Apparently, not every Relationship is built to weather a storm. On the sixth episode of And Just Like That…, “Bomb Cyclone,” a rare winter storm shakes up the Sex and the City universe, sending Charlotte on a snowy quest to buy condoms for her daughter, Carrie emailing her ex-fiancé Aidan (John Corbett), and Miranda reckoning with the end of not one, but two romantic Relationships. On this week’s episode of Still Watching, podcast hosts Hillary Busis, Richard Lawson, and Chris Murphy unpack the end of Che and Miranda, the potential rekindling between Aidan and Carrie, and chat with Cynthia Nixon about directing episodes five and six of And Just Like That… and a quarter of a century of playing Miranda Hobbes, in an interview conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike began.
After taking some space apart so Che could process the death of their pilot (RIP, Che Pasa!), Miranda and Che seem to have patched things up. By episode’s end, however, it’s clear that Miranda and Che’s relationship can’t survive their extremely different lifestyles, causing Che to call it quits with Miranda. “It’s definitely a big shake-up for Miranda’s life and for the series,” says Busis.
But breaking up with Che is only the tip of the iceberg for Miranda. Before she treks to Hudson Yards to get her heart broken, Miranda finally has an honest conversation with her estranged husband, Steve (David Eigenberg), about the end of their relationship. Murphy was glad to see the series give Steve a bigger breakup moment with Miranda than she had with Che, since viewers have lived with Miranda and Steve as a Couple for almost “25 years”—as opposed to “one and a half seasons.”
Meanwhile, Carrie is reigniting a past relationship of her own. She ends the episode by emailing her ex-fiancé Aidan, after braving the bomb cyclone in a fabulously large jacket. “According to what John Corbett has said to The New York Times, it seems like Aidan has a big storyline coming up,” notes Busis.
Nixon was there for Carrie both as Miranda and as the director of “Bomb Cyclone.” “Being a director is like being a parent. You can never do all the things that are being asked of you,” she says on the podcast. “The good part of it, like being a parent, is you can lean into your strengths. You can be the cheerleading parent, you can be the disciplinarian parent, you can be the artistic parent, or the sporty parent. Whatever the problem is, there are people that are there to help you.”
Nixon also shares her thoughts on the dissolution of Steve and Miranda as a couple, which was tough not only on viewers but on the people making And Just Like That… “Even within our own cast and crew, there was a lot of anxiety about what happened with Steve and Miranda last season,” Nixon says. “There were actually Team Steve and Team Miranda buttons that people wore. Sara Ramirez once, to torment me, actually took a Team Steve button and put it on.” Speaking of Ramirez: Although Che and Miranda are no longer together, Nixon hints this doesn’t mean it’s the end of the road for Ramirez’s tenure on And Just Like That… “Che didn’t come into the show, through Miranda, right? Che is their own person,” Nixon says. “Obviously we’ve never had two main characters Date each other before, much less breakup with each other. So, how does that work? I think it’s fun.”
After all these years, Nixon also shares who she wanted Carrie to end up with. “I was always Team Aidan,” she says. “Definitely Team Aidan.” For more from Nixon on all things Sex and the City, you can listen to the full breakdown of “Bomb Cyclone” below, and, as always, send questions and comments to Still Watching at stillwatchingpod@gmail.com.
