Latest news with #Miranda
The Independent
an hour ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Cynthia Nixon on Miranda's new ‘wonderful' And Just Like That romance
Cynthia Nixon, who portrays Miranda in And Just Like That, has shared her thoughts on her character's new love interest, Joy (Dolly Wells), in the third season. Miranda, now a single queer woman in New York, grows closer to Joy, a BBC producer, following an accidental on-air profanity. Nixon stated that Joy serves as an antidote to Miranda's tendency to catastrophise, similar to her ex-husband Steve Brady, but in a distinct manner. The actor mentioned that Season 3 provided a 'breather' for Miranda's storyline after the intense experiences of coming out and heartbreak in the first two seasons. The Independent 's review of Season 3 gave it three stars, noting the writing was 'clunky' but suggesting the series is beginning to find its rhythm for dedicated fans.
The Guardian
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
And Just Like That ... The Sex and the City spin-off's surprising take on race
Are any of the writers on And Just Like That (AJLT) reading this? Because I have several helpful suggestions to bring the current series of your Sex and the City reboot into 2025: Charlotte's husband, the hitherto harmless Harry, could start pressuring her into an open marriage, involving whatever passes for wild sex parties on the Upper East Side. Miranda could soon enter her Chappell-Roan-power-ballad era by hooking up with a sexually captivating, but emotionally unavailable, decades-younger woman. And what about a big reveal involving Aidan, who has been draining Carrie's bank accounts all along (because he's secretly a Reddit-radicalised, misogynist crypto bro now). I'd also suggest we see and hear a lot less from the children. The existence of Brady, Brock, Tilly and Twerp should only ever be referenced occasionally and obliquely, for form's sake. Y'know, like how people of colour were treated all the way through the original Sex and the City series? Ironically, racial politics is the one area in which AJLT is doing just fine, even without my help. This is not the consensus view, I'm aware. Many fans entered a state of full-body cringe during the first season, when Miranda wondered aloud if she was having 'a white saviour moment' when fighting off a mugger attacking her Black friend, and are yet to regain full use of their sphincter muscles. But the fact is, AJLT understands the specific whiteness of wealthy white women, in a way that not only vastly improves on the original show's run, but which could also teach other contemporary TV shows a thing or two about 'diversity' and 'representation'. Principally, this show gets things right by allowing its characters to get things wrong. The Mirandas of this world – and I can say this, because I am such a Miranda – often get to ride the righteous train all the way to Smug Town without so much as a ticket inspection. But the truth is, even the well-intentioned – especially the well-intentioned – have blind spots, and most of us could do with some practice at keeping our cool when those are brought to the fore. AJLT leans into the cringe and, as such, acts as a kind of anti-racist exposure therapy for its middle-aged, white, liberal core audience. The secondhand embarrassment it generates is healthy, productive and funny. Because imagine the alternative: this show could have remade its central trio as ever-elegant, socially confident 'sheroes'. Girl bosses who get it. Women who never miss a beat and are always at one with the sensibilities of the age. It could have shielded them from ever looking uncool or out-of-touch, or jaw-droppingly oblivious, in the way that Carrie does in the episode where her new Indian-American friend, Seema (Sarita Choudhury), takes her sari shopping in preparation for the Patel family's Diwali party. Upon entering the shop, Carrie's eyes widen in wonderment. 'OK …' she says, 'These clothes … This holiday … I need to know everything about it!' Thus revealing that she is a fiftysomething woman, who has spent her entire adult life living in one of the most diverse cities in the world and yet – somehow – has never heard of Diwali, a festival celebrated annually by around a billion Indian and South Asian-descended people, worldwide. Get a clue, Carrie. When that episode aired, some commentators (mostly white women) bristled at the depiction of their carefree, curly queen. They said it wasn't plausible. It was doing Carrie dirty. But some of us (women of colour and the other white women) recognised the truth in that characterisation. It's Lana Turner in the classic 1959 film Imitation of Life, expressing surprise when Annie (Juanita Moore), her Black maid of several decades – and, essentially, her closest confidante – refers to a rich social life outside work. Annie's response? 