Latest / History Harpies: Pop Culture, Past and Present / Yes, Sex and the City Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda Skipped the Reboot (Ft. And Just Like That)

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Yes, Sex and the City Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda Skipped the Reboot (Ft. And Just Like That) · History Harpies: Pop Culture, Past and Present

• 0:00
  They say we're loud, opinionated, afraid Telling
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  us to hush, dim our historical light But darlings,
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  we're the Harpies sharp and keen Unveiling the
• 0:12
  truth behind the silver screen History Harpies
• 0:17
  hear us roar Hi, this is History Harpies I'm
• 0:21
  Lauren And I'm Christine And welcome back Hope
• 0:24
  you've been having a nice summer And this is
• 0:27
  actually episode Seven! Which is pretty remarkable.
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  Seven! I don't know if Kristina and I thought
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  we'd make it this far without either killing
• 0:37
  the technology, killing each other, or just throwing
• 0:39
  in the towel, but we have made it and we plan
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  to keep on going through the summer. Through
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  the summer. As long as our five listeners will
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  have us. We love you. Our five listeners. We
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  love you. We love each and every one of you.
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  So Lauren, what's been going on before we jump
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  into it? Well, it's been kind of a rough week.
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  My son who's working at a camp got sick and so
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  had to drive and get him and bring him back and
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  take his temperature and make sure he's temperature
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  free and then take him back. So disrupted the
• 1:15
  flow of things. How about you? My week has been
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  Good. I'm working on a conference paper for a
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  conference and we went to the pool, which was
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  very nice. And that's how it has been going.
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  Okay. Well, do you have a harp or a love for
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  this week? You know, I really hate to say it,
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  but I'm going to harp on myself. I know. I know.
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  But there's a specific reason why, and this will
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  be good for our five listeners, because I realized,
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  just like in the middle of the night the other
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  night, that I said that Chloe Sevigny in the
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  Whit Stillman film Metropolitan got herpes the
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  very first time that she had sex. And in fact,
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  it was not Metropolitan. It was the last days
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  of disco. So just in case any of our five listeners
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  ran out to streaming to try to watch watch Chloe
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  Sevigny get herpes in Metropolitan, it was Last
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  Days of Disco, a movie I do highly recommend
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  as well as Metropolitan. So that was basically
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  bad on me and I'm harping on me for that mistake.
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  Well, I still love you. Thank you. And I give
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  you some grace. Thank you. I appreciate that.
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  I am going to love because, as you know, but
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  our listeners might not. I have joined a writing
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  group. And this is for someone who has been in
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  the business of writing for two decades, the
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  first time I have ever been part of a writing
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  group. Very nice. We've only met once. I have
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  two people that are supposed to read my work
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  and I'm supposed to read their work and we're
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  supposed to hold each other accountable. But
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  lo and behold, I actually wrote something fantastic
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  and I don't know whether it's any good. I don't
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  know whether it will go anywhere, but I did write
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  something rather than shop on my phone or do
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  the countless other things that I might do that.
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  are not writing. That is excellent and you know
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  it's especially excellent because you and I are
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  not paid over the summer for our work as professors.
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  Correct. So everything that we do in the summer
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  it's just extra. and good for us, good for careers,
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  good to keep things flowing. But I have to say
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  that I really thank you for this because it was
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  your recommendation for me to watch Clinton and
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  Stacey that got me to write. Clinton and Stacey.
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  Now listen, the writing group, I'm accountable
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  to them, but I watched this episode of Clinton
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  and Stacey last night where this one person that
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  they were styling has a really, really unusual
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  and interesting way about them and Stacey and
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  Clinton worked really working hard to make sure
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  that that person was happy in their own skin
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  and wore whatever the F they wanted. And it made
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  me feel like I'm gonna write whatever the F I
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  want. That's fantastic! And that really made
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  me feel like if this person, okay, who is a young
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  trans man, 22 years old, living in Kansas, can
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  wear whatever the F he wants, I can write whatever
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  the F I want. And that is absolutely true. And
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  that is what I did. Good. Without concern, without
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  fear, with feeling super confident in your own.
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  I can't say those things aren't true. Well, but
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  it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You are
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  writing, you are getting stuff out there, and
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  that is fantastic. Yeah. And I'm so excited that
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  you are watching Clinton and Stacey. I can't
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  even tell you. It really is the gem of my day.
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  I can't wait for tonight. And I'm going to be
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  really sad when episode eight ends because I
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  watched two episodes last night. And I do have
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  to say that the artist, her bohemian outfit at
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  the end was so fabulous. And I would wear that
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  in a second. And I really loved her looks. And
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  I am not a bohemian dresser, but I loved everything
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  they picked out for her, and there is no question
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  in my mind that, you know, she slammed dunk where
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  she was concerned. So I'm excited to see where
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  they go with the next person. Have you watched
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  The Baker from Gary and Deanna yet? I have not.
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  Okay, because that was my favorite episode so
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  far. Okay. So I will be very... He's the one
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  who wants to look like Coleman Domingo. Okay.
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  So I will be very curious to see what you think.
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  Although I do, again, have a friend now moving
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  to Gary, Indiana for his job, so he should probably
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  watch that as well. Probably. Gary, Indiana.
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  I have driven through it many times. Again, 76
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  drum mode, right? So there's... Yeah. Well, let's
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  actually start talking about our theme for the
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  week, and it is a little... Painful. It is painful.
