And Just Like That… I’ve Got Notes
*SPOILER ALERT – THIS ARTICLE WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FROM EPISODES 1 & 2 OF AND JUST LIKE THAT
Like many deep television fandoms, I feel that before my critique I must show my credentials. I first came across Sex and the City (SATC) when I was 14, in a hotel room at the beach with HBO. The second season was airing at that time and I was hooked. I didn’t have HBO at my house so I used my allowance to buy the VHS box set of the first season and watched it over and over until the second season came out on VHS and I bought that too and so on (except then it was DVD sets and burning the episodes of Limewire in college). I was able to watch the final season on television from my dorm room. During my last two years of college I had a standing date with my roommate and one of my close friends Alan to watch repeat episodes of SATC many nights of the week. When I visited Alan in New York City one summer of college we brunched at Pastis and strolled through the Meatpacking District just like the ladies of SATC. When the first film came out I saw it at the opening midnight showing and snuck in tiny bottles of rose. When I saw the first film again, I bought shoes I couldn’t afford beforehand at Barney’s CO-OP (RIP). The second film shall not be mentioned. Even with time and self reflection and acknowledgement that she’s definitely an anti-hero, I was and still am a Carrie.
Now that I’ve proclaaimed my adoration for SATC, I’m ready to discuss the Kim Cattrall-less reboot And Just Like That…
Is it necessary? No. Most rebooted television is not necessary.
Is it a lot of fan service? Absolutely. Some of the best parts are small revisited characters like Bitsy von Muffling and Susan Sharon. The show rumors also promise the return of Big’s second wife Natasha and Carrie’s ex Aiden. Truly these rumored cameos are probably 45% of what will keep me religiously watching the reboot.
Is it frivolous? Sure. The fashion is fantastic and all the characters are getting dressed at the top of their game (no bucket hats on Miranda… yet) and it’ll be fun to watch how they feature New York City.
Is it attempting to tackle some issues above its weight? Yes. Admittedly time and perspective has not always aged SATC well. It was a very whitewashed show with several icky racist jokes. This reboot is attempting to right (and write) some of those wrongs by introducing Black, Latino, and gender queer characters. It also made me very happy to see one of my favorite essayists Samantha Irby is on the writing staff.
I’m glad that they brought writers and actors of color into the room to make the new diverse voices in the show feel genuine. Sara Ramirez plays Che, a podcast co-host with Carrie and Karen Pittman plays Dr. Nya Wallace, Miranda’s masters professor. Thus far both characters seem to be serving more to advance the main girls than to have their own lives, but that may change. Dr. Wallace has a brief phone conversation about IVF with her husband which leads me to believe we’ll get more of a future peek into her life.
The biggest casting addition is Nicole Ari Parker as an Upper East Side mom who ostensibly seems to be primed to fill Samantha’s empty chair at the diner. At one point the character of Anthony calls her “the Black Charlotte.” She may be of a similar social class but personality wise, she’s way more relaxed, sarcastic, and effortlessly chic than very mannered Charlotte. She seems a bit like pieces of all the women rolled into one, but at least she’s not a Black Samantha; filling a need more than being a character in her own right. I look forward to more of her and especially more of Christopher Jackson (of Hamilton fame) as her husband.
Speaking of Samantha… I was impressed with the way the show dealt with Kim Cattrall’s disinterest in being a continuing part of SATC. It’s explained in a fairly smooth way (but there’s always the “Why are you seeming to only talk about this right now?”) that Carrie and her had a falling out over Carrie having to dump her as her publicist because the lit world isn’t so lucrative anymore. That led Samantha to be mad, refuse to answer any calls or texts from any of the women, and subsequently moved to London. I buy this story. Especially after reading the Adam McKay Vanity Fair profile where he and Will Ferrell had a business related falling out and now they don’t speak. It would seem like a situation where Carrie would be a bit chickenshit about it and Samantha would take it personally. Also fans know that Carrie is the connector of the four women–they’re friends because of her and if Samantha isn’t talking to Carrie she wouldn’t confide in Miranda or Charlotte about it. There is a sprinkling of her in texts and cards, etc. throughout the first two episodes and I actually hope they keep talking about her because a friend loss can feel like a death, but sometimes more painful because there’s always room for hope. It seems like instead of killing her off and keeping her sprinkled into the show there’s also hope that maybe they could woo Kim to return if there’s a future season.
Speaking of a death… the big spoiler reveal is that at the end of episode one, Mr. Big/John James Preston/Carrie’s husband dies from a weekly cigar combined with a one-thousandth-Peloton-ride heart attack. Admittedly my good friend mentioned earlier Alan spoiled this for me by texting me “Big is Dead” at 11 a.m. before I had time to even start the episode. I wasn’t too too mad and this is because it wasn’t a complete surprise. When there was talk of a third SATC movie and that got shot down, show creator Michael Patrick King did say that in that script Big died of a heart attack in the shower. As much as I love Chris Noth’s Mr. Big, killing him off is the correct move for the reboot. The movies dealt with engaged and married Carrie and it was dull. Now that he’s gone, Carrie deals with grief but more importantly we’ll anticipate watching her date again and what that’s like for a widow in her 50s as opposed to a swinging single in her 30s.
As for the other women, I have polarizing feelings about the choices made for them. Charlotte is same old Charlotte–girly, prissy, uptight, but sweet. She’s still in love with her gem of a husband Harry and now both her girls are teenagers. The storylines feel predictable –Charlotte’s one big challenge of the season is that while one daughter Lily is girly and seemingly perfect her other daughter Rose is far more tomboyish and we already see Charlotte wrestle with that. It’s a very obvious storyline but it seems like without a Samantha to carry all the heavy joke lifting it’ll fall on Charlotte to be the butt of jokes and handle the physical comedy which Kristin Davis does very well. Never change, Charlotte.
Miranda is where I feel more disappointment. Her big thrust of the reboot is she’s getting her masters degree and so she feels a bit out of touch and old compared with the other students in her program. Suddenly, Miranda is written as this token woke white liberal woman who can’t help but say horrifyingly embarrassing and racist things to her professor who’s Black. The rambling faux PC monologue doesn’t sound like Miranda. It’s a nice touch that she mentions that offering up pro bono services to refugees inspired her to get a masters but she says it inspired her to leave corporate law. This is confusing because at the end of the first movie she seemingly quits her corporate law job to work for some sort of very diverse looking public policy type law group. This new Miranda acts like she’s just discovered racism over the pandemic. It feels disingenuous and over-compensating for the previous ills of the show. They’ve also thrown a total left field burgeoning alcohol addiction into her storyline which just reads as bizarre and unnecessary. It almost feels like the writers heard so many people during pandemic re-watches of SATC claim they were a Miranda and that Carrie sucks and needed to make Miranda suck more.
This new Miranda acts like she’s just discovered racism over the pandemic.
I’ll keep watching every week. When you’ve put in this much time and been friends this long you gotta keep in touch to find out what happens in their lives and judge their fashion choices and see where they eat and live vicariously through their sex lives. It’s what a good friend would do.
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