I admit I was a little lost this past Thursday night when for the first time in weeks I didn’t have an new episode of HBO MAX’s AND JUST LIKE THAT… to provide me with a brief respite from the reality I otherwise endure. Yes, I’m a straight white single older male but I’m also someone with a deep connection to the franchise that began 27 years ago and at the time provided me yet another reason to spend my Sunday nights with HBO when THE SOPRANOS was on hiatus. If nothing else, it provided me with the first-hand knowledge of if I was more of a Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha or Miranda–and yes, men were being so classified at the time–and as I was attempting to re-enter the dating scene when it started it gave me at least one talking point for the many G-d-awful first dates I somehow endured. What I–and apparently a lot of the OG show’s fans–learned was that there were parts of each of Michael Patrick King’s not-so-Golden Girls in a lot of us, which naturally made us embrace the entire series that much more.
So I was among the many who felt an emotional pang, if not a gut punch, when stories like the one Matt Grobar penned for DEADLINE began turning up in alert after alert early yesterday morning:
And just like that, And Just Like That… is coming to an end on HBO Max. The show will wrap up its expanded 12-episode third season, which is currently airing, with a two-part finale. Showrunner Michael Patrick King notified cast of the decision Thursday, per our sources. “And just like that… the ongoing storytelling of the Sex and the City universe is coming to an end,” said King in a statement released Friday morning. “While I was writing the last episode of And Just Like That… season 3, it became clear to me that this might be a wonderful place to stop. Along with Sarah Jessica Parker, Casey Bloys and Sarah Aubrey, we decided to end the popular series this year with a two-part finale and extended the original series order from 10 episodes to 12. SJP and I held off announcing the news until now because we didn’t want the word ‘final’ to overshadow the fun of watching the season. It’s with great gratitude we thank all the viewers who have let these characters into their homes and their hearts over these many years.”
The mere fact that King felt such an obligation to go to such detail to deliver this news–naturally at the beginning of a week devoid of a new episode that would allow the show’s fans to catch up with any episodes of AJLT… they might have missed in anticipation of what will now be a more-anticipated series finale–is indicative of the type of disconnect he and Parker now have with the audience that at one time saw them as contemporaries and cultural definers. I have to believe that somewhere along the line they saw the reactions, both numerical and personal, that was being expressed as these seasons unfolded, particularly the one that played out this summer. THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS’ Jami Ganz captured some of that in her writeup from yesterday:
While some fans were sad to learn the cancellation news, others were relieved, with many pointing to how far the show had strayed “from what people loved about the original” and others saying some episodes seemed like a product of artificial intelligence. “It’s time to give ChatGPT a rest,” quipped one viewer. Another slammed the “three seasons of corny writing,” declaring, “Samantha left and so did the plot.”
And my longtime comrade in objective commentary (not to mention Hebrew School education) Marc Berman captured similar sentiment in the series post-mortem he penned for FORBES:
Recreating the original show’s magic may have always been a long shot, but the addition of new characters — Seema Patel (Sarita Choudhury), a clear Samantha clone, Lisa Todd Wexley (Nicole Ari Parker), Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez), Nya Wallace (Karen Pittman), and Duncan Reeves (Jonathan Cake) — only underscored how far the series had strayed. Meanwhile, the off-screen passing of beloved character Stanford Blatch (Willie Garson) was never fully acknowledged onscreen. More recently, And Just Like That… has shifted its focus to Carrie moving on from her improbable return romance with Aidan (John Corbett), Miranda exploring new relationships, and Charlotte dealing with husband Harry’s (Evan Handler) health scare.
If that sounds a little exhausting to read, I assure you it was even more exhausting–and frustrating–to watch. We passionately rooted for each of the main characters in SATC to realize the fulfillment of their dreams. They survived their late twenties and early thirties and the tumultuous turn-of-the-century transitions of Manhattan and by series’ end all found happiness with grounded, supportive partners that barely resembled the seemingly endless array of clueless and zipless f–cks they plowed through and yes, even we single, straight white men watched both out of jealousy and concern.