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  It is painful. It's both the best thing and the
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  worst. The best thing and the worst. It's a high
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  and a low, a very low, low. What we're going
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  to be talking about today is two things that
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  seem to be a continuation. One is a continuation
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  of the other, but in fact, I'm not really sure
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  that fits. We're going to be talking about sex
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  in the city and it's re... boot rehashing, distant
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  cousin, barely adjacent, barely adjacent show
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  and just like that. Show that has the same actresses,
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  but maybe nothing else. But maybe nothing else.
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  Oh, although they are both set in New York City
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  and they do both have still. excellent styling
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  by many of the same styling team. Okay, I might
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  have to disagree with you on that. We'll talk
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  about that in a minute. For those of you of our
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  five listeners who may not know, so Sex in the
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  City was a show that premiered what Lauren? The
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  summer of 1998. 1998 and finished in 2004 and
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  was about four close friends living in New York
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  City living the good life. It is a Darren Star
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  joint as we say in Philadelphia. Darren Star
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  and we love Darren Star. And we love Darren Star
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  from all of his other wonderful works and so
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  the combination of Darren Starr and Sarah Jessica
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  Parker just was astronomically exciting to anyone
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  who was alive. Plus the incorporation of Kristin
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  Davis from Melrose Vice, from the Darren Starr
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  show, and also Kim Cattrall from Mannequin, among
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  other things, making it even more exciting. And
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  I didn't know Cynthia Nixon's earlier work, but
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  of course she was wonderful too. All the things
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  were there for this show to be a success. And
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  the pilot, which I saw while driving cross -country
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  in a hotel somewhere in the Midwest, was... Men
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  on the street interviews. The essence of the
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  show wasn't yet defined, but Sarah Jessica Parker
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  looked incredible and the other women had very,
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  very interesting possibilities and we knew that
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  it could be something that would be amazing.
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  So we have actually this this leads to what?
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  We should talk about first is that our particular
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  experiences in watching the show at the time.
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  So what was our experience, what was your experience
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  in mind watching the show when it was on, when
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  it was so much a part of the zeitgeist, everybody
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  was talking about it. It was such a huge hit.
• 8:43
  It entered the culture, right? People started
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  talking about drinking cosmopolitan and the whole,
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  he's not that into you. And wearing the tutu.
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  Wearing the tutu and having sex like a man, all
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  of these things. So tell me, you just alluded
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  to it, but I want to hear more about your experience
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  with the show the first time around. Again, just
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  in terms of how How do you watch it? Were you
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  a regular watcher? Let's hear that. The first
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  series of Sex and the City, the first round,
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  and I have seen Sex and the City more times than
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  most humans. I've seen most episodes, at least
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  five times, okay? Especially the peak episodes,
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  right? Which we can talk about later, which are
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  the peak ones. But when it first came out, I
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  was towards the end of graduate school. I wasn't
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  that far in age from the characters themselves.
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  I certainly love New York, I love fashion, I
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  loved everything that show was about, and it
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  really was this moment of waiting every week
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  for the next episode to come on, and then talking
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  about it with my friends, with... with my mother
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  who was watching at the time. And all the people,
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  right? All the references, all the cameos, all
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  the fantastic boyfriends of the week who had
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  come on and just waiting to see what was going
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  to happen in the love lives, in the apartments,
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  in the fashion, and just feeling such relatability
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  to all of the characters. There weren't any of
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  the characters that I felt were out of left field
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  or that I didn't identify with in some way or
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  that didn't have some storyline at some point
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  that what had happened to me or that happened
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  to somebody that I knew and because so much of
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  it came from the experience of the writers and
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  things that they had experienced when they were
• 10:37
  dating or or still were experiencing, it just
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  felt so true to life. The baby showers, the feelings
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  of being single, the feelings of buying an apartment
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  on your own. And then, of course, the main storyline
• 10:53
  of Carrie and Big, which is searching for this
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  unattainable man and being in this relationship
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  with him and having him treat you like shit,
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  but then wanting him back. Most people have been
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  in a relationship like that or know plenty of
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  people who have been in those relationships.
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  So it just was such a moment. And then I also
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  remember all the Emmys and, you know, all the
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  fashion that followed the show off camera, you
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  know, when the characters were or the actresses
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  were just out and about, right? What are they
• 11:27
  doing? And then Kim Cattrall wrote her, like,
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  sex book. They all got, you know, like contracts
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  with different companies, and SJP got her own
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  footwear line, and it was just a whole thing.
