The ‘Sex and the City’ Girls Deserve Better Than ‘And Just Like That’

We never talk about how cool Sex and the City used to be. It’s a word that feels miles away from the reputation the show would eventually attain, but when HBO’s comedy first premiered in 1998, cool was exactly what it was. For a certain kind of person — specifically, white, straight, cis, middle to upper class women — Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte became the perfect aspirational fantasy, four friends who were just like yours but funnier, more fashionable, and more worldly. Those aren’t the same women panicking their way through And Just Like That… With this sequel, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) have become the epitome of the stuffy, awful women their very existence used to mock, and it’s a transition that isn’t aging well.

It’s a series problem that feels as though it was, at least in part, born through overcorrection. It’s no secret that the original Sex and the City had a diversity problem. Somehow Carrie and co. managed to live in a version of New York City that was almost completely inhabited by hot, straight, white hunks. It’s a flaw that Cynthia Nixon has credited as one of her regrets about the original show.

And Just Like That… is clearly trying to fix that glaring problem by giving Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte each their own new-and-inclusive buddy. For Carrie, that’s her podcasting boss Che (Sara Ramirez), a standup comedian, and her glamorous real estate friend Seema Patel (Sarita Choudhury). Miranda has some storylines with Che as well as her struggles with her new law school professor, Dr. Nya Wallace (Karen Pittman). And Charlotte gets Lisa Todd Wexley (Nicole Ari Parker), a socialite at her children’s school who is everything Charlotte wants to be. Do these characters feel like a pointed and forced correction? Yes. But the show’s clumsy heart seems to be in the right place.

What’s less forgivable is how utterly embarrassing each of these women become around their non-white, non-straight, non-cis new friends.

Miranda started off the season by stumbling into a classroom and rambling ad nauseam about the Black Dr. Nya Wallace’s hair. Charlotte had an entire arc that revolved around her realizing that she had no Black friends for a dinner party and hastily recruiting a couple she disliked solely based on the color of their skin. Carrie, a writer who has covered sex and sexuality literally for decades, has reacted to stories about Che’s hookups with the shock of a sheltered Midwestern grandmother. These aren’t the worldly and glamorous women we fell in love with. These are the drags Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte used to avoid at parties.

Criticizing these friends over their unrecognized racism is more than fair. Though Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte acted like normal people throughout the entire arc, Samantha’s (Kim Cattrall) relationship with Chivon (Asio Highsmith) remains one of the most cringe-worthy and embarrassing depictions of a relationship between a white woman and a Black man. The racism that was present in the original series was always subtle, stemming the fact that there were only three people of color this friend group ever dated and writing that often portrayed these rare characters as villains. But when it comes to issues around the LGBTQ+ community, the remaining trio doesn’t even sound like their former selves.

In the original Sex and the City, the central four had several gay friends. Miranda once faked a relationship with a women to get ahead at her law firm, a set up the other woman always knew about and never seemed to mind. Carrie wrote a column questioning if women even needed men. Charlotte became swept up in the world of power lesbians who love art and even agreed to have her vagina painted by an artist. There are, of course, caveats to all of these examples. That artist who painted Charlotte was presumably straight, and Carrie once broke up with a guy partially because he was bisexual. But these women were sexually open, curious, and adventurous. Where did they go?

There is a chance this drastic character change may be remedied through Miranda. Episode 5 finally saw the flirtation between Miranda and Che get physical, indicating that Miranda may be queer or at least Che-sexual. But even that revelation was handled in a frustrating manner. Miranda and Che hooking up in the bed-bound Carrie’s apartment was an inconsiderate move that painted them as the villains of this episode, a fate that often befell the diverse characters in the original series. It was also a hookup that ended with Carrie, who once cheated with a married man for months and who casually accepted Samantha’s relationship with a woman, truly appalled at her friend. Some of that anger justifiably came from the fact that Carrie was sitting in her own pee because of Miranda’s hookup. But the entire confrontation felt more judgmental than you would expect a well-known sex columnist to be.

Adult women who used to dish about anal sex over brunch have now been replaced by doppelgängers who whisper about transitioning, and slut shame each other. Whoever these people are, they’re no longer cool, and they’re certainly not aspirational. It’s depressing. But maybe that was the reality check we’ve needed all along.

Watch And Just Like That... on HBO Max