And Just Like That
The End of an Era, and Not a Moment Too Soon
written by: Diane Elayne Dees
And Just Like That, the sequel to Sex and the City, has been called everything from the worst show on television to the greatest hate-watch on television, and it certainly earned those labels. The show was almost unbelievably bad, with its weak plots, a very unsavory major character (Che Diaz), and cringe-inducing attempts to be inclusive (Che Diaz and Rock, plus a new non-white friend for each major character). But here’s the thing: Sex and the City, in some ways, deserved And Just Like That—the viewers, however, did not.
The iconic HBO series is often described as a feminist show because, I suppose, the main characters talked about feminism a lot. Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte frequently met for brunch or cocktails and complained about how women give their power to men, how men are threatened by successful women, how men don’t have to work hard to maintain romantic relationships, and how easy it is for men to get older and still be considered desirable, as opposed to women.
All true, but talk is cheap. When they weren’t talking about these issues, Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte were waiting—for men to call them, for men to ask them out, for men to kiss them, for men to propose marriage to them. They talked like women who were autonomous and in control of their lives, but their behavior was right out of the fifties and sixties.
Charlotte, of course, believed intensely in “tradition,” i.e. women must “play the game” so that men won’t be threatened, and being “Mrs. Somebody” should be the most important goal of any woman. But Charlotte, the butt of many jokes—despite her not very progressive values—was, at least, not a hypocrite.
(It should also be noted that—despite their having gay male friends, the Sex and the City women weren’t just not very progressive about LBGTQ issues—they were openly hostile about some of them.)
And while Charlotte was up-front with her “traditional” beliefs, Carrie practiced leaning in just enough so that, hopefully, a man might kiss her, and she often wondered how long she should wait for a man to call her. It apparently never occurred to her that she could kiss a man, and that she could use her telephone to call a man.
There’s a great scene, early in the series, in which Carrie acts in her typically insecure, immature and inappropriate way with Big, then—instead of apologizing to him—goes home and sulks because he hasn’t apologized to her. Big pays a call on her, and when she says to him, “Why didn’t you call me?” he responds with “Why didn’t you call me?” I think I applauded.
For her part, Miranda—as much as she liked to talk about her sexual exploits—pretty much let men do any kind of weird things they chose to do to her. When she did confront a man (or a woman, for that matter), she usually immediately apologized, and destroyed any kind of agency she might have developed.. Miranda wisely broke it off with Steve when it became obvious that he wouldn’t accept responsibility for much of anything, often exhibited the behavior of a child, and therefore placed her in the “mean mommy” position—then she revived her relationship with him.
Even Samantha, who was much more comfortable with her personal power than the other three, had her issues. She irrationally agreed to accept a work contract with Richard, a man who was openly sexist (toward her), then—to make matters worse—she became romantically involved with him. (I used to own a public relations agency, and I would have walked away from that interview forever, and told Richard, when he begged me to take the contract, to find another place to put it.)
Samantha also believed that women have the right to use any power they have, including sexual power, to get what they want—an inside-out “feminist” concept that was probably worth examining, but it was discussed for all of about thirty seconds on the show.
Next to Big, Carrie’s most important romantic relationship was with Aidan, though she wound up with Big, and eventually married him. In And Just Like That, after Big dies, Carrie rekindles the romance with Aidan, who acts like an ass, and viewers and critics are—oh, so—shocked! After all the “Why did the writers do this to Aidan?” questions, I couldn’t help but wonder: Did these viewers and critics actually watch Sex and the City? Aidan was always an embarrassing, passive-aggressive creep, with his “I’m just a country boy” persona, extremely lame “jokes,” and ever-simmering rage.
In real life, people sometimes change, but only sometimes. Carrie Bradshaw and Big were a pretty typical pairing of someone with an anxious attachment style (Carrie) and someone with an avoidant attachment style (Big). But in the end, Big shifted, and it worked out. I think that Carrie finally changed somewhat when—having lived through one of the worst things that could happen to a person—she realized that she didn’t have to put up with Aidan’s anger-fueled nonsense anymore.
The character who showed more significant growth in And Just Like That was Charlotte, who returned to her career, and told her family, in no uncertain terms, that she wouldn’t be their slave anymore. When she called her husband, Harry, at work, to tell him to deliver something to one of their children at school, he said, “I can’t!” “Why?” Charlotte confronted him, “because you’re the man?”
Miranda, for her part, was still wondering whether she was really an alcoholic, and whether her new love interest, Joy, was really interested in her—in other words, business as usual. In the meantime, Charlotte had been reduced to a kind of slapstick character, and the new characters—Seema and Lisa (former new character Nya was treated a bit better by the writers)—were the victims of weak, if not ridiculous, storylines.