• 11:42
  It became the Sex and the City universe, and
• 11:45
  then of course the two films came out, and you
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  know, some people hated them, some people liked
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  them, but... it felt like the same DNA running
• 11:55
  through all of that. And just again, a celebration
• 12:00
  of female friendships, a celebration of imperfection
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  and flaws and mistakes and second chances and
• 12:09
  the show itself. ends on a very, very hopeful
• 12:14
  note for all four characters. But then there
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  was also a lot of, you know, conversation back
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  and forth. Should Carrie and Big have been together
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  and, you know, things like that. So I feel like
• 12:24
  the show warts and all right. The show showed
• 12:28
  these four women bonding with one another, but
• 12:31
  also fighting with one another and also having
• 12:34
  all making all kinds of mistakes, which was very
• 12:37
  refreshing at the time. Also, the show was so
• 12:40
  sexually open and frank and at the time again
• 12:44
  very unusual for that kind of programming and
• 12:48
  it was coming out also at the same time as the
• 12:50
  Sopranos so HBO really was hanging its hat on
• 12:53
  Sex and the City and the Sopranos. Well, my experience
• 12:59
  was also in graduate school, but I was I did
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  not have HBO and because I was impoverished and
• 13:08
  as a graduate student and so I actually watched
• 13:11
  the first season after This is such a little
• 13:13
  time capsule. I rented the first season on DVD
• 13:18
  from my local video store in South Bend. And
• 13:22
  what was really great, I think also about it
• 13:25
  for me, and maybe you shared this as well, is
• 13:29
  so I had several friends, several of our five
• 13:32
  listeners who were living in New York City at
• 13:34
  the time, again, the sort of circa 2000. And
• 13:38
  I very much felt like it was a It was an accessible
• 13:42
  world, right? I was visiting my friends in New
• 13:45
  York City, you know, at least a few times a year,
• 13:47
  and there very much was the sense, right? Like,
• 13:49
  oh, we can go to Budabar, right? We can go to
• 13:52
  these particular pasties and the sense that it
• 13:56
  was so that again, it wasn't. unattainable, right,
• 14:00
  right, especially in the early seasons, right,
• 14:02
  that this was not a life that was completely
• 14:04
  out of reach for anyone. And very much this mode
• 14:07
  of like, oh, I can wear the tank top and the
• 14:10
  pencil skirt, basically. And so I think that
• 14:13
  that was something that was so my experience
• 14:16
  of it would have been very different if I hadn't
• 14:18
  been going to New York so often. And again, obviously,
• 14:21
  you who grew up in sort of the tri -state area,
• 14:23
  you know, had, I'm sure a similar kind of sense
• 14:25
  right of accessibility. It's it's not something,
• 14:29
  again, imaginary. It's a different way in which
• 14:32
  you do think, right, these are things that can
• 14:34
  sort of happen to me, that it's relatable. And
• 14:37
  so that was something that I think really was,
• 14:43
  what's the word I'm looking for? Not again, sense
• 14:47
  of familiarity but again a sense of this is if
• 14:52
  I don't end up being a professor I'm just going
• 14:54
  to go to New York and do something fabulous right
• 14:57
  I'll do something fabulous right and something
• 14:58
  we haven't mentioned of course but that our listeners
• 15:00
  know is that the show of course came from the
• 15:03
  columns by Candice Bushnell and remind me what
• 15:07
  were they in what was the newspaper that they
• 15:09
  were in I'm trying to say it was the New York
• 15:11
  Observer it was the Observer and I had a couple
• 15:16
  of friends who were in New York and who were
• 15:19
  actually attached to The Observer at the time,
• 15:21
  sort of writing film reviews and doing stuff.
• 15:24
  And so, again, as you say, it was this sense
• 15:27
  of familiarity, right, in verisimilitude. So,
• 15:32
  yeah, and we were going to talk also about sort
• 15:35
  of favorite episodes and what is... Yours, again,
• 15:40
  of the original series. What are some of your
• 15:43
  favorites? Okay, so I have a couple favorite
• 15:46
  episodes, but I will single out two, okay? There
• 15:51
  is Just Say Yes, which is the episode where Aiden
• 15:56
  proposes to Carrie. Important for many, many
• 16:00
  reasons because it's the first time we really
• 16:03
  see Carrie considering an engagement, considering
• 16:07
  potential marriage. in love with Aiden, really
• 16:11
  not fixating on Big, and there's that incredible
• 16:15
  exchange about the ring, and you also see the
• 16:19
  different girls going with Aiden to get the ring,
• 16:23
  and at the very end when Carrie says yes, and
• 16:28
  later she'll regret that, but she has this amazing
• 16:31
  ring that Samantha, of all people, went with.
• 16:35
  Aiden to pick out and she shows it to Samantha
• 16:38
  and Samantha says I've seen it before and that's
• 16:41
  a moment that's kind of unusual on Sex and the
• 16:44
  City because we very rarely see the girls with
• 16:47
  the boyfriends Yes, slash husbands of the other
• 16:50
  girls and so I love that episode and I love Aiden
• 16:55
  kneeling in the street to pick up the dog And
• 16:57
  again, it's a it's a it's an unusual episode
• 17:02
  for a lot of reasons for me my other fantastic
• 17:05
  episode. And I have so many of them. I mean,
• 17:07
  this is one of the most difficult ones. Here
• 17:08
  we go. Is Splat. Because Splat is in season six.
• 17:14
  It's the moment when Carrie decides she's going
• 17:16
  to go to Paris with Petrovsky. And it's when
• 17:20
  they have the dinner party at Candice Bergen's
• 17:24
  apartment and Kristen Johnson falls out the window.
• 17:28
  But it also encapsulates so many themes of the
• 17:32
  show at that point that Carrie doesn't want to
• 17:35
  be alone anymore. Carrie is going to go to Paris.
• 17:38
  Also, she's now moving into a new state of couplehood
• 17:41
  with Petrovsky. And Miranda is devastated and
• 17:45
  mad at her. And you also see Alex being a jerk
• 17:50
  to her friends. And there's so many dynamics.
• 17:52
  You also see all these women in couples for the
• 17:55
  first time, which is, there's a lot of firsts
• 17:58
  in that episode, despite how far along it is
• 18:01
  in the series. So that's another one of my favorites.
• 18:06
  And the styling in that episode is amazing. I
• 18:08
  mean, the outfits those women wear to the funeral,
• 18:11
  considering it's a funeral, are amazing. And
• 18:15
  there's just a lot of things about it that I
• 18:17
  think are really terrific. So those are probably
• 18:19
  two of my favorites. Again, episodes three and
• 18:24
  four, when you have the Carrie... Aiden big triangle
• 18:28
  is really peak for me. And I think probably for
• 18:31
  most sex in the city diehards. But I also very
• 18:36
  much love season six when she gets with Petrovsky.
