"AND JUST LIKE THAT...," I MIGHT HAVE TO EAT MY WORDS...: RE-EVALUATING MY OLD BLOG/THOUGHTS ON "SEX AND THE CITY" AFTER SEASON ONE OF IT'S SEQUEL SERIES....

Soooooo, I was gonna skip this....

Like, I heard it was coming, I had no real intention of interacting with it. I had said my peace, years ago.... Literally....

Shortly after I began this blog, one of the first blogposts I wrote was entitled "Dear 'Sex and the City', Please Die Already. Sincerely, Big Fan" . I wrote it, about eleven years ago, and it was one of the first blogposts that I actually remember getting quite a positive reaction. This was at a time when, despite the series being over for quite a few years, the show, continued to constantly force it's way into pop culture. It's kinda like how "Breaking Bad" won't frickin' go away, but in that show's case, we're mostly still waiting for something as good or better to come along, and has a prequel series that's really good and keeping the original show relevant, but at the point and time I was writing, "Sex and the City" was on a considerable and vehement downswing from it's critical and pop cultural heights.

They had made two sequels movies that both were terrible and unnecessary, and I'd argue genuinely made the original series seem worst in retrospect; there was a prequel series called "The Carrie Diaries" that was apparently based on a popular young adult by-product of the series that was in development for CW; that show eventually did air, but didn't do particularly well, was cancelled pretty quickly and has rightfully been forgotten, and most importantly, television, network and cable, was just littered with a bunch of "Sex and the City" copies and clones, that almost none of which are actually worth mentioning or remembering now. I mentioned a bunch of them at the time, but I actually undersold how many flop attempts their were to reverse-engineer the formula. The only one I now remember remotely actually liking, and I think I was the only one who liked it was an NBC show that lasted six episodes called "Leap of Faith", and the only reasons I liked that one was because, A. it had a ridiculously amazing cast, (Sarah Paulsen, Regina King, Lisa Edelstein, Chad Rowe, Tim Meadows-, I'm not kidding, this was like, an all-star cast before anybody realized it) and also because it was the only copy that had a straight male among the four leads. It was three girls, and a straight guy, and honestly I've been in that situation enough times that I related to it to a minor extent. (I never really related to any of the failed male-equivalent versions of "Sex and the City" their were, which I also didn't even remember-to-mention the last time, but now that I look back, holy god their were a bunch of those too.)  There were tons...-, not just in television, movies too; there were plenty of bad films took a shot at it too; hell, I named one of them, "How to Be Single" as my worst film of that year, that's how down anything remotely seeming like it was trying to make people think about "Sex and the City" was. Arguably, the best series that used the formula was HBO's "Girls" and that show basically was the anti-"Sex and the City"! It's a thorough and complete rebuttal of the all the glitz, ideals, glamour, and sizzle that "Sex and the City" was to many people. (And it's a better show in general, then and now! I'll take on all Lena Dunham haters, even still on this one!)

The time had passed, "Sex and the City", as much as I loved it, it was not aging well, the behind-the-scenes bullshit was almost as bad as the onscreen product had become, and frankly I wanted to move on. And I was up for it! Generally, I like to move on from things; I don't want to stick to the same thing over and over again, especially when it ended already; I get bored, I get tired, and not that I feel like paraphrasing a superhero movie is apropos, since they seem to be the absolute biggest violators of this, "Never going away"-disease that certain pop culture franchise and brands are infected with, but..., sometimes it's better to die a hero then to hang around look enough to become the villain, and they were becoming the villain. And for the most part, everybody came around to my way of thinking.