On the one hand, one has to wonder what the writers were thinking when they created And Just Like That, but—on the other hand—Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte had it coming. They spent years surrendering their power to men while pretending that they weren’t. The extremely insecure Carrie Bradshaw, who didn’t “believe in” psychotherapy, never really bothered to examine her insecurity and how it made her behave in romantic relationships.
Yes, she wrote about it, and she once wondered whether her absent father had anything to do with it, but she never really seriously faced it or thought seriously about how to tame or eliminate it. And Miranda was always so busy crafting an identity to suit each situation that she wound up with no identity at all, other than that of a driven, inappropriately behaving mess.
And while I could never really buy into Sex and the City because of its innate sexism and resulting hypocrisy, I did find it to be clever, usually well-written, and often quite entertaining. (I say “usually” because there was sometimes dialogue that was illogical, and there were interesting storylines that were introduced, only to disappear forever.)
Perhaps the show’s greatest strength was that the four main characters were role models for what friendships should be—they were attentive, honest, and fiercely loyal to one another. When, toward the end of the series—as he tried to get Carrie back—Big faced Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte, and told them “you’re the loves of her life.”
In their fifties, in And Just Like That, Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte were—above everything else—boring. The writing was no longer clever, and—speaking of writing—Carrie’s novel excerpts were simply dreadful, yet the characters who read them called them “brilliant.” There were no lines to make us laugh out loud, there was very little clever banter—not even a Carrie Bradshaw pun.
Then there was Lisette, who showed promise as a developing carry-over character, but who became the enemy, once she destroyed the interior of Carrie’s former, beloved apartment. That apartment represented not only the best of Carrie Bradshaw, but also the best of New York City. Even with its flaws (Carrie considered buying shoes more important that replacing her curtains or having her ceiling repaired), the small brownstone unit served as a warm, attractive, and satisfying cocoon for the show’s major character.
Day after day, Carrie sat at the window and typed, as she couldn’t help but wonder about any number of relationship-oriented topics. And while viewers knew that leaving the apartment was most likely a mistake, Carrie let herself be lured into not one, but two, spaces and neighborhoods that simply didn’t suit her at all.
The things that made Carrie Bradshaw stand out as a protagonist were her wit and her unique approach to fashion. Bradshaw somehow managed to be both fashion-forward and extremely quirky at the same time, a feat pulled off every week by the perfectly cast Sarah Jessica Parker.
Both of those traits were continued, to some extent, in And Just Like That, but they often existed without any meaningful context. There is also the reality—at least in my opinion—that the show was never going to work without Samantha. If Carrie was the wit of Sex and the City, Samantha—despite her cartoonish bombshell persona—was the heart. But after six seasons, one somewhat entertaining movie, and one barely watchable movie, Kim Cattrall came to the wise conclusion that enough was enough (how very “Samantha” of her).
The final episode of And Just Like That was disjointed and sad, not in a melancholy way, but in an unsatisfying, uncomfortable way, almost as if the writers had added one last offense to a long-running joke on viewers. Charlotte was still convinced that Carrie had to have a man in her life, and Miranda was still almost too insecure to function. Carrie Bradshaw, for her part, did come to the uneasy conclusion that maybe she’ll have to get used to being on her own, which—to be fair—is an uneasy conclusion for many single women (and men) to accept.
Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte may or may not have been the friends that you wished you had, but they were certainly the friends whose lives held fascination—and New York City is always a great character, no matter the story. But after all the coffee shop meetings and cosmopolitans and moving to new apartments and changing boyfriends—despite many lessons not learned—it was time to say goodbye. Carrie and Big were reunited, and it was the perfect way to end the series.
And while Carrie’s widowhood may indeed have been a subject worth pursuing, there’s no way that it could be realistically and sensitively examined within the chaos created by the likes of Miranda’s nonstop manufactured drama, Charlotte’s canceled canine, Harry’s penile crisis, and the breathtaking narcissism of Che Diaz.
Sex and the City was significantly flawed, but it was also clever and engaging, and the characters were well-defined. And Just Like That, on the other hand, was more like a bad dream—one that we hope won’t haunt us for long.
Diane Elayne Dees is the author of the chapbooks, 'Coronary Truth' (Kelsay Books), 'The Last Time I Saw You' (Finishing Line Press), 'The Wild Parrots of Marigny' (Querencia Press), and 'I Can’t Recall Exactly When I Died' (Kelsay Books). She is also the author of four Origami Poems Project microchaps, and her poetry, short fiction and creative nonfiction have been published in many journals and anthologies. Diane also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women’s professional tennis throughout the world. Her author blog is Diane Elayne Dees: Poet and Writer-at-Large.
