Q: There’s been a lot of talk about how well these characters match up with the ones we met in the original series. Do these new stories and characters feel accurately drawn to you?

Riese: This is actually (one of many areas) in which I think The L Word Generation Q shined and And Just Like That hasn’t done quite as well! I get that Miranda is bumbling about race for sure. But she’s kinda bumbling about EVERYTHING, and her career pivot has served mainly as an avenue for her to befriend Nya (Why couldn’t any of these women come into the series with established friendships with POC characters? Why are they all suddenly making new friends for the first time in 15 years?) and nothing else has really been done with that story. I feel like making her a law professor would make more sense, and maybe Nya is the dean of her department. Miranda was always at the cutting edge of technology, yet podcasts are a mystery to her? Also, why is Carrie acting like this is the first time there’s ever been noise outside her window late at night or that her desire to sleep in a quiet room is age-specific?

Also the ritual deconstructing of one another’s relationships was so central to the original show and it feels like aside from Charlotte at that picnic table scene, Carrie and Charlotte have responded with such odd remove from the fact that Miranda was actively cheating on Steve for so long, and their conversations about it were so abbreviated! I wouldn’t expect the same level of discourse they had while young, because that’s just not how life works — I’ve never talked less about my relationships to my friends than I do now — but I think a little bit more would’ve been fun for a show predicated on that discourse, especially about Miranda’s queer awakening and the sex involved.They rarely even talk about sex anymore!! 

Heather: Riese, I really love that you compared this to The L Word; I think that’s a great way to frame part of this conversation! Also, I feel the opposite of you! The thing that makes Gen Q almost unwatchable to me is that I feel like I outgrew the characters who were sort of the pinnacle of queer adulthood to me when I first came out, and that bums me out so much. One of the reasons I love re-reading books is because, if I’m living my life in the way I strive to, every time I re-read a book, it will be a different experience, because I will be a different person, a person who has grown and changed, and so the way I relate to the characters will shift, and so the story will be different! My personal struggles aren’t the same as they were in 2004, when The L Word came out; I am a completely different person. And, in fact, if I was still doing the same shit that got me into trouble or wrecked my life or wrecked other people’s lives, if I was a serial cheater who remained a serial cheater, or a person who couldn’t ever commit who remained a person who still couldn’t commit — nearly two decades later! — what an indictment of me and my therapists! I feel like the Gen Q characters are more familiar because they’re still making the same stupid mistakes and selfish decisions! I don’t want to yell at Bette Porter! I want to cheer on Bette Porter as she yells at incompetent people and all men!

Photograph by Craig Blankenhorn / HBO Max

Riese: I wonder if maybe the way we watched differently it may have been about our own lives and what we relate to? Like thanks to therapy and a TON of personal growth (especially over the past two years), I am a completely different and much better person than I was in 2004 — but a lot of the same personal struggles remain, because now I have the new problem of coming into every new romantic relationship with an increasingly severe load of baggage from the previous however-many. And my life and the people in it still feel very unsettled!

Heather: I think the ways the characters on AJLT have changed makes sense, even in their dynamics with each other. One of the best scenes of this season was Charlotte telling the story about Lily catching her giving Harry a blow job before breakfast. Miranda and Carrie went on and on about, “Is he dying?” “Are YOU dying?” “You STILL give him blow jobs?” Because they’ve all been married for a zillion years at this point; it makes sense you’re not still going to be talking in depth at every brunch about the sex you’re having with the person you’ve been having sex with for the last 15 years! It also makes sense that Miranda is reluctant to really get into it about Che — first, because of Charlotte’s whole “A FINGER MADE YOU FEEL ALIVE?!?” thing, and also because it’s pretty common to want to keep your queer awakening to yourself, I think, for fear that naming the thing will break the magic spell of the thing.

And then finally, anyone who thinks wealthy middle aged white liberal women don’t act this completely cringey about race? Come on. Open your eyes. Or even just open Twitter.

Carmen: I super agree with Heather.

Shelli: Lowkey, Yes. Like, as I was watching I was like “Yes — that makes sense. Yeah — for sure their place would look like that. Duh, they would respond like that.”

There were few times where I didn’t agree with the evolution of these characters. From the way they dressed to their reactions. I think they showed proper amounts of growth. It’s been just over 10 years since we saw them and yeah the world has changed but how it’s specifically affected or changed for them made sense.

Drew: The only character whose development feels untrue is the one who isn’t there. I do not believe that Samantha would be this petty or that she wouldn’t go to Big’s funeral.