'Miss Lora, you never asked.' Seema takes this in her stride. I suspect she too has met plenty of Carries in her time. The scene only begins to strain credulity when, moments later, Carrie follows up by asking her if she's ever considered an arranged marriage – What? Because she's Indian? – and Seema still betrays no hint of irritation. It wasn't the writing of Carrie's character that was flawed in that moment, but the writing of Seema's. It's because of moments like these that I'm glad the characters of Professor Nya Wallace (Karen Pittman) and Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez) have been phased out for season three. Or, as I prefer to understand it, set free to share a chilled bottle of chablis and/or weed vape with other friends who actually get it. I'm glad for their own sakes, because no human being wants to feel like a walking BLM reading list for someone on their solipsistic journey toward belated political consciousness. It was always clear why Miranda would want to be friends with Nya, the stylish, self-assured professor on her policies and principles of humanitarian law course – if only to improve her grades. But what is Nya getting out of the arrangement? After a long day of battling the ingrained racism of Ivy League academia, tending to her needy Gen Z grad students and her own underwritten IVF storyline, why would she want to spend her evenings further exerting herself by explaining micro-aggressions to Miranda 'give me a gold star' Hobbs? How is that relaxing? Nya and Che's departures also leave more room for AJLT's other two characters-of-colour to be fully realised. Lisa Todd Wexley, played by Nicole Ari Parker, is an upper-middle-class Black woman (she would probably prefer 'African American') with a busy career in documentary film-making and her scenes in the edit offer a way for AJLT to make meta-commentary on media depictions of Blackness – worshipful references to Michelle Obama are a leitmotif, for instance. Something similar was previously attempted in season two, when Che decamped to Los Angeles to get their semi-autobiographical sitcom off the ground and the Italian-American actor Tony Danza was cast as their Mexican father. Sadly, by that point, nobody watching cared about Che's tedious travails, so nobody cared about the politics of colour-blind casting either. Lisa isn't just a working mother with an impressive collection of oversized jewellery. She is also a classic example of the bad'n'bougie princess, a trope which allows TV to explore the intersections of race, gender and class, and has a noble lineage stretching back to Lisa Turtle on Saved by the Bell, through Hilary Banks on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Dionne Davenport in Clueless, all the way to reality star Gizelle Bryant on Real Housewives of Potomac. Here, I detect the hand of Susan Fales-Hill, proud descendent of US 'afrostocracy', creator of original bougie princess Whitley Gilbert from A Different World, and a writer on AJLT since season two. Seema's type is more obvious. She is a new Samantha, brought in to replace our dearly beloved Kim Cattrall from the original SATC, a woman with so much charisma she could almost – but not quite – get away with wearing an afro wig to a post-chemo social gathering. Seema has Samantha's confidence and fondness for animal prints, but to that she adds her own top-note of vulnerability. Being a professionally high-flying, never-married, child-free woman in your 50s is fabulous. But, in a world that likes to constantly remind women of how they've failed to please the patriarchy, an occasional wobble of self-doubt is to be expected. It's in this wider context of the third season, with more screen time and better storylines, that Seema's ethnicity can be just one aspect of her character; neither defining, nor denied. Now, when Seema's cultural heritage is referenced, it's usually on her own terms, and in her own words. As she cautions bossy date-finder Sydney Cherkov (Saturday Night Live's Cheri Oteri): 'I'm Indian, we invented matchmaking'. And just like that, through an ever-enjoyable, show-your-workings process of trial-and-error, this show has landed on what it can most usefully add to the pop culture discourse about race. And that isn't shoe-horning in badly written POC characters to offer a hastily bodged version of racial diversity and representation. Rather it's exploring the whiteness of Miranda/Charlotte/Carrie as they move through this changed and changing world, but – crucially – always with a tad more self-awareness than the characters themselves possess. Now, back to more pressing matters: Should Charlotte order specially monogrammed stationery from Tiffany's for those sex party invites? And who's telling Anthony he's been cut from the guest list?
