Carrie Bradshaw never stops starting over. After the original _Sex and the City__ _series ended with Sarah Jessica Parker’s polarizing sex-columnist heroine rejoicing in her soulmate Mr.

Big’s (Chris Noth) long-awaited declaration of love, 2008’s follow-up_ _movie had him leave her at the altar so she could cry it out with her best girlfriends on what was supposed to be the

couple’s honeymoon. The bloated _SATC _feature ended with Carrie and Big’s reconciliation; though their City Hall wedding stuck, an atrocious sequel film teased marital malaise before

sending the ladies to Abu Dhabi for some lighthearted cultural appropriation. Which left Max’s revival, _And Just Like That_, with little choice but to upend Carrie’s life again: RIP Big,

“expectations.” Including the expectation that her rekindled romance with Aidan (John Corbett) would proceed in typical fashion. He put the relationship on pause for five years, to

concentrate on parenting his problem child, Wyatt (Logan Souza), in Virginia. And she let him, laying groundwork for the surprisingly effective reset that is Season 3, which premieres May 29

on Max. In shedding so much of the clutter it, like Carrie’s studio, had been accumulating since the 20th century, _AJLT _finally feels less like an _SATC _hangover and more like its own

preposterous yet generally fun thing. Crucial to this rebirth is an overdue pruning of the cast. In a laudable but clumsily executed effort to make _AJLT _less straight and white than its

predecessor, the first season conspicuously paired each of its three returning leads with a new woman-of-color friend. Carrie got Sarita Choudhury’s glam, no-nonsense real estate queen,

Seema. Charlotte York-Goldenblatt (Kristin Davis) made a mom friend in documentarian Lisa Todd Wexley (Nicole Ari Parker). Retraining in human-rights law, Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon)

awkwardly won over her professor, Dr. Nya Wallace (Karen Pittman). And when Miranda burst out of the closet, crushing her nebbishy husband, Steve (David Eigenberg), the nonbinary comedian

and meme-in-the-making Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez) was waiting with open arms. The _SATC_ women’s for-some-reason-married (blame _SATC 2_) gay best friends, Stanford Blatch (Willie Garson) and

Anthony Marentino (Mario Cantone) were also getting more screentime. Meanwhile, the show was haunted by the specters of Big (who was even cut from flashbacks after two women accused Noth of

sexual assault, which he has denied) and Samantha Jones, the spectacularly promiscuous fourth lead, who was shipped off unseen to London when Kim Cattrall declined to reprise the role. It

was too many characters to juggle, especially when _AJLT _creator and _SATC _alum Michael Patrick King spent so much time marinating in Carrie’s residual grief and circular love life.

Whether they were part of his plan or not, the cast departures that have happened since are for the best, with the tragic exception of Garson’s death in 2021. A distraction from the start,

Che had little reason to linger after her Season 2 breakup with Miranda; when Ramirez’s exit was announced last year, amid reports of behind-the-scenes drama, it was a relief. Smart,

grounded, and self-possessed (not to mention the closest _AJLT _got to middle-class representation), Pittman’s Nya made more sense as part of the ensemble. But with Miranda out of school—and

Pittman doing great work in the sublime _Forever_—her absence from Season 3 works. Carrie’s ghosts must have stayed behind at the old apartment. As she readies her palatial new Gramercy

home for Aidan's eventual cohabitation and tries not to pine too hard for Aidan—who doesn’t even want her to text him when they’re apart (no, I’m still not sold on this storyline)—it’s

as if Big never existed. On the spike heels of Cattrall’s overhyped, split-second appearance, speaking to Parker _by phone _in the Season 2 finale, _AJLT _seems to have Samantha out of its

system, too. Her presence in the six Season 3 episodes sent for review is limited to a text message or two. After cleaning out the cast list _and _the walk-in closet of people from Carrie’s

past, King emerges with a fresher, more balanced and focused show that has come a long way from the _SATC _nostalgia act of Season 1. With just five women to follow, Seema’s and Lisa’s

storylines finally get as much weight as Charlotte’s and Miranda’s. LTW has the PBS greenlight on a passion project she’s been laboring over for years; if only her husband’s comptroller

campaign and a pesky work crush weren’t threatening to derail her. Though her season begins with a weirdly abrupt twist, Seema is soon thrown into a juicy professional crisis of her own when

her business partner suddenly retires and sells his shares to Ryan Serhant (yes, the _Million Dollar Listing/__Owning Manhattan__ _guy; yes, he appears as himself; and yes, this does feel

like human product placement). Choudhury’s performance might be _AJLT_’s single best reason for existing, and her increased presence this season makes it better with every imperious line

reading. Not that this is never going to be a _great _show, much less an important one like _SATC_, for all its flaws. Despite its popularity, _AJLT _wouldn’t recognize the zeitgeist if it

knocked on the antique door of Carrie’s Victorian townhouse begging her to vote. It’s still a fluffy, head-in-the-sand, rich-lady fantasy. The teenage characters seem to have been written by

people who haven’t talked to an actual teen since _they_ were teens. Carrie remains the absolute worst; an episode that has her fuming over her (distinguished British author) downstairs

neighbor’s request that she stop stomping on his ceiling in heels made me apoplectic. And I don’t think there’s enough substance—or chemistry—in her relationship with Aidan to justify the

outsize attention it gets. But even as it’s earnestly improving, learning to integrate the indignities and health scares of late middle age without tanking the mood, _AJLT _is having more,

better fun with its inherent absurdity. Who wouldn’t want to see Miranda get obsessed with a trashy dating show called _Bi Bingo _or hook up with guest star Rosie O’Donnell, whose

character’s backstory is sure to make jaws everywhere drop? Charlotte getting into dog-park confrontations (“I feel like the mother from _The Bad Seed_!”) and stalking a college-admissions

guru named Lois “The Finger” Fingerhead, played by a prepped-out Kristen Schaal? Yes, please! Scenery-chomping appearances by Jenifer Lewis and Cheri Oteri? Bring 'em on! In what might

be the season's goofiest development, I regret to inform you that Carrie has begun work on her first novel, a historical romance that sounds like ChatGPT’s attempt to rewrite her diary

as if she were living in the 19th century—the literary equivalent of a sepia-toned novelty photo. (“The woman had survived the treacherous journey mostly intact.”) It’s dreadful. And yet, as

with so many of _AJLT_’s most ludicrous storylines, I am here for it.