Carmen: She would have moved universes to be there, no matter the fight! She wouldn’t have sent flowers in her absence. When Carrie walked into that funeral, Samantha would have already been there — bossing everyone around.

Drew: It feels really shitty to try and ruin the show’s best character because the actor wouldn’t come back to what sounds like a toxic environment. That said, with Samantha out of the friend group, I absolutely believe the other three would become even more prude and annoying.

I do think it would’ve been more interesting if Miranda was more self-assured overall so when she gets frazzled by her newfound queerness we could see that contrast. It’s not that her dynamic with Nya felt unrealistic to a middle-aged liberal white woman, I’m just not sure it was the most interesting choice.

Photograph by Craig Blankenhorn / HBO Max

Q: In addition to promising more queer representation, And Just Like That was intentional about adding more characters of color and having more conversations about race. First, the latter: how have these conversations/interactions landed for you?

Carmen: If I heard one more white woman complain on Twitter that “Miranda wouldn’ be so cringey about race” — I was going to take my phone and chuck it out a window. This is absolutely, without a doubt, exactly what middle-aged, middle-class, rich white women sound like.

Riese: I definitely think they are realistic w/r/t the behavior of these white women – the way Miranda bumbles around was difficult to watch but completely tracks.

I think a story that kind of sums up how it landed for me was Charlotte’s scrambling to find another Black friend to invite to a dinner party so LTW and her husband wouldn’t be the only Black people there — they really leaned into the discomfort there and let Charlotte fall flat on her face.

But then they seemed to want to frame LTW worrying that Charlotte and Harry would be her only white guests as a similar concern and um, it definitely is not! Then Charlotte got her big redemption moment by being an expert on Black art. Like they were willing to let this white woman fall on her face but only to vault her into the sky on a chariot by the episode’s end.

Shelli: I HATED that, but I think I hated it for 2 reasons. One is because it did make some sense for Charlottle to be knowledgeable about art ‘cos it’s the world she comes from, so I hated that the math was mathing. And the second reason was because you’re right Riese — like, let her fall on her face and don’t give her a redemption card at the end of the dinner. Also, also — I’m sorry but I don’t think there are many worlds where Black folks inviting someone white to dinner are worried about them being the only white people there.

Carmen: Hmmmhmmm. Yes. If I wasn’t sure if a white person I knew was able to handle themselves in a room full of Black people — well, first, I wouldn’t be friends with them to begin with, I’m careful about the company I keep. But second, I simply would not invite them over to my house.

Heather: One other thing that I have really struggled with in terms of the race conversations this season, is that at the end of the day, at the end of the episode, the Executive Producer credits popping up on-screen belong to SJP, Cynthia Nixon, and Kristin Davis, which is not only an indication of how much power they have over the storytelling, it’s also a paycheck flag, right?

You know they’re getting paid more, and the EP credit means they’re also getting a royalties percentage, and that is always going to be the case when shows like this reboot. It’s good that they’re looking to ground their characters and conversations in 2020 and not 1998, but one foot’s always going to be in the past with shows like this; that’s just the nature of this — and every, really — industry. So who really has the power in telling these stories? In writing and performing and directing and editing these conversations? Are POC really being given actual power and agency over these on-screen conversations?

Shelli: I think their storylines were done as well as it could be without it seeming like they were trying so fucking hard. I could do without perhaps the Black and Brown storylines being lowkey heavy (Seema and being single & Nya and IVF). BUT I do get that these are things that make sense and affect women of that generation — which again goes back to me saying that I feel like the wrong folks are at the top of the critiquing conversation when it comes to this show.

Carmen: I thought Seema was the most fun of all the “new” characters and the reboot. Honestly I wanted 50% more of her and LTW, and 50% less of Che!

Riese: Yes I LOVE Sarita Choudhury and I agree that she was the most fun of all the “new” characters.

Photograph by Craig Blankenhorn / HBO Max

Drew: I don’t think the conversations about race have been unrealistic to this world and these characters. I guess the question to me is just like… is this really what the show can do best?

With this and Gen Q, I’m left feeling like the exclusivity of the originals almost felt more inclusive — with the occasional major exception — because anyone who isn’t white or cis or, in this case, straight can map onto these other people. When every show wants to include everybody and talk about big issues, I think it can end up feeling kind of alienating.