It might've taken a couple years more than I would've thought it would've, but while many of the groundbreaking advancements and contributions of "Sex and the City", we still are all grateful for, it's fair to say, the show was left mostly dead and buried finally, and we were better for it. I remember a TV show poll I participated in for Geekcast Radio awhile ago, where I submitted a 100 Greatest TV shows of all-time list. When the final results were revealed "Sex and the City" didn't make it. (Shrugs) It made my ballot, but in general, I wasn't surprised it missed. Which is a shame; "Sex...", along with "The Sopranos" basically were the shows that made HBO the place everybody wanted to be. But even in my defense of it at the time, I called it a time capsule of dating at the turn of the century; that's kinda backhanded honestly, but I'd argue that it was really hard to call it "timeless" at that point, or now, for that matter. 

So, yeah, when I heard the news that HBO was bringing the series back, with only three of the main four original cast members, my first thought, "Really? Why? Nobody cares about "Sex and the City" anymore?!" And I, like everybody else probably did, just mostly disregarded it as another desperate attempt to reboot the ratings of television's past with the shows of television's past, and frankly, didn't think much of it, and didn't plan on re-evaluating my old blog and stance. I mean, the show was ancient now; I was genuinely amazed they were even bothering. If you asked me to name an HBO show that would get a reboot in this day and age, I think I would've guessed "Arli$$" before I guessed "Sex and the City", and even if I thought that, except for maybe "Six Feet Under", I might have argued that the show was by far the most pointless to reboot. I did not expect anything to happen regarding this new show, and nor did I think anybody, including and especially me, would care if anything did. 

 

"And Just Like That...", - I was proven completely wrong....

So, um.... they killed off Big! They really did go there....

You know, when I first heard it, I thought it was a prank or a joke of some kind, 'cause like, nah, they wouldn't actually do that, right.... But nope! I mean, it ain't Henry Blake's death or anything, but still, like, um...- huh.... Tsk...

Well, clearly I have to re-evaluate my thoughts on the series.... Or do I?

See, and I don't know exactly know who's plan or idea this was, but "Sex and the City" kinda did one of the smartest things I've ever seen when it comes to this kind of reboot; they-eh, they didn't do a reboot. They didn't do "Sex and the City"; they did something else entirely.... The technical term I guess is "Sequel Series" but,  it's kinda different than that too; most sequel series would really try to kinda stick to their previous series' traditional formulas. "What's happening, Now" isn't really that different than "What's Happening" only the characters are a couple years older, y'know. So maybe, "Sex and the City" is, actually dead, and now, all these years later, we get something else grown out of it's ashes, that were tossed in the Seine.

I mean, why not; that tends to be how I like most sequels in movies, I don't want a second version of the same story in movies, and I guess that's the same for television. I don't want to see "Sex and the City" with the characters older now either. Hell, I didn't want that the first two times they gave it to me with the movies, and this is clearly not "Sex and the City", certainly not anymore. 

So, instead, we get "And Just Like That..."; is it any good? 

Uhhh, well, I definitely liked it. It's certainly the best thing anything produced within the realm of anything "Sex and the City" since the show went off the air. Eh, I'm not gonna pretend this is the best thing ever; I don't think it's one of the very best shows on TV or anything but yeah, it is actually really good. I watched the first episode reluctantly after I heard about it all over Twitter, and I found myself compelled to keep watching when I could, and yeah, I appreciate it, and am looking forward to the next season. 

That doesn't mean it doesn't have problems and controversy regarding it.... And we need to talk about some of them, and also why, and how, is this so different. 

So, let's start with the "how"; how did they do this? 'Cause this is weirder than normal series reboots remaining good. Not the least of the reasons because Michael Patrick King is behind it. Yeah, I lied when I said I don't know who's behind it; I know exactly who's behind it, and I still can't believe it. For those who don't remember, MPK was the showrunner and the main voice behind most of "Sex and the City" for most of the series run, and he wrote and directed the two movies afterwards. He's a longtime television writer, and worked on many good shows and at times his writing was special on "Sex and the City", and he's still capable of good television. Even after "Sex...", he co-created "The Comeback", that one Lisa Kudrow series that became a cult hit that also had a one-season reboot a couple years ago. (I'm finally getting to that now, and it's as cringy as ever, maybe moreso, but it's pretty good.) 

