And Just Like That EPs on Carrie's off-screen meeting with [SPOILER]: 'That's the best part of fiction — it can repair reality'

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the season finale of And Just Like That.

"It's important to meeeee/That you know you are freeeeee...."

And Just Like That began with Big (Chris Noth) singing Todd Rundgren's "Hello It's Me" to Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) in their kitchen — and in Thursday's season finale, the late Mr. Big returned (off camera) to croon to her once again, this time in a dream. After 10 episodes and about one year in AJLT time, Carrie realized it was time to let go of her loss — and of Big's ashes, which she scattered off the Pont des Arts bridge in Paris, where they reunited in a scene from the Sex and the City series finale. (Noth was edited out of the dream sequence in the wake of several sexual assault allegations. Noth has denied them.)

Carrie took more than a few big steps in the AJLT finale — two kisses! Starting her own podcast (called Sex and the City)! Reuniting with Samantha (off screen)! — and she wasn't the only one. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) chose to relocate to L.A. temporarily to be with Che (Sara Ramirez), while Charlotte (Kristin Davis) had a very belated "they mitzvah" when her youngest child, Rock (Alexa Swinton), decided not to go through with the ceremony.

EW couldn't help but wonder… what does this all mean for a potential season 2? (HBO Max has yet to renew the series, but we'd bet our Louboutins they will. Full disclosure: We do not own Louboutins.) And Just Like That executive producers Michael Patrick King, Julie Rottenberg, and Elisa Zuritsky — who also co-wrote Thursday's episode — joined EW to answer all of our burning questions about the finale, polarized fan reactions, and what may be ahead for Carrie and company. (And yes, we also asked about Harry's, um, big reveal in episode 8.)

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: The finale finds Carrie reaching a new kind of peace after a year without Big. What was the biggest adjustment for you when it came to writing her as a character grieving a loss rather than a woman searching for love?

MICHAEL PATRICK KING: Well, the interesting thing about Carrie is Carrie's always been grieving Mr. Big, in some way or another. On Sex and the City, she was always feeling the loss of him in her life when she couldn't have him. The major engine of that series was her need to be back with him. In the series, he was across town or in a marriage, and now he's gone. So the DNA is tragic and more finite and more real. She's always had a longing for Big, and what was interesting to play with for us as writers was the reality and how she's going to let go of the longing that she can never win. She can't win this one — he's gone. If she doesn't let go of him, it will be torture.

Our journey was to honor in our realistically fantastical writer minds… what would be a respectable story arc for someone to go from shocking loss to being able to let go. And we just took a little journey that took 10 episodes, but we were very deliberate about how much light we kept letting into the dark. We didn't want to deny the dark and we didn't want to not give light.

When revising the dream scene, how did you arrive at the decision to have us hear Big sing to Carrie, though only she sees him?

KING: A dream is more abstract by nature than real life, and I thought just the whisper of Mr. Big's voice felt the most dreamlike.

Carrie has two kisses in this episode: The "contract kiss" with Peter (John Tenney), but the kiss she actually enjoys is with her podcast producer, Franklyn (Ivan Hernandez), in the elevator. Why was it important to you that her first real feelings of passion post-Big came from this surprise moment — a surprise to her and to us?

JULIE ROTTENBERG: We liked the idea that Carrie, who's been on this journey, by this episode has reached a point of closure, if you can call it that. Releasing the ashes, healing, and then this idea that she talks about minutes before the kiss — for love, the future is unwritten and that something can surprise you. Of course, we were planting those breadcrumbs all along, but as far as Carrie's concerned, it comes really out of nowhere. We loved giving her that little reward and reminding her that surprising, amazing things can happen to you when you least expect them.

ELISA ZURITSKY: If you're open to it, which she finally is.

If there's a season 2, would you want to explore more with Carrie and Franklyn?

ZURITSKY: Oh, absolutely. We don't even know what happens when those elevator doors close, and I would love to figure it out. I bet we all in our minds have our own version of what happened between them that day, that night — who knows, the next morning?

ROTTENBERG: What? [Laughs]

KING: Boy, you went far! I was just going to, "Did they share an Uber?" [Laughs] I like to make sure we have enough story points. But that's thrilling. I mean, the elevator door closes, but the story remains open. What we were trying to say with the end for [all the characters] is: Do the work, see what happens. Maybe you'll be surprised, but the possibility is out there.

