A few months ago, my younger daughter, Darby, and I were settling into our seats at the local AMC. As the previews rolled, she gasped. “I know that voice,” she said. “That’s Aidan. Mom, that’s Aidan.”
I looked up just in time to see a familiar shock of brown curls. It was indeed Aidan Delbis, former member of the Falcon Players at Crescenta Valley High School in La Crescenta, a kid I had seen perform alongside my daughter in countless student plays.
Only now he was seated at a kitchen table with Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone as the words “Bugonia” and then “directed by Yorgos Lanthimos” flashed across the screen.
“Did you not know?” I asked my daughter. CV is a fine public school with a good theater program, but it isn’t exactly an incubator for nepo babies and aspiring stars. That one of their own had stepped off last year’s graduation stage and into a major film production should have been very big news long before a trailer hit theaters.
“No,” she said, furiously messaging various friends. “But now they will.”
Now they will indeed. When he joined the cast of “Bugonia,” Delbis didn’t just become a part of Lanthimos’ highly anticipated remake of Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 black comedy “Save the Green Planet!” He also entered the mythology of which Hollywood dreams are made: A 17-year old sends in his first-ever open-call submission and lands a major role in a very big movie.
With a script by Will Tracy and obvious Oscar potential, “Bugonia” had its world premiere in August at this year’s Venice Film Festival before launching onto the festival circuit, including screenings in Toronto and New York, in preparation for its release this Friday. A slightly absurdist, darkly funny thriller with political undertones, it revolves around the kidnapping of a pharmaceutical company’s CEO, Michelle (Stone), by wild-eyed conspiracy theorist Teddy (Plemons) and his loyal cousin Don (Delbis).
From left, Emma Stone, Aidan Delbis and Jesse Plemons in the movie “Bugonia.”
(Atsushi Nishijima / Focus Features)
Teddy believes Michelle is an alien sent to destroy Earth. Don believes in Teddy. Though he falls in with Teddy’s plans, he often questions them, serving as a continual reminder that even within Teddy’s paranoid view of the universe, there is such a thing as going too far. Don is, in many ways, the heart of the film.
He is also, like the actor who plays him, autistic.
Delbis — who chooses to self-describe as autistic rather than neurodivergent — is not someone who has long nursed dreams of stardom. He took drama classes all through high school, but it wasn’t until his junior year, Delbis says, “that I started to get more into the process. I found the general process of acting, of understanding and investing in different personalities, to be fun and sometimes scary.”
Still, he says, “I wasn’t really sure that I wanted it to be my main career. But it so happened that this happened while I was in high school, and here we are.”
Here is the Four Seasons on a very rainy October afternoon where Delbis, now 19, has just finished his first solo photo shoot and is sitting, fortified by Goldfish crackers (his go-to-snack), for his first long one-on-one interview. He went to some of the film festivals and just returned from “Bugonia’s” London premiere, where he signed autographs on the red carpet and enjoyed flying first class. His parents, Katy and David Delbis, are seated nearby, as is his access and creative coach, Elaine Hall.
Delbis is a tall, good-natured young man who speaks with a distinctive cadence and in an unwaveringly calm tone. Aside from a habit of repeating himself as he searches for what he wants to say next, he seems more comfortable discussing his experience with filmmaking than many of the dozens of more experienced actors I have interviewed in this very hotel over the years.
“We should try to be more empathetic to people with different worldviews because you never really know what those people are going through,” Delbis says. “The movie feels very relevant to that theme.”
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
“It all started,” he says, “when my mom was friends with this agent, April, and one day she sent Mom an audition that seemed pretty promising, so I submitted for that. And they really liked it and called me back.”
It actually started a bit further back than that. With Plemons and Stone already cast, Lanthimos had decided that he wanted a nonprofessional actor to play Don.
“We went really wide in trying to find someone really special,” the Greek-born director of “The Favourite” and “Poor Things” says in a phone interview. “With these two experienced actors, I wanted to bring in a different dynamic. As we looked at people, I felt that the character would be more interesting if he was neurodivergent.”
Casting director Jennifer Venditti put out an open call, which April Smallwood of Spotlight Development saw and sent to Delbis’ mother, Katy.
“A happy-go-lucky young man, neurodivergent — it practically described Aidan,” Katy says in a later interview. La Crescenta may not be an industry hub, but, like many in L.A., the Delbis family has a Hollywood connection. Aidan’s older brother, Tristan (who is also neurodivergent), works at a movie theater; father David is about to retire after years at the Writers Guild Health Fund; and Katy, a self-described “creative,” has done some acting herself. But no one saw film-acting as a potential career for Aidan, who was set to take a gap year after high school. And, Katy says, she had no idea what sort of movie it was for. “It said for a ‘big film,’ but they always say that.”
She thought of it a bit like the time Delbis, a member of the high school track team, decided he also wanted to try out for basketball. “As I drove him to the school,” Katy said, “I told him that he might not get on since there were a lot of kids who had been playing basketball for years, which he had not. He said, ‘Mom, I just want to see what it’s like.’”
Now Delbis wanted to see what it would be like to audition for a “big film.”
Aidan Delbis in the movie “Bugonia.”
(Atsushi Nishijima / Focus Features)
He had recently performed the Vincent Price monologue from “Thriller” for the school talent show, which Katy filmed on her phone, so Smallwood submitted that. Venditti called Smallwood the next day and met with Delbis over Zoom. Thus began a monthslong process of meetings, rehearsals and auditions.
“We focused on him right away,” Venditti says. “He seemed to have it all. And he was very committed.”
“I was really unaware of how big a project it was,” Delbis said. “I had never seen a film by Yorgos.”
In March, Lanthimos, Stone and Plemons were in L.A. for the Oscars, so they all met with Delbis and came away impressed.
Lanthimos thought of casting a neurodivergent actor in a part because it would bring a natural clarity and unfiltered unpredictability to the role. He didn’t consider it any more challenging than working with any other actor. And when he met Delbis, Lanthimos says, “I just thought: That’s him.”
“Just from watching that first tape, you could see there was something so magnetic about him,” said Stone during a recent phone interview. (She is also a producer on the film.) “Don is the audience’s window, the one who can see through the charade.”
Still, there were many more steps to take.
“It’s a big leap for any nonprofessional,” Stone says. “It’s a big part in what is essentially a three-hander.”
From left, director Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, Aidan Delbis and Jesse Plemons at the Venice Film Festival, where “Bugonia” had its world premiere in August.
(Alessandra Tarantino / Invision / AP)
For an autistic actor, it’s an even bigger leap. As talented as Delbis might be, he also had to be able to handle the pressures, boredom and chaos of a film set. Venditti reached out to Hall. The founder of the Miracle Project and mother to a now-adult neurodivergent son, Hall is an acting coach who has worked for more than 20 years to increase the presence and understanding of neurodivergent and disabled people. She is often asked to gauge the ability of actors to take on a certain role — their ease with the material, their physical stamina, their level of independence and their emotional accessibility.
Delbis, she says, ticked all the boxes. He loves horror films, he was on the track team and he was, at the time, about to travel without his parents on a school trip to Sweden.
He is, as he says himself, “a low-key guy,” so Hall gave him some exercises to help him portray more extreme emotions and prepare him for when other cast members might do the same. (One subsequent rehearsal involved a scene in which one of the actors screamed repeatedly.)
Often, Hall says, perfecting these exercises can take weeks; Delbis, working with his mother, did it in a weekend. She also helped him prepare for his meeting with and then chemistry read with Plemons.
Delbis says he was “a bit nervous, though I don’t know why.” He did not recognize Plemons’ name or his face. “I had watched ‘Breaking Bad,’ but I didn’t realize Jesse played Todd. Halfway through [the read], I told him he looked like Todd and he said, ‘That’s because I played him.’ I’ve seen him in other things since then,” Delbis adds. “He’s a very solid actor.”
More important, he says, “Jesse seemed to me to be a very cool guy.”
That feeling is mutual. “When we brought Aidan in, I was excited and a little nervous,” Plemons says during a phone call from London. They started with one of the more extreme scenes from the film. “I was finding my feet too. When it became apparent that he was going to be fine with the darker scenes, I said, ‘This is him; this is Don.’”
While all this was happening, Delbis was finishing his senior year, which included a starring role in a production of “Almost Maine.” “It was not overly hard,” he says, but sometimes it was a lot. “I did one read and then I had to go to rehearsal for the play.”
Venditti remembers that day very well. “Here we were being so careful, treating him like he was fragile and not wanting to overload him,” she says laughing, “and he’s just calmly multitasking.”
When Delbis got the role in May, he and his family signed a nondisclosure agreement, which is why none of his friends knew his news after graduation, and Delbis and his family flew to the U.K. to begin filming. It was a tough secret for his parents to keep. But “any time it looked like I might slip,” Katy says, “Aidan shut me down.” He celebrated his 18th birthday near the set outside of Windsor, where production ran for three months before moving for two weeks in Atlanta.
Hall was hired to be Delbis’ on-set access and creative coach, a job she believes she has invented, meant to make the experience for neurodivergent and disabled actors easier. She suggested that Lanthimos and Tracy simplify Delbis’ script pages, stripping down the description of action “so he wouldn’t get stuck thinking he had to do exactly what was on the page,” she says, which they were happy to do.
“We didn’t want to put any limits on him,” Lanthimos says.
Delbis chose most of his costumes (except a beekeeping suit, motivated by the plot, which he says “was very hot”), which mirrored his own wardrobe preferences down to the horror film t-shirts and mismatched socks. Even the food Teddy and Don eat during the film reflects Delbis’ taste: mac ’n’ cheese, taquitos, spaghetti.