Shelli, I think that’s a really good point about the storylines feeling heavy. I guess this is a problem with this rendition of the show as a whole. But I’d so much rather see Sarita Choudhury and Karen Pittman have fun, romantic adventures than deal with our main cast’s ignorance or their own heavy problems. But the main cast is the main cast and this version is the one where Carrie Bradshaw is mourning Big so… I just want the show to be a different thing and yeah, Shelli, you’re right — I’m not the target audience.

Q: So, in general when we look at the new characters — Carrie’s real estate agent friend Seema, Charlotte’s Mom friend LTW and Miranda’s professor Nya who also has a side plot with her husband about IVF — how do you feel these characters and how they have been integrated (or not) into the story?

Heather: As much as I genuinely love the additions of Seema, Nya, LTW, and Che, I saw someone tweet a thing at the beginning of the season that I can’t shake: Why was every white character given a POC guide to walk them through the year 2022? That question would feel less relevant if all the stuff I said above wasn’t true, and if these POC characters had fuller stories that weren’t almost completely about pushing forward the narratives of the white characters.

Shelli: Again, it made sense to the characters. I was not expecting this show to premiere and them suddenly have a bunch of Black and queer friends in their circle. It felt organic to how they would move in the world.

Carmen: Shelli, I completely agree!

Shelli: Like, of course Charlotte would end up being friends with one of the mothers at her child’s school because that’s what her world is, and the mom she connected with was basically just like her and happened to be Black. And of course she would be worried that new friend would think she was trash cos’ she doesn’t have many other Black friends because that is how Charlotte is — she cares a lot about how the world and those in it view her but she doesn’t have some ill intent. Can I get with that storyline versus some convoluted one where Charlotte suddenly has a Black friend that she met somewhere else? Yeah, and same goes for how the world of Blackness enters into Miranda’s life, it all fits with what I know of these characters and how I would guess their lives would move over the years.

Drew: I agree that the way our main cast meets the new characters all rings really true. But I do think it would feel less contrived if they all weren’t new though. Like instead of seeing Miranda on her first day, what if she’d been in the class for three months and was totally obsessed with her professor in a weird middle aged white woman sort of way?

Riese: Yeah everybody is right that it rings true, I’m just not sure that these choices were always the more interesting ringing-true ones. I think on Generation Q, it felt like the new characters were integrated in a way that put them closer to the epicenter of the drama (with the exception of Micah), despite there being a generation gap — but it did also take time to get there. Like Season Two saw a much more impactful mash-up of the new and old characters than Season One did. But of course queer social circles and mostly-heterosexual ones are difficult to compare in general.

Carmen: I honestly think of all the problems I have with AJLT, the integration of the characters of color wasn’t necessarily one of them. Which isn’t the same thing as saying the show did a “good” job either, so hear me out…

We already brought up comparisons to The L Word Generation Q, which I think is apt because both are Aughts shows largely about the sex lives of cis, mostly white, thin, (and in the case of SATC, straight) women. And wasn’t The L Word originally promo’d as a lesbian Sex and the City?

Riese: Yes! It was “same sex, different city.”

Carmen: Anyway, that means that both reboots have the same problem that they have to address about “diversity” as they approach a media landscape where what worked 20 years ago simply won’t fly anymore. I think they took two different approaches to the problem. Generation Q promised new central characters of color, they made new posters with Sophie and Dani and Micah arm and arm with Bette, Alice, and Shane. Then over the course of their two seasons, they have not necessarily lived up to that promise — in so many ways it’s still Bette, Alice, and Shane’s show, no matter what the promotions said. I keep comparing that to And Just Like That. AJLT never promised that these new characters were going to be central players, you never saw them on the poster. They were straightforward from the jump that this was still Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda’s world.

It’s a terrible choice to be forced to make as a person of color watching! But which approach ultimately worked better? I think there are pro’s and con’s to each, but AJLT’s is certainly more honest. The only thing I wish is that they hadn’t kept with the one-to-one “buddy system” (LTW with Charlotte, Nya with Miranda, Seema with Carrie) for so long. By the time things were getting interesting and Seema was getting laid or Nya was leaving her husband, the season was over!

Q: Che Diaz is also a non-binary character, as is Charlotte’s kid Rock. Drew, you recently tweeted, “the trans urge to hate watch And Just Like That so I know what HBO is teaching my family about non-binary people.” How do we feel about what HBO is teaching our families about non-binary people?

Drew: As I said, Sex and the City is my sister’s bible. So I did take some glee knowing that queerness was going to enter her world against her will totally unrelated to me. And, I mean, I guess what’s been shown is better than nothing.

