HOLLY WAINWRIGHT: 'There are 2 ways to read the final scene of AJLT. I've made my choice.'

Carrie Bradshaw is on a beach in Greece, drinking cocktails.

That's where we've left the most discussed and dissected female fictional character of three decades, at the end of And Just Like That's second season. 

No-one's very happy about it. 

Apparently, when her everything-old-is-new again partner Aidan Shaw said he could not leave his kids four states over with their mother so he could move into Carrie's stunning new Manhattan home, she should have: 

- Said she would move there with him. 

Or

- Dumped his arse on the spot.

She did neither. Fictional Carrie agreed that for the next five years, he would stay living in Virginia, and they'd see what happened. Still in love, no hard feelings, let's have some great "remember me" sex. 

Today the Internet is cranky. Why is she waiting for a man? Between Carrie's Aidan deal and Seema's movie-director wide-boy Ravi heading off to film some pyramids for five months, apparently the show has left us with an unsatisfying, retro fit of femininity - a woman putting her life on hold to bend to a man's timeline.

Watch: And Just Like That Season 2 official trailer. Post continues below.

To which I offer up Seema's brilliant moment, delivered to Ravi when he asks her to come to the pyramids with him. "I’m not giving up this person I’ve worked so hard to become," she tells him. And absolutely. 

Who says these women are putting anything on hold? 

Carrie Bradshaw has everything she needs. And quite a lot of things she doesn't.

She has a wardrobe that's visible from Mars. She has a bountiful supply of interesting (and a couple of annoying, see, Jackie Nee) friends who are always free for brunch. She has more money than God (or at least, Mr Big). And she has a kitten called Shoe who she's suddenly – inexplicably – referring to as her 'baby'.

Image: Supplied

Seema Patel is also so similarly afflicted with independence. The co-founder of a high-end property agency, she loves the work that provides her with an unspendable mountain of dollar-bills, has a loving family to go home to for the holidays, and friends who'll host her in the Hamptons every Summer. 

Both of these women want love. Neither needs to throw their entire world over for middle-aged men with scalable mountains of high-end baggage. 

Sex And The City and And Just LIke That may not have ever reflected real life, but the franchise has always been good at delivering fantasy. And Just Like That's ending has delivered us another - the midlife Living Alone Together arrangement.

LATs are couples who are committed to each other but live apart. LATs thrive in the post child-rearing years, or among the child-free, when there is no real advantage to merging households for support, assistance and financial advantage. When preserving your own space and schedule but coming together when you both want it is a neater, fresher, hotter way to live. Crudely put - you don't have to pick up someone else's underwear off the bathroom floor to show you're in love.

Living Together-Together can be wonderful, of course. Especially if there being two of you to wrangle children or pay bills isn key to survival. There is great beauty to the intimacy of constant proximity. But there's also great freedom in knowing that every moment you spend together is a choice, not an obligation. 

And anyway, Aidan, we know, you will not be able to keep away for long. 

In the universe that is Sex And The City, there will be times his kids go on holidays with their mum. There will be golden periods when they need him less, complicated moments they need him more. And in the meantime Carrie gets to live the life she's always lived and always loved, with occasional visits from the man who, according to the woman herself - gives her "the best orgasms of my life." 

Seema's director has told her he loves her. He's told her he has to keep coming back to the apartment she made him overpay for. She gets to keep her life, and time with her man, without compromise. 

There are crimes in display in this season of AJLT. Nya's drunken sexting calls were hard to watch. Miranda may have been too flakey for too long. It has taken Charlotte 15 years to figure out that other people who live in her house can order takeaway and leave a note for the cleaner. Che's live show was... Che's live shows. 

But this ending is no feminist betrayal. It just depicts two grown women celebrating friendship, love and the fact they didn't have to become other, lesser versions of themselves to get the love that they want. 

Relatable content.

Feature Image: Getty