TV & Movies/TV

I won’t beat around the bush: And Just Like That…, the heavily-anticipated Sex and the City reboot, is a mess. The show picks up 18 years after the original ended, with Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte (notably sans Samantha, due to Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker’s real-life falling out) now well into their 50s and dealing with a whole new series of modern-day problems. It was pitched as a campy, lighthearted homage to the show that defined a generation of women — but, in its ham-fisted attempts to stay fresh and fit the times, its lost everything that made the original great.

Carrie is a podcaster now, thanks to the “death of print.” Miranda quit her job to get a master’s degree after getting hit by white guilt during Trump’s America. Charlotte (the only character that’s done well, by the way) is a mother of two children struggling to keep up with Park Avenue social politics. The ladies deal with the pains of growing older while entering a new social climate, and the show itself tries to move with the times, too — a series of queer and racialized characters are introduced, but most of them only appear to deliver painfully awkward truth-bombs pulled straight from decade-old Tumblr posts as the leads giggle with confusion.

Carrie’s progressive podcast plays like a conservative Facebook page’s low-budget parody of what they think gay people sound like, except somehow less funny. Her non-binary cohost, Che, manages to beat out what I promise is EXTREMELY tight competition to be the show’s least likeable character, and says things like “woke moment!” and “how you doin’, Miss Cis?” in between performing workplace sexual harassment and smoking weed in an elevator.

In what I’m choosing to believe is a conspiratorial act of anti-Irish propaganda, the show has also somehow managed to make Miranda a bumbling, out-of-touch alcoholic whose only notable moments involve slipping on her sex-pest son’s used condoms and performing a slew of racially motivated microaggressions. Steve looks 70 but is still somehow the hottest character on this show.

We find these characters in dark times. Samantha has been written off entirely, Charlotte is an uptight, struggling PTA mom, Miranda struggles with substance abuse, and they appear to be setting Carrie up to have early-onset dementia. Forget the cringey lines or the bizarre political ethos: the real, insurmountable problem here is that this show is no longer fun.

The reboot’s fundamental flaw, above all, is its blatant misunderstanding of the reason why people loved Sex and the City in the first place: not as an emotionally grounded treatise on the complexities of modern life but as an escapist fantasy where the sex is always good, the problems are always frivolous and where you can afford a one-bedroom Manhattan apartment by writing a 750-word column for an alt-weekly. And Just Like That… has heightened its stakes in a transparent attempt to be taken seriously in serious times, but its missing the mark. When times get tough, I don’t want my television to get real — I want ridiculous sex, improbable drama and irreplaceable glamour. To put it simply, I want Samantha Jones.

Samantha was the sex in Sex and the City, and her campy, quick-talking presence embodied everything that made the original great. Her absence only makes it more clear that the show is nothing without her. Everything wrong with this reboot — from its simpering interpretation of political correctness to its prudishness to its depressing, heavy-handed sincerity — is only there because Sam isn’t.

So, instead of writing a legitimate review of And Just Like That…, I’ve instead elected to “think positive” and write an ep-by-ep spec plot of what it could be if Samantha was in it. YES, I am available for writers’ rooms and have been waiting for someone to ask.

Episode 1

Samantha’s main arc centres around her pivoting her PR firm into social media. Charlotte continues to shame her for her sexual activity and newly-woke Miranda is put off by her no-holds-barred approach to social politics.

Samantha convinces Carrie not to go to Charlotte’s daughter’s skippable-as-fuck piano recital. Instead, they go to the Hamptons together and Samantha fucks a TikTok star.

Episode 2

Samantha tries to figure out TikTok in an effort to court young influencers to her firm. A video of hers goes viral on the app’s MILF niche, and the episode focuses on the ladies’ unique explorations of motherhood. Samantha helps Miranda’s son be less of a weird little freak.

Episode 3

Miranda tries to teach Samantha how to be politically correct after reading Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility. Also, Miranda is probably a TERF now for some reason. Samantha makes a speech at the end about how all you need to be a woman is a sense of style and an eye for a good lay.

Episode 4

Samantha dates Pete Davidson, who guests as himself.

Episode 5

Samantha starts an OnlyFans. This is a two- or three-episode arc and causes significant conflict within the group, especially between her and Charlotte (who is mortified). Throughout the episode she says things like “My tax bracket isn’t the only place where I’m in the top one per cent!” and “Darlings, just because we’re 60 doesn’t mean we should stop being sexy!” The episode tries to deal with something to do with sex workers’ rights and handles it exceptionally poorly.

Episode 6

The publicity of her new OnlyFans prompts Samantha to start worrying about the shape of her tits. She and the ladies go on a journey of self-discovery and self-love, and we all learn a valuable lesson about the inevitability and beauty of age.

Samantha meets Jaboukie Young-White and attempts to turn him straight.

Episode 7

It’s the season finale, and Samantha is set to land an entire TikTok content house — her firm’s biggest client yet. She and the ladies go to a young influencer party to close the deal, where their age both alienates and tokenizes them. They come to yet another realization about how they’re not the kids they used to be. Samantha fucks Noah Beck.

Fin.

For the love of god, put Samantha back in this show. Pay Kim Cattrall whatever amount of money she wants. Make Sarah Jessica Parker perform a series of humiliating tasks of increasing difficulty in order to win her favour. We need her!