TV review: And Just Like That… is 'awkward' and 'clumsy'
Craig Blankenhorn/ HBO MaxThe reboot of Sex and the City takes a dark turn. It is a "rocky mix" of honesty and "creaky" humour, says Caryn James.
No one saw this coming. And Just Like That... the new series rebooting Sex and the City takes a dark new turn. The show is a rocky mix of genuine grief with an undercurrent of really bad jokes, but at least it feels fresh. That is a relief, when there were so many ways it could have gone wrong. Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) and her friends might have morphed into pre-menopausal Golden Girls or, even worse, remained backward-looking and in denial that they are now in their mid-50s. Neither of those things happens. When the new series is good, it's surprisingly honest about grief and starting over. When it's bad, there are clumsy attempts to address gender identity and racial awareness, and its creaky but fortunately sparse attempts at humour will have you rolling your eyes. Is it still fun? Not as much, but that's just as well. While the more sombre tone may disappoint some fans, it breathes creative life into a series whose fizzy adventures were very much of its moment.
Warning: This review contains And Just Like That… spoilers
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The first episode is an especially awkward mix, which begins with clunky exposition catching us up with what has happened to the characters. Their story did not end with the series, which ran from 1998 to 2004, although it probably should have. The 2008 follow-up movie was unnecessary, and the second film, in 2010, was unwatchable.
As the new series begins, Carrie (Parker picks up the character with total ease) is still blissfully married to Mr Big (Chris Noth) but is now working as a contributor to a podcast. The podcast's host, Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez), who identifies as queer and non-binary, calls Carrie the OG (at least Carrie gets that it means original gangster) for her openness in writing about sex in the past, but warns her that she's not raunchy enough for today.
High-powered, no-nonsense Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is getting a master's degree and hoping to become a human-rights lawyer. She has also let her hair go grey, which allows the show to whisk away the conversation about ageing. "There are more important issues in the world than trying to look young," Miranda tells Charlotte (Kristen Davis), who looks appalled. Both are married with adolescent children, although Miranda its she and Steve (David Eigenberg) haven't had sex in years.
And it takes no time to explain away Samantha, their voraciously sexual and slightly older friend. She's not dead, Miranda explains, she's just in London, having dropped Carrie as a friend and fled. The dialogue is full of subtext. After the second film, Kim Cattrall said she would never play Samantha again, and made cranky public statements about Parker. Samantha's absence is just as well, too. Her drawling, endless double entendres haven't aged well, especially when any number of Real Housewives franchises are now serving up similar campiness. She would have been an especially bad fit for the show's more serious tone.
But this otherwise laboured episode ends with a thwack to the heart, a death that leaves Carrie, especially, bereft. The next episode is all about grief, carrying an unintentional subtext. Willie Garson, who plays Carrie's friend Stanford, died in September and only appears in three episodes. Seeing him at a funeral with Carrie jolts us out of the fiction and into the sad reality of the actor's death.
The first four instalments of 10 lurch uneasily between wrenching sorrow and desperate attempts at relevance and wit. When Miranda announces that she has accidentally stepped on her 17-year-old son's half-empty condom, the cringy line feels like a reach back to the supposedly shocking old Sex and the City days.
But the series more often points ahead. Miranda and Che have some moments, one angry, another sexually suggestive. Carrie wonders about her future. She still has eccentric fashion sense, too. One minute you might want her coat, the next wonder where she even found such an ugly hat.
The show has smartly added cast to make up for its all-too-white past. The writing, though, is too blunt to serve any social issues well. When Miranda goes into a class with taught by black professor Nya Wallace (Karen Pittman) she nervously calls attention to the instructor's braids, then adds, "My comments had nothing whatsoever to do with it being a black hairstyle," putting her foot ever further into her mouth. It's hard to believe Miranda got that stupid. Nicole Ari Parker plays Charlotte's friend, Lisa, a black filmmaker. Charlotte seems far more aware of Lisa's race than Lisa does, which makes Charlotte look unsophisticated and Lisa one-dimensional.
And the show ignores many of the ways New York has changed. The series ended just before the economic freefall of 2008, but to this day none of those characters have any money problems.
The original Sex and the City, of course, was always a fantasy of New York and of perfect friendship. It sent mixed messages about women's lives, leaning into sexist cliches while pretending not to. Carrie and her friends talked a good game about being independent and valuing women's brains, while being slavishly devoted to finding the right man, or in Samantha's case, men. Having it both ways, being both retro and au courant, was a big part of that series' appeal.
In her final voiceover as the old Sex and the City ends, Carrie says, "The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself." It wasn't convincing then, but in its best moments And Just Like That... finally makes the line seem true.
★★★☆☆
And Just Like That ... is available on HBO Max in the US and Sky Atlantic/ Now in the UK
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