• 18:40
  Well, one of the things that's interesting about
• 18:42
  Splat, right, and we can talk about this a little
• 18:44
  bit later when we talk about Anne just like that.
• 18:46
  But that is an episode where we see a really
• 18:49
  direct. um, addressing of the question of women
• 18:52
  aging and being able to find partners, right?
• 18:55
  That Candice Bergen's character is so upset that
• 18:58
  Carrie has brought Petrovsky, that Carrie at
• 19:00
  what, 38 years old in that season, uh, is with
• 19:03
  an older man and that Candice Bergen basically
• 19:06
  has to settle for Wallace Shawn, who of course
• 19:09
  also shows up in Gossip Girl later, but anyway,
• 19:11
  as, as the stepfather. So I will say that one
• 19:15
  of my absolute favorites, and I don't know the
• 19:17
  episode title, but it is the episode where Miranda
• 19:20
  goes to get her abortion. Okay. And what I think,
• 19:23
  thank you. And I think what is so fantastic about
• 19:28
  that episode is of course, in a really basic
• 19:31
  way, it changes your expectations, right? You
• 19:34
  think that Miranda is going to go through with
• 19:36
  this, right? We see her sitting in the waiting
• 19:37
  room. Uh, we see her uncertainty about it, right,
• 19:42
  in the waiting room. And of course you have that
• 19:44
  wonderful juxtaposition of her surprise pregnancy
• 19:48
  with her lazy ovary in Steve's one testicle with
• 19:51
  Charlotte's fertility difficulties. And I think
• 19:54
  the ending of that episode, I actually still,
• 19:58
  I cry at the end of that episode. Even thinking
• 20:00
  about it, I'm getting chills because they have
• 20:02
  the Entenmann's Danish coming out and Charlotte
• 20:06
  has brought the flowers. We're going to have
• 20:09
  a baby. And it is really an incredible testimony
• 20:12
  to how strongly Charlotte feels about this baby.
• 20:15
  About this baby. Even though it's not her baby.
• 20:17
  And I think that it's one of the moments where
• 20:20
  I think actually SJP has her best act. right,
• 20:24
  where Miranda has said, you know, sort of, I
• 20:27
  didn't go through with it. And there's a shot
• 20:28
  over to Carrie, who's kind of looking at Charlotte,
• 20:31
  right, anticipating, you know, who knows how
• 20:32
  she's going to react. And the tears, and I think
• 20:35
  it's just, I think it's so fantastic because
• 20:37
  you also do then, as with Carrie's engagement,
• 20:41
  you have a sense of however differently these
• 20:44
  women are thinking about Miranda's pregnancy.
• 20:47
  They are in this kind of solidarity, right? And
• 20:50
  we have reiterated the sense that they're sort
• 20:52
  of a family, right? They're a chosen family.
• 20:54
  And so I think that's so fantastic. I absolutely
• 20:57
  love that episode. And I think another one that
• 21:00
  I would say is the Bradley Cooper episode where
• 21:06
  Carrie looks. absolutely terrible when she is
• 21:09
  film, I'm sorry, when she has her picture taken
• 21:12
  for what New York magazine and she is absolutely
• 21:16
  hideous on the cover after she's been out partying
• 21:19
  all night. And then of course realizes that she
• 21:23
  has been operating from fear, right? And sort
• 21:26
  of hooking up or potentially hooking up with
• 21:27
  Bradley Cooper's character. And I think that
• 21:29
  that was an episode that shows as other episodes
• 21:32
  do that SJP was completely fearless, right? Showing
• 21:37
  herself, showing the character as being ridiculous,
• 21:40
  silly, not just making mistakes again, but looking
• 21:42
  foolish, right? I'm going to trip on the runway
• 21:44
  when I'm doing the fashion show. I'm going to
• 21:46
  look absolutely hideous on the cover of this
• 21:49
  magazine. And I think that that was really refreshing
• 21:52
  in terms of seeing all of this character's flaws.
• 21:57
  Yes, and... Also, a lot of this has been attributed
• 22:00
  to SJP herself, but the fashion choices she was
• 22:03
  willing to take, which again, she's known for
• 22:06
  having these bonkers outfits, but the idea that
• 22:09
  someone is willing to go out in basically a bra
• 22:12
  and a skirt and a huge hat and a rocket, right,
• 22:17
  is fearless. And I think at the time, especially
• 22:21
  when there wasn't a whole lot of styling that
• 22:23
  looked like that, and in the very beginning of
• 22:26
  the show, before the budget, grow, they were
• 22:29
  thrifting a lot. They were borrowing from non
• 22:33
  -major designers. They were experimenting much,
• 22:36
  much more. And you could see it in the styling,
• 22:39
  but you can also, of course, see it in the creativity
• 22:42
  that's going on in the wardrobe. I mean, the
• 22:44
  wardrobe in the beginning is so different than
• 22:46
  that sort of season six Atrofsky Oscar de la
• 22:50
  Renta dress or even Chanel bags and that sort
• 22:53
  of thing. And by the end, they're all decked
• 22:57
  out in full on couture, full on couture. And
• 23:01
  the beginning, you do see all that thrifting
• 23:04
  and all that kind of moving through these different
• 23:07
  spaces in New York that have these different
• 23:09
  outfits, frankly, for all of them, not just for
• 23:12
  Carrie, but also for, I mean, Samantha's looks
• 23:15
  are crazy too. I mean, in terms of all the neon
• 23:17
  and the big earrings, the statement, and the
• 23:21
  statement shoulder, right, with her jackets.
