And Just Like That Took Too Long To Return To Sex And The City
WARNING: Spoilers ahead for And Just Like That's season 1 finale!
The Sex and the City reboot was too slow to gain traction, making And Just Like That season 1 feel like a completely different series until the very end. Taking place a decade after the SATC sequel movies, And Just Like That follows Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte in their mid-50s, learning to live with the modern cultural climate as a widow, mother, and wife in today's day and age. HBO Max’s 10-episode series already had several disadvantages right off the bat, including the loss of fan-favorite SATC character Samantha Jones, but And Just Like That’s biggest challenge was overcoming that of its new premise, which felt worlds away from the original.
While SATC was deeply embedded with humor, optimism, drama, and the typical quirks of single life, And Just Like That season 1 had a much different tone. While losing Carrie’s narration was already a strange change for the show, it also lost much of its humorous storytelling, as exacerbated by episode 1 marking the death of SATC character Mr. Big. The show was initially expected to follow the three women back in the dating scene and explore the fun aspects of life in their 50s, whereas And Just Like That was rather dramatic, following Carrie’s grief, Miranda’s doomed marriage with Steve, and Charlotte trying to support her children’s explorations of their own identities.
The fun, optimistic premise of SATC was fairly obsolete in And Just Like That season 1, with Carrie only feeling like a shadow of her old character until the last few moments of the finale. The new angle of SATC’s show wasn’t received particularly well even in the first few episodes, and the remainder of the season didn’t change such perceptions. For starters, the show’s attempt to resolve its past shortcomings with diversity felt ham-fisted, with most plot points centered on inclusion coming off as awkward teaching moments for SATC’s returning characters without any organic growth. The manner in which they presented such situations almost felt like a mockery of “wokeness” rather than genuine representation. And Just Like That season 1 put so much emphasis on telling audiences that it was modern that it seemed to forget the entire premise of the original show. There were only a few sex scenes in the entire Sex and the City reboot, and every single one was almost unbearable to watch based on their circumstances.
Instead of being a fun look at SATC’s characters as aging New Yorkers in the 2020s, And Just Like That’s season was largely sad. Carrie’s husband died in the first episode, sending her into a deep, yet understandable grief for the remainder of the series. While it was interesting to see Carrie in such a vulnerable, emotional state, the depressed, pessimistic Carrie extended throughout the entire season, with each episode ending in her inability to move past Big. Carrie only went on three unfruitful dates with one man in all of season 1, with only a glimpse of Carrie as her old self in the And Just Like That finale where she makes out with her podcast producer. For a show led by a protagonist with some of the most outrageous sex and dating stories, Carrie’s plotlines ultimately felt repetitive and unstimulating when compared to her old SATC character.
And Just Like That season 1 was largely played as a way to get each character back to a position reminiscent of their Sex and the City lives, with Carrie’s single life being an inevitable aspect of the show. Disappointingly, the single Carrie of SATC was absent, with Big’s legacy looming over every storyline. Miranda getting back into single life also had an exciting premise as she explored a new queer relationship, but it was still the only romantic dynamic for Miranda outside of Steve in the entire show. In a surprising turn of events, Charlotte was the most sexually advanced character in And Just Like That, and even then only had one (disastrous) scene with Harry involving their sex life. While the initial premise of And Just Like That was intriguing, season 1 took far too long to return to the Sex and the City formula, which leaves much room for improvement in season 2.