Why won’t Aidan enter Carrie’s apartment on ‘And Just Like That’? Their past gives clues

When news broke last summer that John Corbett was set to reprise his role as Aidan Shaw — Carrie Bradshaw’s other great love, the one whom she could never commit to for too long — on the new season of “And Just Like That,” it simultaneously felt like a played out joke straight out of a Che Diaz comedy set and the best news ever.

After all, we’ve journeyed down this road before (several times, actually), and it usually leads to bad decisions and/or chain smoking. And as far as nostalgia plays go, since we can’t yet experience the real love story from “Sex and the City” — the friendship between Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte — because of Samantha’s absence, Aidan is the next best thing, not unlike his ranking in Carrie’s partner roster.

Following the death of Mr. Big (Chris Noth), her great (and torturous) love, early in Season 1 of “And Just Like That,” Carrie has cautiously re-entered the dating pool. After some false starts and questionable choices, this season, she emails her old flame: “Hey Stranger …” reads the subject line. (And, yes, we choose to believe she emailed from her [email protected] account.)

And just like that, after 13 years, Aidan Shaw is back.

Like many of Carrie’s suitors, Aidan is either loved or loathed by fans. Some see him as a victim to Carrie’s whims and immaturity, others see him as an example of toxic masculinity with red flags that rival Carrie’s. Whatever team fans are on, Aidan could be endgame for Carrie. “And Just Like That” creator Michael Patrick King recently told the New York Times: “I didn’t bring Aidan back to fail.”

Here’s a look at Aidan’s return on Thursday, his intense reaction to Carrie’s apartment and the history of the drama surrounding their relationship.

Aidan’s return on ‘And Just Like That …’

And just like that, after 13 years, Carrie and Aidan are back.

(Craig Blankenhorn / HBO)

Titled “February 14,” the episode opens with Carrie revealing that Aidan has replied to her email and has suggested that they meet up for dinner while he’s in town. In the lead up to their meeting, Carrie grows increasingly nervous, wondering if too much time has passed. But that‘s the least of her problems — the night of their dinner not only lands on an already emotionally loaded date, Valentine’s Day, but due to some poor address number placement, Carrie goes to the wrong restaurant and waits and waits, only to realize that she’s at the wrong place after receiving a text from Aidan. The two eventually head to Carrie’s apartment and that’s when the PTSD sets in for Aidan.

“At the restaurant, I just thought, ‘How great. This feels really great. [We’re] back where we started,’” he tells her. “But this is where we ended. With the f— wall I couldn’t break through and those floors … remember those floors that I re-did? It’s all bad. It’s just … it’s all in there.”

“It’s the same place, but we’re not in the same place,” Carrie says, trying to assure him.

“No matter how much I want to, I can’t go in there again with all that. I’m never going in there again,” he says.

But just as soon as he walks away, he turns back with the sort of military precision that his structured jacket demands: “Hey — it, this is New York. They have hotels, right?”

But will the timing be right this time?

How their relationship began

Carrie and Aidan Shaw begin their romance in Season 3 of “Sex and the City.”

(HBO)

Carrie originally meets Aidan in Season 3 of “Sex and the City” (Episode 5, “No Ifs, Ands or Butts”), after Stanford (Willie Garson) shows her an ad with the furniture designer’s photo in the paper and drags her to his store to swoon in-person. “His name was Aidan Shaw,” begins Carrie’s voice over. “He was warm, masculine and classic American — just like his furniture.” Following a meet-cute initiated by Aidan’s leg-humping dog, Pete, that led to talk of 100-year-old leather stripped off a railroad car seat, the duo begin dating.

The obstacles that would plague the couple revealed themselves quickly. Carrie is known for her penchant for a cigarette and Aidan was an anti-smoker who told her that was a dealbreaker for him. She vowed to quit her bad habit (and failed). As the relationship continued to develop, Carrie couldn’t help but worry about how nothing was wrong in their relationship. Here was a man stripping her hardwood floors. “The irony is Aidan is acting exactly the way I wish Big would have behaved,” Carrie told her friends. “And I’m behaving just like Big.” It turns out, Mr. Big was the bigger bad habit she couldn’t quit.

How it ended: Carrie’s affair with Mr. Big

During the course of her relationship with Aidan, Carrie had several encounters with Mr. Big, who by then was married to Natasha (Bridget Moynahan), that eventually led to a full-blown affair. In Episode 11 of Season 3, Natasha returned home early from a trip and discovered Carrie attempting to sneak out of the apartment after having another encounter with Big. She tumbled down the stairs in an effort to confront Carrie but knocked out a tooth and ended up in the hospital instead. Carrie finally came to her senses and ended the affair.

Later, on the day of Charlotte’s wedding to her first husband, Trey MacDougal (Kyle MacLachlan), Carrie came clean to Aidan about the affair she had with Big. Aidan may have come around to showing willingness to tolerate her smoking habit, but the cheating? “I just know myself. This isn’t the kind of thing I can get over,” he tells her.

Aidan’s other return(s)

Aidan and Carrie meet in an Abu Dhabi market in 2010’s “Sex and the City 2.”

(Craig Blankenhorn / Warner Bros.)

In Season 4, after having a brief interaction with Aidan at the launch party for the bar he opens with Steve, Carrie uses email for the first time (it was 2001) to initiate a friendly hangout with her ex in hopes of rekindling their romance. After initially rebuffing her by shouting, “You broke my heart!” outside his apartment while wearing a white button-down with impressive embroidery work, the two eventually give their relationship another try. They even manage to get through the hurdle of Carrie’s insistence that Aidan accept her friendship with the man who helped destroy their relationship the first time.

In time, Aidan proposes to Carrie (she accepts) and they move in together — he even buys her apartment (and the one next door) since the building is going co-op, and Carrie can’t afford to buy it on her own, so they can expand it and build a life together. But just as he started knocking down walls, it was clear he couldn’t knock down those keeping Carrie from wanting to commit to marriage, and they end things.

In Season 6, just as Carrie is about to have an official first date with Jack “Post-it Note” Berger, she has a brief run-in with Aidan, who is holding his baby son on a sidewalk. He revealed that he settled down with a fellow furniture designer, Kathy.

Then, in the 2010 film “Sex and the City 2,” the one most diehard fans try to pretend never happened, Carrie strangely runs into her ex in an Abu Dhabi market. By this point, she’s married to Big, and Aidan’s married with three sons. Still, the two make plans to meet for dinner and share an unexpected kiss. Carrie immediately tells Big about the incident.