Honestly though, I've gotten a sense that "Sex..." and many of other good projects tended to be good, in spite of Michael Patrick King, and at times, many of his worst instincts. 

On that previous blogpost, I waxed poetic about, the poetry of "Sex and the City" and why I considered that show's writing in particular to be so above it's imitators, including my personal fan theory that, we actually never, or rarely got to actually see many/most of the main four characters actual personal lives, and what we were really seeing, or being told, most of the time, was has Carrie explained or described these incidents in her sex column. (I also waxed poetic a bit about how we don't have those kinds of columnists who talk about their sex lives in local alternative magazines anymore. They were big at the time, and they basically ended around the time "Sex and the City" did.) So, my theory was always that, Carrie wasn't always as truthful in her column, often making these more exciting then they might've been, maybe taking an incident or two that happened with one friend and giving it to another friend, maybe making up some plot points to fill up space that could've been said with one sentence..., etc. etc. (Shrugs) I don't think it's a terrible theory, and I think it's a good context to explain the show to people who probably don't like it on initial glance and probably did see the series as a bunch of shallow sex jokes with a glossy Woody Allen-esque New York sheen to it, but-, based on other things King has said and did over the years, not only is that probably not accurate as a fan theory, but in general, I really don't think that King actually thought that observantly or deeply into the series as I did. 

There's a few things in particular I can list, but the one giant red flag for me that I don't think I'm ever gonna get over, is ironically his biggest success since "Sex..." and, by far the worst thing he's done.... 

 

I don't remember if I've brought this up before, but, ugh, I have venomous hatred for "2 Broke Girl$". Not because it's a bad show that lasted way too long, which it was and it did, but, the thing is, more than nearly any other sitcom I can think of in the last decade or so, "2 Broke Girl$" should not have sucked! 

King, along with the show's co-creator Whitney Cummings, who I love but has very questionable skills as a sitcom writer, came up with, basically a modern-day "Laverne & Shirley" and somehow, ended up with a show that,- ugh,- honestly, by the end of the series, I don't know what it had really become. Even MPK famously had trouble defending the series from critics when he was confronted at a panel discussion, and frankly the critics were right. I won't say that "2 Broke Girl$" was the worst thing ever, it wasn't, but goddammit, in an era where everybody was and still is fucking broke as fuck, instead of modernizing an idea that's already been proven to do well showing humor and life through despite living in the bowels of poverty, and make it an observant, funny, sharp, witty, and yes, sexually provocative, it seemed like he instead, layered every single worst instincts of his front and center. The show focused too much on race jokes, too much of crass sex jokes, way too much on stereotype humor of all kinds, and frankly, took such a flimsy look at being poor and desperate for money and having to deal with rich yuppie assholes who are better off then you! (Almost all of this, I should note, was also really hacky, in the worst sense of the word too.) Including a roommate who was a former trust fund baby, who still thinks like she's Eliza Doolittle at the end of "My Fair Lady" instead of at the beginning. 

And cupcakes?! Like seriously, cupcakes?! I mean, I guess it's possible for somebody to bake their way out of poverty through cupcakes, but god, for a guy who thinks he's modern he sure seemed like he was coming up with a bad sitcom cliche plotlines from the past. Like, I expect that to be a Brady Bunch kid idea, that lasts like one episode you know? Not the thing that they think can get them out of their financial whole! (And before you think about, I don't think "cupcakes" was ever code for anything; although that would've been a good way to make that show more modern.)

"2 Broke Girl$" should've been so much better than it was; it just suffered horribly from, literally every decision Michael Patrick King made. The acting choices were wrong, (Not the actors, but the choices they made or were told to make...-; like seriously, I think Kat Dennings could make a witty joke without laughing at her own joke, so why did you tell her to laugh anyway, and all the time! BTW "Dollface" is a much better show with her, go watch that it's on Hulu.) The caricaturist side characters, especially all the ethnic stereotype ones, were just wrong, and casting them was so wrong...- (Poor Jennifer Coolidge, doing that stupid accent for five years! She was in Christopher Guest movies you shithead!!!!) It really was so many bad decisions that I think it bordered on delusion with him. 

