‘And Just Like That …’ finds its voice as season 3 embraces queerness, maturity — and messy truth

“She’s messy. It can be messy. But it’s real.”

So says Cynthia Nixon — not just of Miranda Hobbes, the character she’s embodied across almost three decades, but of the show itself. “And Just Like That …,” HBO’s “Sex and the City” revival, has come into its own in season three: less preoccupied with pleasing everyone, and more interested in telling the truth.

Truth, in this case, looks like complexity. Women in their 50s with evolving identities. Not frozen in time, but changing, reckoning, reliving. Queerness that’s joyful but not polished. Grief without melodrama. A pirate shirt with a bleach hole that somehow becomes a talisman of power.

At its glittering European premiere this week, Nixon and co-star Sarah Jessica Parker, flanked by Kristin Davis and Sarita Choudhury, spoke candidly with The Associated Press about how the show has evolved into something deeper, rawer and more reflective of who they are now.

A voice returns

Season three marks the return of Carrie Bradshaw’s iconic internal monologue — the voice-over that once defined “Sex and the City” and gave millions of women permission to narrate their lives. That rhythmic intimacy is back, and not by accident.

“We’ve always loved the voice-over,” Parker said. “It’s a rhythm — it’s part of the DNA.”

For Parker, it mirrors Carrie’s emotional clarity. The character who once floated through Manhattan chasing shoes and column deadlines is now grounded in reinvention, loss and cautious hope. She’s grown up and she’s no longer hiding it.

“She doesn’t burst into tears or stomp out of the room anymore,” Parker said. “She asks smart, patient questions. That’s not effort — that’s just her nature now.”

“People seem surprised that she is mature,” Parker added. “But that’s just basic developmental stuff — hopefully, simply by living, we get better at things. It’s not surprising. It’s just real.”

Warts and all

Miranda’s arc, which now includes a late-in-life queer awakening, may be the show’s most radical contribution to television. For Nixon, it was vital that this journey didn’t feel sanitized.

“There’s never a ‘too late’ moment. Miranda comes to queerness at 55. That doesn’t mean everything that came before was wrong. It just means this is her now. And it’s messy. It can be messy. But it’s real.”

That embrace of imperfection is central to Nixon’s philosophy of storytelling, especially on television, where long-running characters become part of the cultural furniture.

“Television puts someone in your living room, week after week. They’re imperfect, they make you laugh, and eventually you say, ‘I know that person. They’re my friend.’ That’s more powerful than one mythic, perfect film. That’s where the change happens.”

That change includes representation. Nixon recalled how earlier generations of queer characters were forced to be flawless to justify their presence.

“There was a time when gay people on screen had to be saints or martyrs,” she said. “Now, we can be characters like Miranda — who’ve had rich, fulfilling heterosexual lives and now stumble upon queerness, and not in a tidy way. There’s collateral damage. That’s important.”

The power of long form

That depth, Nixon said, comes not just from character, but from the format. Unlike film, which requires resolution in two hours, television lets people grow — and falter — in real time.

“On long-running shows, if the writers are smart, they start to weave in the actor,” Nixon said. “When I started, Miranda and I were very different. But now we’ve grown closer. We’re almost the same person — in temperament, in values.”

That closeness is reflected in the material. Season three narrows its scope, pulling focus back to the emotional cores of Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte. Several side characters are gone, including Che Diaz, and what remains is a cleaner, more character-driven story.

“I think one of the great things about our show is we show women in their 50s whose lives are very dramatic and dynamic,” Nixon said. “You get to this age and there’s a lot going on — if you choose to keep moving forward.”

Friends, friction, and freedom

Kristin Davis, who plays Charlotte, noted that those life shifts come fast and often overlap.

“She really starts to unravel,” Davis said. “But the joy is her friends are there.”

Sarita Choudhury, who plays real estate powerhouse Seema, echoed that sense of late-blooming autonomy.

“She’s feeling that, if you have your own business, your own apartment, your own way, you get to say what you want,” Choudhury said. “There’s power in that.”

It’s a subtle rebuke to the long-held media narrative that midlife is a decline. In “And Just Like That …", it’s the opposite.

Not just fashion — declaration

Fashion, as ever, is present — but now it feels more personal than aspirational. Parker described insisting on wearing a ripped vintage Vivienne Westwood shirt with a bleach hole in a key scene.

“I didn’t care,” she said. “It had to be in an important scene. It meant something.”

Even the show’s iconic heels, still clacking through New York’s brownstone-lined streets, feel louder this season. They’re not just accessories. They’re declarations.

And yes, Carrie is writing again, though not her usual musings. A “historical romance” project, mentioned only briefly on screen so far, hints at the show’s comfort with poking fun at itself and its heroine’s occasionally pretentious flair. If early reviews are right, it might be one of the season’s most enjoyably ludicrous storylines.

“And Just Like That …” is a show that’s learned to walk — loudly — into its next chapter. It may be messy. But it’s real.

“You’re better today than you were 10 years ago,” Parker said. “That’s not just Carrie — that’s everyone.”

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“And Just Like That …”

8 p.m. Thursdays on HBO Max