Hall ensured Delbis had extra time before filming, during which she could help him prepare with rehearsal and centering exercises. She visited the set before he arrived so she could tell him exactly what to expect and worked with the production team to ensure that he had his own space between takes. “They built us a little house, with horror posters on the wall and stuffed animals that looked like his cats,” she says. As there were no Goldfish available in the U.K., the production had them flown in.
“Having Elaine there was amazing,” Venditti says. “The idea of having someone to act as eyes and ears of what people are actually experiencing on set, I think it’s groundbreaking. I don’t know why we haven’t done it before.”
Delbis spent a fair amount of time with Plemons, who Hall said occasionally stepped in to help if she had to be away from set.
“We did a decent amount of goofing around,” Delbis says. “The bond that developed between us occurred quite naturally. I consider Jesse a friend.”
For his part, Plemons enjoyed being around someone who spoke his mind.
“I so appreciated Aidan’s inability to tell a lie,” Plemons says. “On a set, you spend so much time waiting around, and he would say, ‘What are we doing? What is taking so long?’ Which was exactly what I was thinking. He’s a very smart, sensitive, self-assured guy, and if you’re unclear in what you’re saying, he will let you know.”
“Aidan is just so funny,” says his “Bugonia” co-star Emma Stone. “We spent a lot of time together in a basement and Aidan had so many jokes about that.”
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Stone says that while she and Delbis had a friendly rapport, she hung back a little when they weren’t shooting. “I didn’t want to form the same kind of bond Aidan had with Jesse because [in the film] it’s them against me and I didn’t want to do too much to mess with that.”
But, the two-time Oscar winner says, “Aidan is just so funny. He was on a jag during the kidnapping scene. We spent a lot of time together in a basement and Aidan had so many jokes about that.”
“I went through all of ‘Bugonia’ thinking I had never seen Emma in anything,” Delbis says. “Then I realized my parents had shown me a clip of a woman getting very involved in a birthday card — ‘Pocketful of Sunshine’ — and that was from ‘Easy A.’”
When he was filming, Delbis was all business. Several of the takes which he ad-libbed made it into the film and Delbis is proud of that.
“Despite being in more extreme situations than I’ve been in, there’s something of Don’s emotion and struggles that did feel very familiar to me,” he says. “Feelings of great distress and helplessness and conflictedness and confusion. I have felt that in classes in high school.”
“Aidan has great instincts,” Lanthimos says. “In a scene toward the end [of the film], he was so moving, it was the first time I have ever teared up on set.
There were difficult days — one moment with Plemons, Delbis says, took many takes. “It was hot AF and involved me getting more worked up that I am used to getting,” he remembers. But he appreciated Lanthimos’ willingness to let him try things. “In one scene, Jesse throws a chair and I thought that seemed pretty cool. So at the end of the day, they let me throw a chair. I hope that makes it into the outtakes reel.”
He was also very pleased when the crew threw him a s’mores party at the end of filming. “There was a fire pit on set that looked perfect for s’mores,” he says. “And I told them that, so it was my idea to have a s’mores party.”
Delbis is happy with how the film turned out, including his performance. “I think I looked pretty baller in that suit,” he says of one scene. Though he doesn’t have an opinion on the authenticity debate — whether autistic actors should always be the ones to play autistic characters — he thinks it’s “cool that writers and directors are starting to be more conscientious and give more realistic and respectful depictions of neurodivergent people and characters.”
He is more concerned that audiences understand what he thinks is the most important message of the movie.
“We should try to be more empathetic to people with different worldviews because you never really know what those people are going through,” he says. “The movie feels very relevant to that theme. God knows, people aren’t always willing to be tolerant.”
Earlier this month, showrunner Michael Patrick King informed the world that the long-awaited, highly anticipated and then almost universally hated sequel to HBO’s groundbreaking series “Sex and the City” would end. Mere weeks later, it did just that and rather abruptly, with two Thanksgiving-themed episodes, which felt a bit odd in these dog days of summer. But at least it allowed the writers to box up and tie off all the various storylines as if they were the medley of pies Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) picks up and delivers to all her friends during the show’s finale.
If you think those pies denote happiness, you would be right. The main feast at Miranda’s (Cynthia Nixon) apartment falls far short of perfection — loads of no-shows, the appearance of chef Brady’s (Niall Cunningham) passive-aggressive baby mama, an undercooked turkey and a toilet disaster — but in the end, every character is left wallowing in peace and satisfaction.
Miranda lowers her defenses enough to tell Joy (Dolly Wells) that she is a recovering alcoholic, to which Joy responds with deep understanding. Prostate cancer survivor Harry (Evan Handler) becomes fully, er, functional again and in the afterglow, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) finally surrenders the girly expectations she once had for her nonbinary daughter Rock (Alexa Swinton). After fleeting concern that her crunchy gardener lover Adam (Logan Marshall-Green) doesn’t believe in big weddings or even marriage, Seema (Sarita Choudhury) accepts that true, and committed, love comes in all shapes and sizes. As do Anthony (Mario Cantone) and Giuseppe (Sebastiano Pigazzi). Whether Lisa’s (Nicole Ari Parker) renewed devotion to husband Herbert (Christopher Jackson) counts as a happy ending is open to debate, but at least he seems to be letting go of his “humiliating” loss in the New York City comptroller race.
As for Carrie, well, after her renewed romance with Aidan (John Corbett) became blighted by mistrust, she had a lovely brief affair with Duncan (Jonathan Cake), the British biographer living in the basement of her townhouse. But in the end, she decides, via the novel that served as this season’s voice-over, that life in a fabulous Manhattan apartment with a closet that looks like it was shipped from “The Devil Wears Prada” costume department and a group of fine faithful friends (including a cantankerous baker who allows her to order pies long past the pie-ordering deadline), does not require a man to be complete.
After breaking up with Aidan (John Corbett), right, and a brief affair with Duncan (Jonathan Cake), Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) realizes she’s better off alone.
(Craig Blankenhorn / HBO Max)
Culture critic Mary McNamara, staff writer Yvonne Villarreal and television editor Maira Garcia compare notes on the end of one of the most discussed, if not beloved, reboots in television history.
Mary McNamara: When I wrote about “And Just Like That” a month ago, I expressed my hope that Season 3 would be the last, so I feel nothing but relief (though had I known the universe was in listening mode, I would have also mentioned wanting to win the lottery and a few other things).
I am not worried, as others appear to be, about the legacy of “Sex and the City,” which is all around us in series as disparate as “Broad City,” “Fleabag” and “Insecure.” Nor do I think that the failure of “And Just Like That” has anything to do with the current political climate or the rise of the trad wife or whatever hot takes seem handy. It was simply and consistently a very bad TV show.
I tuned in initially because, like many, I was excited to see how these characters were coping with late middle-age life — by apparently not experiencing menopause for one thing (an early indication that female authenticity had fallen by the wayside) or developing any sort of interior life.
Real crises — Carrie losing Big and “dealing” with Aidan’s troubled son, Miranda discovering her queerness and alcoholism, Charlotte struggling to cope with her daughter’s gender fluidity and her husband’s cancer — were treated performatively, as plot twists to underline, apparently, the resilience of each character and the core friendship. Not a bad objective, but the hurdles, which increasing felt like a whiteboard checklist (podcasts! pronouns! prostate cancer!), came and went so fast they quickly became laughable (and not in the comedic sense), culminating with Lisa’s father dying twice.
I kept watching, as many did, not because I loved hating it, but because there was a good show in there somewhere and I kept waiting for it to emerge. When it didn’t — well, the Thanksgiving/pie finale was a bit much — I honestly didn’t care how it ended, as long as it did.
Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) confronts her alcoholism and discovering her queerness in the show, but heavy issues were treated performatively as plot twists to reinforce characters’ resilience.
(Craig Blankenhorn / HBO Max)
Maira Garcia: Mary, after you wrote your column, I decided to take a break from the show because it summarized some of my frustrations with the reboot that seemed to come to a head this season — Aidan’s unrealistic expectations for his relationship with Carrie, the perfunctory way it addressed ADHD, the lack of rugs on Carrie’s floors. Of course my break didn’t last long because I caught up and now I’m here wondering what it was all about and what it could have been. While the line from King and Parker is that this season felt like a good place for the show to end, based on the number of developing storylines, like Brady becoming a father, I have a very hard time believing it. But the problem of how to fix this show was too big — it was better that they ended on this chapter (whether or not that decision was made by them).
I think like many viewers, I just wanted to enjoy spending some time with these ladies again at a later stage in life after a couple of decades with them through reruns and the films. But this was something else and while the addition of new characters seemed well-intentioned, they either lacked dimension, meaty storylines or were plain annoying (ahem, Che) — except for Seema. I love Seema. Please get Sarita Choudhury a spinoff.
Yvonne Villarreal: Uh, is it sad that I’m sad? I know, I know. But, look, I feel like the girl who cried “Che?!” too many times and now it’s real and it’s like I’ve been mentally placed in that insane DIY mini foyer of Carrie’s old apartment trying to emotionally find my way out. Like you, Mary, I’ve been frustrated endlessly by the series and have long felt like it needed to be put out of its misery, but I still dutifully watched every episode with a weird mix of enthusiasm and dread — and the community that grew (in my TikTok algorithm and in my group texts) from that shared experience was oddly one of the bright spots. So for HBO Max to call my bluff by actually ending it still feels like a breakup as flabbergasting — albeit, necessary — as Berger’s Post-it note peace-out.