Honestly, I think the failure of "2 Broke Girl$" more than anything made me rethink whether or not "Sex and the City" or most anything he was directly behind was any good at all. In particular, it made me look and more closely analyze what exactly was his thoughts were on what he was creating. Like, I still remember the DVD for the first season of "The Comeback", on one of the commentary tracks, him talking about how the sitcom within that sitcom, "Room and Board", he thought would've been like, picked up on- I think it was WB, and would've been like, a bad, but popular show on their lineup at the time..., and even then, I remember thinking, "What-, really?!" Like, Jesus, even I didn't even give The WB that little credit! Especially at the time,- The WB, was the network with a bunch of bad teen dramas and dumb reality shows,- they barely even had any sitcoms at the time, and the few they had they shoved them on Friday nights, and even the worst of those, were,- well, they were not only better than "Room and Board"; they were not remotely like "Room and Board"! Like, they're gonna pick up this dumb sitcom within a sitcom, and what, put it between reruns of "Reba" and see what happens? I was not a WB guy, at all, but even then I knew, The WB wouldn't have picked that up; even if it was good. Maybe he thought they were still airing "Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher" or something...- I don't know. I was baffled then when I heard that, and I'm baffled now thinking back on it.

Honestly, in many ways, he reminds me of Chuck Lorre, another talented but very inconsistent TV showrunner, who can do series like "The Big Bang Theory" and "Mom" that are constantly evolving themselves and are full of richness and depth to them, and stayed hilarious and modern, while still doing something so stuck in their own stubborn insipidness like "Two and a Half Men" that they seemed to never be able to evolve from their hackiest points until they're forced to kill somebody off to change anything about their shows. 

Okay, King didn't just kill off a character,... Well, one technically but...- (Sigh)

Well, I better get to this before somebody else will ask.... After Mr. Big's death on the show, a lot of things happened. "And Just Like That..." was suddenly getting "Sex and the City" back on the forefront of everybody's minds, the stock for Peloton's went down immensely, and of course, there was more focus on the longtime great character actor Chris Noth, who after forty years of playing some sexy, skeevy, handsome men in women's lives and some iconic manly characters on such longtime series as "Sex..." and "The Good Wife" and a few series of "Law & Order" he was finally at his highest peak of fame and appreciation. 

Then he immediately got #MeToo'd and accused of several counts of sexual assault and rape by, eh, well, by my count it's five women, right now, dating back almost thirty years, I think. 

(Sighs)

Eh, I always knew she should've gone with Alexsandr Petrovsky instead....

Alright, seriously, ehhh, yeah.... There's really not much to say there. Five women, who have come forward so far.... Maybe there was a reason he was so good at playing leches. Who knows; going through the details in the accusations, it seems like he's been a creep for awhile. I've certainly heard worst, but, eh,...- Oh, God, one of them was Kristin Davis's old stand-in on the show....- Ugh.... (Sigh)

Anyway, he got cut from the last episode of the season where he was supposed to make a cameo in a dream sequence; honestly I think it was better not seeing him anyway, and he's been fired from most of the rest of the projects he was on, although he has denied all the allegations against him.... We'll see what'll happen on that end, but actually, there was another, probably more major change King made to the series. More major, and yet, shockingly, a less missing one.

Of course, I'm talking about Kim Cattrall choosing not to renew her character. This means that Samantha, while not dead, has gotten into a tiff with the girls, and has since now moved permanently to London, and is only communicated, sparingly-at-best, with the girls via text messages, and even that, is only occasionally. 

Honestly, I didn't miss her.