Sydney Morning Herald
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
And Just Like That recap: Carrie joins the ‘sisterwives'
This story contains spoilers for season three, episode four of And Just Like That... The rooster crows, waking Carrie up from her night in Aidan's guest house. Once Wyatt sticks his head in the window and reports that she's awake, she has to step gently over the floor strewn with Gatorade bottles and free dumbbells. Is this the manosphere I've been hearing so much about? Carrie left her bags in the rental car, you'll remember, which is why we must witness a gorgeous woman with perfect hair insist that she's stinky and repulsive in front of literal teenage boys in the morning. Virginia is not the place our girl belongs, even as she insists on riding an ATV into town to buy Batsheva dresses at a 'sisterwives dress shop'. She gives Miranda an update on the phone, and suggests she invite BBC Joy's friends over to the Gramercy house so Miranda can still go on her first date with her work crush. But that's before another c-word gets in the way. Don't worry, I'm not going to beat this dead horse as much as the show's writers did. But to recap: after learning to breathe an episode ago, Miranda pauses during her big on-camera live cross – right in the middle of the word 'countryside'. Did she just –? She did. And you'll keep hearing it. Over and over. In memes and phone calls. In puns about the word 'context'. The humiliation of Miranda Hobbes is without end, but at least she and Joy share a smooch (which Carrie watches on her Ring doorbell app) by episode's end. Small victories. Seema and LTW are also having work dramas this episode, but when are they not? I wish I cared more that Seema turned down the offer to work for Ryan Serhant (of Million Dollar Listings fame) and has to leave her office, but I just don't. It feels low-stakes and drawn-out. At this point I'm surprised we didn't get a subplot with the assistant she tried to poach who'd never heard of Jerry Maguire. LTW, meanwhile, is yelling the word 'hey!' in her sleep, causing her husband to sleep on the couch. She's anxious and hasn't hired a new editor, but a candidate called Marion might be her saving grace. But – plot twist – he's a hunky man. LTW thinks she'll get cancelled for having a man work on a series about unsung black women. 'Let's move this along, I don't want this conversation played back to me in court,' her PBS editor tells her when she speaks this ridiculous thought out loud.
The Age
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
And Just Like That recap: Carrie joins the ‘sisterwives'
This story contains spoilers for season three, episode four of And Just Like That... The rooster crows, waking Carrie up from her night in Aidan's guest house. Once Wyatt sticks his head in the window and reports that she's awake, she has to step gently over the floor strewn with Gatorade bottles and free dumbbells. Is this the manosphere I've been hearing so much about? Carrie left her bags in the rental car, you'll remember, which is why we must witness a gorgeous woman with perfect hair insist that she's stinky and repulsive in front of literal teenage boys in the morning. Virginia is not the place our girl belongs, even as she insists on riding an ATV into town to buy Batsheva dresses at a 'sisterwives dress shop'. She gives Miranda an update on the phone, and suggests she invite BBC Joy's friends over to the Gramercy house so Miranda can still go on her first date with her work crush. But that's before another c-word gets in the way. Don't worry, I'm not going to beat this dead horse as much as the show's writers did. But to recap: after learning to breathe an episode ago, Miranda pauses during her big on-camera live cross – right in the middle of the word 'countryside'. Did she just –? She did. And you'll keep hearing it. Over and over. In memes and phone calls. In puns about the word 'context'. The humiliation of Miranda Hobbes is without end, but at least she and Joy share a smooch (which Carrie watches on her Ring doorbell app) by episode's end. Small victories. Seema and LTW are also having work dramas this episode, but when are they not? I wish I cared more that Seema turned down the offer to work for Ryan Serhant (of Million Dollar Listings fame) and has to leave her office, but I just don't. It feels low-stakes and drawn-out. At this point I'm surprised we didn't get a subplot with the assistant she tried to poach who'd never heard of Jerry Maguire. LTW, meanwhile, is yelling the word 'hey!' in her sleep, causing her husband to sleep on the couch. She's anxious and hasn't hired a new editor, but a candidate called Marion might be her saving grace. But – plot twist – he's a hunky man. LTW thinks she'll get cancelled for having a man work on a series about unsung black women. 'Let's move this along, I don't want this conversation played back to me in court,' her PBS editor tells her when she speaks this ridiculous thought out loud.
