Carrie was sent into a tailspin in the third episode of And Just Like That when she discovered Big had left his ex-wife Natasha $1 million dollars in his will.
‘I’m really mad at Big,’ she says. ‘I almost forgot how I used to feel all those years ago: so nervous and insecure and desperate. Like what we had wasn’t enough. Like I wasn’t enough. And I just hate that after all the good years, this is what I’m left with. He ruined our happy/sad ending.’
To recap on the drama, Natasha and Big got engaged and married after he and Carrie broke up in Paris. Carrie then took to calling Natasha 'an idiot stick figure with no soul' until she started an affair with Big behind her back.
When Natasha found Carrie and Big together she was so distraught that she face planted down the stairs and broke her tooth off while attempting to flee her own flat. That’s basically a nightmare scenario.
In And Just Like That, Carrie doesn’t appear to have moved on from the 90s conflict. She promptly starts stalking Natasha around New York and online. She emails her asking to meet, she DMs her on Instagram, she even visits her workplace.
This is intense behaviour. And we can’t really judge Natasha for blocking all of Carrie’s messages and lying about her whereabouts when she comes calling. If your ex-husband’s widower started harassing you this much, it wouldn’t be over dramatic to panic.
When the pair finally bump into each other in a coffee shop on the Upper West Side, Carrie falls over herself to once again apologise for her affair with Big while Natasha is trying to go to the bathroom in peace.
It’s comically unhinged but not at all shocking. Carrie has never respected Natasha’s boundaries. She showed up to her engagement party, she followed her to a fundraiser, and how could anyone forget when she arrived uninvited to Natasha’s table at a restaurant, chugged half her wine and began simpering over how she ‘didn’t mean for any of this [the affair] to happen’.
It would be easy to villainise Natasha and side with Carrie. You could paint her as the scorned wife, the woman that got in the way of true love, the younger replacement who turned Big’s head and nearly jeopardised everything.
Yet, despite having her husband cheat on her, her teeth broken, and an emotionally erratic woman relentlessly follow her as she attempts to go about her daily life, she has - somehow - never fully lost the plot at Carrie.
The queen of the cutting but controlled comeback, she told Carrie in the 90s: ‘Now, not only have you ruined my marriage, you’ve ruined my lunch.’ Decades later in the reboot, she bluntly reminds her: ‘I’ve already given you more minutes of my life than you ever deserved.’
While Natasha has no idea why Big left her the huge sum of cash (guilt we reckon), she charitably appeases Carrie and says: ‘We’re okay. It’s all in the past… But maybe we shouldn’t follow each other on Instagram.’ Fair, kind, while also setting boundaries – this couldn’t be more moderated.
Speaking with Harper’s Bazaar about the scene, Moynahan agrees: ‘I think that Natasha has moved on with her life—gotten remarried and had children and has a complete life, possibly a version of the life that she had thought she was going to have with Big.
‘What's nice about when she and Carrie come together is that they finally have somewhat of a heart-to-heart. And that moment when Natasha is able to say to her, “I don't know why he ever married me, because he was always in love with you”—it's Natasha's realization and work and therapy over the years. I don't think she's confused about it at all. And to give that to Carrie is a really wonderful gift for them both.’
Let's pray Carrie can move on now, too.
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