My most memorable moment in Sex and the City’s six seasons was Carrie’s move to Paris and her longing for her girls.
She was sobbing down a pay phone – that detail alone tells you how long ago this was (the last two episodes screened in 2004). And she managed to gulp these words: ‘I miss you guys!’
That’s exactly my sentiment, having been deprived of knowing how my four best friends – Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda – have been doing in the years since.
I was going through divorce, loss, grief, turmoil, and loneliness.
With the endless reruns of the films and my singleton, they literally ate me up for many nights. I wouldn’t have made it without them.
But I’ve been longing for something new. These are the things I need most now. To laugh, I must snort out something from my nose. To wet myself, because some of us are of an age now, aren’t we? I would like to be understood and felt part of something.
Kristin Davis, Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon pictured in New York City earlier this year
Happily, and at long, long last, And Just Like That – to coin Carrie’s inimitable catchphrase –the gals are back.
Minus Kim Cattrall’s Samantha Jones, who has inexplicably gone to live in London, and isn’t returning their calls.
But still, even without the glorious resident man-eater, and I’m certain Sex and the City invented this word: Yay!
The first two episodes were the most frightening. Don’t let me down. Please don’t become grown-up and boring. You can still look beautiful in lovely clothes. Enjoy the funky music. Please can Carrie not have thrown away her tutu for being way too ‘young’ for her.
Everything seems to be going well at first on Manhattan’s island. Sarah Jessica Parker? Your courage and determination are admirable. She was radiant and glowing in her later years, without clearly having done any work.
Only Charlotte (Kristin) is the most Courteney Cox-like of all the girls. Never mind! She’s still an uptight sweetheart – to husband Harry, who’s fooling around on a skateboard in her penthouse: ‘You better not have hands on those walls!’
Men have aged poorly and are more reserved than ever, which is just what it should be.
As the fifth cast member, the wardrobe is equally stunning: gloves, hats and necklaces that are as thick as an adult Python. You can find corsages as large as hippos.
Carrie, in blue-spangled Manolos that she wore to Big’s proposal is wearing them. Ah. It’s all right in the world.
The women haven’t changed one bit. Because we are still the same, aren’t we, wanting to dress as fabulously as ever even as we hurtle towards 50, 60, even 70?
“And Just Like That” will feature the beloved characters Carrie Bradshaw, Miranda Hobbs (Nixon) and Charlotte York (Davis), who are now in their 50s and explore the complex realities of friendship and life.
Carrie is my twin, still married to her Apple computer, and a podcaster. We’re still twins. Phew. I haven’t been left behind.
There are the one-liners we’ve grown to love and expect, and these flow as freely as the Cosmopolitans.
‘What’s Barneys?’ asks Carrie’s young, woke podcast colleague, oblivious to the iconic status of New York’s luxury department store, our heroine’s favourite haunt. ‘Now, that’s offensive,’ she quips.
Teasing one another about your age is the best way to make humour. In one scene, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), commendably and chicly silver, retorts to Charlotte, resolutely bottle brunette: ‘No, my grey hair doesn’t age me, it ages YOU.’
In another, Miranda’s husband Steve carefully removes his hearing aid during a child’s awful racket of a concert. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ as Samantha used to say.
I do that! I also see myself in Miranda when she’s forced to endure two hours of tween Mozart – discreetly unscrewing the small bottle of wine she’s stashed in her handbag in order to get through the ordeal.
Now thanks to Miranda, I have a new name for it: ‘Purse wine’. The similarities don’t end there. ‘I’m 55!’ she shouts later in the episode. ‘I need to pee!’ They are all still me. Thank you.
Now, like many women, I feel visible. Charlotte is still wearing big-skirted Oscar de la Renta, which she foists on her reluctant daughter Rose with the line: ‘It’s not even poufy!’
The best part? Carrie still lives in her lovely apartment. She is now happily married with Big, the love of her entire life.
She might shop now for fashion and food, but this episode shows that there is hope for women who are self-centered, have no children, or make more sense than money.
Sarah Jessica Parker with Chris Noth, at the And Just Like That premiere in New York.
But then, once I’d got over my initial excitement, just like seeing a long-lost friend at a party – as the late actor Willie Garson, who died in September, appeared in his final scenes I actually shouted, ‘Oh, Stanford! I love you!’ – it all got a little less yay.
Some of the acting seems a little stilted. Predictably, it’s all very woke.
Trans people can be found in public loos. There are far too many references and quips about Covid, lockdown that I don’t know the meaning of. Do we need to be mwah-mwah, or can we not? Cares who cares?
Carrie sometimes seems to be intimidated by the new, more woke and out-there world. In one instance, our heroine, who as we fans all know, takes no nonsense from anyone, takes notes from a shaven-headed lesbian: ‘You can’t just sit there being an uptight cis married lady giggling.’ Um, yes, she can!
Another time, she returns home after being criticized by her podcast host for being coy. Are you a wicked person?
Sometimes the humor seems a bit too innocent. Such as when Carrie was mugged at gunpoint, told to hand over a bag and retorts, ‘It’s a baguette.’
Or Samantha, spotting a hunk in the desert: ‘Lawrence of my labia!’ They’re certainly not the kind that make you snort vodka out of your nose.
Then, episode 1 is almost over. I am unable to breathe because of the shocking events.
And I’m back, inextricably woven into the weft and warp of these women’s lives. Oh no. Oh my god no. Carrie arrives home to discover that Big died of heart failure while taking a hot shower following too much cycling on the Peloton.
It was as simple as that. Just like that.
Happily, and at long, long last, And Just Like That – to coin Carrie’s inimitable catchphrase –the gals are back, writes Liz Jones
Most heart-breaking of all, the disco classic by Candi Staton – you know the one, You Got the Love – plays over her bowed, artfully caramel and cream highlighted head.
Fans of the series will immediately recall the song that played in the final minutes of each episode many years ago.
That wonderful ending, when Big called Carrie on the tiny, pink, spangled mobile she’d finally been forced to get, and said, ‘I’m a comin’.’
With a smile and inner happiness, she had closed the door. That scene still haunts me whenever I feel overwhelmed by life.
Suddenly, with this dramatic twist, this so-called ‘girly’, ‘gossipy’ programme – over the years, it dealt with cancer, infertility, kinky sex, poverty, impotence, Alzheimer’s and on and on and on – has hit us in the solar plexus once more.
All this “woke” stuff is absurd. It is absurd to live in nice apartments. Men are unpredictable. What about clothes or girlfriends? They’re eternal.
Carrie looks broken even though she is not perfect. Self-respect is a key part of dressing up. Clothes can be considered armour.
To care about fashion is not frivolous; and, boy, haven’t the clothes been criticised enough over the decades by feminists and men, who really need to understand THIS PROGRAMME IS NOT FOR YOU!
Female friendship is the main theme of this series. Girls are there to rub our backs, and spoon us, and never, ever leave us because without friends, we’re the poorest people on the planet.
At the funeral, Big’s coffin – ‘It’s not rented!’ Carries assures us – is covered in breathtakingly beautiful white flowers. She hands the display to Carries. She signs it simply with Samantha Jones.
It hurts my throat. I’m gone. I’m gone… This is real. This is real life. This is the greatest TV show ever.