Carrie Bradshaw is reminiscing about her early years in Manhattan in the latest episode of And Just Like That — which completely contradicts the franchise’s Carrie Diaries spinoff.
In the Thursday, August 17, episode, Aidan Shaw (John Corbett) is stunned that Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) had never previously visited Coney Island despite living in New York City for 35 years.
“35 years? But you got to New York when you were 21? Wait a second, 21 plus 35 — hold up, are you old?” Aidan quipped while walking down the pier with Carrie.
According to Carrie and Aidan, the 56-year-old relationship author first arrived in the Big Apple in her early 20s. While their math checks out, it completely erases the premise of The Carrie Diaries, the short-lived CW spinoff that followed a young Carrie’s first years in the city. (The Carrie Diaries was inspired by the novel of the same name, which was written by Sex and the City scribe Candace Bushnell and published in 2011.)
In The Carrie Diaries’ pilot episode, which aired in 2013, 16-year-old Carrie (AnnaSophia Robb) accepted an internship at a law firm in the city to help distract her from the overwhelming grief following her mother’s death. Carrie — who lived in Castlebury, Connecticut, with father Tom (Matt Letscher) and sister Dorit (Stefania LaVie Owen) — would commute into the city via the train. During her first week, she meets Interview magazine editor Larissa (Freema Agyeman), who is wowed by her custom “Carrie” purse and offers her an internship of her own.
Season 2 of The Carrie Diaries allowed Carrie to further flourish in the big city, living there full-time for the summer while continuing to work at Interview. The Carrie Diaries was ultimately canceled in 2014.
While The Carrie Diaries garnered a crowd of devoted fans, Parker, now 58, was not among them.
“You know, I think it’s one of those tests of your generosity,” the Hocus Pocus star told Net-a-Porter’s The Edit in a March 2013 profile when asked about the spinoff. “[AnnaSophia Robb] is a lovely girl and I want her to feel good about it, but it’s … odd.”
While Parker was “not sure” about the prequel, Robb, now 29, was excited about landing the role of young Carrie.
“I realized it was actually a really strong story,” she previously gushed to Teen Vogue one month earlier in February 2013. “It had a lot of heart and integrity, and Carrie seems like a character that I can grow with.”
Robb continued at the time: “They told me that I got the part because I did a little chicken dance at the end of my audition after they asked me about my prom. I’ve got rhythm, but not the moves to go with it, and I guess they liked that I wasn’t afraid to be goofy.”
Thursday’s episode is not the first time that Sex and the City has ignored The Carrie Diaries’ story lines. The OG series once mentioned that Carrie’s father had left her family growing up, which is not the case in The Carrie Diaries as Tom is a single parent for the duration of the show. The second feature-length movie also reinvented how Carrie met her besties. Carrie explained that she met Charlotte (Kristin Davis), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Samantha (Kim Cattrall) in that order, which deviates from the CW series. The Carrie Diaries season 2 introduced young Samantha (Lindsay Gort) long before Charlotte and Miranda arrived on the scene. (Per the Carrie Diaries books, Carrie met new NYC arrival Charlotte last on the train when she was departing NYC after her summer adventure.)
And Just Like That drops new episodes Thursdays on Max.