I came in ready to approach this stage of my relationship to these characters the same way I approach the friendships I’ve maintained the longest — excited to catch up once our schedules aligned, trying to fill in the blanks from the long absence caused by life, but still recognizing the foundation of who they are and how they’re choosing to navigate life’s curveballs. But with each passing episode, it always seemed like I was at the wrong table, perplexed and trying not to be rude with all the “But why?” questions. Miranda’s quote from this week’s finale, as she took in the most bizarre Thanksgiving dinner television has ever put onscreen, felt like the epilogue to my experience watching it all: “I’m not sure exactly what’s happening now, but let’s all take a breath.”
The scene where Carrie, left, Seema, Charlotte and Lisa are at the bridal fashion show, expressing their feelings about marriage, is something our writer wanted more of in the series.(Craig Blankenhorn / HBO Max)
I will mourn the potential of what this series could have been. Like Carrie’s playful tiptoe stride through the streets in heels, the show pranced around topics that, had it walked through them with intention, would have given the series traces of its former self. That friend moment between Seema and Carrie outside the hair salon in Season 2 — where the former is reluctantly but bravely expressing that she feels like she’s being dropped now that Aidan is back in the picture — was such a genuine peek at the vulnerability between friends that so many of us valued from the original series. And that moment from this week’s finale, where the women are gathered at a bridal runway show, sharing their varying feelings on marriage at this stage in their life — I just wanted to shout, “MICHAEL PATRICK KING, this is what I wanted more of!” Though, I would have preferred if they were around a table, looking at each other as they shared and unpacked. I wanted an extended scene of that, not Carrie ordering pies! I don’t like to be teased with goodness. And that’s how it often felt.
Also, I know it’s a comedy, although the decision to lean into the sitcom style of humor remains perplexing (Harry and Charlotte, I’m looking at you), but I felt like there was a way to explore grief — the death of Mr. Big and Stanford, plus the strain on the group’s friendship with Samantha — in a way that felt truer to the characters and the style of the show. Heck, even Miranda’s drinking problem was squandered. I feel like the loss of a spouse (through death, divorce or emotional distance), the fading out of friendships and reconsideration of lifestyle habits are the most talked-about topics in my friend group at this stage in my life — sometimes the convos happen while we’re huddled around a Chili’s triple dipper, which is as bleak and real as it gets. And I’m sorry, but if I were to use one of those outings, when I’m in my mid-50s, to tell them an ex wants me to wait five years while he focuses on being a toxic parent before we can really be together, they’d slap me with a fried mozzarella stick — I will never forgive the writers for how lobotomized these characters feel. Mary and Maira, how did you feel about how the show handled its biggest absences? The show began in such a different place than where it ends — did it evolve in the right direction? Where did it go right for you?
McNamara: Oh Yvonne, you are so much kinder than I am. I never felt it was going right — the writers seemed so determined to prove that women in their 50s aren’t boring that they constantly forced them into all manner of absurd situations without much thought for what kind of actual women these characters might have become. Age was represented mostly by bizarre, grannified reactions to younger folk and their strange ways (up until the finale, which gave us that baby mama and her buddy Epcot), as if the women (and the writers) had been kept in a shoe box for 20 years.
Looking back, the lack of Samantha, and Cattrall, feels like a deal-breaker. For all her campy affectations, Samantha was always the most grounded of the characters, able to cut to the heart of things with a witty line, biting comment or just a simple truth. Seema, and Choudhury, did her best to fill that void, but she never got quite enough room to work — her relationship was almost exclusively with Carrie for one thing and Carrie was, even more than in “Sex and the City,” the driving force of the show.
Kim Cattrall made a brief appearance as Samantha Jones at the end of Season 2, but she was sorely missed throughout.
(Max)
I agree that grief was given very short shrift, and the fact that no one seemed to miss Samantha very much, or be in touch with her at all (beyond the few exchanges with Carrie) was both bizarre and a shame — coping with the loss of a dear friend, through misunderstanding or distance, is a rich topic and one that many people deal with.
As for the resurrection of Aidan, well, who thought that was going to work? Especially when it became clear that the writers thought it made perfect sense to keep Carrie and Aidan’s children separate — so unbelievable, and demeaning to both characters. Carrie’s final “revelation” that a woman doesn’t need a man to be happy would have had a much more meaningful resonance if Carrie had been allowed to explore her grief, fear, frustration and hope beyond a few platitude-laden conversations and that god-awful novel. Which, quite honestly, was the funniest thing about this season. When her agent went bananas over it, I literally walked out of the room.
Garcia: Samantha, and Cattrall in turn, were sorely missed. And you’re right, Mary, Seema filled some of that void, and you really need that connection across the different characters. Which leads me to my biggest gripe: Why did some characters feel so distant? Lisa’s storyline this season was so disconnected from the rest — it seemed like she was with the core group only in passing. And it happened with Nya (Karen Pittman), who disappeared after Season 2, though that had to do with scheduling conflicts.
As far as its evolution, I was glad to see the podcast group, with its overbearing members, whittled away — though we had to deal with Che for another season. Those overbearing characters kept getting replaced with other overbearing characters like Giuseppe’s mother, played by Patti LuPone, and Brady’s baby mama and her odd pals (if the writers were trying to get us to scratch our heads at Gen Z, they did it). While I’ll miss being able to turn my brain off for an hour each week, along with the occasional shouts at my TV over some silly line or moment, I can’t say I was satisfied in the end. At least when someone said or did something stupid in previous iterations of the show, it was acknowledged in a way that felt true the characters and there was some growth expressed. After the return of Aidan, I can’t say that’s true here.
But now that we’re at the end, I have to ask you both how this affects the SATC universe? Did this disrupt the canon? Was there something memorable you’ll take away at least? A character, a moment, a ridiculously oversized piece of jewelry, hat or bag?
Villarreal: Oh geez. There’s no question — for me, at least — where this sequel falls in the SATC universe. The original series, even with its moments that didn’t stand the test of time, will always be supreme; the first movie, while hardly perfect, gave us some memorable BFF moments — like Charlotte giving Big eye daggers after he left Carrie at the altar or Samantha feeding a heartbroken Carrie — that keep it in my rewatch rotation. I’d place “And Just Like That …” after that, with the Abu Dhabi getaway movie dead last.
What will I miss? For sure the fashion moments, especially the ones that broke my brain, like Carrie’s Michelin Man snowstorm getup or her recent gingham headwear disaster that my former colleague Meredith Blake described as Strawberry Shortcake … and don’t get me started on Lisa’s jumbo balls of twine necklace.
One thing we’ll miss: The over-the-top fashion like Carrie’s big hat and Lisa’s jumbo ball necklace.(Craig Blankenhorn/HBO Max)
I’m curious, Mary, as someone who has watched your share of series finales, how you felt about this conclusion and whether it served that mission. This season had episodes that felt like wasted filler and didn’t do much to move the plot forward. Last week’s penultimate episode is what convinced me the wrapping up of this series was not planned. It was 28 minutes of huh? And what about Carrie’s book? I would add it to my Kindle just out of curiosity. While I maybe would have seen all that’s transpired as an opportunity for Carrie to write a memoir on love and loss à la Carole Radziwill, I did get a kick out of the excerpts from Carrie’s take on a 19th century woman having an existential crisis. And look, maybe I’m schmaltzy, but I did sort of love the last line she tacked on in her epilogue: “The woman realized, she was not alone — she was on her own.” Mary, are you judging me right now? I promise I didn’t dance to Barry White’s “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything” through the halls of my apartment after watching. But I would have loved more exploration of that thread sooner — I mean, aren’t there studies about women being happier, or at least less stressed, later in life once their spouse dies? I believe it! It doesn’t mean you can’t have companionship in other ways. Anyway, what’s the takeaway from what happened with this show? Hollywood isn’t going to stop trying to find new life in established properties. So, what can be learned from what went wrong here?
McNamara: Yvonne! I would never judge you! And the world would be a far better place if everyone danced around their domiciles more often. I think Carrie realizing that her life is full and happy without a partner is actually a perfect way to end this series. (She will certainly never want for romance — So. Much. Tulle.) I just wish it had felt less rushed and did not involve a weird giant plushie at a robot restaurant. Whatever sequence of events led to the final scene, I have to believe that was going to be Carrie’s journey all along. I even liked the debate over the ending of her book — if only the book had not been so terrible!
I will certainly miss marveling at Parker’s Olympics-worthy ability to navigate nearly any surface in heels (and “sell” outfits that seem more like Halloween costumes than style) as well as those rare conversations, like the one at the bridal show, that allowed a situation to be viewed from multiple points of view.
As for the finale, it felt very much in keeping with the intention, if not the overall execution, of the series. I am not cold-hearted enough to want any of these characters to depart mid-crisis or accept less than a happy life. Sure, it was a bit pat, with everyone’s story neatly boxed up like a Thanksgiving pie. But who doesn’t like pie?
Garcia: I love pie! But let’s not forget, like the toilet that overflowed (with a few logs, to boot) in the final scenes, too much of something isn’t always what we need.
Villarreal: Is this a safe space to share that if the girls make up with Samantha/Cattrall in their 70s, I’ll be ready for their return to my screen? Sorry, not sorry — I don’t have time to set healthy boundaries with friendships that are no longer serving me.
I didn’t think my level of loathing for the Max sequel to HBO’s “Sex and the City” could get any higher, and just like that, along came Season 3.
You see what I did there? Like every single person who has written about “And Just Like That…,” I have used the title in a naked and half-assed attempt to be clever.
