"And Just Like That" Is More Reflux than Reboot

And Just Like That The Bradys and Mary ampamp Rhoda are all built on the same basic idea amp8230 that life goes sour when you get older and especially after 50 or in the case of the Brady kids after their teens This is one of the more tiresome tropes in youthobsessed Hollywood one most of us know to not be true Yes there are challenges that come with the aging process but if you have your health your family your friends and a reasonable degree of financial security as do the characters in all three of those shows it generally gets betterMaybe we will get to see that as And Just Like That continues I keep reminding myself that the first season of SATC wasn39t very popular on arrival but the show made a few crucial adjustments and it became an influential sensation So maybe there is hope for AJLT but it seems to me like too much damage has already been done to the franchise not to mention a certain athome exercise brand for it to fully recover We39ll seeSex and the City ended its sixseason HBO run on a perfect note back in 2004 After so many stops and starts Carrie and Big were truly together at last The first movie which followed in 2008 proved to be a surprising and big boxoffice treat somehow reawakening the franchise tossing its characters into fresh conflicts and then steering them all toward another happy ending Carrie and Big were married at last It was touching and funnyThat should have been itThen came the toxic Sex and the City 2 in 2010 with critics complaining about its racist overtones white privilege undertones ridiculous plot turns Carrie randomly running into former flame Aidan Shaw in Abu Dhabi and sharing a kiss Stanford and Anthony getting married and Liza Minelli officiating the ceremony etc and worst of all an utter lack of love and laughsIt was dreadful and embarrassing The franchise had come to a miserable close we thoughtAnd just like that amp8230 it was reanimated again this time showing its age in all the worst ways Here come the spoilersThe first and biggest problem is that Kim Cattrall chose to not participate in AJLT and the producers chose to not recast the role of Samantha Fine and fine Then they chose to keep Samantha alive within the AJLT universe Also fine and very smart But their solution while better than killing or ignoring the character is problematic Samantha we learn in episode one had a tiff with Carrie and cut off communication with her as well as Miranda and Charlotte and moved to London where as one of the characters notes women over 60 are still considered sexyBelievable Not so much Samantha is 60 not 16 She might as people do make a big move for any number of reasons and she might not see her best friends very often as happensamp160But as these details were revealed I couldn39t help but wonder amp8230 when it comes to making changes in life must there always be an excuseNext up Miranda the one with more education than the others who was smart and crafty enough to work her way up in the cutthroat world of corporate law at a time when women still weren39t always welcome to do so No matter that she has spent her entire adult life in New York City amp8230 as AJLT opens she is a babbling nitwit who becomes completely flustered when trying to communicate with people of color amp8230 or even with collegeage kids despite the fact that she has one at home A side note about her teenage son Bradyamp160Miranda is fine with letting him have headboardbanging sex with his girlfriend in the bedroom next to the one she shares with husband Steve but she loses her sht when she catches him taking a puff of weed Bizarro rightAfter the Miranda scenes I thought my biggest complaint with the show would be its valiant efforts to appease the demands of the woke mob rather than reason with it That would be offputting enough But then came the Incident While Carrie and Co are attending a piano recital featuring Charlotte39s daughter an extended sequence that brings almost all the characters together and fails to produce a single laugh Big the one character who seemed to have improved with age has a heart attack after a particularly vigorous homeexercise session back at the Prestons39amp160luxe apartment He lingers on the bathroom floor just long enough to look Carrie in the eye when she returns home later that night As Big died in her arms I couldn39t help but wonder why didn39t Carrie call 911Carrie Samantha Charlotte and Miranda were very much women of their time just as Lucy and Ethel and Mary and Rhoda were in I Love Lucy and The Mary Tyler Moore Show respectively Sex and the City knew how to celebrate that while also addressing the inevitable dramas in life Samantha39s cancer battle being the best example And Just Like That does not at least not yet In a perfect world they would have remained where they were undamaged by the passing of time and bad writingI have long believed that an updated Sex and the City series with a new group of female friends at its center would be wellreceived Remember how Jennifer Hudson39s character lit up the first SATC movie After all pretty much everything has changed since Carrie and friends were young women in a predigital New York City For now though we will have to content ourselves with OG Carrie Miranda and Charlotte as they wake up from the apparent fog they have been in for the last ten yearsThat39s my take as a critic As a fan as I hope they learn how to navigate the relentless challenges of the 2020s and have some fun again as And Just Like That continues We have all lost too much alreadyNew episodes of And Just Like That premiere Thursdays on HBO MaxClick the social buttons to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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"And Just Like That" Is More Reflux than Reboot

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Ed Martin

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"And Just Like That" Is More Reflux than Reboot

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