AJLT… seemed overcommitted from the start to address what they seemed to see was the elephant in their room and added a virtual United Nations of supporting cast members–in the list that Berman provided above alone, we have an Asian American, an upscale African America, a non-binary Latino and a Brit. Nothing wrong with that concept–except by comparison their plot lines were uninspired, redundant and frankly distractions. Worse yet, none of the three core characters have had happy endings. The 50-something Carrie, while still quite attractive, began this series newly widowed as the disgraced Chris Noth’s Big was killed off in the first episode, and then went on to fail at podcasting and said return romance with Aidan. Charlotte’s “shiksa goddess” devolved into a frenzied, overwrought parent of an adopted Asian daughter who foolishly falls for a “fluid” classmate and a naturally conceived child who also emerges as non-binary. Miranda, mirroring the real-life decision of Cynthia Nixon, comes out, period, and immediately made a series of questionable choices stemming from the butch, abusive Che to this season’s fling with Ireland’s favorite daughter Rosie O’Donnell stunt-cast as a visting Canadian nun on holiday.
All of this is not how the OG series fans would have wanted their own lives to turn out 15-20 years later–and I suspect all but a minority that cried on social media yesterday have actually experienced. And Grobar captured that succinctly, as well as throwing in some actual viewership data to contradict the spin that MAX tried to put out there yesterday that this was all ending when the spinoff was never more popular:
While And Just Like That… started strong in terms of new HBO Max signups as well as ratings, with a premiere ranking among the top 10 in HBO Max’s history, viewership has waned over time. The Season 3 premiere was watched by 429,000 households, per Samba TV, down from 463,000 in Season 2. The series also has generated a lot of media attention — both positive and negative — over its run. In the end, the decision to end the series is believed to have been largely creative after fans already had gotten their update on Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte and storytelling no longer felt as urgent as it once did.
It’s more than a touch ironic that this news came down mere hours after another woman who had once been more popular than she proved ultimately to be re-emerged from her self-imposed exile to provide emotional support to a friend in need, as the CNN tag-team of Lauren Chadwick and Hanna Park reported:
Former Vice President Kamala Harris said she would not run for public office because the system is “broken,” as she reflected on her decision not to pursue a gubernatorial run in California and spoke about what she views as “capitulation” by those tasked with guarding democracy during Donald Trump’s second administration. “That has been my career and recently I made the decision that I, just for now, I don’t want to go back in the system. I think it’s broken,” Harris said in an interview with CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
The fact that the now lame-duck Colbert chose to book a lightning rod as polarizing as Harris at this time would be questionable under any circumstances. But when one considers what else Harris announced this week, it’s hard to not be cynical about both parties. Per Chadwick and Park:
Harris, who is set to release a book in September about her 2024 presidential campaign entitled “107 days,” also spoke about the amount of time she had to run a campaign after then-President Joe Biden dropped out of the race. “I was so conscious and aware of the short time that we had,” she said.
Especially considering that Skydance management is taking the reins of Paramount next week–and a planned Labor Day hiatus comes shortly after that–one can’t help but wonder if she made the appearance knowing Colbert’s time as an in-studio megaphone might be short as well.
She also vowed to take similar steps akin to what King alleged he and his braintrust did:
“For now, I don’t want to go back into the system. I want to travel the country. I want to listen to people. I want to talk with people. And I don’t want it to be transactional where I’m asking for their vote.”
If you’re truly serious, Madame Vice President, congratulations. You probably should have done that last summer, or at least paid closer attention to the folks trying to advise you when they were doing that on your behalf. And no, I don’t just mean the ones your party hired to help you with spin. I mean the more objective ones that pointed out your clear insincerity and vapidity that you simply could not find it in you to deal with in a sufficient manner–and bemoaners like Colbert simply cannot accept the repercussions that resulted from it.
You’ll forgive me if I net out that you may not be asking for a transaction of their vote, but you sure wouldn’t mind the $40-$50 a copy they’ll cough up for your book. I strongly suspect you’ll be out there in several cities signing copies. I can turn you on to some conveniently located venues to conduct actual focus groups that wouldn’t take you too far out of your way that you would be well advised to drop in on and actually see and hear what the American people want and need.
Unless, of course, you’ve already concluded, much like the HBO MAX brass that “consulted” with King and Parker, that your opportunity and time to connect with your audiences is indeed up, at least for now.
But take heart, ye fans of all four of these power women who have all had better times in their pasts. Given the worlds of forgiveness and reboots that we can’t seem to escape I’m not quite willing to write any of you off for eternity. And in particular, Madame Vice President, take special note that the desire to satisfy a curiosity itch with the SEX AND THE CITY women bought them three more years. You’re merely asking for four, no?
Just get better writers. Or perhaps an endorsement from Kim Cattrall.
Until next time…