The cast of And Just Like That…Photo: HBO Max
HBO Max’s divisiveSex and the City sequelAnd Just Like That…,a show so bafflingly different from the original it could have been calledWhat Was That?,landed softly in itstenth and final episode.Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie returned to Paris for a quiet moment of emotional closure with the ashes of the now-dead Big. (Chris Noth, who played Big, was originally going to make some sort of corporeal appearance in the episode but was written out following allegations of sexual assault. He has denied the allegations.)
Then it was back to Manhattan, where Carrie was now helming her own podcast: She gently advised a troubled listener, “You will laugh again, especially if you have one or two good friends in your corner.” (Note the number: Unconsciously or not, Carrie has subtracted a third friend,Kim Cattrall’s Samantha.) And, finally, Carrie shared a spark of erotic connection with the man you knew from the get-go deserved the chance: the handsome, salt-and-pepper podcast producer (Ivan Hernandez), who’d been waiting patiently in the shadows of the recording booth since episode 1.
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The finale, in other words, suggested the show you may always have wishedAnd Just Like That…to be, romantic, comfortable and kind — a bit like Diane Keaton’sSomething’s Gotta Give,a romcom for the seasoned woman. And it felt, at last, as if the show was righting itself into a proper vehicle for this older Carrie. Almost two decades after the originalSex and the City, she hadn’t lost her slightly melancholy glamour: You could still imagine her, like Audrey Hepburn, lingering outside the windows of Tiffany’s or the now-extinct Barneys.
Craig Blankenhorn/HBO Max
But, just like that, the show was done —for now. (A second season seems highly likely.)
As to the previous nine episodes, they were an earnest, uneven, envelope-pushing departure fromSex and the City.And Just Like That…,its title trailing a bothersome elliptical tail, took on important contemporary issues (race, gender) while still paying obeisance to the more traditionalSex and the Citytopics of Manhattan real estate, fashion and accessories: At one point Carrie wore a hat with a brim as broad as one of the rings around Saturn. By necessity,And Just Like That… also dealt with the challenges, also known as the indignities, of growing older. When Carrie had a consultation with a plastic surgeon (Jonathan Groff), he told her that aging faces can be described as “hollowers and saggers.”
“Hollowers lose volume,” he said. “Saggers are prone to hang and develop bags. You’re a hollower.”
The show, unfortunately, was both — sagger and hollower — as it tried to manage an ungainly, expanded narrative (episodes often stretched beyond 30 minutes). If anything, it seemed to be reinventing itself over and over as it went along, starting with Big’s death while cycling on his Peloton bike. This was a colossal twist — the subsequent cultural shock was sizable enough that the company issued a statement suggesting that Big’s “extravagant lifestyle” contributed to his heart attack. But it was a bold and decisive stepping-off point, even if Big’s funeral service had a chic sterility that seemed to be organized around the theme “Go, Already.”
For Samantha fans, though, this felt like manipulation, since showrunner Michael Patrick King has ruled out Cattrall’s ever coming back. Perhaps, like Big, Samantha should have just been killed off. While running on a treadmill.
Looking back, the best moment in the series may have been its simplest: Carrie sat at her computer, writing a memoir, as Carly Simon sang “Spring Is Here.” You saw the seasons changing outside. For once you were able to breathe.
source: people.com