• 23:25
  shoes and the makeup and just all of that early
• 23:29
  Samantha styling is really over the top and in
• 23:33
  an interesting way. And Miranda's menswear looks
• 23:36
  in the early on are very, very deliberate and
• 23:44
  queer coded in ways that the show probably hadn't
• 23:47
  imagined that they would be so literal later
• 23:50
  on, but that she has such strong menswear looks
• 23:53
  in the beginning of this. show that's often as
• 23:57
  the seasons progress but again sometimes there'll
• 24:00
  be a kind of callback to some of those really
• 24:02
  menswear looks. Okay, so in addition to the fashion,
• 24:08
  in addition to the kind of relatability that
• 24:10
  we've already talked about, in sort of broad
• 24:12
  strokes, what would you say are the reasons that
• 24:16
  that show was so successful? I don't mean successful
• 24:20
  in terms of popularity, but successful narratively,
• 24:25
  creatively. What was it about the show that you
• 24:29
  think really made it work? The writing. The writing
• 24:33
  was so funny. The writing came from, again, later
• 24:37
  Michael Patrick King, who took over for Darren
• 24:39
  Star, his background as a standup, but also these
• 24:43
  other incredible writers on the show who did
• 24:46
  all kinds of things with puns, who did all kinds
• 24:48
  of things with voiceovers, who were able to carry
• 24:52
  storyline to storyline, which was nice because
• 24:54
  the episodes were thematic. So you don't have
• 24:58
  one character that sort of had a lesser storyline
• 25:00
  or maybe wasn't even in it that much at all.
• 25:03
  But the other three were revolving around a particular
• 25:08
  theme, whether it's younger guys, older guys,
• 25:12
  the bells of the ball, whatever. And that there
• 25:15
  was a unification in the writing that made it
• 25:18
  so appealing and so funny. And again, I think
• 25:22
  the presence of Kim Cattrall, which we really
• 25:24
  cannot, we cannot praise that woman enough. I
• 25:30
  think we even knew it at the time, truthfully.
• 25:33
  No, I agree, I agree. But that woman is so funny,
• 25:36
  her lines had such a hard delivery, and you could
• 25:41
  always count on Samantha just to say the funniest,
• 25:45
  most outrageous things, but also to be incredibly
• 25:48
  honest and to pull. characters out of their comfort
• 25:54
  zones and I remember that that conversation that
• 25:57
  Samantha has with Carrie when Carrie it didn't
• 26:00
  splat actually when she's thinking about you
• 26:02
  know Miranda's criticism of her going with Petraski
• 26:05
  and Samantha's like well what do you want right
• 26:08
  and why would why wouldn't you go with him or
• 26:11
  how can you imagine your life with him and her
• 26:14
  really trying to open up the questions for Carrie
• 26:16
  to think about in ways that the other characters
• 26:18
  haven't because they're thinking Charlotte's
• 26:20
  just so happy that Carrie is going to be with
• 26:22
  a man and Miranda of course is upset and feels
• 26:26
  abandoned and also is worried for Carrie to be
• 26:29
  alone in Paris and Samantha really is a glue
• 26:34
  of that. of that friendship that although all
• 26:37
  of them aren't equal with her you can the writing
• 26:41
  for her is so strong. Well and that's something
• 26:44
  that I think is another reason why it was so
• 26:48
  successful is that it introduced a great deal
• 26:50
  of complexity in what initially looked like and
• 26:53
  a lot of people took as stereotypes. Yes. Right.
• 26:55
  Like that Samantha very often was this incredibly
• 26:57
  emotionally intelligent person. Right. Right.
• 27:00
  In a way that would not necessarily be expected
• 27:03
  from the like, oh, she's like the slutty one.
• 27:05
  And again, especially in the early seasons where,
• 27:07
  where press and people really seized on, right.
• 27:11
  I mean, the whole, are you a Miranda or a Samantha
• 27:13
  seized on these stereotypes. And I think that
• 27:16
  what then worked so well is to really impress
• 27:20
  those, that complexity in, as you say, right?
• 27:24
  We were talking about what? 22, 24 minute episodes,
• 27:26
  right? Where a single theme would have these
• 27:29
  different manifestations among the different
• 27:31
  characters, but always then showing again, this
• 27:35
  complexity, these particular layers and particular
• 27:38
  relationships among them. And one of the things
• 27:41
  that, uh, my friend Karina would always ask,
• 27:44
  and I think it's a really good question. She
• 27:46
  would always wonder how often are the other characters
• 27:50
  engaging with each other who went not Carrie.
• 27:54
  I could never wonder. Right. Exactly. So these
• 27:58
  particular moments, right, when you see even
• 28:00
  the friendships of the other three, other than
• 28:03
  Carrie, which again was really also important
• 28:06
  in terms of showing the complexity of this kind
• 28:08
  of found family. Yes. Yes. And again, one of
• 28:10
  the episodes that highlights that really, really
• 28:12
  well is Charlotte's wedding where Again, Charlotte
• 28:16
  says to Samantha, when they're trying on the
• 28:18
  bridesmaid's dresses, Samantha says, well, I
• 28:20
  don't know why the hell I have to be a bridesmaid.