Which honestly could also be the title of the series.
We’re midway through the third — and one can only hope final — season, and I am hoarse from screaming at watching these beloved characters behave as if they had done some sort of “Freaky Friday” switch with 13-year-olds.
Which is actually an insult to most 13-year-olds.
In the course of the barely-recognizable-as-human events that make up this latest episode, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) prolonged her inexplicable bout of homelessness by acting shocked — shocked! — that Seema (Sarita Choudhury), having found her a dream house, would expect her to make a bid over asking price; Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker) dealt with the grief over her father’s death by whining about the amazing send-off orchestrated by his friend Lucille (Jenifer Lewis) despite it including a performance by … Jenifer Lewis; and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) continued to behave as if it were perfectly normal for her husband Harry (Evan Handler) to keep his prostate cancer diagnosis secret from everyone including their children, who would no doubt handle it better than Charlotte.
All of which paled in comparison to the latest installment in the emotional horror show that is the second-time-around courtship of Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Aidan (John Corbett), which has been under threat since it was revealed in Season 2 that Aidan’s 15-year-old son Wyatt (Logan Souza) has some issues, including a recent ADHD diagnosis. Events lead Aidan to impulsively announce that he and Carrie will have to put their relationship on hold until Wyatt turns 20 (when, as everyone knows, parental responsibilities officially end).
Aidan puts his relationship with Carrie on hold because of issues related to his teenage son, Wyatt (Logan Souza).
(Craig Blankenhorn / Max)
Not surprisingly, this plan does not work out, and in this episode, Aidan celebrates the fact that Wyatt is attending a week-long wilderness camp (um, what?) by showing up at Carrie’s apartment, where he immediately breaks a window by throwing a pebble at it. You know, like he used to in the old days before Carrie had a jillion-dollar apartment with 19th century windows that, as she says, “survived the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Draft Riots of ‘63” (memo to Carrie — New York saw no action in the Mexican War).
After going to obsessive lengths to replace the glass, Aidan then confesses that he and his ex Kathy (Rosemarie DeWitt) had to force Wyatt onto the plane (how they managed to be at the gate as unticketed passengers to do this remains a mystery), an event so upsetting that Aidan and Kathy were forced to comfort each other with sex.
For one brief and shining moment, I waited for Carrie to call time of death on one of the unhealthiest relationships this particular universe has seen (and that’s saying something). Instead, and impossibly, she said she understood.
Apparently love means ignoring every sign God could think to send you. Not only did Aidan have sex with his ex, he forced his unmedicated, unsupervised 15-year-old with ADHD onto a plane headed to the Grand Tetons. (Whether the poor kid made it to camp or is currently having a meltdown in the Jackson Hole airport is never mentioned.)
But then Carrie, and the series, has continued to treat Wyatt’s condition, and his father’s obvious irritated denial of its realities, as simply a logistical obstacle in her fairy tale love story. This would barely make sense if Carrie were still in her 30s, and it makes absolutely none for a woman of her age.
I begrudge no one the desire to reboot a groundbreaking series, and two years ago, the prospect of seeing these iconic 30-somethings as mid-to-late 50-somethings was certainly appealing to one who shares their mature demographic. If only Michael Patrick King, the force behind “And Just Like That…,” allowed any of them to have matured. I don’t mean physically — stars Parker, Nixon, Davis and Kim Cattrall (briefly glimpsed at the end of Season 2) — are fit and lovely and obviously older. I mean emotionally, spiritually and psychologically.
“And Just Like That…” has had two and a half seasons to make these women seem like actual people who might exist, if not in real life, then at least the “Sex and the City” universe (remember the opening credits, when Carrie gets splashed by a bus? Hyperrealism compared to the eat-off-the-sidewalks vision of “And Just Like That…’s” New York.)
Instead, the series seems determined to prove that age is just a number by forcing its leads, now including Choudhury and Parker, to act as if 50 is the new (and very stupid) 30.
I get that Miranda is coming to grips with her newly discovered queerness, but surely a successful, Harvard-educated lawyer who has survived a divorce and raised a teenage son would have a bit more confidence and self-awareness in love, real estate and basic guest etiquette — after moving in briefly with Carrie, she eats the last yogurt!
Charlotte has always been an original Disney princess, all wide eyes and faith in the restorative nature of small animals and florals, but at 55, her high-strung reaction to her husband’s prostate cancer (caught early, easily treatable) is helpful to no one. And don’t get me about her little foot-stamping approach to motherhood or how she speaks about her dog.
Aidan’s shocking confession did little to derail Carrie or their relationship.
(Craig Blankenhorn / Max)
As for Carrie, well, it’s one thing to be a relentlessly hopeful romantic addicted to tulle, stilettos and problematic men in your 30s, but Carrie’s pushing 60 now, so when she agreed, with no demur, to Aidan’s absurd five-year plan, I wondered if she had simply gone mad.
Watching as she subsequently rattled around her huge, empty (if incredibly luxe) apartment wearing a see-through, Ophelia-like dress stuffed with roses or traipsed through Central Park wearing a hat the size of a hot-air balloon only exacerbated my fears. Dressing like Marie Antoinette to attend a luncheon at Tiffany’s isn’t sassy fashion sense — it’s a cry for help.
She most certainly needs help. The reunion with Aidan seemed too good to be true, and thus it is proving to be. Even a 30-something Carrie would have known that being in a relationship with a father means being in a relationship with his children. But the notion that she must be kept separate from Wyatt is not just unsustainable — it’s insulting.
What, she’s never experienced, met or even read about children with ADHD or post-divorce trauma? Or is she such a delicate flower that she can’t handle being around a teenager with anger management issues? She lives in New York, for heaven’s sake, the city that invented anger management issues.
Frankly, Aidan’s behavior is far more concerning than Wyatt’s, a flag so big and red that Carrie could make a stunning sheath dress out of it.
Which she appears to be doing, instead of, you know, acting like the grown-ass rich widow she is and calling Aidan out on his bull.
“And Just Like That…” purports to celebrate the mid-life do-over, just as it purports to show that women in their 50s are just as vibrant, complicated and fun as women in their 30s. Both are admirable goals, neither of which the series achieves. Even with its title — ”And Just Like That…” — this series seems determined to erase everything that might have made the older versions of these characters interesting and resonant.
Like the ability to buy a house or say the word “cancer” or get out of an unhealthy romantic relationship before it spits right in your eye.
AIDAN O’BRIEN has mysteriously pulled a Royal Ascot winner ‘who can really move’ from a £500,000 race.
The Ballydoyle boss pulled the plug on Hampton Court Stakes hero Trinity College’s planned run in the German Derby on Sunday.
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Hampton Court Stakes winner Trinity College was all set to run in the German Derby on Sunday but trainer Aidan O’Brien suddenly pulled the plug on his participationCredit: The Mega Agency
Trinity College’s French Derby fourth automatically got him an entry in the Group 1 won last year by former Nicky Henderson inmate and world’s most expensive jumps horse Palladium.
He had been installed favourite by bookies on the back of his Ascot heroics.
But just 48 hours after putting him in the race O’Brien scrapped Trinity College’s entry.
It came as word spread O’Brien was set to supplement The Lion In Winter into a blockbuster Prix Jean Prat on Sunday.
The former Derby favourite, who is 25-1 for the City Of York stakes having been given an entry over 7f there too, could line up against Juddmonte’s Cosmic Year and Godolphin’s Dewhurst winner Shadow Of Light.
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Aidan Zingg, a motocross prodigy who recently signed with Kawasaki’s prestigious Team Green program, died Saturday at age 16 from injuries sustained during the Mammoth Mountain MX event in Mammoth Lakes.
During a 250cc B class race, Zingg “went down in a corner,” according to industry website Dirtbikelover.com and was run over by other bikes.
Zingg, who grew up in Hemet before his family moved to the state of Washington, won the American Motorcyclist Assn. 2024 Amateur National Championship in Supermini 2, held at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tenn. He recently qualified for the championships for a seventh consecutive year.
Aidan’s sister Alex Zingg, 18, on Sunday posted a tribute to her brother.
“It’s been a day and I feel like it’s been a lifetime,” she wrote on Instagram. “My heart is completely broken. You used to joke that I was so old and that I’d die first, I would always joke that you were crazy and you’d be the first. Now I’m sitting here wishing with everything that I am that you were right so I’d never have to live a day without you.”
Zingg began racing in elementary school and soon dominated the 65cc, 85cc and Supermini classes. After signing with Kawasaki’s Team Green, he showed immense promise at the 250cc class. His other sponsors included Oakley, Bell, and Renthal.
“It is with heavy hearts that we mourn the passing of Kawasaki Team Green rider Aidan Zingg,” Kawasaki Racing posted on X. “Zingg’s dedication and kind demeanor will forever be remembered.”
Motocross journalist Donn Maeda was among those to pay tribute to Zingg on social media, writing that he was “one of those kids that made an impression on you from the moment you met him. I interviewed him for our race series years ago when he was on a 65 and when I asked him how long it’d be until he beat his dad [former racer Robert Zingg]. He smirked and said, ‘Soon, I’m sure.’
“After that, he always went out of his way to say hello, even recently when he grew into a fast big bike rider…. you know; the age when teens get cocky and cool. Not Aidan.”
Zingg’s last social media post came 10 days before his death. A joint Instagram post with MotoSport.com of Zingg racing read: “Remember the name… @aidanzingg.”
Commentary: Friends of this L.A. teen will soon find out his big secret: He’s co-starring in ‘Bugonia’
A few months ago, my younger daughter, Darby, and I were settling into our seats at the local AMC. As the previews rolled, she gasped. “I know that voice,” she said. “That’s Aidan. Mom, that’s Aidan.”
