I dread the day a new episode of And Just Like That drops.
‘Thursdays are the new Friday’ is all the rage – until another season of And Just Like That comes along, and then those after work drinks turn into hate-watching Carrie Bradshaw have terrible phone sex or write her terrible book.
Thankfully, those days are numbered. It’s been confirmed the strange sequel to Sex and The City is ending after its current season with a two-part finale.
It’s been widely — and accurately — dubbed ‘the worst show on TV.’ That might sound extreme in a world where we still endure Mrs Brown’s Boys, but at least no one’s forcing us to watch that. Millions of Sex and the City fans who once worshipped Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte through the ’90s and ’00s have had no choice but to watch the legacy of their favourite show crash and burn,
There are just three episodes left until we wave goodbye to the pioneering women who quite literally changed the world. So many women had never felt so empowered by sex until they idolised Samantha Jones — sleeping with half of New York and unapologetically orgasming at full volume every night as she did it.
When I first saw the news, my instinct was ‘thank god’. I didn’t know how much more of it I could take but at the same time, there was an unexpected melancholy. I felt bereft – at least for the collective confusion and despair with fellow hate-watchers on social media.
I am glad to see the back of And Just Like That – but crushed it had to end this way.
The last four years have felt like meeting an old friend decades later only to find they’ve grown into a completely different person and everything they do makes you shudder with ick.
Miranda went from being so forthright, so determined, and so utterly brilliant in her 30s to becoming completely useless at every single corner of her life in her 50s.
When And Just Like That could – and should – have been the most aspirational television show in years, it just gave me a greater fear of becoming middle-aged. I’ll be useless at dating, end up with terrible comedian who plays video games and be unreasonably cruel to my husband, the love of my life, who has doted and loved me for more than 20 years.
She did, however, feel much more like Miranda in season 3 and her latest relationship with Joy felt more believable than anything else she’s done in And Just Like That.
Carrie was always the most frustrating character in Sex and The City. She was selfish and took no accountability for being a terrible friend and girlfriend – but had immaculate taste in shoes. She strutted through life with unrivalled delusion in sky-high Manolo Blahniks and we loved her for it.
She couldn’t have got any worse – and then in And Just Like That she hosted a podcast. Thankfully, that chapter of her life only lasted one series.
Charlotte remained largely the same but that in itself felt like a problem. She had no growth and her children were unbearable. At least we still had Harry.
If And Just Like That is going to redeem itself in anyway at all then it’s final moment has to be with Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha, together over brunch, cackling because Samantha has returned to New York after being chased out of the UK for sleeping with Prince William and three members of One Direction. ‘I got that watermelon sugar high, if you know what I mean ladies…’
Obviously, that won’t happen. It would take a miracle or the draining of Elon Musk’s bank account to get Kim Cattrall in a room with Sarah Jessica Parker again. And like Samantha’s last cameo that leaked weeks before it aired, I’m sure we would have heard all about it by now too.
Essentially, without Samantha, And Just Like That was doomed to fail. Miranda, Charlotte and even Carrie were god-given gifts in their own right but as And Just Like That proved, they were nothing without Samantha.
There has never been another Samantha, and there never could be. She was as outrageous as a character could possibly be while still being believable. Samantha was the embodiment of freedom – a freedom that few women even knew was possible. And then they did.
She made Sex And The City the force that it became. The only way to honour the show’s 27 year history, which must always be its legacy, is to have her back for one last scene.
Even if all we get is a glimpse of her back as Carrie walks in, pauses to soak in the fortune that is her friends, and takes a seat at the table beside Samantha, history will be kinder to And Just Like That.
Sadly, I can’t imagine a world where Just Like That fans will never get the reward they deserve for torturing themselves through three seasons of Carrie’s unforgivable life choices, the banality of Lisa Todd Wesley and the traumatic experience that was Che Diaz.
But if And Just Like That wants to be remembered for gifting Sex and The City fans with an unexpected new lease of life we never thought we’d get after the car crash that was Sex And The City 2 – instead of turning three trail-blazing women into completely useless boomers – then there is only one woman who can save it.
And that woman is Samantha.
And Just Like That is available to stream on NOW.
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