And Just Like That… The Sex and the City Spinoff Figured Out the 21st Century in Season 2: Review
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The post And Just Like That… The Sex and the City Spinoff Figured Out the 21st Century in Season 2: Review appeared first on Consequence.
The Pitch: Once upon a time, there were some lovely single ladies living in Manhattan, trying to “have it all,” and while their marital statuses have changed more than once over the years, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), and Charlotte (Kristen Davis) are still on that same quest. For as they enter the later period of middle age, their friend group has expanded and their children are becoming adults, but it’s still not easy to find love in New York City — or to hold onto it.
New Show, New Manolos: It’s time for another season of the “next chapter” of Sex and the City, and honestly, after a somewhat shaky first season, And Just Like That Season 2 delivers on that promise in the best of ways. The seven episodes provided to critics reveal a show with a great deal more confidence and self-awareness; even if its characters haven’t all found their individual grooves, the show seems a lot more centered and focused.
Perhaps that’s just in contrast to Season 1, which was a lot of things, but “loud” feels like a particularly good descriptor. Beginning with the nuclear bomb of Big’s death, followed by the high drama of Miranda’s journey from married alcoholic to sober woman in a relationship with the non-binary Che (Sara Ramírez), it was a show trying to figure itself out on a number of levels, and shaking up the status quo in order to do so.
Not that Season 2 is lacking in drama, but it’s almost a relief to see the show focus in on the smaller details of these characters’ lives as opposed to huge life changes, which executive producer Michael Patrick King and the writers seem far more comfortable — and happier — exploring.
The new season features Carrie finding her comfort level with dating as a widow, Miranda still figuring out who she is in the context of a new relationship, and Charlotte doing the best she can as the mother of two exceptionally modern teenagers. (You might deduce, from that sentence, that one cast member is getting less meat in her sandwich than the others, but Kristen Davis is so game and committed that Charlotte never feels shortchanged in her storylines.)
The Next Evolution: Nothing speaks to the way in which Sex and the City was ahead of its time like the fact that And Just Like That, while fundamentally still feeling like the same show, also feels very much in line with the light dramedy approach that’s become so very popular in the streaming age.
And Just Like That (Max)
In fact tonally, there’s no significant difference between Sex and the City and And Just Like That beyond two major exceptions: the infinitely more inclusive ensemble, and the runtimes. Every episode of Season 2 provided to critics was approximately 45 minutes long, much like Season 1: For TV nerds, that number will stand out as pretty much identical to the length of a standard 1990s network drama without commercials (as they now stream on various platforms). Hell, 95 percent of what we see in And Just Like That would be possible on an ABC Shondaland drama.
And when And Just Like That works, it really works, especially in instances where the seasoned cast can draw on their decades of history for moments that are impossible to imagine happening in other shows. There’s a verbal confrontation between two characters midway through the season that’s as ugly as the grossest moments of the Succession finale, a fight so raw and visceral and necessary that even the actors seem to have a physical reaction in the moment — it’s one of the most honest moments of drama I’ve seen on screen this year, and it was so thoroughly earned by everything that came before.
The most disappointing aspect of And Just Like That is that with the show’s core characters, the writers can rely on a great deal of shorthand — the audience doesn’t need a full backstory on Carrie Bradshaw’s 30s and 40s, we lived them with her. However, that approach doesn’t work for the newer characters, such as Seema (Sarita Choudhury) or Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker); we know basic details about them, like Seema’s wilder instincts or Lisa’s devotion to both her family and her career as a filmmaker, but their personalities still feel a little nascent, and often only come into full relief when contrasted with a character who we have known for much longer.
The requisite luxury porn is on full display, every woman looking fabulous from head to toe, though the show is also very conscious of the effort required to make that happen; one episode in particular deserves some applause for how it showcases the lengths to which Lisa has to go, in order to look flawless in front of her peers. It’s in those details that the show knows its power — and how to make the problems of a rich Manhattanite relatable to all of us at home.
And Just Like That (Max)
The Verdict: While Max is releasing And Just Like That weekly, the provided screeners made for an excellent binge — which has its pluses and minuses, the minuses being that there’s not much differentiation between episodes, the narratives all blending together into an ongoing river of relationship woes.
The pluses? While Sex and the City had a much tighter episodic structure, sometimes the requirements of that structure would mean some flimsy subplots, mostly involving whatever new sexual conquest Samantha was eyeing. (For the record, while news of Kim Cattrall’s upcoming cameo is intriguing, this season her absence is felt much less, as the expanded ensemble comes into its own.)
Overall, the toughest thing that And Just Like That has had to do is figure out how to be Sex and the City in the 21st century. (Yes, Sex and the City ran until 2004, but spiritually it never really left 1999.) Season 2 does so by fully embracing a truth most of us figure out after the age of 30: Your best friends are your best friends, that will never change, but as lives change so do friendships; there are the friends you see at dinner with their partner, and there are the friends who you go out with at night, and there are the friends you call when your life falls apart, and all those friendships exist inside a Venn diagram.
And Just Like That as a phrase feels just a bit blase about the way life happens — as if any forward progress we make is just something that happens in the moment. That’s the wink of it, at this point, because while there’s still a lot of luck that enters into the happiness of these television characters, King and the writers know that some of the most interesting drama comes from the real work you have to put in, if you want to change your life for the better. Whether that’s figuring out exactly what you want out of a relationship, finding ways to protect the people you love, or simply finding the strength to put on some pants and leave the house, it all requires work. It might just feel like star-kissed fortune, on the streets of New York City.
Where to Watch: The first two episodes of And Just Like That… premiere Thursday, June 22nd on Max. New episodes debut weekly.
Trailer:
And Just Like That… The Sex and the City Spinoff Figured Out the 21st Century in Season 2: Review
Liz Shannon Miller
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