And just like that, the rumors have been confirmed as real. But now, we have questions we will want answered once the revival of Sex and the City rolls around.
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Having overstayed its welcome in the waiting room of rumors, the almost too cool and well-played surprise announcement of Sarah Jessica Parker on Instagram felt more of like a long-deserved exhale of relief from everyone involved in the highly anticipated and hotly discussed revisit of the beloved HBO series created by Darren Star based on the Candace Bushnell of the same name. Spanning a lifespan of 94 episodes, six seasons, and two feature films since its debut in 1998, Sex and the City has cemented itself as a pop culture mainstay. Informing and inspiring men and women across generations, no one can contest the impact the series had. In fact, here we are, 23 years later, still taking great lengths to discuss and dissect the intersecting lives of Carrie Bradshaw, Samantha Jones, Samantha York, and Miranda Hobbes over our own brunches, sipping cosmos, of course.
Following their last adventure in 2010, which took them to the breathtaking expanse of Abu Dhabi, there has been a consistent clamor for a third outing. However, even with glimmers of hope, the film never materialized even with a story and script in tow. The apparent challenge? Kim Cattrall downright refusing to take part of the cinematic undertaking, explaining that she had played the part well past its due and that she would like to take on premises that have never been heard before. “I’m lucky to have a choice, not that I haven’t worked there. It is something that I am very lucky to have and I am very protective of it. I wouldn’t be good to do something that I really didn’t want to do,” she says in an interview with the Women’s Fiction Award Podcast. Well, good on her for standing her ground, really. But let’s be honest, in as much as we are thrilled to see a new iteration of Sex and the City come our way, Samantha Jones, as well as her unapologetic and unabashed femininity will be truly missed.
With that settled and out of the way, it seems that it is full steam ahead for Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis, and Cynthia Nixon, as well as of Michael Patrick King, who is set to join the girls as executive producer of the 10-episode order by HBO Max. “The series will follow Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte as they navigate the journey from the complicated reality of life and friendship in their 30s to the even more complicated reality of life and friendship in their 50s,” details the streaming arm of network, HBO. Seeing as there will be a considerable shift in the narrative, there is no greater change to this next chapter than a different title. While it still is Sex and the City, the limited series will be known as, And Just Like That, which is one of Carrie Bradshaw’s many articulations of her ruminations as a sex and relationships columnist in the fun, fierce, and fashionably fabulous show. Despite that other major change, Sarah Jessica Parker assures us that “we have some new stories to tell. We are excited.”
“I couldn’t help but wonder,” writes Sarah Jessica Parker on Instagram today. “Where are they now?” Not only is this a very Carrie Bradshaw thing to say in the signature narration of Sex and the City, it also parlays into a question many fans have been wondering for years on end. What happens next?
Little is known about the revival, which is set to start production in the late spring. So, while we content ourselves with the snippet that woke us to our senses this week, here we have questions that immediately took over our inquisitive minds and hearts that we will want answered with the new lifeline of the Sex and the City canon. But being that this set is in New York city, which is a character in itself, anything is possible.
And just like that, the story continues.
What Happens To Samantha Jones?
To no one’s surprise, Kim Cattrall is not involved with And Just Like That, which begs us to wonder, how are they going to explain her absence, being that she was integral to the original run of the show? After all, nobody embodied the liberty and expression of sex from the four than Miss Samantha Jones.
A lot of rumors and suggestions have been floating online, such as the more obvious killing her off (she did have cancer and survived it in the show) to a harsh glazing over her as if she didn’t exist. But being that this is promises an exploration of these women in their 50s, we assume that the beloved character will be written in somehow. Fans have given their two cents, saying the role should be recast with Jennifer Coolidge being thrown in the mix. Meanwhile, entertainment pundits have also suggested that they take this as an opportunity to add more diversity to the very white cast by introducing perhaps a woman of color to the fold.
Does Her Personal Fan Theory Play Out In This Revival?
In an interview with news.com.au, Sarah Jessica Parker shared a theory she thought of herself. “Sometimes I’m like, we don’t even know if Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte were real. Sometimes I’m like, hmmm, just to mess with myself. Think about it: did Carrie make them up? She’s telling a story every week,” she reveals, which made us choke on our way-before-happy-hour-cocktail. “This is [Carrie’s] point-of-view, it’s almost always her point-of-view.”
Okay, as strange and off-kilter as this may sound, as fan theories tend to be, this could hold up in the new Sex and the City series. It could be convenient too, especially when it comes to explaining what will happen to Samantha Jones. “When Carrie went to Paris and left her computer, for the first time, Carrie wasn’t telling the story. In the entire run of the series, if you think about it for a second, right? She left her computer, which was the conduit through which the audience knows about Charlotte, Miranda, [and] Samantha,” she says. “These friendships, real or not real, as described were beyond a source of joy and connection and a way of relating, they were a necessity.”
Is There Going To Be A Passing Of The Torch?
At the end of the first Sex and the City film, just as the foursome toasted “to us and the next 50” and the next phase of their lives, there in the same corner of New York city existed different groups of girls coming together for their own new beginnings. Will they meet younger contemporaries and counterparts over the course of And Just Like That? And more importantly, will this symbolic and hypothetical coming together usher in a new age of Sex and the City?
Will They Be Incorporating Current Events, Social Issues And Realities?
A lot has happened in New York since Sex and the City first charmed us in 1998 with its now famous opening credits of Carrie Bradshaw traipsing along the city in a tutu—and getting cab splashed along the way. A lot has happened in New York since the show ended in 2004. A lot has happened in New York and the world since the two films premiered in 2008 and 2010. Needless to say, the New York that we know now is completely different and cannot be separated in a bubble of fiction. With the landscape of television and entertainment completely different from what it once was, will And Just Like That be braver and take on current events and social issues and realities such as gender inequality, racism, and the pandemic? When Will & Grace was revived in 2017, it became an even more daring comedy show as it dealt with everything, including sexual abuse and politics with great aplomb. Now, will Sex and the City follow suit and do the same?
Why Couldn’t They Just Let It Be?
For many followers and fans of the show, the series was and is untouchable. As intriguing and illuminating as the series was, it ended so beautifully, giving them all a closure that they deserved. But then they gave in to the commercial clamor of a film, which wasn’t entirely unforgivable the first time. But the second time? In as much of an escape as it was, we certainly could have lived without it.
Now, there are stories that need to be told the first groundbreaking time, just as much as it can be revisited, if and when it is necessary. Sex and the City, while not without its faults and imperfections, was just right for the time. While we are grateful for all the expositions of entertainment that followed suit, we would be okay if we just had that. However, with the possibilities hanging on the horizon of Carrie Bradshaw, Charlotte York, and Miranda Hobbes, we are cautiously optimistic with the truths and realizations that And Just Like That will bring to the characters and to the audience who will take to this series just as it did with Sex and the City. Fingers crossed they do this justice or else, the Manolo Blahniks and Jimmy Choos are coming off.