 

As much as I love Samantha, and yeah, she was the best character in the old series, we don't need her now. And also, that's, kinda realistic.... I read somewhere once that the average friendship, like relationships, tend to last only seven years, and not necessarily because of conflicts between two people, often, people just drift apart, sometimes they move and find themselves in a different friend circle or priorities change, life changes happen.... And besides, the obvious joke is obvious, she was the "Sex", in "Sex and the City" most of the time, and frankly, this show isn't about sex. It isn't about these ravishing elaborate characters and all the sexual prowess and liaisons they were having, according to Carrie's old column anyway....

And look, for more gossipy aspects of this, there's timelines of events out there that you can find that give, perhaps way too much details about the behind-the-scenes dramas.... Apparently Kim Cattrall never got along with any of her co-stars, she didn't want to do the part anymore; she's the actual reason there wasn't a third movie, which apparently was where the original idea of killing Big and having Carrie on her own came from.... She's particularly upset at Sarah Jessica Parker and those two are not on speaking terms.... Honestly, I only kinda believe half these stories and rumors regarding these girls I don't think it's as salacious as people want to make it out. I'm sure they had issues over the years, and their relationships are fraught because of them now, but more than that, I think she just doesn't want to play the role anymore, and, you know what, fair. I don't know why she isn't interested in returning to the role anymore; it could be this personal drama, she could just not want to play the part and would rather do other things, apparently her stance on this was so strong they didn't even ask her to be apart of this series.... She's written off in the first episode, and only sporadically communicates with the other girls in the show through text messages in London. Her presence is still there, and they mention a smart way in which they describe the major rift between them....

But, we just didn't need her for this. Friendships don't always last forever; why shouldn't somebody have left the group over a fight, or a change of location or whatever.... Weirdly, I think the decision is realistic, and "And Just Like That", is going for realism. Again "Sex and the City" was based around Carrie's column, and Samantha was the most eccentric and sexual friend, but there isn't a column anymore. There's not even a voiceover anymore; we're not seeing an interpretation of what these characters lives are at anymore, we're seeing, where they're at now. We're getting older, but more real characters and seeing their struggling lives and emotional evolutions, and it's not entirely surrounding the characters sex lives. 

So, that's two characters, essentially taken out of the show now, and both of which are vast improvements. 

(Actually there's three, but the last one is a little sadder, and also, was not a change that effected the writing or the series much. Willie Garson's illness and eventual passing led to them writing his character, Stanford. being written out of the show, although from I can tell it didn't actually effect the arc of the series and that the plans were unchanged in that regard [Also Sidenote to the Sidenote: It was always a stupid and wrong idea to have him Stanford and Tony get married!!!! BAD MPK! Bad!]) 

We get to see Carrie, long pass her single girl days having to deal with the severe grief of losing her husband, and also, having to deal with the fact that they lost one of their core members of their friend circle. One that forced King's hand, and the other, pure luck and good timing by King. This is another unfortunate comparison to Lorre, where he seemed to sometimes only evolve a series after his hand is forced as well. 

I mean, even as I'm writing this commentary, King is still answering questions postulating about Samantha's presence in the next season, which will ultimately be virtual, if at all, and will almost assuredly not include Kim Cattrall, and yet he's also still very much writing her. Her absence is an ever-present part of the series. I like this change to the status quo and I like several of the other changes....

Including a big one that apparently I'm in the huge minority on, because there's some changes that are being vehemently criticized by the, quote-unquote "fans" of "Sex and the City". Most specifically,  Che, Sara Ramirez's character, a stand-up comic who runs the sex podcast that Carrie had taken a job work, and how they ends up having a relationship with Miranda, who inevitably leaves her career path, and her marriage to Steve in order to pursue Che. It's-, it's a lot, but I like it. 

Miranda also, turned out to be an alcoholic, and possibly has become a pothead..., honestly, that's not handled, great..., although it does put a new thought on all those cosmos the girls had over the years. 