• 28:22
  She says, well, you didn't. And I just included
• 28:25
  you, so you wouldn't feel left out. And Samantha's
• 28:28
  like, well, why the hell am I here? And again,
• 28:31
  that gives you a sense that at that point, the
• 28:33
  friendships aren't all equal. And there are other
• 28:37
  Samantha Charlotte riffs, right, where Charlotte
• 28:41
  cannot tolerate Samantha's. Samantha Ng. Including
• 28:44
  with Charlotte's brother. Right. Including with
• 28:47
  Charlotte's brother and some of the things she
• 28:49
  says and just her lack of understanding of things
• 28:53
  that are important to Charlotte. But there are
• 28:55
  also times where Samantha cannot handle the Charlotte
• 28:58
  of it all. She's too prudish, she's too conventional,
• 29:01
  she's too traditional and get over herself. And
• 29:05
  I think, but in the end, they can come back and
• 29:07
  laugh and... Somehow restore these friendships
• 29:10
  and that's really really important and it's it's
• 29:14
  also interesting with the Miranda storyline because
• 29:17
  she wrestles with this throughout is that you
• 29:20
  know, she's tough and she's you know, like go
• 29:22
  out and break some balls and Romantic cynical
• 29:26
  then sends a man out of bed once over. Yeah,
• 29:29
  but By the end, of course, she does have a child.
• 29:32
  She doesn't want a child. She has this marriage
• 29:35
  which she proposes to Steve, she initiates that.
• 29:39
  And by the end, she's taking care of Steve's
• 29:42
  mother. So she has these caretaking responsibilities.
• 29:46
  Domesticity. And she has a kind of domesticity
• 29:48
  that was unexpected in the beginning. And there's
• 29:51
  an evolution there, which is interesting to see
• 29:54
  in her somebody who constantly says, I'm not
• 29:57
  domestic. I'm not romantic. I'm just cynical.
• 29:59
  And I'm just going to be a lawyer and be more
• 30:02
  and more successful and do my thing. And I'm
• 30:05
  not really going to embrace love even though
• 30:09
  there are people who like Steve very much want
• 30:12
  her to love him and want to be in a more traditional
• 30:16
  relationship. Well I think but that raises an
• 30:18
  issue is it fair to say that in the original
• 30:22
  series I mean Carrie really is the only one who
• 30:25
  doesn't have particular character development
• 30:28
  so obviously with Samantha we have this unbelievably
• 30:32
  moving relationship with Smith. And I think the
• 30:36
  end, the last that we see of them, right, where
• 30:40
  Samantha says you are the best man that I've
• 30:42
  ever known, right? So touching. It is. And you
• 30:45
  really do see that this, this is a woman who
• 30:48
  in her own way has moved from this particular
• 30:50
  sort of sexual cynicism to this very profound
• 30:52
  relationship with this younger man. And obviously
• 30:55
  in Charlotte's case, Charlotte has gotten the
• 30:57
  kind of domesticity that she wants, but she has
• 31:00
  changed, but not with the kind of person, right?
• 31:02
  So it's not just that she's converted to Judaism,
• 31:04
  but she's with the short bald guy and not the
• 31:07
  sort of super gorgeous six, two, you know, waspy
• 31:09
  guy. But Carrie, really is kind of in the same
• 31:14
  place at the end where she is really in the very
• 31:17
  first episode, right? With this big is this unattainable
• 31:20
  person who's now attainable after this very sort
• 31:23
  of rocky road and still with this dream of this
• 31:27
  great love and fantastic shoes. And so that might
• 31:31
  be, I think the only real to me weakness of the
• 31:35
  first. series and you know, I still love it,
• 31:38
  but we are not shown that Carrie herself really
• 31:41
  changes very much. But that might be the point
• 31:44
  of the whole thing. Yeah, perhaps. The speech
• 31:46
  that she gives to Petrosky, you know, I am a
• 31:48
  woman looking for love, impossible, romantic,
• 31:52
  blah, blah, blah, love, right? That could have
• 31:53
  been a speech that she gave to Big in the first
• 31:56
  time they went out. And I think that that's the
• 32:01
  problem of it all. for the Carrie character,
• 32:03
  but I think that's intentional that she hasn't
• 32:07
  learned a lot from... any of these relationships,
• 32:11
  she seems to maybe learn a little bit when she
• 32:15
  decides to go to Paris and she says to Big, I'll
• 32:17
  lose my name. I'm over you. You can't hurt me
• 32:20
  anymore. But then, of course, in five seconds,
• 32:24
  I don't even know if it's five seconds. It might
• 32:26
  be three seconds after she breaks up with Petrovsky.
• 32:29
  We don't even know, are they broken up? But it
• 32:32
  looks like it. She is with Big again. Again.
• 32:36
  And it is so in some ways unbelievable that a
• 32:41
  woman who two weeks ago told this man to forget
• 32:44
  her name is now running on the bridge to take
• 32:51
  him back and then return to New York with him
• 32:53
  for good. But that's her... Her tie to Big, which
• 32:59
  is so strong throughout the whole series, whether
• 33:02
  he's present, whether he's not present, he's
• 33:05
  always lingering, he's always in the conversation,
• 33:07
  even when he's in Napa, even when he's married
• 33:10
  to Natasha, no matter what this man is doing.
• 33:13
  And the interesting thing, even when she's with
• 33:15
  Berger, Big is just omnipresent. And Aiden comes
• 33:21
  and goes, she has... two relationships with him.
• 33:25
  And of course cheats on him in the first one.
• 33:27
  Right. And gets him back and then says no to
• 33:29
  him in terms of marriage. And so that's a disaster.
• 33:33
  But Big is always lurking. And whether they're
• 33:37
  friends, whether they're... more than friends,
• 33:41
  whether she goes to San Francisco, and they're,
• 33:44
  I guess, friends with benefits, and she sleeps
• 33:46
  with him there, but there's always that connection.
• 33:50
  And there's always a question of, and Miranda's
• 33:51
  always kind of her mirror to that, right? Yeah.
• 33:53
  Well, what are you now? And what does this mean?
