In the past few years of mainstream television, networks have been churning out questionable reboots (I’m looking at you, Dexter: New Blood) like it’s going out of style. So it comes as no surprise that HBO Max decided to revive the beloved and iconic Sex and the City series, a revered champion of glittery city life, cosmopolitans, and the power of female friendship — an incredible cocktail of what was en vogue during the late ‘90s when the show aired for the very first time. During its time, the original series was widely regarded as revolutionary in its depiction of independent female sexuality — the then-alien prospect of depicting women in mainstream media who talk about and have sex like men. With two feature-length films under its belt, the series has been no stranger to reboots. The latest revival, the cheekily (or gauchely) titled And Just Like That…, attempts to bring these late-’90s liberated women into the ever-evolving progressive culture of the 2020s with mixed results.
Developed by original Sex and the City showrunner, Michael Patrick King, and executive produced by star Sarah Jessica Parker, the series follows three of the four leading ladies as they navigate their lives in their 50s, miraculously still maintaining the friendships that have unfolded on our screens since 1997. Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, and Kristin Davis make their returns as Carrie Bradshaw, Miranda Hobbes, and Charlotte York-Goldenblatt, respectively, while newcomer characters cushion the rest of the narrative.
First: what worked. I found myself pleasantly surprised with the direction they took Carrie in this season. In the original TV show, Carrie could be eye-roll inducing with her poor romantic choices and the writing’s way of rewarding her self-absorbed behavior. (Does anyone remember when she held Miranda’s newborn baby before Miranda herself at the hospital?) In And Just Like That…, we see Carrie at her lowest and most vulnerable for the majority of the series after Big (Chris Noth), her existential, on-and-off flame turned husband, suffers a heart attack in the first episode — a bold move on the writers’ part that pays off by giving Carrie a more interesting and serious narrative than the original series did. In her grief, she is still herself: she agonizes over choosing a funeral venue for Big, fusses over her shoes while she takes on moving out of their old apartment, and place’s Big’s ashes in a Barney’s bag so she doesn’t have to decide where to spread them yet. However, we see a more vulnerable side to her as she puts up a front to her friends and colleagues all season, suspiciously cool as a cucumber for a recent widow. When she finally breaks down and snaps at her realtor for breaking the glass on a picture of her and Big, it is clear that she is hiding a world of hurt underneath her cool demeanor.
Another character arc that worked really well was Charlotte and her path to finding acceptance for her unlabeled, genderless child — it seems to be purposefully murky so the writers don’t have to figure out this kid’s gender out either. For the entire run of the original series, Charlotte is desperate to start a picture-perfect family and become a mother, something she struggles with significantly due to her infertility — going through hormone treatment, acupuncture, and a world of strange sex positions. In the first film, she finds out she is pregnant with a biological daughter, Rose.
The series yet again puts a spotlight on Charlotte’s motherhood in a different way than before. When her child, Rock, announces that they don’t feel like a girl and later changes their name at school, Charlotte struggles to wrap her mind around this and wonders if it is just a phase that she and Harry should ignore. Ultimately, Charlotte decides to be the best mother she can with the information she is given and throws Rock a “they mitzvah” — a phrase seemingly made-up for this universe where the concept of a b’nai mitzvah does not exist — complete with a trans rabbi and rainbow-colored kippahs and decor. While this plot definitely had the subtlety of a sledgehammer, it was still quite sweet to see a notoriously-rigid Charlotte become open-minded as a result of the unconditional love for her child.
While these arcs were a genuinely thoughtful way to breathe new life into old characters, I enjoyed myself the most by far when the episodes were leaning into the campiness that Sex and the City is known for. In the first episode, Miranda has an insanity-inducing fight with a person dressed in a Chucky costume to defend her professor from being mugged by said Chucky doll, and I’ll be frank — I cannot stop thinking about it. It was simultaneously ridiculous and on-brand for the show, and these over-the-top moments definitely help with the bleakness and after-school-special vibes that the tone is occasionally dragged down by.