I looked up just in time to see a familiar shock of brown curls. It was indeed Aidan Delbis, former member of the Falcon Players at Crescenta Valley High School in La Crescenta, a kid I had seen perform alongside my daughter in countless student plays.
Only now he was seated at a kitchen table with Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone as the words “Bugonia” and then “directed by Yorgos Lanthimos” flashed across the screen.
“Did you not know?” I asked my daughter. CV is a fine public school with a good theater program, but it isn’t exactly an incubator for nepo babies and aspiring stars. That one of their own had stepped off last year’s graduation stage and into a major film production should have been very big news long before a trailer hit theaters.
“No,” she said, furiously messaging various friends. “But now they will.”
Now they will indeed. When he joined the cast of “Bugonia,” Delbis didn’t just become a part of Lanthimos’ highly anticipated remake of Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 black comedy “Save the Green Planet!” He also entered the mythology of which Hollywood dreams are made: A 17-year old sends in his first-ever open-call submission and lands a major role in a very big movie.
With a script by Will Tracy and obvious Oscar potential, “Bugonia” had its world premiere in August at this year’s Venice Film Festival before launching onto the festival circuit, including screenings in Toronto and New York, in preparation for its release this Friday. A slightly absurdist, darkly funny thriller with political undertones, it revolves around the kidnapping of a pharmaceutical company’s CEO, Michelle (Stone), by wild-eyed conspiracy theorist Teddy (Plemons) and his loyal cousin Don (Delbis).
From left, Emma Stone, Aidan Delbis and Jesse Plemons in the movie “Bugonia.”
(Atsushi Nishijima / Focus Features)
Teddy believes Michelle is an alien sent to destroy Earth. Don believes in Teddy. Though he falls in with Teddy’s plans, he often questions them, serving as a continual reminder that even within Teddy’s paranoid view of the universe, there is such a thing as going too far. Don is, in many ways, the heart of the film.
He is also, like the actor who plays him, autistic.
Delbis — who chooses to self-describe as autistic rather than neurodivergent — is not someone who has long nursed dreams of stardom. He took drama classes all through high school, but it wasn’t until his junior year, Delbis says, “that I started to get more into the process. I found the general process of acting, of understanding and investing in different personalities, to be fun and sometimes scary.”
Still, he says, “I wasn’t really sure that I wanted it to be my main career. But it so happened that this happened while I was in high school, and here we are.”
Here is the Four Seasons on a very rainy October afternoon where Delbis, now 19, has just finished his first solo photo shoot and is sitting, fortified by Goldfish crackers (his go-to-snack), for his first long one-on-one interview. He went to some of the film festivals and just returned from “Bugonia’s” London premiere, where he signed autographs on the red carpet and enjoyed flying first class. His parents, Katy and David Delbis, are seated nearby, as is his access and creative coach, Elaine Hall.
Delbis is a tall, good-natured young man who speaks with a distinctive cadence and in an unwaveringly calm tone. Aside from a habit of repeating himself as he searches for what he wants to say next, he seems more comfortable discussing his experience with filmmaking than many of the dozens of more experienced actors I have interviewed in this very hotel over the years.
“We should try to be more empathetic to people with different worldviews because you never really know what those people are going through,” Delbis says. “The movie feels very relevant to that theme.”
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
“It all started,” he says, “when my mom was friends with this agent, April, and one day she sent Mom an audition that seemed pretty promising, so I submitted for that. And they really liked it and called me back.”
It actually started a bit further back than that. With Plemons and Stone already cast, Lanthimos had decided that he wanted a nonprofessional actor to play Don.
“We went really wide in trying to find someone really special,” the Greek-born director of “The Favourite” and “Poor Things” says in a phone interview. “With these two experienced actors, I wanted to bring in a different dynamic. As we looked at people, I felt that the character would be more interesting if he was neurodivergent.”
Casting director Jennifer Venditti put out an open call, which April Smallwood of Spotlight Development saw and sent to Delbis’ mother, Katy.
“A happy-go-lucky young man, neurodivergent — it practically described Aidan,” Katy says in a later interview. La Crescenta may not be an industry hub, but, like many in L.A., the Delbis family has a Hollywood connection. Aidan’s older brother, Tristan (who is also neurodivergent), works at a movie theater; father David is about to retire after years at the Writers Guild Health Fund; and Katy, a self-described “creative,” has done some acting herself. But no one saw film-acting as a potential career for Aidan, who was set to take a gap year after high school. And, Katy says, she had no idea what sort of movie it was for. “It said for a ‘big film,’ but they always say that.”
She thought of it a bit like the time Delbis, a member of the high school track team, decided he also wanted to try out for basketball. “As I drove him to the school,” Katy said, “I told him that he might not get on since there were a lot of kids who had been playing basketball for years, which he had not. He said, ‘Mom, I just want to see what it’s like.’”
Now Delbis wanted to see what it would be like to audition for a “big film.”
Aidan Delbis in the movie “Bugonia.”
(Atsushi Nishijima / Focus Features)
He had recently performed the Vincent Price monologue from “Thriller” for the school talent show, which Katy filmed on her phone, so Smallwood submitted that. Venditti called Smallwood the next day and met with Delbis over Zoom. Thus began a monthslong process of meetings, rehearsals and auditions.
“We focused on him right away,” Venditti says. “He seemed to have it all. And he was very committed.”
“I was really unaware of how big a project it was,” Delbis said. “I had never seen a film by Yorgos.”
In March, Lanthimos, Stone and Plemons were in L.A. for the Oscars, so they all met with Delbis and came away impressed.
Lanthimos thought of casting a neurodivergent actor in a part because it would bring a natural clarity and unfiltered unpredictability to the role. He didn’t consider it any more challenging than working with any other actor. And when he met Delbis, Lanthimos says, “I just thought: That’s him.”
“Just from watching that first tape, you could see there was something so magnetic about him,” said Stone during a recent phone interview. (She is also a producer on the film.) “Don is the audience’s window, the one who can see through the charade.”
Still, there were many more steps to take.
“It’s a big leap for any nonprofessional,” Stone says. “It’s a big part in what is essentially a three-hander.”
From left, director Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, Aidan Delbis and Jesse Plemons at the Venice Film Festival, where “Bugonia” had its world premiere in August.
(Alessandra Tarantino / Invision / AP)
For an autistic actor, it’s an even bigger leap. As talented as Delbis might be, he also had to be able to handle the pressures, boredom and chaos of a film set. Venditti reached out to Hall. The founder of the Miracle Project and mother to a now-adult neurodivergent son, Hall is an acting coach who has worked for more than 20 years to increase the presence and understanding of neurodivergent and disabled people. She is often asked to gauge the ability of actors to take on a certain role — their ease with the material, their physical stamina, their level of independence and their emotional accessibility.
Delbis, she says, ticked all the boxes. He loves horror films, he was on the track team and he was, at the time, about to travel without his parents on a school trip to Sweden.
He is, as he says himself, “a low-key guy,” so Hall gave him some exercises to help him portray more extreme emotions and prepare him for when other cast members might do the same. (One subsequent rehearsal involved a scene in which one of the actors screamed repeatedly.)
Often, Hall says, perfecting these exercises can take weeks; Delbis, working with his mother, did it in a weekend. She also helped him prepare for his meeting with and then chemistry read with Plemons.
Delbis says he was “a bit nervous, though I don’t know why.” He did not recognize Plemons’ name or his face. “I had watched ‘Breaking Bad,’ but I didn’t realize Jesse played Todd. Halfway through [the read], I told him he looked like Todd and he said, ‘That’s because I played him.’ I’ve seen him in other things since then,” Delbis adds. “He’s a very solid actor.”
More important, he says, “Jesse seemed to me to be a very cool guy.”
That feeling is mutual. “When we brought Aidan in, I was excited and a little nervous,” Plemons says during a phone call from London. They started with one of the more extreme scenes from the film. “I was finding my feet too. When it became apparent that he was going to be fine with the darker scenes, I said, ‘This is him; this is Don.’”
While all this was happening, Delbis was finishing his senior year, which included a starring role in a production of “Almost Maine.” “It was not overly hard,” he says, but sometimes it was a lot. “I did one read and then I had to go to rehearsal for the play.”
Venditti remembers that day very well. “Here we were being so careful, treating him like he was fragile and not wanting to overload him,” she says laughing, “and he’s just calmly multitasking.”
When Delbis got the role in May, he and his family signed a nondisclosure agreement, which is why none of his friends knew his news after graduation, and Delbis and his family flew to the U.K. to begin filming. It was a tough secret for his parents to keep. But “any time it looked like I might slip,” Katy says, “Aidan shut me down.” He celebrated his 18th birthday near the set outside of Windsor, where production ran for three months before moving for two weeks in Atlanta.
Hall was hired to be Delbis’ on-set access and creative coach, a job she believes she has invented, meant to make the experience for neurodivergent and disabled actors easier. She suggested that Lanthimos and Tracy simplify Delbis’ script pages, stripping down the description of action “so he wouldn’t get stuck thinking he had to do exactly what was on the page,” she says, which they were happy to do.
“We didn’t want to put any limits on him,” Lanthimos says.
Delbis chose most of his costumes (except a beekeeping suit, motivated by the plot, which he says “was very hot”), which mirrored his own wardrobe preferences down to the horror film t-shirts and mismatched socks. Even the food Teddy and Don eat during the film reflects Delbis’ taste: mac ’n’ cheese, taquitos, spaghetti.