• 33:56
  And he left a message on your answering machine,
• 33:57
  and sometimes she's in a state of desperation,
• 34:00
  and sometimes she's in a state of, well, he's
• 34:02
  just my friend now, and we're connected. And
• 34:06
  at the very end, of course, one of my favorite
• 34:08
  scenes, he goes to see the three girls in the
• 34:11
  coffee shop and says, okay, I'm ready to go to
• 34:14
  Paris, but is she ready to take me back? And
• 34:20
  it's a great scene with the four of them because
• 34:21
  you've never seen that before. And you know,
• 34:25
  Miranda says, go get our girl. But you're sort
• 34:28
  of like, go get our girl. Miranda, you just told
• 34:32
  her not to go to Paris with a man and now another
• 34:34
  man is going who you... all have been really
• 34:38
  skeptical about, maybe except for Charlotte.
• 34:41
  So that's the carry and big of it all. But it
• 34:45
  is a through line throughout the entire series.
• 34:49
  And it's the thing I think that most people watching
• 34:52
  the show are like, are they or aren't they? Will
• 34:54
  they or won't they? And will they end up together?
• 34:57
  And we can talk a little bit later about how
• 35:00
  then, and just like that, completely destroys
• 35:02
  that through line. But I think, and in part it's
• 35:05
  because I'm so reluctant to move on to talk about
• 35:07
  it just like that. There's something else I think
• 35:11
  we should talk about with the original series,
• 35:13
  and you've provided a good segue, which is how
• 35:17
  the series treated the men who were characters
• 35:21
  and how it represented them, how much screen
• 35:25
  time they got, what sort of character development
• 35:27
  we saw with them. And in general, I would say,
• 35:30
  I think the series was really fantastic at showing
• 35:34
  this diversity of the men in New York City, the
• 35:37
  diversity of men that they were meeting, and
• 35:40
  so many really sympathetic characters. I mean,
• 35:43
  even Big ends up as a sympathetic character,
• 35:45
  even though we don't expect that. from the beginning.
• 35:49
  But we have again, all of these men who are depicted
• 35:52
  as being again, sort of sensitive, but not sort
• 35:54
  of super kind of wimpy. These men who are sort
• 35:58
  of strong and respectful, but again, not doormats.
• 36:03
  And Aiden in some ways is depicted as really,
• 36:06
  I think, kind of ideal, right? Again, emotionally
• 36:09
  aware, great sex partner. very, very sensitive,
• 36:15
  again, in a good positive way, with all of his
• 36:17
  five speed sticks and his roguish. Over -masculine.
• 36:20
  Very masculine. Rugged, Paul Bunyan. Rugged,
• 36:23
  building the furniture, has his own business,
• 36:25
  and even, say, Steve. Right. When we first meet
• 36:30
  him is a bartender, but then he ends up with
• 36:33
  his own business with Aiden and is someone who
• 36:35
  is very direct, tells Miranda right away that
• 36:39
  he wants to see her again, that he is attracted
• 36:41
  to her, talks to her about her bullshit when
• 36:44
  she's being so weird in the bar and so cynical
• 36:47
  about the raid, et cetera. And so I think that
• 36:50
  generally it's a really interesting depiction
• 36:54
  of men. Although Well, we do see, I guess, in
• 36:59
  Steve, we definitely understand why Miranda is
• 37:02
  frustrated. He's watching Scooby -Doo. He's playing
• 37:06
  basketball. In the very beginning, he can't get
• 37:09
  his own suit. There's all kinds of issues with
• 37:13
  Steve in terms of his irresponsibility, and she
• 37:16
  feels like she's... picking up all the slack,
• 37:19
  she's going to work, he wants the dog, then he
• 37:21
  doesn't take the dog out. There's a lack of awareness
• 37:25
  on his part in terms of commitment. Well, he
• 37:28
  likes to make commitments, but a lot of the time
• 37:30
  he doesn't own up to his own responsibilities.
• 37:33
  And that's frustrating for her. Yeah, although
• 37:35
  I will push back on the suit, because of course
• 37:37
  the whole point of the suit is that she wants
• 37:39
  him to buy an incredibly expensive suit, and
• 37:42
  he is a bartender living in Queens or whatever,
• 37:44
  who simply can't afford it. And obviously, I
• 37:48
  mean, that entire episode is about class. Class
• 37:50
  is about class. And I think, so I'll say to you,
• 37:53
  which this is a question you're probably not
• 37:55
  going to like, but I will say it because I think
• 37:57
  some of our listeners, maybe not our five friends,
• 38:00
  but others, if they're out there, will say, wait
• 38:02
  a minute, you just said there was diversity on
• 38:04
  the show. And of course, one of the main centers
• 38:09
  of criticism post Sex and the City is that there
• 38:12
  was no diversity on the show. Well. Diversity
• 38:15
  doesn't have to mean racial diversity. And if
• 38:18
  I use the word diversity, it can mean, again,
• 38:21
  indifferent. And as I did in that case, we have
• 38:24
  lots of different social classes. We have lots
• 38:27
  of different ages. The difference between, and
• 38:30
  we even see this in the dinner party episode,
• 38:32
  the difference between an Alexander Petrovsky.
• 38:35
  this feet sort of Russian artist and then Steve
• 38:40
  sitting at the same table who's talking about
• 38:41
  the Knicks or whatever. Right, and or even Stanford's
• 38:44
  boyfriend. What's his name? The guy who's the
• 38:48
  model, the Broadway dancer, who used to be a
• 38:52
  call escort. Yes. And so you have that. And of
• 38:57
  course, you did have racial diversity in the
• 39:00
  person that, of course, we want to come back
• 39:02
  to in just like that. Blair Underwood, whose
• 39:05
  character was so fantastic and really interesting,
• 39:09
  again, in terms of class, really interesting
• 39:13
  in that he's the doctor for the Knicks and he's
• 39:15
  in Miranda's co -op building and super sexy character.
