And Just Like That...: Little Black Dress
December 10, 2021 2:05 PM - Season 1, Episode 2 - Subscribe
Second episode of the Sex and the City reboot.
I know I posted basically the same thing in the ep 1 thread but wow, the Samantha stuff just feels so incredibly real to me. I had a friendship that I thought would never end...just...end. It still bothers me, 6 years later. And I'm the same age as these girls, so it's just really echoing for me.
posted by BlahLaLa at 3:03 PM on December 10, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by BlahLaLa at 3:03 PM on December 10, 2021 [3 favorites]
I watched the two episodes one after the other, so I'm just going to post here.
Whew that was rough. I am also probably going to watch the whole thing? It's been a long time since I've had a good hate-watch. (Will it be worse than the Gilmore Girls specials? Gotta tune in to find out.) In episode one it felt like everyone was very awkward around each other, especially the opening conversation about Samantha. And was Stanford always that terrible? Sadly Willie Garson isn't around anymore, and I wish the show had used him better than it is so far.
I also cannot stand any of the looming plotlines having to do with Miranda. The professor forgave her way too easily; the sex stuff with Brady seems really gross. She yelled at Che, who seems like a cool character, and then Che smoothed everything over and went out of their way to make her feel comfortable? Miranda didn't even say sorry in that scene. In the old series Miranda was the character who was best at calling Carrie out on her bullshit, so I'm not excited about this direction for her. But if they're going to make her a Karen, actually commit to it rather than giving her outs all over the place. Sigh.
The Fug Girls have been posting pictures from the set and speculating that Big would die for a while, so the death wasn't much of a shock. The funeral and grief scenes felt pretty real, though, and it was a big tonal shift from all the other zany hijinks that look to be coming our way from the preview. I suspect it'll be like the movies all over again.
In conclusion, I'm simultaneously wondering why this is the franchise that needed to get an update, and also playing right into HBO's hands because I'm pretty sure I'm watching at least a couple more episodes.
posted by j.r at 12:05 AM on December 11, 2021 [5 favorites]
Whew that was rough. I am also probably going to watch the whole thing? It's been a long time since I've had a good hate-watch. (Will it be worse than the Gilmore Girls specials? Gotta tune in to find out.) In episode one it felt like everyone was very awkward around each other, especially the opening conversation about Samantha. And was Stanford always that terrible? Sadly Willie Garson isn't around anymore, and I wish the show had used him better than it is so far.
I also cannot stand any of the looming plotlines having to do with Miranda. The professor forgave her way too easily; the sex stuff with Brady seems really gross. She yelled at Che, who seems like a cool character, and then Che smoothed everything over and went out of their way to make her feel comfortable? Miranda didn't even say sorry in that scene. In the old series Miranda was the character who was best at calling Carrie out on her bullshit, so I'm not excited about this direction for her. But if they're going to make her a Karen, actually commit to it rather than giving her outs all over the place. Sigh.
The Fug Girls have been posting pictures from the set and speculating that Big would die for a while, so the death wasn't much of a shock. The funeral and grief scenes felt pretty real, though, and it was a big tonal shift from all the other zany hijinks that look to be coming our way from the preview. I suspect it'll be like the movies all over again.
In conclusion, I'm simultaneously wondering why this is the franchise that needed to get an update, and also playing right into HBO's hands because I'm pretty sure I'm watching at least a couple more episodes.
posted by j.r at 12:05 AM on December 11, 2021 [5 favorites]
I know the Miranda/Karen/White Saviour plot line is supposed to be cringey, but oh my Lord, it feels badly written.
I was thinking the same thing. Like, the topic of well intentioned white liberals getting overzealous and making asses of themselves is interesting - I think TV could use better models of how to navigate that - but damn, they're just banging the topic with a sledgehammer here.
Also, they're piling a LOT on Miranda here in multiple directions. The job change/back to school thing... Looks like marriage issues are coming down the pike... she's turning into a day drinking drunk (seriously, who walks into what looks like a dive bar at 10:45 am on their way to school and asks for "a glass of chablis"?). And then with her son? She's somehow cool enough to allow her son to have sex in the apartment, but flips her lid when she catches him taking a hit of weed? That doesn't click for me. Freaking out at your 17 year old smoking cannabis seems like a plot point from 15 years ago, before the entire cultural conversation and understanding surrounding cannabis changed. Like, the writers forgot to consider that she's been living in NYC the whole time while people starting changing their minds about weed - frankly, they ought to be writing that Miranda now does edibles.
