From the moment that Carrie Bradshaw’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) “Big” love keeled over from a heart attack in the series premiere, it was clear that And Just Like That, Max’s continuation of Sex and the City, was going to be a very different animal than its predecessor. After all, the HBO show’s six seasons and two feature film follow-ups were essentially spent toying with the “will-they-won’t-they” of Carrie and Big’s perennially on-again, off-again relationship. Big’s death shook the story in such a way that would forever change the dynamic of the Sex and the City universe.
The result was an incredibly shaky first season, which navigated unnecessary COVID subplots, awkward time jumps, copious green-and-blue screens, and one very suspect, triangular gray wig plopped on top of Cynthia Nixon’s head. Looking back, that dubious chignon was the harbinger of And Just Like That’s darkness. Co-creators Darren Star and Michael Patrick King tried every trick in the book to distract us from their flailing efforts to replicate the show’s magic in a drastically different city.
It turns out that—like Carrie herself, as she mourned the death of her husband—all And Just Like That… really needed was time. In Season 2, which premieres June 22 on Max, And Just Like That… skips down the list of everything that was off, underwritten, or just plain inconceivably bad about the first season, correcting them one by one. The characters are no longer hyper-focused on losing their fourth best friend, Kim Cattrall’s Samantha Jones. Carrie, Miranda (Nixon), and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) spend far less time languishing in their own subplots and more of the season finding their strength together. And perhaps the most shocking change of all: Those new tertiary characters are now downright lovable—yes, even Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez)!
Season 2 of And Just Like That has all of the confidence of Sex and the City, without fighting tooth and nail to replicate its predecessor. Instead, viewers will be treated to effortlessly entertaining, wholly realistic character arcs, not a mish-mash of ideas that never coalesce. The glamour of Carrie Bradshaw’s world has returned, and all of that groundwork laid in Season 1 is finally paying off. Hello, lover! It’s so good to see you again.
From the opening scene of the Season 2 premiere, the sense of levity is palpable. A montage of the cast, set to Elton John and Britney Spears’ “Hold Me Closer” remix—a song choice that feels joyful instead of trying to be down with the young people—serves as our check-in to see how everyone is doing. All of the girls emerge from rooms in their apartments to partners or husbands awaiting them, admiring their lovers in return. The sequence immediately resolves a complaint that many fans had last season: Where was all the fucking? Thank God; there is still some sex in this city.
Well, except for Nya Wallace (Karen Pittman), who is alone after her already estranged, musician husband left to go on tour. But this, too, resolves a problem that the first season had: There was too much time spent trying to get fans emotionally invested in the relationships of new characters, when all we wanted to do was get to know the women alone, first. Nya’s husband being largely out of the picture is a godsend, and the writers find similarly constructive ways to balance developing the rest of the fresh faces with their relationship dramas.
These characters no longer exist simply to give the rest of the cast something to do, they function like real, busy, complicated New Yorkers now. And Just Like That was an opportunity for a franchise that had always been extremely white to finally introduce some authentic New York City diversity into the mix. But viewers spent a great deal of Season 1 suffering through tired jokes about Miranda, Charlotte, and Carrie in teeth-chattering worry over saying something unintentionally racist to their new friends. Maybe that’s relatable to a subsection of wannabe-progressive white women in their fifties, but it came at the expense of getting to see the women of color in the cast thrive outside of their ties to the core three ladies.
Such is not the case this time around. Lisa Todd Wexley (Nicole Ari Parker) steps out of Charlotte’s shadow for plenty of electrifying, high-fashion moments of her own. Seema Patel (Sarita Choudhury) is absolutely hilarious, still chain-smoking up a storm and screwing every man in Manhattan. But she’s now less like this show’s answer to Samantha, becoming a three-dimensional powerhouse. And watching Nya figure out how to navigate New York with a wedding ring but without a husband is as amusing as it is heartbreaking, thanks to Pittman’s exquisite screen presence.
Every single woman on the show now feels so much more realized, without losing any of the narrative push of our beloved trio. Carrie is as buoyant as ever, with a fresh set of highlights and much better styling. Her grief over Big weaves through the season in fascinating, natural ways, without trapping the character inside of it. Meanwhile, Miranda is still out in Los Angeles, shacking up with Che, while Che films a TV pilot for ABC. Both Ramirez and Nixon were totally game for their relationship’s wacky ride last season, but they have now settled into a much more steady rhythm that runs pleasantly parallel to Miranda’s home life back in Brooklyn. And, would you believe it? The writers have finally let Charlotte behave like a human again. She doesn’t have to short-circuit every time she talks to her non-binary child anymore.
Speaking of non-binary characters, Season 2 has a sufficient amount of middle fingers to throw at the Che Diaz haters, too. The show repurposes the critical detraction of Che’s character as fodder for their pilot. It’s an admirable move, considering how much hate (and misgendering) Ramirez themselves got last season for simply playing their character. While Che was admittedly grating the first time around, they are so much more likable in Season 2, ditching all of that shitty standup comedy razzing and being imbued with some real pathos. And, dare I say it, I even teared up at a Che Diaz plotline!
And Just Like That Season 2 is armed with self-awareness like this that wasn’t present in its first season. It needed time to figure itself out, to detach itself from the original series, while still keeping Sex and the City on speed dial for some silly throwback moments. But Season 2 doesn’t hinge itself on referencing its source material in order to find success. Instead, there are little nods of nostalgia, functioning as callbacks for diehard fans—like some window-banging and Birkin waitlist gags—without slapping you across the face with mawkish schmaltz at every turn. Carrie sums it up best, while debating the necessity for her in-universe Sex and the City podcast: “I’m still fighting to save Sex and the City, when I’m not sure it even fits me anymore.”
Indeed, it doesn’t. These characters—and the actors who play them—are older, wiser, and have more life experience to bring to the screen. Season 2 explores sex and dating at middle age in very fun, original ways that still feel evocative of the prior series’ fearlessness. That boldness keeps the show’s pacing zippy and character arcs totally fresh. Even a few inevitable cameos are expatiated enough to not feel like rehashes of a bygone era, brought back to save a show with no identity of its own. What once felt like a disappointing-but-necessary watch for fans has become appointment television for all. And Just Like That Season 2 is a decadent delight, through and through.
