“And Just Like That” boss previews new cast, loves, and voiceover in season 3: 'It's new everything' (exclusive)

New Yorkers often stumble across those colorful filming notices out in the wild, wherever movie and TV productions reserve space throughout the city and its boroughs. That’s especially true of And Just Like That, which, much like its predecessor, Sex and the City, embeds itself in Manhattan to shoot every season.

However, even the producers were thrown off when fake notices popped up, touting episode descriptions like, “Carrie can’t prove it, but she thinks her dentist is switching out her teeth.” Similar gag fliers for the show were taped up around New York streets during the filming of And Just Like That season 3. The viral culprit turned out to be local Brooklyn-based writer Kat Thek, and it was all done in good fun.

“Of course we were aware of them!” executive producer Michael Patrick King tells Entertainment Weekly. “I think it got us thrown off a location or two, but I’d rather have that than no energy around it. What I love is when what you're working on becomes an interactive art piece with the world, everything from the fake locations and people's plot points that they decide to write, all the way up to the memes. Anything that continually creates energy around the show is fantastic.”

Related: Kim Cattrall denies reports that she's returning for And Just Like That season 3

King confirms season 3 will not in fact see Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw date Mr. Bean and then accidentally send him a nude, as one fake notice read. And, no, Kristin Davis’ Charlotte York Goldenblatt will not become a Juggalo. “The phrase that I would use for season 3 is ‘new,’” he says in giving EW the real intel on the next chapter. “It’s new everything.”

King acknowledges the show left the audience with a bit of a conundrum in the season 2 finale. Carrie hosted a farewell dinner party for her apartment, with all her close friends in attendance, so she can move into a luxury three-floor home in Gramercy Park with her old/new love Aidan Shaw (John Corbett). Except Aidan decides he needs a five-year break (with perhaps a visit here and there “for good behavior”) to spend time with his sons. “The first question I said to everybody was, ‘What exactly did Carrie agree to?’” King recalls. “What is the arrangement that they made? What I loved even in the writers’ room, there were six different versions of what she agreed to. When I knew there was still a gray area, I knew that we had a potential great field to plow and figure out.”

The five-year element is "a big plot point" for season 3, he confirms. “I have no interest in torturing an audience too much. The Carrie-Aidan relationship is dramatic and exciting because it contains two points of view. I think half the fans who do not want Carrie to be in a relationship will be like, ‘Enough!’ The other half will understand that when you love somebody, what comes with them is their family. It’s an interesting thing when you have Carrie Bradshaw in love figuring out how to make this work when, at a certain age, everyone has a past. There are a couple of booby traps in the Carrie-Aidan history that we're very aware of, as well.”

Related: And Just Like That season 3 adds heartthrobs from Mortal Kombat, The Affair, and more

In addition to Carrie's Gramercy home, there's also a fresh start for Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon), who moves into a new apartment. And there are “lots of new loves,” King promises, as well as “new obstacles for old loves.” Outside of the core trio, season 2 ended with real estate broker Seema Patel (Sarita Choudhury) finding her footing with a new beau, movie director Ravi Gordi (Armin Amiri), who went abroad to shoot his next project while she vacationed with Carrie in Greece. Meanwhile, documentarian Lisa Todd Wexley (Nicole Ari Parker) came to terms with her recent miscarriage, and Anthony Marentino (Mario Cantone) opened up (figuratively and...erm...sexually) to his Italian stallion boyfriend, Giuseppe (Sebastiano Pigazzi).

Not returning, however, are polarizing standup comic Che Diaz (Sara Ramírez) and Columbia law school professor Nya Wallace (Karen Pittman). It was said Ramírez left when Che’s storyline reached a natural conclusion (i.e. their tense breakup with Miranda), while Pittman departed the show due to her filming obligations with Apple’s The Morning Show and Netflix’s Forever. “We just moved forward because that's what happens in New York City or in life. Sometimes you see someone who is so important to you and then you don't see them again for 10 years,” King comments on their departures.

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Che and Nya could theoretically return at some point, should And Just Like That maintain a longer shelf life. King, however, says he doesn't "have anything on the board" just yet. “They're still on the same island, but you don't see them," he notes. "So we put Che and Nya on a very luxurious boat and waved goodbye, throwing confetti as they departed from the shores of And Just Like That. And we moved forward with bringing in new boats, new characters, new ideas.”

Some of those new characters include Rosie O’Donnell, Cheri Oteri, Mehcad Brooks, Jonathan Cake, and Logan Marshall-Green. EW can also exclusively confirm Broadway and Agatha All Along star Patti LuPone will have a story arc in season 3, which will additionally see Kristen Schaal (Bob’s Burgers). Plus, Rosemarie DeWitt will return as Aidan’s ex-wife, Kathy. As previously announced, Pigazzi will now be a series regular alongside Dolly Wells, who played BBC producer Joy, suggesting the latter could become a new love interest for Miranda.

Related: Rosie O’Donnell joins And Just Like That season 3

“Dating at 50 is an interesting thing," King teases. "We have married characters, we have single characters, we have characters trying to work their current relationships out. It is kind of a maze of how you move through the world at this point in your life.”

Another new thing? Voiceover. Unlike Sex and the City, And Just Like only used Carrie’s signature narration sparingly, typically over the final moments of each episode. King confirms the narration is coming back in a big way in season 3. "Carrie's actually writing a new book and the voiceover is the way into the book," King reveals. "When we did voiceover on Sex in the City, Carrie had this overview of everything. She was telling you what to think and what to feel. For the first two seasons of And Just Like That, I took the voiceover away because I didn't think she knew what she was feeling. She's starting to feel things again and have an overview of where she is in the world. Writing a book is very private, and so, in an interesting way, it's almost a direct, intimate conversation with the viewer. Maybe there are things she's saying to the viewer that she wouldn't say to even her best friends."

Spoiler alert, there won't be a confessional about her hiring Jim Carrey's attorney Fletcher Reede from 1997's Liar Liar after getting hit by a Citi Bike. Yes, that was another of Thek's fake filming fliers.

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