Quite frankly, we put Ivan Hernandez, who plays Franklyn, in from the very first episode just to make him be there, but it's someone she couldn't see because it was in her backyard. That's a little bit of a spark that was missing with Peter in the first kiss.

Wait, so did you know from the start that she was going to kiss Franklyn in the finale?

KING: I put him behind glass in the booth for a reason, to be familiar to Carrie in her daily podcast life but with no pressure — and yes, always with an eye to something happening at the end.

Michael, you recently said that you've followed the "macro" fan reactions to And Just Like That but don't get deep into the weeds — what about you, Elisa and Julie?

ROTTENBERG: We've realized that in many ways we are very similar, and in some ways we are very different. I am much more avoidant. Elisa will sort of dose out what she knows I can handle in little delicious or slightly sour teaspoons of press. How much press can I take today?

ZURITSKY: I am like a child who can't resist the curiosity of, like, ripping open all the presents.

KING: I love that you think they're presents!

ROTTENBERG: Imagine her surprise.

ZURITSKY: I am very, very curious, to my detriment sometimes. The whole time we were writing the show, I couldn't wait to find out how people were going to respond to everything we were doing. We all knew we were taking big swings. We knew we were not like tiptoeing back to put on a fashion show. So it was exciting and scary, but I was mostly really curious. And yes, there were days that I overdosed on my presents [laughs].

Was there one hot take or fan reaction that surprised you the most?

KING: Yes. Kristin Davis told me last Sunday when I was talking to her that there was an outraged article about Charlotte's apartment being too small. And that [her kids] would never have to stay in the same room! I literally almost felt down.

ROTTENBERG: I'm done. I'm done.

KING: That is a reach to criticize. Kristin was like, "What? Of course they would be in the same room!" It's just a typical frame of points of view — how people have a very strong opinion fueled by their own fan fiction, I guess. Fan fiction sometimes becomes fan friction.

The character of Che, played by Sara Ramirez, is great example of that. Michael, you've said that of course fans were going to have a strong reaction to Che because they're the person who comes between Miranda and Steve. That's totally fair, but Che is also sort of this cocksure comedian. They laugh at their own jokes — they can be a little annoying, if we're being honest. Do you think that factored into the fan reaction?

ZURITSKY: They're a narcissist!

KING: In the finale, Che looks right at Miranda and says, "I'm a f---ing narcissist"! First of all, there's a level of energy that stand-ups have, and they are sometimes better on stage than in life. There are personalities that are too big. People could say that Samantha was too big in her lane. Che is very big in their lane. Big was very big in his lane! There's a whole camp of audience division [about him], like, "He was never for me. He was too cocky!"

It's really about temperature now, what people personally want. And the idea is that Che is a big personality. We weren't interested in bringing in a phenomenal actor like Sara Ramirez and giving them leftovers or giving them middle-of-the-road "Do you like me?" stories. I love Che. I think Che is a firebrand and honest, and a character that I've never seen on television. You rarely see a stand-up as a love interest on television.

At the end of episode 8, Miranda goes to surprise Che in Cleveland. Many viewers, including myself, were certain that this surprise visit would not end well — that Che would be put off by Miranda's presumption or they'd be with someone else. Instead, it apparently goes fine, and we don't even see the meeting. Were you intentionally trying to confound viewer expectations there?

KING: We realized that people were doing so much work on their own. Even when we were filming it and Miranda says, "I'm in a rom-com!" — I was thinking that cab's going directly into a brick wall [laughs]. We decided there really wasn't a brick wall, as much as the expectation of the brick wall. All that would've happened in Cleveland is Miranda would've showed up and sort of announced herself to a bouncer as, "I'm Che's girlfriend," which is the opposite of the tradition that Che just told Miranda they couldn't offer. We had more fun with the Meg Ryan cookie scene than we would've ever had in Cleveland.

ZURITSKY: Even my husband was like, "Ah, can't wait to see what happens in Cleveland!"

KING: My sister Eileen said after she watched [episode 8], "I thought I missed a chapter!" Sometimes, production demands get in the way as well, and you just can't do it all.