Okay, Miranda, leaving her husband, yeah, that's-, that probably should've happened a lot sooner to be fair. The whole thing with Miranda is that she's always been completely contrast to any variation of modern romance ideas and tropes, and in that sense, it's always been, somewhat questionable that she'd even get married to begin with, despite Steve being a pretty ideal partner for her. I should also note that this storyline, is actually very similar to Cynthia Nixon's own coming out. She was married for most of the run on "Sex and the City" and had two children with her then-husband, but then they got divorce and she started dating her current spouse since '04. She self-identifies as "queer" now, so this story is very reminiscent of her own life, which, I don't really think has been done much in this franchise, oddly enough. Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall are notable for having very little in common with their characters' personal lives over the run of the show; Kristin Davis, actually did adopt a child, but after the show ended, and that's basically all that's similar to her character; in fact, she's the only one of the four in real life who's always been single and seems the most antagonistic towards marriage and long-lasting relationships in her real life. Yeah, who knew, Charlotte was the real Miranda. (That also, might be where Miranda's alcoholism came from, Davis has been public about her struggles in the past, but that could just be me speculating) 

This is actually quite in contrast to the original series, where Cynthia does have a flirtation with lesbianism, but ultimately decides that it wasn't for her. I should note that sometimes, MPK's attention to detail regarding continuity can be, particularly selective at times. This is why Stanford and Tony's entire marriage is just a huge WTF middle finger, 'cause it was very much clear that these two characters had no real business, ever being together in the first place. (Like, MPK, the two gay male characters you're just shoving together, after it's established they shouldn't be together! You're gay! As you've pointed out before, do you just, get married to the nearest gay guy in your friend circle as well just to have a wedding with Liza Minelli showing up!?!? Like, I'm sure you would, but do you!? Do you really!? [Ugh! I'm sorry, to keep mentioning some of this but "Sex and the City 2" was so fucking stupid...]) However, he usually kinda got away with it a lot of the time, because he could depict the characters' sudden major changes, as character growth and evolution. 

Sometimes, it's still kinda questionable though.... Like, there's a scene in this season, where Charlotte is accidentally caught by her daughter, about to give her husband a blowjob, which weirdly, gets made fun of by Carrie and Miranda, who, can't believe that she still does that. ([Shrugs] Maybe I'm just not in enough long-term relationships to know what the time limit on sexual acts are..., but that seems, funny, but not weird to me....) Yet, one of the very earliest episodes of the series, involves how Charlotte was a, ummmm-, I don't think this term was used as commonly as it is now, but she was essentially, a "pillow princess". I'm gonna let you guys look that up, but eventually that changed during the series, which, honestly, never felt that right with me. It kinda indicated that somebody's sexual preferences would/could evolve and/or change, because they met somebody else who they appreciated enough to do that with..., and now they thoroughly enjoy doing that sexual act.... 

Like,- maybe I'm in the minority on this, and others might disagree, but part of that I get, and part of that, I just feel is a little bit disingenuous. Like, I do get the idea that you would be more open to doing things you wouldn't normally do with the people you love the most, but on the other hand, it was pretty damn clear that this was just a flatout no-zone for her, and that shift was really severe. Like, it's more believable that she would change her religion for her man then she would suddenly be into giving blowjobs for her man, which, she actually did convert to Judaism for Harry, so in comparison, so I'm not pulling this out of my ass; like this seemed pretty drastic to those paying that close attention. I mean, it makes perfect sense in my fan theory of Carrie's column, but if my theory isn't correct, which it doesn't seem like it is, then that implies that MPK thinks that sexual acts that one is not interested in doing, could be overcome if the right person comes around, and that, just seems a little far-fetched to me.... I mean, maybe that's more common with blowjobs, but does Carrie also now like giving golden showers, it's just that she just wasn't able to do it for Bill, because he just wasn't the right guy for her...? Or does Miranda like eating ass now? I feel like even Dan Savage would be like, "I don't know about that..." Maybe I'm way off, feel free to tell me off  on Twitter, Facebook comments or comment on this blog if this is just my imagination running amuck.  

