The fatal flaw in the And Just Like That finale was the moment we didn't see.

After 27 years of tantalising fans with stories of sex, love and relationships, the Sex and the City book has officially been shut with the end of the spin-off, And Just Like That.

After three seasons of midlife fun, Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis are hanging up their Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte heels.

And Just like That was a divisive spin-off — and that's putting it lightly. With large shoes to fill following the seminal Sex and the City series, one good movie and one very bad one, And Just Like That got off to a decent start — albeit without the powerful presence of Kim Cattrall as Samantha.

Despite a mixed response in 2021, the first season punched through the cultural zeitgeist, stirred up conversations and was a huge hit for HBO Max.

Watch the trailer for Season 3. Post continues after video.

But as more episodes came, the viewership dropped and the reviews for the show only got worse, leading to And Just Like That becoming one of the most 'hate-watched' shows in recent memory.

The reboot failed to capture the gritty and relatable vision of friendship, love and sex in New York City — in its place, a shallow and rather soulless series that felt tonally like a completely different show steeped in out-of-touch affluence.

It wasn't surprising (but still sad all the same) when Parker and showrunner, Michael Patrick King, announced that the third season would be the show's last.

And look, I really wanted to like the finale.

Unlike most of Season 3, I approached the finale with an open mind and heart. Sadly, this episode wastes so much time on storylines and people we don't care about.

For instance, do you know which two characters I have zero interest in watching together, yet they somehow monopolised the episode? Carrie and Miranda's son Brady.

These two characters were stuck together on Thanksgiving Day, as Miranda rushed to be with her girlfriend Joy, who was dealing with a dog emergency, leading Carrie to need to kill time with Brady's pregnant ex Mia and her insufferable friends.

WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS.

I'm sorry but, literally who cares! Image: HBO Max.

But one detail in the finale and its biggest fatal flaw that I couldn't quite believe was that Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda do not share a single scene together in the final instalment.

The writers literally had one job and they couldn't even squeeze in a lunch with the original trio.

Charlotte and Miranda had zero interaction for the entire finale, completely undermining their friendship, which reminder: is just as strong and enduring as the women's friendship with Carrie.

Overall, the worst parts of the episode mirror the worst parts of And Just Like That.

The series favoured the crude and cringe, going for cheap laughs over anything deeper with a semblance of wit.

Thanksgiving Day culminates in a toilet being flooded, and the viewer has to cop an eyeful of poo in a toilet bowl. What on earth are we watching? Is this funny?

This has been the case with a lot of And Just Like That, which has leaned heavily into slapstick and cheap gags. For instance, if you have to resort to an argument between Anthony and Giuseppe being resolved by one shoving a cream pie in the other's face, you know the show has lost its way.

Then there's the sliding door of tokenistic characters added to attempt to make amends for the original show's problematic past — especially its lack of people of colour and binary approach to sexuality and gender.

But what we got in consolation was a bunch of underwritten non-binary or queer characters, including a Gen Z character in the finale that I couldn't believe was real.

At Thanksgiving, Mia brings two truly godawful Gen Z friends, one of whom decides to vogue and twerk their way around the living room like they're in a RuPaul's Drag Race audition. A classic Gen Z!

Lisa Todd Wexley had a lot of potential, but the writers never fully fleshed out her story beyond stereotypical midlife tropes.

Like this pie, Lisa's story arc was underbaked. Image: HBO Max.

Her ending? She decides not to cheat on her husband Herbert (who we know nothing about) with her editor Marion (who we know nothing about).

Oh, and Michelle Obama is 'considering' narrating her film project. Umm, cool? Then Herbert offered to do the dishes for once, and that's Lisa's last scene.

A win for women everywhere!

That said, Lisa got more of an ending than Charlotte, who got stuck with a 'yay, my husband's dick works again' small win before having a reductive chat with Rock about their gender fluidity.

Seema's final moments are equally baffling. One painfully awkward scene ends with her walking away in silence, as if the writers couldn't bother finishing the scene.

