*note: there are no spoilers in this review, it’s mostly about my feelings
Sex And The City is back with a new name, And Just Like That.
And the only person having sex in this version of the city is Brady.
Yes, Brady. This is how I remember Brady:
And from the Sex & The City movies, like this:
Now this very small boy is a randy 17-year-old who is rooting his girlfriend like a rabbit while living under his parents’ roof. His parents being Miranda and Steve.
IS ANYONE FEELING OLD YET?
As we rejoin Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte (Samantha, you are missed but more about that shortly), our girls are not in their 30s anymore. They’re very much women in their mid to late 50s, just like the actresses who play them.
Watch: Kim Cattrall on her feud with her SATC co-stars. Post continues below.
This is complicated but also important because the women most deeply invested in this show are also not in our 30s anymore. We too have crossed the rubicon into our 40s and 50s.
So to the show and my experience watching it.
I started off hating it. Not just hating the show but hating myself for some reason I couldn’t explain. I felt needy and vulnerable. There was so much that I wanted this reboot to be and even though it couldn’t possibly have lived up to those expectations, it still felt crushing when it didn’t.
The first 20 minutes were self-conscious and twee.
It was jarring to see the characters so seared into our hearts looking so different and yet acting so the same. Samantha wasn’t there and the shift in the dynamic of the women was an adjustment. Samantha was the wise-cracking sage. She cared the least what anyone thought of her and she often served hard truths to the other characters. And a Samantha-shaped space is very hard to fill. It threw an even more forgiving spotlight on where the other women had landed.
Charlotte’s wide-eyed, good girl schtick felt cloying. Carrie’s ingenue schtick felt ridiculous.
Grow up already. You’re 55. As one reviewer pointed out, “When asked a question about masturbation by the main host, Che, a queer, nonbinary stand-up comedian played by Sara Ramirez, Carrie hems and haws, later explaining to Che that she’s more comfortable talking about relationship stuff. Carrie Bradshaw, uncomfortable with sex talk? I couldn’t help but wonder what the fuck was going on.”
And Miranda’s curmudgeon schtick felt forced. What woman in her 50s doesn’t listen to podcasts or know what Instagram is?
The whole vibe was very much what it feels like to go to a school reunion after 30 years, something I did between lockdowns.
You come away shocked by how old some people look. How much surgery others have had. And after a few awkward moments of that, you find yourself falling easily into conversations and relaxing into familiar rhythms.
That to me, is what watching the first two episodes of And Just Like That felt like. It was a shock, and it was uncomfortable and at the same time it was deeply comforting.
I started off hating it but I think that was partly about confronting my own feelings about getting older rather than the show itself. Some of it was about the show, though.
Firstly, props to the writers for listening to the criticism of SATC being too white and introducing four black characters (one of whom we are yet to meet as of episode 2) who we’re assured will have significant roles.
Also, the fashion is glorious. For anyone sniping or griping that it’s not realistic for women to be wearing those clothes in 2021, can I suggest you watch a documentary? This is not that. This has never been that. The clothes on SATC has always been Very Fashion and thank god nobody messed with that vital element because I’ve never needed anything more.
With the exception of Samantha, the gang is all back and there are some fun cameos including a cast member of Hamilton and hold me.
The plot... well, I promised no spoilers. There is a big plot twist in episode one which is telegraphed fairly heavily and from a character development perspective, it does what it needs to do.
The cringey parts come when it feels like the writers are trying too hard to pop the characters who were so much creatures of the 90s and early 2000s into scenes and issues that are distinctly 2021.
Memes, cancel culture, podcasts, what it means to be ‘woke’, cultural appropriation, gender fluidity, sexual diversity... the characters feel uncomfortable, and the script feels clunky when they run into these topics but in fairness to the writers, there’s a certain truth to that.
Many Gen X-ers and Boomers often do feel bewildered by the changes around us . From TikTok to pronouns... the natural evolution from being at the epicentre of pop culture to struggling to understand it is a genuine thing as you get older.
It’s hard to watch the characters experience it because it’s hard for us to experience it.
Although I know better than most what a podcast is, some of my friends don’t listen to them because they don’t really ‘understand’ how they work.
To me, this is the challenge for the writers. SATC was ground-breaking for the taboos it tackled. From anal sex (Charlotte) to vibrators (Charlotte), sex talk gone wrong (Charlotte), having a fling with a woman (Samantha), the awkwardness of kissing a partner after they’ve gone down on you (Miranda), farting in bed (Carrie)... nobody had ever portrayed this stuff on TV before.
It was Cosmo come to life.
The challenge is how do you do that with women in their 50s? Does anyone want to see or even think about women this age having sex? The answer is yes and I’m fascinated to see how the show will tackle it.
The cast always talk about head writer and show runner, Michael Patrick King in devout terms as being the god-like creator and gate-keeper of their universe. And while they have injected some diversity into the writer’s room, he is still very much the boss and he is a 67-year-old man.
What boundaries will be pushed in this new season?
Listen: Kee Reece and Laura Brodnik unpack the Sex And The City reboot on The Spill. Post continues below.
Back to my feelings.
The next morning, while continuing to debrief in my group chats, I felt something change. For reasons I can’t explain, I began to appreciate how impossible it would have been to satisfy devoted fans and pedantic critics when you force time travel upon such an iconic group of characters.
Since we last spent time with Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte, we’ve all had 20 years to adjust to the age we are now and the world in which we live.
It’s going to take time and goodwill to allow those characters to bridge those years in our minds and our hearts. Personally, I’m here for it. And I cannot wait for the next episode.
Feature image: HBO / Mamamia