Now, is Miranda's shift to being, head-over-heels dumbstruck-in-love with Che, after a few jokes, a few drinks, a few hits and a few, um, fingers..., too severe a change in the same way....? Ehh, I would argue it's not, but mainly because we've had so much time to show this evolution; I can totally see how it could be though. Especially to those who don't seem to like Che for various reasons..., I'm not even gonna comment on those fansite debates, other then to say that, mostly, I don't agree. I like Che, I don't know if they and Miranda are destined to be together, but I do think they is good for who Miranda is right now. And she even has a speech at the end, that seems to very well justify her shift. I'll quote here from the episode: 

"Am I not allowed to change a little bit? Or a lot? Or change back again, if I feel like it? Do I have to follow my own rigid rules until the day that I die?"

It's a good question when it comes to characters with long-form narratives like television series. Do they have to stay the same as they always were? It's also oddly an interesting question, for writing these characters too though, and I can easily interpret this as Michael Patrick King talking to us, the viewers, and the critics. (And it's not the first time he'd use Miranda to express POV's like this from him, metaphorically, that's been a well-established precedent, most notably during the last season when she was the one who expressed the most concern of Carrie giving up her column to move to Paris....) But yeah, can he just simply, change a character extremely, just because he feels like it? I mean, of course the answer is, "Yes," but is there a line? 

This question, would be easier to answer, if there wasn't one last new threadline in the show that I haven't talked about yet. See, when "Sex and the City" came out, a lot of the frank discussions of sex was considered taboo and controversial and groundbreaking, but another aspect of the series was how much the discussion was about the modern-day aspects of dating and relationships, and especially in New York City at the time. The show was trendy in general, but it was also very aware of the sexual trends of the day, from knowing the newest drinks at the hottest places for singles on a night out on the town, to knowing what the newest and hottest sex toys were and all other aspects of sex, in-between. 

The big aspect of the "sex" discussion now though, isn't so much sex, as it is, gender.... I didn't mention this before, but Che, like their actress Sara Ramirez, is non-binary. What does that mean? 

(Google search)

Hold on, I want to get this right..., what the hell does that...- It means, that Che doesn't identify as any gender. And yes, there's much discussion around pronouns. None of these common discussion points of today are actually new btw; people think they're new, but these are actually are debates that have been happening for quite a long time, it's just only now, that this discussion at the forefront of our pop cultural awareness..., and anyway it's all over the show. 

Partly because it's "trendy", but also, only now are we really beginning to get a real grasp on the idea of a person's genderfluidity. (Fluidity or fluidness? Gender fluidness?- I don't know....) Not just Che either, Charlotte's daughter Rose, is now, Rock, much to Charlotte's bafflement. And frankly, I'm sure a lot of peoples. It's a plotpoint that several of the kid's at Rock's school have changed their name and identity, some multiple times, and now, Rose has decided to become Rock. When it comes to kids who are trying to figure out who/what they are and where they identify on the spectrum, there's even a debate going on in the community on how serious to take teenagers who may wish to go through such things as gender-reassignment surgery and whatnot, and this isn't an easy debate. Teenagers who go through these kind of identity troubles of all kinds, sexual preference and gender identity-based have it, probably worst off than most anybody; they lead every depressing statistic you can think of regarding teenagers, and then you can add into the equation if any of them happen to be cursed by geography or their families. On the other hand, teenagers can be annoying edgelord little shits, who will do anything to shock and appall everyone around them, including doing some really stupid shit, and perhaps that does play a part in inflating some of the numbers of the rise in youths making such decisions regarding their gender and gender identity.

