silly season. As well as Aidan's truck wank, in the first two And Just Like Thats of Season Three, Miranda has f**ked a nun and propositioned a straight waitress, Seema set herself on fire and hate-dated half of New York and Charlotte's dog got cancelled.

What's clear is that, after two seasons of the Sex And The City reboot, trying to answer three decades of criticism for being too white, too privileged, too straight, And Just Like That has decided to 'Let Them' talk s**t, and 'Let Us' entertain you, with saucy nonsense that bears no resemblance to reality.

It's perfect timing. "Bad" TV — that is, TV that's scripted for the gag, could never be described as 'gritty' and looks fabulous, is meeting its moment. Because hell, people want to laugh. To gossip. To have something low-stakes they can debate. To be distracted from what's genuinely hard and distressing. Because there's so much that is genuinely hard and distressing.

Number One on Netflix today? Sirens. A wonderfully plotty family mystery with drool-worthy real estate, a Stepford Wives-style aesthetic and killer performances from three great actresses (and Kevin Bacon). It's very The Perfect Couple, last year's enormous hit, which was described as a "beach read in TV form", not at the prestige level of a White Lotus, but close to the rollicking fun of Rivals, a British show currently filming its second season. Think Running Point, with Kate Hudson, which sat at the top of Netflix in 89 countries. Think Nobody Wants This, which everybody wanted an enormous amount.

And think And Just Like That, which felt clunky and wrong when it came out of the dregs of the pandemic addressing and correcting everything it had missed since Sex And The City packed up its shoes 17 years before. The whole idea is peak Generation X nostalgia, but it was trying to invite Gen Z into a fever dream that this show ever reflected the real lives of New York city dwellers — or almost anyone, really.

What Sex And The City always did was take the kernel of a relatable problem — he's just not that into you — and turn it up to 11. Or 110. The clothes, the money, the sex, the punch-line-heavy, rat-a-tat dialogue, the slapstick, the restaurants, the cocktails, the time these women had to sit around in diners talking… all damn day.

We never believed it.

We never bought that Carrie wrote a column a week and tripped about in couture. We never believed that Miranda would be at a bar, not at The Bar, on a random Tuesday night. We never believed that Charlotte walked like that.

Listen to The Spill, where Laura Brodnik and Ksenija Lukich dissect the first episode of And Just Like That along with their wildest hopes and dreams for the rest of season 3. Post continues after audio.

We never believed, really, that all the new characters brought into And Just Like That for its debut season were fully fleshed-out humans, who would choose to hang out with these frivolous midlife princesses (no offence, Miranda). It's telling that this season, although Nya and Che have been quietly moved along, the storylines for surviving newbies Seema and Lisa feel weightier, more stand-alone, actually elevated to the same level of silly-serious staus as the OG three.

We never believed any of the 'so-'bad'-it's great' Sex And The City confection…

There was a period when we wanted to. There was a period when we doubted it. And there was a period when we were mad at it, for lying to us.

And now? Well, maybe we need it.

Read more from Holly Wainwright:

• HOLLY WAINWRIGHT: 'To understand the Beckham family estrangement, we need to go back to 1999.'

• The first chapter of 'He Would Never', by Holly Wainwright.

• Yes, your friends are talking about you. And other lessons from the 'White Lotus Three'.

Feature image: Max.