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And Just Like That
And Just Like That
The End of an Era, and Not a Moment Too Soon
written by: Diane Elayne Dees
And Just Like That, the sequel to Sex and the City, has been called everything from the worst show on television to the greatest hate-watch on television, and it certainly earned those labels. The show was almost unbelievably bad, with its weak plots, a very unsavory major character (Che Diaz), and cringe-inducing attempts to be inclusive (Che Diaz and Rock, plus a new non-white friend for each major character). But here’s the thing: Sex and the City, in some ways, deserved And Just Like That—the viewers, however, did not.
The iconic HBO series is often described as a feminist show because, I suppose, the main characters talked about feminism a lot. Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte frequently met for brunch or cocktails and complained about how women give their power to men, how men are threatened by successful women, how men don’t have to work hard to maintain romantic relationships, and how easy it is for men to get older and still be considered desirable, as opposed to women.
All true, but talk is cheap. When they weren’t talking about these issues, Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte were waiting—for men to call them, for men to ask them out, for men to kiss them, for men to propose marriage to them. They talked like women who were autonomous and in control of their lives, but their behavior was right out of the fifties and sixties.
Charlotte, of course, believed intensely in “tradition,” i.e. women must “play the game” so that men won’t be threatened, and being “Mrs. Somebody” should be the most important goal of any woman. But Charlotte, the butt of many jokes—despite her not very progressive values—was, at least, not a hypocrite.
(It should also be noted that—despite their having gay male friends, the Sex and the City women weren’t just not very progressive about LBGTQ issues—they were openly hostile about some of them.)
And while Charlotte was up-front with her “traditional” beliefs, Carrie practiced leaning in just enough so that, hopefully, a man might kiss her, and she often wondered how long she should wait for a man to call her. It apparently never occurred to her that she could kiss a man, and that she could use her telephone to call a man.
There’s a great scene, early in the series, in which Carrie acts in her typically insecure, immature and inappropriate way with Big, then—instead of apologizing to him—goes home and sulks because he hasn’t apologized to her. Big pays a call on her, and when she says to him, “Why didn’t you call me?” he responds with “Why didn’t you call me?” I think I applauded.
For her part, Miranda—as much as she liked to talk about her sexual exploits—pretty much let men do any kind of weird things they chose to do to her. When she did confront a man (or a woman, for that matter), she usually immediately apologized, and destroyed any kind of agency she might have developed.. Miranda wisely broke it off with Steve when it became obvious that he wouldn’t accept responsibility for much of anything, often exhibited the behavior of a child, and therefore placed her in the “mean mommy” position—then she revived her relationship with him.
Even Samantha, who was much more comfortable with her personal power than the other three, had her issues. She irrationally agreed to accept a work contract with Richard, a man who was openly sexist (toward her), then—to make matters worse—she became romantically involved with him. (I used to own a public relations agency, and I would have walked away from that interview forever, and told Richard, when he begged me to take the contract, to find another place to put it.)
Samantha also believed that women have the right to use any power they have, including sexual power, to get what they want—an inside-out “feminist” concept that was probably worth examining, but it was discussed for all of about thirty seconds on the show.
Next to Big, Carrie’s most important romantic relationship was with Aidan, though she wound up with Big, and eventually married him. In And Just Like That, after Big dies, Carrie rekindles the romance with Aidan, who acts like an ass, and viewers and critics are—oh, so—shocked! After all the “Why did the writers do this to Aidan?” questions, I couldn’t help but wonder: Did these viewers and critics actually watch Sex and the City? Aidan was always an embarrassing, passive-aggressive creep, with his “I’m just a country boy” persona, extremely lame “jokes,” and ever-simmering rage.
In real life, people sometimes change, but only sometimes. Carrie Bradshaw and Big were a pretty typical pairing of someone with an anxious attachment style (Carrie) and someone with an avoidant attachment style (Big). But in the end, Big shifted, and it worked out. I think that Carrie finally changed somewhat when—having lived through one of the worst things that could happen to a person—she realized that she didn’t have to put up with Aidan’s anger-fueled nonsense anymore.
The character who showed more significant growth in And Just Like That was Charlotte, who returned to her career, and told her family, in no uncertain terms, that she wouldn’t be their slave anymore. When she called her husband, Harry, at work, to tell him to deliver something to one of their children at school, he said, “I can’t!” “Why?” Charlotte confronted him, “because you’re the man?”