In the finale, we see that Che is going to L.A. to film their pilot. If there's a season 2, do you plan to bring them back?

KING: It's exactly like what happened behind that elevator door with Carrie. We still don't know what happened.

ZURITSKY: We're very curious, though.

KING: And we're gigantic fans of Sara Ramirez.

Michael, we talked at the beginning of the season about Carrie's falling out with Samantha, and how it resonated with viewers because we, like the characters, believed they'd be friends forever. In the finale we see this incredible text exchange between Carrie and Samantha, and we see that they made plans to meet for a drink. At the same time, you've also been very clear that Kim Cattrall is not coming back — which I understand rationally, but it still hurts my heart, especially when she keeps popping up in texts on the show. Do you have any advice for fans on how to cope with this disappointment?

KING: I think the heart is the right organ that you're referencing. I mean, I think Samantha sending flowers at the funeral was an opening of a heart that was necessary. The fact that you can't see Samantha [meet up with Carrie] at the end is just like not seeing Cleveland. [Laughs] You know what I mean? Look, it's not deliberate. It's reality. And the idea of Carrie and Samantha in London, or in Paris, having an amazing night of cocktails — and they're already healed, because why else would they be meeting together? The loss is now recognized as something they want to fix. So that's the best part of fiction — it can repair reality.

ROTTENBERG: We all like envisioning our own scene. We would all write that scene differently, and in a way that's the greatest liberation because they can exist in fiction together at a fabulous cafe, somewhere having too many glasses of, um… I'm gonna say wine. I think they had wine.

ZURITSKY: I would go a different way.

KING: What are they drinking in your [scene], Elisa?

ZURITSKY: I was going back to cosmos because I'm so corny.

KING: I would go to champagne because it's a celebration.

Charlotte had an interesting arc this season — she was learning how to get more comfortable with things that aren't perfect, whether it was Miranda's decision to leave Steve or Rock's decision to skip their "they mitzvah." What was the thinking behind giving her these types of challenges?

ROTTENBERG: For us, Charlotte is this incredibly grounding ingredient. She is solid. She's also still struggling with these issues of perfection and control. If you are a control freak and a perfectionist, and then you have kids and you realize you have no control over anything, and nothing can be even remotely perfect — to be able to show her wrestling with that and having to keep shifting and pivoting? Rose was Rose. Now Rose wants to be Rock. Now they're they. Just when you think you've adjusted to the new normal, there's something new. Her figuring out how to let go of a little of that control was the joy for us, and I thought Kristin was phenomenal.

We also witnessed a very intimate moment between Charlotte and Harry in episode 8, where we saw more of Harry than we've ever seen before. How did you break the news to Evan Handler that his character's penis was getting its own close-up?

ROTTENBERG: You better take this one, Michael. We leave the dick talk to Michael. [Laughs]

KING: First of all, I like to talk to Evan the actor first — and Evan the actor knows a good scene when he hears it. You saw Evan the actor play that [so well] — like when he says, "Oh yeah, there's time." He had so many colors in that scene. So first, you appeal to Evan the actor, and you say, "There's this great scene." And then you say, "It's not your dick, but I'll take care of you." [Laughs]

And you did.

And I did. Actors know — and I'm gonna make the pun — a good part when they see it. Evan and Kristin both on that day, I mean talk about MVPs. The joy of it, of knowing that this dangerous thing was happening, and the crew just holding back constantly and in between cuts just laughing, they were both so charming and game.

Male nudity was almost nonexistent on Sex and the City, but episode 8 had two penises. Was that just by chance?

KING: Well, you know, once you break the dick barrier, another one's gonna come in. [Laughs] The point of it was we wanted to show two different comfort [levels]. Charlotte's very comfortable with handling a dick in her marriage, and then Carrie doesn't wanna be anywhere around a stranger's dick. That is not what she wanted out of her brownie moment.

ROTTENBERG: I'm having a memory — didn't we see Richard's dick?

KING: We did see Richard's penis in the series with Samantha, around the pool. [Editor's note: Season 4, episode 13… in case you were wondering.]

ROTTENBERG: Walking down dick memory lane!

ZURITSKY: I'm gonna have to go back to that episode.

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