Hall ensured Delbis had extra time before filming, during which she could help him prepare with rehearsal and centering exercises. She visited the set before he arrived so she could tell him exactly what to expect and worked with the production team to ensure that he had his own space between takes. “They built us a little house, with horror posters on the wall and stuffed animals that looked like his cats,” she says. As there were no Goldfish available in the U.K., the production had them flown in.
“Having Elaine there was amazing,” Venditti says. “The idea of having someone to act as eyes and ears of what people are actually experiencing on set, I think it’s groundbreaking. I don’t know why we haven’t done it before.”
Delbis spent a fair amount of time with Plemons, who Hall said occasionally stepped in to help if she had to be away from set.
“We did a decent amount of goofing around,” Delbis says. “The bond that developed between us occurred quite naturally. I consider Jesse a friend.”
For his part, Plemons enjoyed being around someone who spoke his mind.
“I so appreciated Aidan’s inability to tell a lie,” Plemons says. “On a set, you spend so much time waiting around, and he would say, ‘What are we doing? What is taking so long?’ Which was exactly what I was thinking. He’s a very smart, sensitive, self-assured guy, and if you’re unclear in what you’re saying, he will let you know.”
“Aidan is just so funny,” says his “Bugonia” co-star Emma Stone. “We spent a lot of time together in a basement and Aidan had so many jokes about that.”
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Stone says that while she and Delbis had a friendly rapport, she hung back a little when they weren’t shooting. “I didn’t want to form the same kind of bond Aidan had with Jesse because [in the film] it’s them against me and I didn’t want to do too much to mess with that.”
But, the two-time Oscar winner says, “Aidan is just so funny. He was on a jag during the kidnapping scene. We spent a lot of time together in a basement and Aidan had so many jokes about that.”
“I went through all of ‘Bugonia’ thinking I had never seen Emma in anything,” Delbis says. “Then I realized my parents had shown me a clip of a woman getting very involved in a birthday card — ‘Pocketful of Sunshine’ — and that was from ‘Easy A.’”
When he was filming, Delbis was all business. Several of the takes which he ad-libbed made it into the film and Delbis is proud of that.
“Despite being in more extreme situations than I’ve been in, there’s something of Don’s emotion and struggles that did feel very familiar to me,” he says. “Feelings of great distress and helplessness and conflictedness and confusion. I have felt that in classes in high school.”
“Aidan has great instincts,” Lanthimos says. “In a scene toward the end [of the film], he was so moving, it was the first time I have ever teared up on set.
There were difficult days — one moment with Plemons, Delbis says, took many takes. “It was hot AF and involved me getting more worked up that I am used to getting,” he remembers. But he appreciated Lanthimos’ willingness to let him try things. “In one scene, Jesse throws a chair and I thought that seemed pretty cool. So at the end of the day, they let me throw a chair. I hope that makes it into the outtakes reel.”
He was also very pleased when the crew threw him a s’mores party at the end of filming. “There was a fire pit on set that looked perfect for s’mores,” he says. “And I told them that, so it was my idea to have a s’mores party.”
Delbis is happy with how the film turned out, including his performance. “I think I looked pretty baller in that suit,” he says of one scene. Though he doesn’t have an opinion on the authenticity debate — whether autistic actors should always be the ones to play autistic characters — he thinks it’s “cool that writers and directors are starting to be more conscientious and give more realistic and respectful depictions of neurodivergent people and characters.”
He is more concerned that audiences understand what he thinks is the most important message of the movie.
“We should try to be more empathetic to people with different worldviews because you never really know what those people are going through,” he says. “The movie feels very relevant to that theme. God knows, people aren’t always willing to be tolerant.”
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‘And Just Like That’ finale: The good, the bad, the pie and the poop
“And Just Like That,” it’s over.
Earlier this month, showrunner Michael Patrick King informed the world that the long-awaited, highly anticipated and then almost universally hated sequel to HBO’s groundbreaking series “Sex and the City” would end. Mere weeks later, it did just that and rather abruptly, with two Thanksgiving-themed episodes, which felt a bit odd in these dog days of summer. But at least it allowed the writers to box up and tie off all the various storylines as if they were the medley of pies Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) picks up and delivers to all her friends during the show’s finale.
If you think those pies denote happiness, you would be right. The main feast at Miranda’s (Cynthia Nixon) apartment falls far short of perfection — loads of no-shows, the appearance of chef Brady’s (Niall Cunningham) passive-aggressive baby mama, an undercooked turkey and a toilet disaster — but in the end, every character is left wallowing in peace and satisfaction.
Miranda lowers her defenses enough to tell Joy (Dolly Wells) that she is a recovering alcoholic, to which Joy responds with deep understanding. Prostate cancer survivor Harry (Evan Handler) becomes fully, er, functional again and in the afterglow, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) finally surrenders the girly expectations she once had for her nonbinary daughter Rock (Alexa Swinton). After fleeting concern that her crunchy gardener lover Adam (Logan Marshall-Green) doesn’t believe in big weddings or even marriage, Seema (Sarita Choudhury) accepts that true, and committed, love comes in all shapes and sizes. As do Anthony (Mario Cantone) and Giuseppe (Sebastiano Pigazzi). Whether Lisa’s (Nicole Ari Parker) renewed devotion to husband Herbert (Christopher Jackson) counts as a happy ending is open to debate, but at least he seems to be letting go of his “humiliating” loss in the New York City comptroller race.
As for Carrie, well, after her renewed romance with Aidan (John Corbett) became blighted by mistrust, she had a lovely brief affair with Duncan (Jonathan Cake), the British biographer living in the basement of her townhouse. But in the end, she decides, via the novel that served as this season’s voice-over, that life in a fabulous Manhattan apartment with a closet that looks like it was shipped from “The Devil Wears Prada” costume department and a group of fine faithful friends (including a cantankerous baker who allows her to order pies long past the pie-ordering deadline), does not require a man to be complete.
After breaking up with Aidan (John Corbett), right, and a brief affair with Duncan (Jonathan Cake), Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) realizes she’s better off alone.
(Craig Blankenhorn / HBO Max)
Culture critic Mary McNamara, staff writer Yvonne Villarreal and television editor Maira Garcia compare notes on the end of one of the most discussed, if not beloved, reboots in television history.
Mary McNamara: When I wrote about “And Just Like That” a month ago, I expressed my hope that Season 3 would be the last, so I feel nothing but relief (though had I known the universe was in listening mode, I would have also mentioned wanting to win the lottery and a few other things).
I am not worried, as others appear to be, about the legacy of “Sex and the City,” which is all around us in series as disparate as “Broad City,” “Fleabag” and “Insecure.” Nor do I think that the failure of “And Just Like That” has anything to do with the current political climate or the rise of the trad wife or whatever hot takes seem handy. It was simply and consistently a very bad TV show.
I tuned in initially because, like many, I was excited to see how these characters were coping with late middle-age life — by apparently not experiencing menopause for one thing (an early indication that female authenticity had fallen by the wayside) or developing any sort of interior life.
Real crises — Carrie losing Big and “dealing” with Aidan’s troubled son, Miranda discovering her queerness and alcoholism, Charlotte struggling to cope with her daughter’s gender fluidity and her husband’s cancer — were treated performatively, as plot twists to underline, apparently, the resilience of each character and the core friendship. Not a bad objective, but the hurdles, which increasing felt like a whiteboard checklist (podcasts! pronouns! prostate cancer!), came and went so fast they quickly became laughable (and not in the comedic sense), culminating with Lisa’s father dying twice.
I kept watching, as many did, not because I loved hating it, but because there was a good show in there somewhere and I kept waiting for it to emerge. When it didn’t — well, the Thanksgiving/pie finale was a bit much — I honestly didn’t care how it ended, as long as it did.
Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) confronts her alcoholism and discovering her queerness in the show, but heavy issues were treated performatively as plot twists to reinforce characters’ resilience.
(Craig Blankenhorn / HBO Max)
Maira Garcia: Mary, after you wrote your column, I decided to take a break from the show because it summarized some of my frustrations with the reboot that seemed to come to a head this season — Aidan’s unrealistic expectations for his relationship with Carrie, the perfunctory way it addressed ADHD, the lack of rugs on Carrie’s floors. Of course my break didn’t last long because I caught up and now I’m here wondering what it was all about and what it could have been. While the line from King and Parker is that this season felt like a good place for the show to end, based on the number of developing storylines, like Brady becoming a father, I have a very hard time believing it. But the problem of how to fix this show was too big — it was better that they ended on this chapter (whether or not that decision was made by them).
I think like many viewers, I just wanted to enjoy spending some time with these ladies again at a later stage in life after a couple of decades with them through reruns and the films. But this was something else and while the addition of new characters seemed well-intentioned, they either lacked dimension, meaty storylines or were plain annoying (ahem, Che) — except for Seema. I love Seema. Please get Sarita Choudhury a spinoff.
Yvonne Villarreal: Uh, is it sad that I’m sad? I know, I know. But, look, I feel like the girl who cried “Che?!” too many times and now it’s real and it’s like I’ve been mentally placed in that insane DIY mini foyer of Carrie’s old apartment trying to emotionally find my way out. Like you, Mary, I’ve been frustrated endlessly by the series and have long felt like it needed to be put out of its misery, but I still dutifully watched every episode with a weird mix of enthusiasm and dread — and the community that grew (in my TikTok algorithm and in my group texts) from that shared experience was oddly one of the bright spots. So for HBO Max to call my bluff by actually ending it still feels like a breakup as flabbergasting — albeit, necessary — as Berger’s Post-it note peace-out.
