Manolo Blahniks, Carrie’s Brownstone and Big vs. Aidan are probably elements of the iconic show that jog your memory when I mention “Sex and The City.” Although we loved following along with the extravagant escapades of our favorite girls, there were some fatal flaws within the beloved sitcom.  

Throughout the show, there were elements in every character that as an audience we loved: Carrie’s career, Miranda’s sense of humor, Samantha’s dating life and Charlotte’s optimism. But beyond loving these characters, there were many unforgivable arcs written within the show. Many will chalk it up to the time that the show aired, seeing as the culture was very different in the ‘90s and early 2000s. Yet, watching many of these episodes back, you can’t help but cringe – or even worse, skip through certain scenes all together. 

There are many small fatalities embedded within episodes where the whole storyline was not based around uncomfortable topics, but in many cases there were episodes that were solely dedicated to narratives that did not age well. Such as the episode dedicated to Carrie invalidating her new boyfriend’s sexuality, where she describes bisexuality as “a layover on the way to gay town.” Or the storyline where Samantha enters an interracial relathionship and the topic of the girls lunch was completely fetishizing Black men. And then, when you think it cannot get any worse, Samantha uses horrible racially charged language in a fight with the sister of the man she was seeing. 

Not to mention the homophobic arc written when Samantha began dating a woman and the girls assumed “she ran out of men,” or the horrible anti-trans slurs used in the episode where Samantha has a dispute with a group of sex workers outside of her apartment.

The return of “Sex and The City” following the announcement of the reboot “And Just Like That…” left a lot of fans wondering how the girls would adapt to living in the year 2021. From the start, we saw that the new cast added main characters who represented groups we never saw within the franchise before. Che Diaz, Nya Wallace, Lisa Todd Wexley and Seema Patel were all new Black and Brown main characters added to the cast in the reboot. 

Without Kim Catrall’s return for the reboot, fans could let out a sigh of relief, as Samantha has arguably always been the most controversial character. But, even without her return there was still room for controversy within many of the storylines that fans were not happy with.

Writers made attempts at non-binary representation with the introduction of characters Che Diaz and Rock Goldenblatt, but fans were not happy with the way their storylines panned out. 

Though the reboot included much more diversity and inclusion than the original series, there were some storylines that could have been better. Additionally, the way they wrote Samantha off made no sense in comparison to her actions in the original show. Samantha and Carrie’s relationship was strong enough to withhold all of their fights over the years, so it makes no sense that a wrong PR move would cost them their whole friendship.

Now that “And Just Like That…” has been renewed for another season, there are many stories fans are looking forward to seeing…and some we will hopefully see come to a close. Will Samantha return? Will Miranda stop following Che around like a lost puppy? Will Carrie continue to date? Hopefully we will get answers in the next season airing on HBO Max.

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