Don't Hate Us Over These Burning Questions We Have About And Just Like That...

With two episodes left in And Just Like That..., we couldn't help but wonder if we will see our beloved Sex and the City characters return to form after a bonkers season.

By Tierney Bricker Jan 20, 2022 6:00 PMTags

And just like that...we're still trying to wrap our heads around what the hell is going on in New York City. 

When And Just Like That... debuted on HBO Max, we tuned in with an open mind and a refreshed interest in catching up with Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw and most of her friends for the first time since 2010's ill-received Sex and the City 2. But as the episodes continue to drop and the storylines grow increasingly more erratic, our concerns over the Sex and the City revival are growing too big to ignore any longer. We couldn't help but wonder: Are some things better left in the past? 

Still, despite our best efforts, we also can't help but be utterly transfixed by what is happening, unable to resist pressing play to devour each outing faster than Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) with a mimosa at 11 a.m. on a Tuesday. We used to come for the clothes and cosmos, now we're here for the unintentional memes.

It's not that we don't want to see Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) navigating life, love and friendships in their fifties. No, we just want this chapter of their lives to be explored in a way that's worthy of them and the decades-long history their audience has with this world. 

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14 Fashion Secrets About And Just Like That... Revealed

Sure, Carrie may be smoking again, but it's the show's attitude towards aging and the struggle adapting to 2022 views that is ringing alarm bells for us.

Here are all the burning questions we have after watching eight episodes of And Just Like That...

Why Did They Kill Big?

Taking the ongoing real-life controversy surrounding Chris Noth out of the conversation, kicking off the series with Big's death handicapped the show—and its leading character—from the start. While we love to see television tackle real challenges we all face, no one wants to watch someone mourn the death of the love of their life for eight episodes. And it felt just as jarring to see Carrie wearing on a giant skirt and an even bigger smile just two episodes later to skip into a deli. It's a catch-22 that the show fully ensnared itself in.

Imagine if the show picked up a year or so after Big's death, where Carrie is still recovering but the wound isn't so fresh? (Granted, they are having her continuously pour salt in it by throwing the fact that she is a widow in everyone's faces non-stop.) Or if Big went to jail for some Ponzi scheme, leaving Carrie devastated and without the very soft cushion of his seemingly endless fortune? The fact that a woman who once stored sweaters in her oven and almost lost her apartment because of her shoe addiction just bought and sold a multi-million dollar apartment in the most expensive city in the world is arguably the most bonkers things in a minefield of outrageous storylines.

Was There a Right Way to Handle Samantha's Absence?

After Kim Cattrall was very clear about not wanting to reprise her role in any future project for the franchise, it's hard to imagine any satisfying explanation for Samantha Jones no longer being part of one of TV's most iconic foursomes.

But how dare the writers think a ginormous flower arrangement that will wilt in less time it takes to fly from London to NYC can make up for Samantha not showing up to Big's funeral? She gave a toast at their doomed wedding rehearsal dinner! She literally spoon-fed Carrie in bed on what would have been their honeymoon! Samantha Jones was a lot of things, but unkind was never one of them.

Regardless of what the friend breakup was over (Side note: There had to be a better reason than Carrie no longer needing Samantha as her publicist), there is no way someone would not put that aside to show up and show their respect at such a time. And she didn't even reach out to Carrie—whom she once called her soulmate—after Big's death, but did respond when asked if it was okay for her former best friend to share a sexually explicit story about her on the podcast? Someone call a Task Rabbit to clean up the mess they are making of Samantha's legacy!

In a show built on the foundation of female friendships, we wish someone had the balls to illustrate and investigate just how heartbreaking the end of a relationship with someone who was a pillar in your life could be, rather than cavalierly wink at the behind-the-scenes tension between SJP and Cattrall

WTF Is Going On With Miranda?

OK, let's start off with a positive: We love the new hair on Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and have really been digging some of her outfits. The pleasantries end there.

Sometime in the decade since we last saw our fierce, funny and formidable friend she apparently changed her name to Karen because that is what the show has turned Miranda into. Her first scene with professor Nya (Karen Pittman, forever deserving of more!) will go down as one of the most uncomfortable scenes in TV history, with Miranda putting her foot in her mouth more times than we could count.

Add in a drinking problem that was swiftly resolved by her just choosing not to indulge anymore (How easy!) and cheating on Steve (David Eisenberg) with Che (Sara Ramirez), Carrie's non-binary boss who is a popular standup comedian—after Miranda was so utterly devastated when he was unfaithful in the first movie—and we are at a loss. Seems like Big wasn't the only character to get a funeral in 2022.