But it fucking sucks that the writers room is entirely cis. I think I’d cringe less at Rock being named Rock and Che Diaz being… Che Diaz if the jokes felt like they were coming from within the community rather than outside. I don’t even think the writers room is particularly queer beyond Sam Irby and the very specific gayness of Michael Patrick King. It doesn’t feel like a coincidence that Che and Rock are both portrayed as selfish narcissists because often trans people in general are viewed that way for simply wanting to be ourselves. In the eyes of Charlotte — and the writers — saying you’re not a girl and refusing to do your B’nai Mitzvah day of are the same thing when, in fact, they very much are not.

Ultimately, this show is not about the trans characters but the cis character’s reactions to the trans characters. And I guess that’s true to the show’s audience.

Heather: I thought the show was mostly doing a pretty good job, especially with the way Rock’s teachers and Lily stood beside them. Lily rapping along to Rock’s TikTok — My name is R-O-C-K — was a real highlight of the season for me. THAT felt real.

Carmen: (So did Rock’s appropriation of Black culture on TikTok, sadly.)

Photograph by Craig Blankenhorn / HBO Max

Shelli: It also felt real to me that Lily knew and wouldn’t have said anything to her parents, kind of like, she didn’t think it was a big deal cos’ to so much of that generation it isn’t.

Heather: However! As much airtime as Che got to just talk to and at people, the fact that both Steve and Carrie were calling them “a woman” over and over in the penultimate episode was really shitty, and the fact that it got through so many layers of writing, directing, acting, and editing shows how much more we need trans people in every area of filmmaking, not just in front of the camera in a single role. (And there aren’t enough trans people there either!)

Drew: It’s interesting because that is, of course, realistic. Steve and Carrie WOULD call Che a woman. The problem with having a character exist as a talking point rather than as a human being is then our lives become a debate. You have Miranda who mostly gets it, Charlotte who is slowly getting it, and Steve and Carrie who are dismissive. Sure, that’s accurate. But then the audience looks at these various reactions as equally valid. “Good for Charlotte, but I’m with Steve — this is all too much!” I don’t know. How much can one Sex and the City reboot really accomplish? Maybe what I actually wish is that they’d tried to accomplish less.

Carmen: I also wish they’d tried to accomplish less. And this very much underscores Drew’s point, but I think for me part of “doing less” would have been not having Rock and Che exist without always teaching the cis people around them? What sort of worked well with how AJLT approached its characters of color is that they kinda just keep sidestepping the cringey white people around them, right? Seema said she’s going to be the rich brown woman who writes the check — even if Carrie can’t be the rich white woman who writes one. Nya actively tries to avoid Miranda on the subway. I guess I wish that same internal agency had been provided for Rock and Che.

Shelli: For me this goes back to the writers room. Who is in it? Like, were there multiple generations of enby writers who could have made this “teaching” more nuanced? Those who could have went “this is how my parent of that generation acted/responded to my being non-binary” or “this is how I think a parent from that generation would respond to their kid being non-binary”. Did they have conversations with various enby folks from multiple generations and build a storyline that made sense pulling from those stories? Did they have a plan on what they wanted to “teach” or did they just want a buzzword plot?

We won’t ever fully know what goes on to create many of these stories (which kinda sucks cos’ I live for Paleyfest style interviews and chats with the crew and writers instead of just with the cast) and they will always be judged and like my mom says, you can’t please everybody. BUT what I really hope folks start fucking realizing is, tv shows and film aren’t always meant to teach you the end all and be all of everything, use these shows, these stories they tell to serve as encouragement to look at yourself and then do your own homework. Like, if I only looked to TV to teach me or my parents about stuff without going further on my own, I’d be so fucked.

Drew: Right, like, it’s absurd to think And Just Like That: A New Chapter of Sex and the City is going to be a teaching tool about transness. And yet… for some it really will be!!! Horrifying.

Q: In closing, what have you liked best about And Just Like That?

Heather: For me, it’s important that characters who are 20 years older than they were when we met them deal with the fact that they’re aging. Aging isn’t something that just happens peripherally or in the background of your life. It’s a physical, mental, and emotional thing that takes up a whole lot of space in your brain and your heart when you hit middle age. It changes your entire life! The shape of your world! Carrie’s hip situation and her huge grief and the way she spent so much time trying to reconcile the Old Carrie with the New Carrie? That was the best part of this series for me. I am certainly not a Carrie Bradshaw in any way, but I do know huge grief and I do know an aging body and I also know what it’s like to have to figure out who you are all over again after an enormous loss. For all the missteps, the parts of the show that were about growing up and growing old, that was some damn good storytelling, and it’s something there’s a complete dearth of for women on TV and in movies.