Time Magazine
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
Does And Just Like That Remember What Happened in Sex and the City?
Warning: This post contains spoilers for Episode 4 of And Just Like That Season 3. A few weeks ago there was a video going around of Sarah Jessica Parker appearing to acknowledge that she doesn't remember the episode of Sex and the City that produced the viral "Hungover Miranda" meme. The moment, clipped from a BuzzFeed roundtable interview with Parker and her And Just Like That costars Cynthia Nixon (Miranda), Kristin Davis (Charlotte), and Sarita Choudhury (Seema), resulted in a number of annoyed comments from fans on TikTok pointing out Parker's apparent lack of knowledge surrounding the events of the original series. The reveal also came in the wake of a May interview with E! News in which Parker said she's never seen "most of" Sex and the City and doesn't watch And Just Like That. Despite being an executive producer, Parker is obviously not the only person who has control over the creative direction of And Just Like That. Now in its third season, the sequel series has made some controversial leaps—remember Che Diaz?—while staying more or less true to spirit of the original. But after the events of episode 4, we're beginning to question whether anyone in charge of And Just Like That recalls the show's massively successful predecessor at all. Titled "Apples to Apples," the fourth episode of Season 3 largely takes place in Norfolk, Virginia, at the down-home country farmhouse of one Aidan Shaw (John Corbett). Aidan has moved up in the world since the time he coerced Carrie into spending a weekend at his, let's call it, rustic cabin in the vaguely upstate and aptly-named New York town of Suffern, a 40-minute drive from Manhattan. That little getaway took place in Season 4 of Sex and the City and featured a Carrie we recognized, one who shrieked at squirrels, drove over state lines to get cell service and fast food, and, for some unknowable reason, invited her ex-boyfriend Big (Chris Noth)—the very same one she had previously cheated on Aidan with—to come stay for a night. The country just wasn't for her. As she put it, "I'm what you call a bona fide city girl." This time around, Carrie spends the weekend acting pretty much completely un-Carrie-like. After smuggling in an illicitly-obtained supply of Adderall for Aidan's son Wyatt (Logan Souza)—a favor Aidan was unaware his ex-wife Kathy (Rosemarie DeWitt) had requested of her—Carrie participates in such activities as fishing, driving an ATV, family game night, and wearing outfits obtained from local boutique Daisy's Dress Shop (after her incomprehensible first suggestion of Target turns out to be an hour away). Throughout all this, she delivers barely a sarcastic quip about her distaste for the simple life. No mention of being a "hick town hostage" or how the "silence is deafening" or her desire to instead be out "cocktailing and sample sale-ing." Of course, you can make the argument that it's been 20 years since Sex and the City and Carrie, as people do, may have changed in that time. But who among us is watching And Just Like That to see Carrie mature? Especially if that means her becoming an entirely different person than the Carrie we alternately love, hate, and love to hate. At least part of the reason many Sex and the City fans are tuning in to And Just Like That is out of a inclination to see Carrie continue to live her messy and fabulous life as a pretty egregiously out-of-touch Manhattan socialite. There's a reason (or several) that Carrie and Aidan broke up not once, but twice, in Sex and the City. And despite the fact that Big is no longer around to drive a wedge between them, it still doesn't seem like they're truly a match. And Just Like That is certainly piling onto their problems by throwing over 300 miles of separation, a troubled teen, and incompatible texting styles into the mix. Yet, Episode 4 still ends with Carrie committing to staying in a long-distance relationship with Aidan for the next five years despite his inability to promise her basically anything in return. It's understandable that Aidan needs to prioritize his children's wellbeing, but it seems like the Carrie of old would have taken that as a sign that they maybe aren't meant to be. At least for the time being. As her dear friend Miranda suggested before Carrie's first trip to the country all those years ago, if "you need to pretend to be someone else in order to be in a relationship," perhaps it's not the right fit. We can't help but wonder if And Just Like That will ever take that advice to heart.