The crown jewel of the lighter side of the plot is Anthony (Mario Cantone), Charlotte’s meanest bestie. Fresh off a divorce from Stanford (the late Willie Garson), Anthony is now running a bakery delightfully called Hot Fellas, where we see muscular men run through the background in short-shorts and carrying baguettes, an endeavor that Samantha certainly would have done PR for had she been around. Anthony consistently has the best one-liners and most laughs, despite a certain character being an established comedian. When he wonders if he should get a facelift at a consultation with Carrie, he recounts with his signature brash tone, “A 30-year-old hottie called me daddy last night. I’m not ready to be a ‘daddy.’ I need to get my face back to ‘hot, slightly older guy.’” Cantone is truly a charismatic comic delight to see on-screen, and like many others on Twitter, I would love to see a reboot revolving around Anthony and the Hot Fellas.
As for what didn’t work, there were some misfires in the plot. In its attempt to drag Sex and the City into the modern age, the notorious Che Diaz was born out of the ashes of this quest for modernization. Che, played by Grey’s Anatomy’s Sara Ramirez, can seemingly do it all as a podcast host (where they intermittently hit a button that yells things like “woke moment!” or “trigger warning!” — it’s unclear if this is a joke), stand-up comedian (at “comedy concerts”?), and a nonbinary person fighting against a binary world (it’s almost every other line where they say something like this). This is where the gaps start to show through in the show. It becomes even more clear that the writers are hopelessly out of their depth in writing nonbinary characters, as we only got a hint of this from Charlotte’s unlabeled kid’s purposefully vague identity. Che talks like they’re straight out of an Instagram infographic and says things like “I’ve done a ton of weed,” while being a full-blown adult. On paper, the show has checked all its boxes with Che: a nonbinary character played by a nonbinary actor where their pronouns are used correctly (for the most part) by other characters and they even have a romance with a major lead (Miranda). However, the key phrase here is on paper: Che, as a character, is not developed enough for the audience to root for and certainly isn’t developed enough for Miranda’s discovery of her sexuality. We see that Che is funny and well-liked — they have adoring fans stopping them in public constantly, and this fame seems to exponentially increase with each episode — but their jokes aren’t really funny. Or jokes. Che also seems to be constantly performing, as their off-stage persona is not much different from their on-stage one, so we as the audience feel distant from their character and their relationship with Miranda. Which brings us to the next issue: Miranda and Steve.
Within the span of a few years, Steve seems to have aged into an elderly man. Already, in his 50s, he has turned into a bumbling caricature of himself, a husband who embarrasses Miranda in front of her professor when they meet at the supermarket and passively stands at the sidelines of his own marital issues, leaving Miranda to take the lead. This Steve is worlds away from the Steve Miranda fell in love with, but the show is uninterested in showing us how he got to this point. Has Steve gradually gotten more senile at the tender age of 50? Is Miranda having a midlife crisis? How long has their relationship been quietly decaying? Why do they let their teenage son have headboard-slamming sex with his girlfriend right next to their bedroom wall?
Even more so than Steve, Miranda also feels distinctly out of character, a woman who fleetingly abandons her husband of decades for a person who has hedged around the mere hint of a committed relationship, who later drops the bomb that they’re moving to California to presumably get laid and do more bad comedy all over the West Coast. She has a drinking problem that is mostly shown through dialogue, with quiet moments of concern from Charlotte that don’t really build up to anything, and is quietly dropped in the remaining few episodes — and just like that, she quits cold turkey and never talks about it again! In her worst moments, Miranda feels more like Carrie in the later seasons of Sex and the City, making unabashedly selfish decisions and refusing to take accountability for her actions. She decides to throw in the towel with Steve for good after one attempt at recreating the sexual spark after her tryst with Che, a far cry from the Miranda who had sarcastic comebacks and doled out rational advice nearly on command for Carrie whenever she tried to do something impulsive for a throwaway relationship. Now, we see Miranda being the impulsive one for once and moving out to Los Angeles to be with Che — a decision I see coming back to bite her in a future season, if HBO decides to renew the series. Not only does this odd characterization make you dislike Miranda, it also makes you forget what made her so great in the original show.
At the end of the day, And Just Like That… brings plenty of new things to the table for a series that has long had its heyday, but some things are better left in the past. With a more stripped-down script that focuses more on developing these new characters and rethinking some old ones in a new light, it could’ve made for a less hasty, break-neck experience. That being said, I will 100% be tuning into the next season if there is one — I am actually interested to see where the good stuff will go and how the bad things will shake out. The plot continues on, even if it should’ve been left as a relic of the past.