Seema tells Carrie that her gardener boyfriend, Adam, doesn't believe in marriage. She doesn't know whether she wants to get married or if it's a societal expectation. That's all we hear about that train of thought, because by the episode's end, she's having Thanksgiving with Adam's family.

That's it?? Image: HBO Max.

Huh? Is that supposed to be her conclusion? Did she have to change herself for this man? (We literally don't know)

A win for women everywhere!

Then there are the moments that suggest And Just Like That doesn't know its characters anymore — characters that fans intimately knew on Sex and the City.

One scene between Carrie and Charlotte was especially frustrating. Carrie had a raw moment where she opened up about being alone for the rest of her life, and whether she could make peace with that option.

This astute conversation was quickly spoiled by Charlotte's bizarre four-word reply, telling her friend of decades, "You are so fabulous!"

Umm, at this stage, this has got to be a SATC script put through AI. The writers have fundamentally misunderstood Charlotte, who might seem slightly shallow at first glance, but has moments of surprising wisdom.

Yet all she can muster is to tell Carrie that she is 'fabulous'? This isn't Charlotte.

As for Miranda's ending, it felt a little unearned. Her story concludes with Joy arriving to spend Thanksgiving together and Miranda bursts into tears at the gesture, which reminder is: literally just coming over to her house.

But she seems happy, so play on!

The dinner between Miranda and Steve was a sweet scene, paying tribute to one of SATC's most enduring relationships — even if it did end in a bizarre way.

Okay, now I'll get to some of the good stuff, which mostly surrounds Carrie's finale story arc.

It was here that the writers made some brave choices.

Beginning with Carrie arriving at a restaurant to eat on her own, she stumbles trying to order at a restaurant using a tablet before an unnerving tomato plush is placed by the hostess to face her so that she 'doesn't have to sit alone'.

I burst into laughter as the happy tomato was plopped down — this is the SATC we know and love.

The funniest moment in the finale. Image: HBO Max.

The rest of the episode had Carrie wrestling with the idea of living out the rest of her days without a man by her side.

She makes some insightful remarks about wanting to be 'chosen' by Big (remember him?), who she correctly refers to as Big and not John (shudders!) for once, and shares how the hope she had for happiness with Aidan or Duncan have now diminished.

It's raw, it's real, it's honest — it's Sex and the City.

As she weighs up whether she's okay being alone, Carrie rejects Charlotte's attempt to set her up with Mark, a creepy man who has a plane.

Our girl won't settle for anything less than what she deserves.

In the final five minutes of the series, Carrie goes home to her empty Manhattan townhouse, eats her Thanksgiving pie while wearing a hot pink tutu that's a clear homage to her most iconic look, and deletes the epilogue she was encouraged to write to give her book a happy ending.

In its place, she simply types: "The woman realised she was not alone — she was on her own."

As she does, Barry White's 'My First, My Last, My Everything' plays out.

Carrie smiles at her laptop, then gazes out the window before strolling down the hallway, mouthing the words as she steps out of sight.

This is what we wanted all season! Image: HBO Max.

The song's meaning is twofold: a nod to Carrie's one true love, Big — who was largely forgotten about — or more likely, the subject of the song is Carrie herself. Her first. Her last. Her everything.

As overly sentimental as it sounds, I really enjoyed this ending. All these years on, she's still single and fabulous — exclamation point!

It was a clear callback to Sex and the City's final scene, as Florence + The Machine's 'You've Got The Love' sang out while Carrie strutted down a NYC sidewalk, and declared: "The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself."

Speaking of music, a tear did stream down my cheek when the original Sex and the City theme played as the screen turned to black.

But sadly, it was just a reminder of what we've lost and not what we gained from And Just Like That.

Compared to the SATC's two-part finale set in Paris, this was nothing like it.

After all, that finale gave us iconic lines, like Carrie describing love as "ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other love," or my personal favourite, Miranda telling Big to "Go get our girl" — and then, he did.

The And Just Like That finale doesn't bring any of these big feelings — it doesn't come close.

The fact that Samantha wasn't mentioned once in the finale proves that when it comes to And Just Like That, fans of Sex and the City will never get what we wanted — or deserved.

Feature image: HBO Max.