I came in ready to approach this stage of my relationship to these characters the same way I approach the friendships I’ve maintained the longest — excited to catch up once our schedules aligned, trying to fill in the blanks from the long absence caused by life, but still recognizing the foundation of who they are and how they’re choosing to navigate life’s curveballs. But with each passing episode, it always seemed like I was at the wrong table, perplexed and trying not to be rude with all the “But why?” questions. Miranda’s quote from this week’s finale, as she took in the most bizarre Thanksgiving dinner television has ever put onscreen, felt like the epilogue to my experience watching it all: “I’m not sure exactly what’s happening now, but let’s all take a breath.”
The scene where Carrie, left, Seema, Charlotte and Lisa are at the bridal fashion show, expressing their feelings about marriage, is something our writer wanted more of in the series. (Craig Blankenhorn / HBO Max)
I will mourn the potential of what this series could have been. Like Carrie’s playful tiptoe stride through the streets in heels, the show pranced around topics that, had it walked through them with intention, would have given the series traces of its former self. That friend moment between Seema and Carrie outside the hair salon in Season 2 — where the former is reluctantly but bravely expressing that she feels like she’s being dropped now that Aidan is back in the picture — was such a genuine peek at the vulnerability between friends that so many of us valued from the original series. And that moment from this week’s finale, where the women are gathered at a bridal runway show, sharing their varying feelings on marriage at this stage in their life — I just wanted to shout, “MICHAEL PATRICK KING, this is what I wanted more of!” Though, I would have preferred if they were around a table, looking at each other as they shared and unpacked. I wanted an extended scene of that, not Carrie ordering pies! I don’t like to be teased with goodness. And that’s how it often felt.
Also, I know it’s a comedy, although the decision to lean into the sitcom style of humor remains perplexing (Harry and Charlotte, I’m looking at you), but I felt like there was a way to explore grief — the death of Mr. Big and Stanford, plus the strain on the group’s friendship with Samantha — in a way that felt truer to the characters and the style of the show. Heck, even Miranda’s drinking problem was squandered. I feel like the loss of a spouse (through death, divorce or emotional distance), the fading out of friendships and reconsideration of lifestyle habits are the most talked-about topics in my friend group at this stage in my life — sometimes the convos happen while we’re huddled around a Chili’s triple dipper, which is as bleak and real as it gets. And I’m sorry, but if I were to use one of those outings, when I’m in my mid-50s, to tell them an ex wants me to wait five years while he focuses on being a toxic parent before we can really be together, they’d slap me with a fried mozzarella stick — I will never forgive the writers for how lobotomized these characters feel. Mary and Maira, how did you feel about how the show handled its biggest absences? The show began in such a different place than where it ends — did it evolve in the right direction? Where did it go right for you?
McNamara: Oh Yvonne, you are so much kinder than I am. I never felt it was going right — the writers seemed so determined to prove that women in their 50s aren’t boring that they constantly forced them into all manner of absurd situations without much thought for what kind of actual women these characters might have become. Age was represented mostly by bizarre, grannified reactions to younger folk and their strange ways (up until the finale, which gave us that baby mama and her buddy Epcot), as if the women (and the writers) had been kept in a shoe box for 20 years.
Looking back, the lack of Samantha, and Cattrall, feels like a deal-breaker. For all her campy affectations, Samantha was always the most grounded of the characters, able to cut to the heart of things with a witty line, biting comment or just a simple truth. Seema, and Choudhury, did her best to fill that void, but she never got quite enough room to work — her relationship was almost exclusively with Carrie for one thing and Carrie was, even more than in “Sex and the City,” the driving force of the show.
Kim Cattrall made a brief appearance as Samantha Jones at the end of Season 2, but she was sorely missed throughout.
(Max)
I agree that grief was given very short shrift, and the fact that no one seemed to miss Samantha very much, or be in touch with her at all (beyond the few exchanges with Carrie) was both bizarre and a shame — coping with the loss of a dear friend, through misunderstanding or distance, is a rich topic and one that many people deal with.
As for the resurrection of Aidan, well, who thought that was going to work? Especially when it became clear that the writers thought it made perfect sense to keep Carrie and Aidan’s children separate — so unbelievable, and demeaning to both characters. Carrie’s final “revelation” that a woman doesn’t need a man to be happy would have had a much more meaningful resonance if Carrie had been allowed to explore her grief, fear, frustration and hope beyond a few platitude-laden conversations and that god-awful novel. Which, quite honestly, was the funniest thing about this season. When her agent went bananas over it, I literally walked out of the room.
Garcia: Samantha, and Cattrall in turn, were sorely missed. And you’re right, Mary, Seema filled some of that void, and you really need that connection across the different characters. Which leads me to my biggest gripe: Why did some characters feel so distant? Lisa’s storyline this season was so disconnected from the rest — it seemed like she was with the core group only in passing. And it happened with Nya (Karen Pittman), who disappeared after Season 2, though that had to do with scheduling conflicts.
As far as its evolution, I was glad to see the podcast group, with its overbearing members, whittled away — though we had to deal with Che for another season. Those overbearing characters kept getting replaced with other overbearing characters like Giuseppe’s mother, played by Patti LuPone, and Brady’s baby mama and her odd pals (if the writers were trying to get us to scratch our heads at Gen Z, they did it). While I’ll miss being able to turn my brain off for an hour each week, along with the occasional shouts at my TV over some silly line or moment, I can’t say I was satisfied in the end. At least when someone said or did something stupid in previous iterations of the show, it was acknowledged in a way that felt true the characters and there was some growth expressed. After the return of Aidan, I can’t say that’s true here.
But now that we’re at the end, I have to ask you both how this affects the SATC universe? Did this disrupt the canon? Was there something memorable you’ll take away at least? A character, a moment, a ridiculously oversized piece of jewelry, hat or bag?
Villarreal: Oh geez. There’s no question — for me, at least — where this sequel falls in the SATC universe. The original series, even with its moments that didn’t stand the test of time, will always be supreme; the first movie, while hardly perfect, gave us some memorable BFF moments — like Charlotte giving Big eye daggers after he left Carrie at the altar or Samantha feeding a heartbroken Carrie — that keep it in my rewatch rotation. I’d place “And Just Like That …” after that, with the Abu Dhabi getaway movie dead last.
What will I miss? For sure the fashion moments, especially the ones that broke my brain, like Carrie’s Michelin Man snowstorm getup or her recent gingham headwear disaster that my former colleague Meredith Blake described as Strawberry Shortcake … and don’t get me started on Lisa’s jumbo balls of twine necklace.
One thing we’ll miss: The over-the-top fashion like Carrie’s big hat and Lisa’s jumbo ball necklace. (Craig Blankenhorn/HBO Max)
I’m curious, Mary, as someone who has watched your share of series finales, how you felt about this conclusion and whether it served that mission. This season had episodes that felt like wasted filler and didn’t do much to move the plot forward. Last week’s penultimate episode is what convinced me the wrapping up of this series was not planned. It was 28 minutes of huh? And what about Carrie’s book? I would add it to my Kindle just out of curiosity. While I maybe would have seen all that’s transpired as an opportunity for Carrie to write a memoir on love and loss à la Carole Radziwill, I did get a kick out of the excerpts from Carrie’s take on a 19th century woman having an existential crisis. And look, maybe I’m schmaltzy, but I did sort of love the last line she tacked on in her epilogue: “The woman realized, she was not alone — she was on her own.” Mary, are you judging me right now? I promise I didn’t dance to Barry White’s “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything” through the halls of my apartment after watching. But I would have loved more exploration of that thread sooner — I mean, aren’t there studies about women being happier, or at least less stressed, later in life once their spouse dies? I believe it! It doesn’t mean you can’t have companionship in other ways. Anyway, what’s the takeaway from what happened with this show? Hollywood isn’t going to stop trying to find new life in established properties. So, what can be learned from what went wrong here?
McNamara: Yvonne! I would never judge you! And the world would be a far better place if everyone danced around their domiciles more often. I think Carrie realizing that her life is full and happy without a partner is actually a perfect way to end this series. (She will certainly never want for romance — So. Much. Tulle.) I just wish it had felt less rushed and did not involve a weird giant plushie at a robot restaurant. Whatever sequence of events led to the final scene, I have to believe that was going to be Carrie’s journey all along. I even liked the debate over the ending of her book — if only the book had not been so terrible!
I will certainly miss marveling at Parker’s Olympics-worthy ability to navigate nearly any surface in heels (and “sell” outfits that seem more like Halloween costumes than style) as well as those rare conversations, like the one at the bridal show, that allowed a situation to be viewed from multiple points of view.
As for the finale, it felt very much in keeping with the intention, if not the overall execution, of the series. I am not cold-hearted enough to want any of these characters to depart mid-crisis or accept less than a happy life. Sure, it was a bit pat, with everyone’s story neatly boxed up like a Thanksgiving pie. But who doesn’t like pie?
Garcia: I love pie! But let’s not forget, like the toilet that overflowed (with a few logs, to boot) in the final scenes, too much of something isn’t always what we need.
Villarreal: Is this a safe space to share that if the girls make up with Samantha/Cattrall in their 70s, I’ll be ready for their return to my screen? Sorry, not sorry — I don’t have time to set healthy boundaries with friendships that are no longer serving me.
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‘And Just Like That’ seems determined to insult every woman
I didn’t think my level of loathing for the Max sequel to HBO’s “Sex and the City” could get any higher, and just like that, along came Season 3.