Where Is the Respect for Steve?

We are far from the first to voice our dismay over how the show is treating Steve, but we are more than happy to join the choir. While a charming and adorable everyman in the OG series, Miranda's husband has been portrayed as a bumbling idiot in the revival, a man who needs to take a nap after attempting to navigate a farmer's market.

We're sure the writers were attempting to show the cast divide between dependable dessert-loving Steve and the cool vape-smoking Che, it just felt cheap to make him a walking punchline in service of justifying Miranda's storyline.

The outcry over Steve's treatment was so loud that executive producer Elisa Zuritsky addressed the criticism in a recent interview with Vanity Fair.

"Everyone on the show, every single person, loves David Eigenberg as a human being," Zuritsky explained. "We love him as an actor. We love Steve. We are really invested in the Steve-ness of him. He's so full of life, and the Steves out there are good guys."

Well, then good guys really do finish last, judging from And Just Like That… so far. Justice for Steve!

Why Are Anthony and Carrie So Close?

We understand this was probably a rushed decision made in the wake of the devastating death of Willie Garson, who played Carrie's beloved bubbly BFF Stanford Blatch, but that doesn't mean this pairing gets a pass. Just slotting Charlotte's bestie into his role into Stanford's shoes (after he abruptly abandons Carrie, Anthony and his entire life to follow an influencer overseas!) feels so lazy and unrealistic. Carrie and Anthony are not best friends! And that is okay!

Why Is That Podcast Still Happening?

We're sorry, but the podcast Carrie co-hosts about sex and gender roles is... awful? Those sound effects are from a morning radio show in the early aughts and we refuse to believe anyone was rating, reviewing and subscribing based on the painful snippets we have heard. Although, it could always be worse: Carrie could've been trying to go viral on TikTok.

WTF Is Happening in the Hobbes-Brady Household?

Someone needs to invent Lysol for the brain so we can wipe away the memory of Steve and Miranda lying in bed listening to their teenage son have loud sex with his (seemingly live-in?!) girlfriend. There is having open and honest dialogue with your child and then there is whatever is going on in the Brady household. Oh, and don't get us started on Miranda basically going from Regina George's "cool mom" in Mean Girls about sex to then losing her mind when she sees Brady smoking weed. Middle ground, where art thou?

Why Is Aging A Sin?

Fifty-five is the new 85, or at least that's what And Just Like That… seems to want us to think as we've have watched eight episodes of the women dunking on themselves for simply existing in 2022. Carrie had hip surgery and is all but yelling at twentysomethings to "Get off my porch!" Charlotte is awkwardly using phrases like "No shade!" and then quickly explaining she learned it from her kids. As previously stated, Miranda is somehow this group's resident Karen. Sad-sack Steve is now partially deaf, which the show indelicately incorporated into the show based on Eisenberg's real-life experience. Harry (Henry Goldblatt) was unironically turned into that Steve Buscemi "fellow youths" meme when he tried to skateboard in episode one. 

It's one thing for the characters to notice generational divides and make light of them, as we all do. (I will never part my hair in the middle, you Gen-Z heathens.) It's another for them to behave like the grim reaper has taken up Samantha's spot at the brunch table. 

May we suggest the writers treat themselves to a few episodes of The Golden Girls soon to see that growing old doesn't mean you lose any sense of fun or wonder.

When Will They Stop Reading the Comments?

Creative team, we need you to put down your devices or delete Twitter and Instagram from your phones because the overcorrections being made to criticism—some valid—about the show over the years are 2 much 2 handle.

The lack of diversity in the original series? Each member of the trio has a new friend that is a person of color! Stereotypical depiction of the gay community? Miranda is going to cheat on her husband with LGBTQ+ icon Che! Charlotte is grappling with her youngest child, Rose, now identifying as a boy, and expressing surface-level concern over only having white friends to attend a dinner party. Oh, and Carrie visits a plastic surgeon who basically says he can fix all the flaws that sexist and ageist a-holes have made about SJP on the Internet. Digital restoration scene included.

There is a way to have tough conversations without dumbing down the characters or talking down to the audience to do so, and it's on the creative team to digest the criticisms in a holistic way after chewing on them. Respond, don't react!

And Just Like That... premieres new episodes every Thursday on HBO Max.

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