The new season of And Just Like That feels wildly different, for one reason that will make you smile.

If you squint at the screen, the opening scene of And Just Like That season three feels like a stolen moment from Sex and the City.

Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) are standing in a noisy yet chic New York bar, clutching fancy-looking cocktails and having a conversation about dating filled with enough quips to rival the number of shoes in Carrie's closet.

The only slight twist to the story is that this time around, the trio is standing in a lesbian bar hoping to find a lucky lady for Miranda to hook up with now that her relationship with Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez) is officially a thing of the past.

It's a delicious yet fleeting moment in time, and something that feels like a begrudging gift from Sex and the City writer, and And Just Like That creator, Michael Patrick King, who is also the writer and director of this particular episode. A man who infamously likes to bring his fans unexpected moments of joy and then, the next second, yank them away with a plotline designed to subvert expectations (and crush the souls of die-hard fans worldwide).

It was during this first scene of the And Just Like That season three premiere that I had to acknowledge I had just broken the golden rule that allows anyone to enjoy this series. Which is not spending every second peering at the screen searching for glimmers of a show that ended more than two decades ago. Instead of enjoying it in its new form and leaning into a different new world.

And yet, during the season three premiere, I allowed myself a brief moment in time to quickly indulge in the Sex and the City nostalgia that was being presented to me on a silver TV platter (especially since I had poured an old-school Cosmo just for the occasion).

There was a slew of banter in an overpriced yet glamorous bar. A classic 'boyfriend' of the week plotline featuring a character played by a well-known face with secret links to the series. Carrie being fiercely compelled to dash to her laptop and write down her dating woes to make sense of her feelings.

All this a lovely trip down memory lane to a time when it wouldn't seem slightly clichéd to be watching this show alone at home with a Cosmo in hand.

Along with these glimpses of the original world, season three of And Just Like That begins with all of its chess pieces in compelling locations.

Take a look at the trailer for And Just Like That season 2, post continues.

Miranda is back on the New York dating scene and finding that dating women in your fifties is just as complicated as dating men in your thirties (although her current break-up scenes tend to be a little more sweet than sour). Seema (Sarita Choudhury) has agreed to a long-distance relationship with her Marvel director boyfriend Ravi (Armin Amiri), which I think we can all agree is heading for a slightly disastrous end. Charlotte is still balancing her new career with her family life (although most of her screen time continues to centre around Lily (Cathy Ang) and Rock (Alexa Swinton), just as a warning for those viewers who were hoping that the child-led storylines might slightly subside in season three). And Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker) is...well, still in pretty much the same place she was when we were first introduced to her in season one, but now she also has to hunt down some face time with Michelle Obama, so I'm guessing that will keep her kind of busy.

As for Carrie, well, it finally feels like our leading lady has found her feet (and her voice) in this third iteration of her new story. Die-hard fans, such as myself, who remember lining up to buy the DVD box set of Sex and the City when it came encased in a pink shoebox, will spend the first half of this season mourning the loss of Carrie's classic Upper East Side apartment in favour of her lavish new Gramercy Park townhouse.

In truth, it was always one of the SATC callbacks woven into the AJLT storyline that made the most sense, that Carrie would cocoon herself back in the safety of her mould-ridden crown mould featuring apartment, no matter how inflated her bank account is now, all thanks to her dead husband's wealth.

The new townhouse feels like it was added to the story just to give the crew a new, bigger set to play with, and the plot point of Carrie attempting to work her new security system feels like a too-soon retread of the season one plot where she briefly bought a multi-million-dollar apartment and then couldn't locate the source of a mysterious beeping, forcing her to move.

Or maybe the new apartment is a way for the writers to offset the fact that Carrie is dating the same man from more than 20 years ago for the third time, proving that you can find true love in your fifties…providing that you first dated him in your fifties.

But we didn't need the distraction of a new set to make this season work.

Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon in And Just Like That… season 3 on Max. Image: Max.

Despite it being their third turn around the dating dancefloor, Carrie and Aidan's (John Corbett) current love story still feels like compelling viewing, now that we've all gotten over his jumpscare-style entry from last season.

Season two ended with Aidan asking Carrie if they could put their all-consuming love story on hold for a mere five years while he devoted himself to the youngest of his three sons, Wyatt, who was not dealing with his father's dual-city lifestyle.

(Which I understand is solid parenting, but it also has to be said that never has a child been so hated in the Sex and the City universe since that fateful day when Lily shoved Carrie's phone into her cupcake purse and sabotaged her wedding to Big.)

Yet thanks to the deep fandom within our hearts (and a few promo images that leaked early on in production), we know that Carrie and Aidan don't completely stay apart for the next five years, and their story picks back up early in the season three premiere.

We quickly discover that Carrie and Aidan are abiding by their promise not to see each other, but are instead exchanging sparsely written postcards as a reminder to each other that they are still here.

Which is wildly romantic if you're in the camp who thinks that Carrie and Aidan should have ended up together the first time around, and eye-roll inducing if you don't want to revisit this storyline and instead were hoping to see Carrie thriving in her single life. The storyline that Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell always wanted the original series to finish with.

This season three iteration of Carrie has a lightness to her that feels refreshing to watch, as if the last two seasons were all about bringing her to this moment where it feels like the next chapter of her life is truly beginning to play out for us to watch. Her friendships and friends have slipped back into our lives like a comfortable well well-worn shoe, yet there are still elements of her relationships that feel like unexplored terrain.

Namely, a phone sex scene from the first episode featuring Carrie and masturbation. A scene that in any other series would barely warrant a mention, but here, featuring a character who has previously been a little anti anything like phone sex and played by an actress who famously had strict no nudity and paired back sex scene rules written into her contract, it feels very much like we are watching a much freer version of Carrie walk down a new path.

The main red flag for this season possibly going off the rails is Charlotte's plot from the premiere episode. Which I watched while sending up a silent prayer to the heavens that this wasn't the type of plotline we were going to find her stuck in for the rest of the season. A dog park-centered caper that felt more at home in a Disney sitcom than the world of And Just Like That.

And yet, despite a few little storytelling hiccups, returning to this world still feels like hugging your best friends. It's a feeling of comfortable giddiness that can only be achieved with decades of world-building doing the heavy lifting, bringing us back into a world of fantasy escapism and raw relationships.

Season three of the Max Original series And Just Like That... debuts Friday, 30 May, exclusively on Max.

Laura Brodnik is Mamamia's Head of Entertainment and host of The Spill podcast. You can follow her on Instagram here for more entertainment news and recommendations. Feature Image: Max