Photograph by Craig Blankenhorn / HBO Max

Riese: I liked that too, Heather — and I also liked that by having Big die, they were able to show something else we don’t see a lot, which is a woman over 50 relying on her friends rather than her partner for support when her body began aging and breaking in unexpected ways. I remember being single during a huge pandemic surge when I hurt my back really bad and lying on my bed unable to perform basic tasks thinking oh my god this is what the rest of my life is going to look like huh. It’s scary! I think Sarah Jessica Parker really nailed those scenes.

Heather: I also loved the way it was edited when Anothony realized he’d brought a Hollocaust denier to dinner and without skipping a beat or taking a breath the camera just pushed in on him yelling GET OUT!!!!!!

And I thought Lily and Rock’s storylines were both well done! I did not expect to care so much about Charlotte’s kids!

Shelli: This isn’t going to be deep to y’all but it is to me. Space, apartments, homes, whatever are so important to me and in a lot of shows it’s the first thing I connect to. Carrie’s apartment is one of my top five spaces in Pop Culture and it meant so much to me to learn that she kept her fucking space. I currently live in a place that I have felt the most connected to in my adult life. It is mine, I have made it my own and it came to me just when I needed it to in the condition it was supposed to be in. I am never letting it go and when I say never – I mean never. When I am married and in a cute ass home with the Virgo love of my life, I will still have this apartment. Not to like live in, do shady shit in, always be at or anything like that but just a place to call my own that has memories and moments that are all mine. So it made me happy to know that she never let go of the place that was like that for her, and that in the end it was there for her when she needed it most. Also, I am very sure my future wife will be grateful for it because it means I won’t be covering our home in Blush Pink and putting copious amounts of platform shoes all over the place.

Also when I saw a Brandon Blackwood bag.

Also, Also hearing Charlotte say “Tushy Crack”.

Also, Also, Also that jumpsuit that Lisa was wearing when they went to go paint the home.

Riese: The jumpsuit was my favorite part of the entire series.

Photograph by Craig Blankenhorn / HBO Max

Shelli: Also Also, Also and for real this is it — that they stayed away from the original theme song.

Carmen: Oh no!!! I missed the theme song EVERY TIME!!

Drew: I liked the collective viewing experience. Everything sucks right now and it’s nice to log on to Twitter dot com to discuss and roast something that’s not that deep. Maybe that’s a weird thing to say about a show that made itself very much about grief, race, and transness, but my strongest stance on this reboot is… I enjoyed watching it every Thursday even when I didn’t enjoy it.

Riese: My favorite part is the collective viewing experience, for sure. Also: Seema sitting outside the women’s shelter smoking a cigarette, Miranda and Carrie’s fight after the kitchensex (because it actually made me tear up so I think it must have been good), Rabbi Jenn revealing that Rock doesn’t know their Torah portion, when SJP was creeping around the block smoking cigarettes in her dishwashing gloves, Charlotte’s Bat Mitzvah!

Carmen: No one said it, but I have to be true to myself, so I must say it: The Che Diaz of it all aside, I enjoyed lusting after Sara Ramirez week after week. You wanna talk about aging? They’ve never looked better.

Q: … and the least?

Heather: That time Miranda said “I was craving me some Che.”

Shelli: That time Che said “DM me if you wanna chill soon” after being knuckles deep inside Miranda on a weekday afternoon. I wanted to throw my taco at my TV.

Carmen: “Hey, it’s Che Diaz!” which was probably only said once, but in my heart I know it was said every episode.

Drew: They should have made Samantha move away because Carrie did something truly awful. It would have justified that throughline so much better and felt truer to Samantha as a character.

Riese: That beeping sound in Carrie’s apartment.

Q: Do you want a Season 2 of “And Just Like That”?

Heather: No. I want a spin-off of Rabbi Jen.

Shelli: Sure!

Carmen: Yep! YEP!

Drew: Absolutely. So much of this season felt like build up. By the end, Carrie is dating again, Miranda is a chaotic baby queer, and Charlotte is a little less transphobic and racist. So a season two could be so much more fun!

Che is annoying as a crush but they would be incredible as an ex !!

Riese: Yes, ok fine. But not as desperately as I want another season of Generation Q!

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