Miranda, for her part, was still wondering whether she was really an alcoholic, and whether her new love interest, Joy, was really interested in her—in other words, business as usual. In the meantime, Charlotte had been reduced to a kind of slapstick character, and the new characters—Seema and Lisa (former new character Nya was treated a bit better by the writers)—were the victims of weak, if not ridiculous, storylines.
On the one hand, one has to wonder what the writers were thinking when they created And Just Like That, but—on the other hand—Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte had it coming. They spent years surrendering their power to men while pretending that they weren’t. The extremely insecure Carrie Bradshaw, who didn’t “believe in” psychotherapy, never really bothered to examine her insecurity and how it made her behave in romantic relationships.
Yes, she wrote about it, and she once wondered whether her absent father had anything to do with it, but she never really seriously faced it or thought seriously about how to tame or eliminate it. And Miranda was always so busy crafting an identity to suit each situation that she wound up with no identity at all, other than that of a driven, inappropriately behaving mess.
And while I could never really buy into Sex and the City because of its innate sexism and resulting hypocrisy, I did find it to be clever, usually well-written, and often quite entertaining. (I say “usually” because there was sometimes dialogue that was illogical, and there were interesting storylines that were introduced, only to disappear forever.)
Perhaps the show’s greatest strength was that the four main characters were role models for what friendships should be—they were attentive, honest, and fiercely loyal to one another. When, toward the end of the series—as he tried to get Carrie back—Big faced Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte, and told them “you’re the loves of her life.”
In their fifties, in And Just Like That, Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte were—above everything else—boring. The writing was no longer clever, and—speaking of writing—Carrie’s novel excerpts were simply dreadful, yet the characters who read them called them “brilliant.” There were no lines to make us laugh out loud, there was very little clever banter—not even a Carrie Bradshaw pun.
Then there was Lisette, who showed promise as a developing carry-over character, but who became the enemy, once she destroyed the interior of Carrie’s former, beloved apartment. That apartment represented not only the best of Carrie Bradshaw, but also the best of New York City. Even with its flaws (Carrie considered buying shoes more important that replacing her curtains or having her ceiling repaired), the small brownstone unit served as a warm, attractive, and satisfying cocoon for the show’s major character.
Day after day, Carrie sat at the window and typed, as she couldn’t help but wonder about any number of relationship-oriented topics. And while viewers knew that leaving the apartment was most likely a mistake, Carrie let herself be lured into not one, but two, spaces and neighborhoods that simply didn’t suit her at all.
The things that made Carrie Bradshaw stand out as a protagonist were her wit and her unique approach to fashion. Bradshaw somehow managed to be both fashion-forward and extremely quirky at the same time, a feat pulled off every week by the perfectly cast Sarah Jessica Parker.
Both of those traits were continued, to some extent, in And Just Like That, but they often existed without any meaningful context. There is also the reality—at least in my opinion—that the show was never going to work without Samantha. If Carrie was the wit of Sex and the City, Samantha—despite her cartoonish bombshell persona—was the heart. But after six seasons, one somewhat entertaining movie, and one barely watchable movie, Kim Cattrall came to the wise conclusion that enough was enough (how very “Samantha” of her).
The final episode of And Just Like That was disjointed and sad, not in a melancholy way, but in an unsatisfying, uncomfortable way, almost as if the writers had added one last offense to a long-running joke on viewers. Charlotte was still convinced that Carrie had to have a man in her life, and Miranda was still almost too insecure to function. Carrie Bradshaw, for her part, did come to the uneasy conclusion that maybe she’ll have to get used to being on her own, which—to be fair—is an uneasy conclusion for many single women (and men) to accept.
Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte may or may not have been the friends that you wished you had, but they were certainly the friends whose lives held fascination—and New York City is always a great character, no matter the story. But after all the coffee shop meetings and cosmopolitans and moving to new apartments and changing boyfriends—despite many lessons not learned—it was time to say goodbye. Carrie and Big were reunited, and it was the perfect way to end the series.
And while Carrie’s widowhood may indeed have been a subject worth pursuing, there’s no way that it could be realistically and sensitively examined within the chaos created by the likes of Miranda’s nonstop manufactured drama, Charlotte’s canceled canine, Harry’s penile crisis, and the breathtaking narcissism of Che Diaz.
Sex and the City was significantly flawed, but it was also clever and engaging, and the characters were well-defined. And Just Like That, on the other hand, was more like a bad dream—one that we hope won’t haunt us for long.