Charlotte - they are hinting pretty heavily that one of her kids is gonna be trans. And I am very much here for girly-girl Charlotte losing her mind when her precious angel isn't a girl at all.
posted by dnash at 8:41 AM on December 11, 2021 [5 favorites]
I was thinking the same thing. Like, the topic of well intentioned white liberals getting overzealous and making asses of themselves is interesting - I think TV could use better models of how to navigate that - but damn, they're just banging the topic with a sledgehammer here.
Also, they're piling a LOT on Miranda here in multiple directions. The job change/back to school thing... Looks like marriage issues are coming down the pike... she's turning into a day drinking drunk (seriously, who walks into what looks like a dive bar at 10:45 am on their way to school and asks for "a glass of chablis"?). And then with her son? She's somehow cool enough to allow her son to have sex in the apartment, but flips her lid when she catches him taking a hit of weed? That doesn't click for me. Freaking out at your 17 year old smoking cannabis seems like a plot point from 15 years ago, before the entire cultural conversation and understanding surrounding cannabis changed. Like, the writers forgot to consider that she's been living in NYC the whole time while people starting changing their minds about weed - frankly, they ought to be writing that Miranda now does edibles.
Charlotte - they are hinting pretty heavily that one of her kids is gonna be trans. And I am very much here for girly-girl Charlotte losing her mind when her precious angel isn't a girl at all.
posted by dnash at 8:41 AM on December 11, 2021 [5 favorites]
The one bit of Miranda's freakout that resonated with me is simply the idea that for those of us in our mid-50s, cannabis was illegal and BAD AND SCARY and hey, it even had to be acquired from a freaking drug dealer for so long that it's been a bit of an awkward tonal shift as it moves into the mainstream. I've had to work pretty hard (internally) to process these feelings as I watch my own kid -- 18 -- have a very different relationship with it.
I do not yell at him and/or strangers about it, though, I assure you!
posted by BlahLaLa at 10:32 AM on December 11, 2021 [4 favorites]
I do not yell at him and/or strangers about it, though, I assure you!
posted by BlahLaLa at 10:32 AM on December 11, 2021 [4 favorites]
Oh absolutely... I totally agree about needing to process the change from "drugs are bad" to "eh, weed's like booze." Just, for me, like a comment in the episode 1 thread here about how it feels like the writers just woke up from a coma in 2021, I feel like Miranda would've already had to deal with this by now. Just feels a little blunt in the writing/execution of the plot point, to me.
posted by dnash at 5:08 PM on December 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by dnash at 5:08 PM on December 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
Does Chucky really try to mug people in the subway? I thought New York was gentrified now!
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:09 AM on December 14, 2021
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:09 AM on December 14, 2021
Also, they're piling a LOT on Miranda here in multiple directions.
Yeah, they're trying too hard with that, or something.
posted by BibiRose at 10:06 AM on December 14, 2021
Yeah, they're trying too hard with that, or something.
posted by BibiRose at 10:06 AM on December 14, 2021
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One of my most glamorous friends lost her husband too young this year, and she lives on the other side of the world, and when Carrie opened the card from Samantha, I must admit I sobbed.
Writing it without Samantha was always going to be a struggle, I feel like they've probably done as good of a job as they could in the circs. Though, it being TV, part of my brain is just expecting her to walk in as a big surprise reveal in a later episode even though she presumably won't.
I know the Miranda/Karen/White Saviour plot line is supposed to be cringey, but oh my Lord, it feels badly written. The fact they made it all fine by giving Miranda the chance to actually save Dr Nya Wallace on the subway felt like lazy white-middle-class-wish-fulfillment. "I've been really inappropriate, but I managed to do something heroic for a black woman so now my internalised racism is all wiped out, it's all OK, she knows I'm not really racist and we're going to be friends." I'd rather have seen her have to live with her discomfort.
posted by penguin pie at 2:25 PM on December 10, 2021 [7 favorites]