You see what I did there? Like every single person who has written about “And Just Like That…,” I have used the title in a naked and half-assed attempt to be clever.
Which honestly could also be the title of the series.
We’re midway through the third — and one can only hope final — season, and I am hoarse from screaming at watching these beloved characters behave as if they had done some sort of “Freaky Friday” switch with 13-year-olds.
Which is actually an insult to most 13-year-olds.
In the course of the barely-recognizable-as-human events that make up this latest episode, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) prolonged her inexplicable bout of homelessness by acting shocked — shocked! — that Seema (Sarita Choudhury), having found her a dream house, would expect her to make a bid over asking price; Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker) dealt with the grief over her father’s death by whining about the amazing send-off orchestrated by his friend Lucille (Jenifer Lewis) despite it including a performance by … Jenifer Lewis; and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) continued to behave as if it were perfectly normal for her husband Harry (Evan Handler) to keep his prostate cancer diagnosis secret from everyone including their children, who would no doubt handle it better than Charlotte.
All of which paled in comparison to the latest installment in the emotional horror show that is the second-time-around courtship of Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Aidan (John Corbett), which has been under threat since it was revealed in Season 2 that Aidan’s 15-year-old son Wyatt (Logan Souza) has some issues, including a recent ADHD diagnosis. Events lead Aidan to impulsively announce that he and Carrie will have to put their relationship on hold until Wyatt turns 20 (when, as everyone knows, parental responsibilities officially end).
Aidan puts his relationship with Carrie on hold because of issues related to his teenage son, Wyatt (Logan Souza).
(Craig Blankenhorn / Max)
Not surprisingly, this plan does not work out, and in this episode, Aidan celebrates the fact that Wyatt is attending a week-long wilderness camp (um, what?) by showing up at Carrie’s apartment, where he immediately breaks a window by throwing a pebble at it. You know, like he used to in the old days before Carrie had a jillion-dollar apartment with 19th century windows that, as she says, “survived the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Draft Riots of ‘63” (memo to Carrie — New York saw no action in the Mexican War).
After going to obsessive lengths to replace the glass, Aidan then confesses that he and his ex Kathy (Rosemarie DeWitt) had to force Wyatt onto the plane (how they managed to be at the gate as unticketed passengers to do this remains a mystery), an event so upsetting that Aidan and Kathy were forced to comfort each other with sex.
For one brief and shining moment, I waited for Carrie to call time of death on one of the unhealthiest relationships this particular universe has seen (and that’s saying something). Instead, and impossibly, she said she understood.
Apparently love means ignoring every sign God could think to send you. Not only did Aidan have sex with his ex, he forced his unmedicated, unsupervised 15-year-old with ADHD onto a plane headed to the Grand Tetons. (Whether the poor kid made it to camp or is currently having a meltdown in the Jackson Hole airport is never mentioned.)
But then Carrie, and the series, has continued to treat Wyatt’s condition, and his father’s obvious irritated denial of its realities, as simply a logistical obstacle in her fairy tale love story. This would barely make sense if Carrie were still in her 30s, and it makes absolutely none for a woman of her age.
I begrudge no one the desire to reboot a groundbreaking series, and two years ago, the prospect of seeing these iconic 30-somethings as mid-to-late 50-somethings was certainly appealing to one who shares their mature demographic. If only Michael Patrick King, the force behind “And Just Like That…,” allowed any of them to have matured. I don’t mean physically — stars Parker, Nixon, Davis and Kim Cattrall (briefly glimpsed at the end of Season 2) — are fit and lovely and obviously older. I mean emotionally, spiritually and psychologically.
“And Just Like That…” has had two and a half seasons to make these women seem like actual people who might exist, if not in real life, then at least the “Sex and the City” universe (remember the opening credits, when Carrie gets splashed by a bus? Hyperrealism compared to the eat-off-the-sidewalks vision of “And Just Like That…’s” New York.)
Instead, the series seems determined to prove that age is just a number by forcing its leads, now including Choudhury and Parker, to act as if 50 is the new (and very stupid) 30.
I get that Miranda is coming to grips with her newly discovered queerness, but surely a successful, Harvard-educated lawyer who has survived a divorce and raised a teenage son would have a bit more confidence and self-awareness in love, real estate and basic guest etiquette — after moving in briefly with Carrie, she eats the last yogurt!
Charlotte has always been an original Disney princess, all wide eyes and faith in the restorative nature of small animals and florals, but at 55, her high-strung reaction to her husband’s prostate cancer (caught early, easily treatable) is helpful to no one. And don’t get me about her little foot-stamping approach to motherhood or how she speaks about her dog.
Aidan’s shocking confession did little to derail Carrie or their relationship.
(Craig Blankenhorn / Max)
As for Carrie, well, it’s one thing to be a relentlessly hopeful romantic addicted to tulle, stilettos and problematic men in your 30s, but Carrie’s pushing 60 now, so when she agreed, with no demur, to Aidan’s absurd five-year plan, I wondered if she had simply gone mad.
Watching as she subsequently rattled around her huge, empty (if incredibly luxe) apartment wearing a see-through, Ophelia-like dress stuffed with roses or traipsed through Central Park wearing a hat the size of a hot-air balloon only exacerbated my fears. Dressing like Marie Antoinette to attend a luncheon at Tiffany’s isn’t sassy fashion sense — it’s a cry for help.
She most certainly needs help. The reunion with Aidan seemed too good to be true, and thus it is proving to be. Even a 30-something Carrie would have known that being in a relationship with a father means being in a relationship with his children. But the notion that she must be kept separate from Wyatt is not just unsustainable — it’s insulting.
What, she’s never experienced, met or even read about children with ADHD or post-divorce trauma? Or is she such a delicate flower that she can’t handle being around a teenager with anger management issues? She lives in New York, for heaven’s sake, the city that invented anger management issues.
Frankly, Aidan’s behavior is far more concerning than Wyatt’s, a flag so big and red that Carrie could make a stunning sheath dress out of it.
Which she appears to be doing, instead of, you know, acting like the grown-ass rich widow she is and calling Aidan out on his bull.
“And Just Like That…” purports to celebrate the mid-life do-over, just as it purports to show that women in their 50s are just as vibrant, complicated and fun as women in their 30s. Both are admirable goals, neither of which the series achieves. Even with its title — ”And Just Like That…” — this series seems determined to erase everything that might have made the older versions of these characters interesting and resonant.
Like the ability to buy a house or say the word “cancer” or get out of an unhealthy romantic relationship before it spits right in your eye.
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Aidan O’Brien suddenly pulls Royal Ascot winner ‘who can really move’ from £500,000 Group 1 amid huge stable shuffle
AIDAN O’BRIEN has mysteriously pulled a Royal Ascot winner ‘who can really move’ from a £500,000 race.
The Ballydoyle boss pulled the plug on Hampton Court Stakes hero Trinity College’s planned run in the German Derby on Sunday.
1
Trinity College’s French Derby fourth automatically got him an entry in the Group 1 won last year by former Nicky Henderson inmate and world’s most expensive jumps horse Palladium.
He had been installed favourite by bookies on the back of his Ascot heroics.
But just 48 hours after putting him in the race O’Brien scrapped Trinity College’s entry.
It came as word spread O’Brien was set to supplement The Lion In Winter into a blockbuster Prix Jean Prat on Sunday.
The former Derby favourite, who is 25-1 for the City Of York stakes having been given an entry over 7f there too, could line up against Juddmonte’s Cosmic Year and Godolphin’s Dewhurst winner Shadow Of Light.
More to follow.
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Motocross star Aidan Zingg dies at 16 from crash at Mammoth Lakes
Aidan Zingg, a motocross prodigy who recently signed with Kawasaki’s prestigious Team Green program, died Saturday at age 16 from injuries sustained during the Mammoth Mountain MX event in Mammoth Lakes.
During a 250cc B class race, Zingg “went down in a corner,” according to industry website Dirtbikelover.com and was run over by other bikes.
Zingg, who grew up in Hemet before his family moved to the state of Washington, won the American Motorcyclist Assn. 2024 Amateur National Championship in Supermini 2, held at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tenn. He recently qualified for the championships for a seventh consecutive year.
Aidan’s sister Alex Zingg, 18, on Sunday posted a tribute to her brother.
“It’s been a day and I feel like it’s been a lifetime,” she wrote on Instagram. “My heart is completely broken. You used to joke that I was so old and that I’d die first, I would always joke that you were crazy and you’d be the first. Now I’m sitting here wishing with everything that I am that you were right so I’d never have to live a day without you.”
Zingg began racing in elementary school and soon dominated the 65cc, 85cc and Supermini classes. After signing with Kawasaki’s Team Green, he showed immense promise at the 250cc class. His other sponsors included Oakley, Bell, and Renthal.
“It is with heavy hearts that we mourn the passing of Kawasaki Team Green rider Aidan Zingg,” Kawasaki Racing posted on X. “Zingg’s dedication and kind demeanor will forever be remembered.”
Motocross journalist Donn Maeda was among those to pay tribute to Zingg on social media, writing that he was “one of those kids that made an impression on you from the moment you met him. I interviewed him for our race series years ago when he was on a 65 and when I asked him how long it’d be until he beat his dad [former racer Robert Zingg]. He smirked and said, ‘Soon, I’m sure.’
“After that, he always went out of his way to say hello, even recently when he grew into a fast big bike rider…. you know; the age when teens get cocky and cool. Not Aidan.”
Zingg’s last social media post came 10 days before his death. A joint Instagram post with MotoSport.com of Zingg racing read: “Remember the name… @aidanzingg.”
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