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Twenty-seven years ago, a tutu-clad Sarah Jessica Parker<\/strong> first spied herself on the side of a bus in the opening credits of Sex and the City.<\/em> That boundary-breaking comedy series boldly followed Parker\u2019s Carrie and her best friends, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon<\/strong>), Charlotte (Kristin Davis<\/strong>), and Samantha (Kim Cattrall<\/strong>)\u2014four independent women reckoning with life and love as single, 30-something New Yorkers. Six seasons, seven Emmys, two feature films, and a revival series later, Carrie\u2019s arc comes to an end with the series finale of And Just Like That\u2026,<\/em> the revival series that launched in December of 2021 and concludes Thursday on HBO Max.<\/p>\n \u201cHow does it feel?\u201d says a wistful Parker over Zoom, two days before the series finale. \u201cI can\u2019t really tell you, because I don\u2019t yet know.\u201d She does remember how it felt to wrap the second Sex and the City<\/em> movie, before there was even an inkling of a revival series. \u201cYou\u2019re walking away from hundreds of people who you love, who you admire, who you respect, who have been the biggest part of the success of something,\u201d she says of the franchise\u2019s cast and crew. \u201cI will feel at sixes and sevens in that same way.\u201d<\/p>\n And Just Like That\u2026<\/em> creator Michael Patrick King<\/strong> has been working alongside Parker since the beginning, first serving as writer, director, and eventual showrunner on Sex and the City.<\/em> \u201cI\u2019m always aware of where we started, and I\u2019m always aware of where we\u2019re finishing,\u201d he says from his own Zoom screen, pointing to Carrie\u2019s tutu, which is mounted in a box on the wall behind him. \u201cWhen we ended Sex and the City,<\/em> we had a conversation,\u201d says King. \u201cI said, \u2018I think this is where we are,\u2019 and she agreed. And we walked away.\u201d King says that the two shared a similar moment this season. \u201cWe both look at each other and go, \u2018I think this is where we are,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cThe thing that I get from Sarah Jessica is this complete willingness to stop when we want to, and not just keep going because we can.\u201d<\/p>\n While she\u2019s still processing saying goodbye to the role of her lifetime, Parker is confident in the choice to end the series. \u201cI feel really good about the principle by which we\u2019re making this decision,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s hard for a lot of people to understand if they see it doing really well. It\u2019s an agonizing thing to say out loud, with Michael in a room, sitting across from me. But also it feels right and good.\u201d Carrie\u2019s ending, Parker feels, \u201chonors the audience. It doesn\u2019t just exploit them in some way.\u201d<\/p>\n Unlike the two-part Sex and the City<\/em> finale, which saw Carrie\u2019s on-again, off-again fling Mr. Big (Chris Noth<\/strong>) cross the Atlantic to rescue her, no knight in shining armor arrives at the end of And Just Like That\u2026.<\/em> The series ends instead with Carrie\u2014after a very chaotic Thanksgiving at Miranda\u2019s new apartment\u2014eating a piece of pie alone in her home<\/a>, content and fulfilled.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people want Carrie to be with somebody and live happily ever after, because that\u2019s what society tells people happily ever after is,\u201d says King. \u201cWhat we tried to do in the very last moments is show how busy and noisy and filled with love Carrie\u2019s life is. She comes home to this beautiful, quiet house that she\u2019s created for herself\u2014and leaves her shoes on.\u201d<\/p>\n Like the best duos, King and Parker worked in tandem to figure out how to send Carrie off. \u201cSusan Fales-Hill<\/strong> and I wrote the words, but Sarah Jessica wrote the music,\u201d says King. Literally: Parker is the one who wanted \u201cYou\u2019re My Everything\u201d to play over the show\u2019s final scene and end credits. \u201cSarah Jessica picking that song, and having Carrie say, \u2018You\u2019re my everything,\u2019 as she\u2019s looking in a mirror is a big writing moment,\u201d says King.<\/p>\n In their only joint conversation about the finale, King and Parker wax poetic about nearly three decades of life with and as Carrie Bradshaw.<\/p>\n