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Let's Talk About THAT Spoiler in 'And Just Like That' (Without Using Predictable Puns)

By Alberto Cox Délano | TV | December 10, 2021 |

By Alberto Cox Délano | TV | December 10, 2021 |


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SERIOUSLY, THIS WILL BE FULL OF PLOT-RELEVANT SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST TWO EPISODES OF AND JUST LIKE THAT. CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED.

By way of having a cool mum, always more concerned about violence than sex on TV, I watched a lot of Sex and the City during its original run, or at least the last few seasons. Back then, I thought it was the shit. I thought they were the coolest, sexiest, funniest group of gals, and I bought into the idea that their lifestyles represented female liberation. I was 14, mind you, in a country that was juuuust beginning to talk about sex and sexuality, as well as seeing the first Starbucks opening. Santiago was on its way to becoming a little more like Manhattan (in the upper-income districts)!

When I subscribed to HBO Max, I thought Sex and the City would be perfect for escapism, comfort food, and to watch on my cellphone while doing the dishes and well … I have had a hard, hard time trying to get through a rewatch, unlike how much I enjoy other problematic faves from the 1990s and 2000s, like Seinfeld, Friends and former Chilean President Ricardo Lagos (sorry, inside joke). It’s not the problematic stuff, it’s the overall lack of … insight. That’s what happens when you watch too many video-essays on the BreadTube people!

Nevertheless, and just like with Season 2 of Emily in Paris, I was looking forward to And Just Like That, because after the years we’ve had, everyone needs to see fancy people in fashion-forward clothing, hanging out by the tourist-friendly parts of Alpha cities, dealing with the lowest of low-stakes problems … and The Bold Type’s budget can’t compete. Also, the screenplays are like something straight out of SNL’s “Supportive Women”.

Oh Boy. Again, spoilers. Last chance to turn around.

We start with a classic: Miranda, Charlotte, and Carrie waiting for their turn at a swanky bistró, and they waste no time expositioning to us what happened to Samantha. In fact, that’s pretty much Act 1 of the first chapter: Carrie decided to prescind from her services as a publicist, which started the rift. She moved to London and we are told, repeatedly, that Carrie has tried to make amends, but Samantha isn’t returning their texts. Laying it thick on the meta there.

Miranda, sporting some fabulous grey hair (which annoys Charlotte), is studying for a Master’s in Human Rights and dealing with a very sexually active son, and Steve’s hearing loss. Charlotte remains a full-time Park Avenue mum, Lily is a piano prodigy while Rose is sporty and hates dresses, clearly to be characterized as opposite reflections of their mothers. Meanwhile, Carrie and Big are enjoying the content bliss of mature love, making jokes about Big’s “mistress,” his Peloton trainer from Barcelona. That should’ve been a warning sign.

Carrie co-hosts a podcast with Che Díaz (Sarah Ramos) and Jackie Nee (Bobby Lee), and for some reason, she starts being coy when the discussion veers towards masturbation in public places, needing Che to remind her she was the OG sex columnist 20 years ago and to keep up. Miranda has her first day of class … and she promptly white-ladies it up: She kicks things off misgendering one of her classmates, which of course, are mostly Zoomers and Millennials. The cringe escalates as Miranda makes a comment about Dr. Nya Wallace (Karen Pittman) having dreads now, unlike her profile pic at the University. Then she pushes the envelope of cringe further by trying to catch up and apologize to Dr. Wallace at the subway. Nya, having earlier had a small argument with her husband on a new round of fertility treatments, simply can’t deal with her white nonsense and takes another train.

If these two episodes could be defined in one word, that word would be overcompensation. After decades of being criticized as a vapid show about über-privileged white people, they are now trying to address all the issues the original series dodged at once: Genderqueer and/or BIPOC characters that hopefully will be more fleshed out than Stanford and Anthony; Miranda ditching corporate law after the Muslim ban; the pandemic is mentioned repeatedly, but for some reason, no one is wearing masks in public. Many droppings of the word woke. It does make for somewhat stilted, “we’re-checking-all-the-boxes-here” dialogue. Not as bad as in The Bold Type, but one thing you couldn’t fault SatC was the quick banter and quips.

Or that’s what I thought. The friends attend Lily’s piano recital (“at the Manhattan School of Music” name-drops Charlotte, “the teacher rents the place, it’s the Park Avenue equivalent of every kid gets a trophy” quips Miranda), while Big stays at home. Lily’s masterful rendition of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Nº 14 is interspersed with scenes of Big overexerting himself during a Peloton session, and we all start to realize what’s about to happen: He is having a heart attack. By the time Carrie arrives at the apartment, it is too late. Mr. Big is dead.

Pajiba, the only site on the internet that won’t tease this reveal with some pun about a “Big plot twist.”

The following episode (appropriately or inappropriately titled “Little Black Dress”) starts with a now teenaged Brady and his girlfriend getting it on and rattling their parents’ bedroom. Was this supposed to be a tonal palate cleanse or a throwback to Samantha’s escapades? Doesn’t last long, as we are thrown right into the immediate aftermath and funeral. Carrie spends the episode mostly in shell-shock, forced to help others process their emotions and untimely reactions, which is a realistic depiction of those first days of grief. Miranda is helpful as ever, but Charlotte is emotional and blames herself for making Carrie attend Lily’s recital that day instead of going to The Hamptons with Big. Stanford and Anthony stop being dramatic for a short second … but then Stanford outright shoos Big’s loyal secretary out of a seat in the front row. Miranda catches Brady smoking pot with Che, which leads to a shouting match. A few moments later, Miranda realizes Che is Carrie’s coworker and they end up hitting it off…

At least Samantha sent a bouquet of flowers and a kind note.

Making this revival about Carrie’s mourning Big is a bold choice, and I reckon the fandom is incensed about the plot twist. I mean, once and for all Chris Noth gets to play a loving, faithful husband and they just kill him off? I have serious doubts the showrunners have what it takes to portray grief and mourning. Just like that.

But I am mostly worried about Charlotte as a character. She had one of the most interesting arcs in the series, but now I’m seeing worrying signs of her Flanderization. Is she going to have more to do than trying to get Rose to put on Oscar De La Renta frocks, being an A-type mum, and make things about herself? She will have a counterpart on Lisa Todd Wexley (Nicole Ari Parker), a documentarian and fellow mother at her daughter’s school she looks up to. I’m really looking forward to seeing more of the friendship between these two and Miranda and Che.

Look, I’m going to watch every episode. You will probably watch every episode. It will piss you off, it will piss me off. But I can commend them for finally daring to acknowledge the world outside their neat, ’90s-neoliberal bubble. Or things that actually happen to most people. But can they do it as more than a checklist?