It’s better than the movies, at least.
Warning: This review contains spoilers for the first two episodes ofAnd Just Like That.
For years now, I’ve felt a little weird aboutSex and the City.
Cynthia Nixon, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kristin Davis on ‘And Just Like That’.HBO Max
It’s like I need to defend the franchise while I throw it out the window.
It was a pioneer in premium cable’s mature content revolution, and a then-rare phenomenon of female-focused storytelling.
Now it mostly gets brought up as a model of white privilege walking and whatever intersectionality isn’t.
I don’t know.
The past ages poorly, which is why we bury corpses we don’t burn.
That said: The firstSex and the Citymovie was boring.
The second one (“Abu Dhabi do!")
isa crime against humanity.
TheHBO MaxrevivalAnd Just Like Thatjustifies its spin-off existence with one legitimate shock and a new mood of middle-aged uncertainty.
I miss Samantha, man, and I miss howKim Cattrallwas the lastSATCstar willing to look utterly ridiculous.
In fairness,And Just Like Thatmisses her too.
It takes less than a minute for someone to mention the absent “fourth Musketeer.”
(Blame the decline of the publishing industry.)
Carrie is the token cisgender white co-host on a podcast run by swaggery comedian Che (Sara Ramirez).
If you’re asking “Is this show just about giving white ladies nonwhite friends?”
the answer isn’t “No.”
Miranda’s son calls her a sex-shamer.
Che warns Carrie she’s coming off as “the uptight cisgender married lady.”
Charlotte thinks one Black woman is another Black woman.
Everyone worries about becoming a meme.
They have a getaway in the Hamptons and an extra why-not apartment: that DINK life!
Then Peloton kills Mr. Big.
But this new series only exists because Peloton kills Mr. Big.
His heart attack also makesAnd Just Like Thatvariously moving and confounding.
And then awkwardness reasserts itself.
Charlotte rescues herself from the whoops-I-thought-you-were-somebody-else incident by name-checking Gordon Parks, Deborah Roberts, and Barkley Hendricks.
Did we need to see Charlotte artsplain Black painters to a room full of Black people?
Am I part of the problem now, calling out a sitcom so desperate to avoid being called out?
Still, there’s a lightness here that improves from the movies' general thud.
Charlotte has convincingly aged from aNew Yorkercartoon of a socialite into aNew Yorkercartoon of a mom.
Parker has to spend these early episodes in mourning, which is both logical and exasperating.
But the road ahead looks intriguing, with old habits rediscovered alongside new beginnings.
It won’t kill you, unlike Peloton.Grade: B-
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