I was a huge fan of the original series of Sex and the City just like most women of my age. It used to air on Thursday nights at 9pm which was perfect timing for a) Hubby to be at Squash and b) Kiddo to be asleep.
I had a ritual. I’d shower, pour some wine, break out whatever little treat I’d managed to hide away just for this moment, and plonk on the couch just in time to hear…
After episode one I was like, Okay, this is interesting. Then episode two came and I was like, Sex and the… Nope. I’ve now watched episode three and I have come down off my high horse somewhat. I will continue to watch but only to see if Samantha comes back from London with a sexy young Duke on her arm!
Spoilers ahead…
I’m not going to go on about episode one. It’s a ‘where we’ve been for 20 years’ kind of intro. Yeah ladies, us too.
I’m going to jump to THAT scene with Charlotte’s gorgeous daughter (the adopted one who refers to herself as a rescue. I’ve done that… lol) playing Beethoven (Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 27 No. 2 ‘Moonlight’: III. Presto agitato) and Big on the Peloton bike.
As a Public Service Announcement, the scene is a good one. Carrie comes home to see Mr Big struggling to breathe on the floor of the shower…
And stands there.
Does fucking nothing.
I know some of us are fight, some are flight and some are freeze but wow this scene was hard to watch. For the record, I am fight. I will get shit done if you are in trouble. I got you.
Hubby and I looked at each other and said variations on the theme of, ‘Call the ambulance, Carrie. Do fucking CPR, Carrie.’
Carrie does not got you.
Okay, then she does something: she freaks. Man-handles him under the stream of water from the shower and cries as he dies. The narration in Carrie’s voice as always, says ‘And just like that, Big died.’
I am aware that people die even after CPR. They die while the ambulance is roaring through the streets to reach them.
But, as far as I am concerned, Carrie killed Big with her lack of knowledge of the basics of first aid. Or did the writers kill Big because Carrie couldn’t be edgy and ‘bring her Pussy to the table’ or whatever the line was, in her new podcast. Apparently a middle-class, married, educated white woman can’t talk about masturbation on a podcast without giggling.
Okay I’ll buy that for a regular Lady, Charlotte for example, but surely not Carrie Bradshaw? We’re not talking about any middle-class white woman here… This woman wrote an intelligent and erudite sex and relationships column in the 90s. I don’t know about you, but for me, and yes I am a middle-class, married, Cis, educated white woman, the writing was clunky.
The show is obviously set in the summer of 2021 with all it’s “Covid was so last year,” references but the awkwardness of the characters around ‘new’ technology was weird.
The encounters with black characters were mostly cringey. Is it possible to believe that these women could exist in their Uptown Worlds without meeting anyone who doesn’t look like exactly like them? I refuse to believe that Miranda could work as a Corporate lawyer for 30 years in NYC and not have black colleagues or clients. Is that possible? I’ve never even been to NYC so maybe I don’t know shit. Surely she would have at least read ‘Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race,’ by Reni Eddo-Lodge.
I’m picturing the writers’ room as a group of middle-class, Cis, educated white women Googling Urban Dictionary like their lives depend on it.
Charlotte is same-old-Charlotte. Social climber, mom-ish, desperate to be loved. Steve is a deaf, cranky old man. Carrie giggles, as I said, at mention of the word pussy. Samantha is licking her wounds in London. Miranda punishes her son by screaming at him, ‘no Louisa for a week!’ She is banning him from seeing his girlfriend for a week but the language used reduces Louisa to an object. In general, the script makes Louisa even less, a teenage girl reduced to her sexuality.
Big’s funeral is elegant and stylised and attended mostly by awful people and stereotypes. He was the only fun character. He lived a Big life. He was successful and wealthy, sure. He like the finer things in life. But, I get the feeling he would have preferred a send-off with more cigars and fewer assholes.
The only fun scene to watch was Miranda trying to recover her dignity after a making a fool of herself in front of Carrie’s podcast boss. Miranda and Che had actual real chemistry and of course there’s more to this in episode three!
I used to love these characters. I used to want to be their friend. I used to want their lives, even for just a week. Now, I don’t want to be any of them. I will keep watching to see what shenanigans ensue. I might ever start my old Thursday Night ritual again for laughs.