I get both points here to be honest, and I don't think the answer is entirely one or the other, although I still have a really hard time thinking that most teenagers, even the most acerbic ones, will go so far as to change their names and genders just to piss off their parents in a trendy manner, but I could be wrong on that too, I don't really know how this is gonna play out in the future, either within the series, or for that matter, when "And Just Like That..." is looked back upon years from now, and on that note I don't want to judge. I mean, a lot of what happened on "Sex and the City" would not fly today, and they were looking at a lot of the modern trends in sex and gender back then, much of which was controversial in it's day that are now fairly common and accepted,  and some that are not, so.... Besides, whether it's good or bad, I think it's always better to portray stuff that's happening at the time when creating a piece of film or television that taking place in the time that it's made..., so, in terms of the more political sides of this debate, I don't feel qualified to really discuss that more thoroughly. 

However, in terms of MPK's approach to writing, you could definitely see how this modern popular discussion of gender identity in all it's forms, could pretty easily be a way for him to cop out and get away with changing things pretty drastically in his work, and not get too called out for shifting things so much. 

Or, also, he could use it to just to be as outrageous as he wants. 

It's weird, when Michael Patrick King's work is good, it's almost a conundrum in how you can manage to bend over backwards being able to defend it against his truly harshest critics, and yet when he's bad, it makes you think television as a entire artistic medium might need to die, and this line is really thin. And I'm definitely not saying he always nailed it with "Sex...", or even with "And Just Like That...", there's definitely moments where his worst tendencies do creep in, especially with some of the race stuff he has Charlotte and Miranda go through in the beginning, but for the most part, this show, (And again, I do stress, "Show" here, this is still not a franchise that should ever do movies....) it seems to be his sweet spot. Even he has said, that the main reason this show is getting made, isn't because of popular demand or any monetary gains or other kinds of economic or Hollywood cynicism, it's because he just likes writing these characters. He has worked on several other projects over the years, even some really decent ones, but he keeps coming back to "Sex and the City" and I really don't think it's because we or even HBO was craving it. I mean, I'm sure they paid him and everyone else fine, but he can basically do anything he wants now, so he's bringing these characters back. 

(Shrugs)

Alright, fair enough. I said I wanted "Sex and the City" to die; I didn't say I wanted the characters to die, and I don't. (Although now that Big's dead, I guess I am okay with his character at least dying. [Shrugs] Oh well, close enough.) But yeah, the characters are there, they've just moved on. There's still sex, and there's still New York City, but they're not stumbling through New York's dating world of young, single 20-40somethings that they were in twenty years ago; now they're having different adventures. They've become different people, and are now traversing this adult world of grief, parenthood, yes, new love and sexual evolution, and even the aftermaths of broken relationships.

There's nothing left for Carrie, or anybody else to wonder about. That's not to say they know everything now, but they don't just sit around day-drinking contemplating what they don't know; they've moved on and move forward with whatever comes next. 

And yeah, I like that ultimately. 

I don't know if I'll still like it after another season or two, there's still a decent chance that they'll screw it up again but, I do like it after one season, and that's already one season more than I ever thought I would put up with, with this franchise again. It's weird, usually the risk with continuing franchises, long after their original runs is the risk that you'll retroactively hurt the original franchise in either prestige, perception, quality, or potentially all three and "Sex and the City" went headfirst down in all three when they decided to keep going before. More than most, it's kinda amazing and somewhat dumbfounding that they somehow, now, managed to turn it around so long after I, and I'm more sure most everybody else had written them off, literally, just like that.... 

It doesn't mean I'm not gonna remain skeptical of other franchises doing these reboots, sequel series, revivals, relaunches, etc. long afterwards,- (I know, based on the things I've heard,  I'm not looking forward to finally seeing whatever-the-hell Disney apparently did to "Chip & Dale: Rescue Rangers" right now.... [I hope they at least didn't screw up Gadget...])  but it does give me some hope and potential that some of them might indeed be able to revive their franchise's brand and interest for me, in positive ways that makes their legacy more secure. A lot of them, even the good ones, are often just pointless nostalgia-bait cashgrabs, and somehow "Sex and the City" of all of them, ended up not being one. That's honestly kinda amazing. 

Maybe there is some stuff out there left to wonder about.... 

Still, definitely hoping that there's no more attempts at copycatting "Sex..." though...