• 39:20
  And a perfect, in some ways, a perfect foil for
• 39:23
  Miranda. Yes. But the show did him dirty. The
• 39:26
  show did him dirty. Because much like, say, Aiden...
• 39:29
  Blair Underwood's character gets in the way of
• 39:32
  the whole Steve and Miranda through line, right?
• 39:35
  So we can only have a few episodes with him where
• 39:38
  he gets the ridiculous like cookie cake thing
• 39:40
  and Brady's birthday party, where then he's just
• 39:43
  shoved to the side and we see him what? One time
• 39:45
  after that and they think he's so heartbroken
• 39:47
  or whatever. But he actually is having a threesome.
• 39:49
  He's actually having a threesome with these two
• 39:51
  sexy girls. So yes, I think that that is what
• 39:55
  I mean in terms of diversity. And as you say,
• 39:57
  yeah, that was a criticism that has been levied
• 39:59
  against the show, but, but. Well, and especially,
• 40:02
  I think that the criticism is mainly against
• 40:06
  the episode where Samantha dates the chef's brother,
• 40:12
  Perry's friend, who is the chef, who owns this
• 40:15
  sort of African -American fusion restaurant and
• 40:18
  the... the brother works in music, in hip hop
• 40:22
  or somewhere in Samantha's PR universe and they
• 40:25
  end up dating. And the sister is very upset about
• 40:28
  it. And Samantha also ends up going to these
• 40:30
  black clubs and she's wearing what some people
• 40:33
  think is like appropriating. outfits and that
• 40:37
  Samantha is, um, you know, pretty headstrong
• 40:40
  about continuing to date this man. When the,
• 40:42
  when the sister says you need to go out and basically
• 40:45
  just find a white guy and stop dating my brother.
• 40:48
  Um, and so, yeah. And Samantha of course is like,
• 40:51
  this is just, this is a, this is a relationship
• 40:53
  thing for me. This isn't a race thing, but then
• 40:56
  she's like, I'm not going to date some immature
• 40:58
  guy. And I think some people push back on that
• 41:00
  and thought, well, you know, the sister had a
• 41:02
  right to have these concerns and you know, we
• 41:04
  can. whatever, at the end of the day, it kind
• 41:06
  of doesn't matter, but their race was introduced
• 41:10
  in the show in some sporadic ways, but not, it
• 41:14
  wasn't a long -standing conversation that the
• 41:18
  show was gonna have, nor was that what the show
• 41:20
  was about. Well, and that actually might be,
• 41:23
  I hate to say it, but that might be, I know,
• 41:25
  I know, I'm very reluctant. That is probably
• 41:30
  our segue to start talking about Anne just like
• 41:33
  that. which one might say was completely, maybe
• 41:39
  not, I shouldn't say completely, but a show that
• 41:42
  seems to exist solely in order to address criticisms
• 41:48
  like the ones you just mentioned. Perhaps it
• 41:53
  was the case that Michael Patrick King, Sarah
• 41:55
  Jessica Parker, the other creatives, that they
• 41:58
  loved the idea of revisiting the characters.
• 42:00
  That may be true, but it also seems to be the
• 42:03
  case that rather than, or maybe in addition to,
• 42:06
  the creative impulses of bringing these characters
• 42:09
  back was a clear sensitivity to the fact that
• 42:16
  Critiques of the original show had really been
• 42:18
  turned up in volume over maybe the past five
• 42:21
  to ten years despite and I would say Critiques
• 42:25
  about race also critiques about Queer, New York,
• 42:30
  which is one of the most bizarre bizarre critiques
• 42:34
  given the special place that Sex and the City
• 42:39
  had in the hearts of gay men and the representations
• 42:43
  of gay life in Sex and the City, which were multifaceted,
• 42:50
  which sometimes had their own storylines, especially
• 42:53
  with Stanford and Mario Cantone's character,
• 42:58
  Anthony. And others and that Carrie moved through
• 43:03
  a queer world as did Samantha For much of and
• 43:07
  actually so did all four of them did I'm thinking
• 43:10
  of the two of them because of Samantha's PR work
• 43:13
  and also because of all the amazing Cameos by
• 43:17
  people makeup artists and designers and in real
• 43:20
  life who came on who were part of the queer community
• 43:24
  and that the show was very very much a about
• 43:29
  thinking, not necessarily about non -binary pronouns,
• 43:33
  sort of post... COVID language or however we
• 43:37
  want to think about it. But it was very much
• 43:39
  thinking about what is masculinity? What is femininity?
• 43:42
  There's so many episodes that question what is
• 43:46
  non -binary? What is the episode where Charlotte
• 43:50
  has the artist that wants to paint her as a man?
• 43:54
  And that's his shtick. His thing. It's his shtick.
• 43:59
  He does gender inversion, portraiture. And there's
• 44:02
  so many questions about what it is right now.
• 44:04
  to have sex like a man, or to have sex like a
• 44:06
  woman, or questions about labels and categories,
• 44:10
  and that the criticism really ignored all of
• 44:13
  that. And that the creatives internalized it
• 44:18
  is really puzzling. It is puzzling because it's
• 44:22
  not just, as you say, that it was treated theoretically
• 44:26
  in the original series with Charlotte as the
• 44:30
  drag king and the Alanis Morissette spin the
• 44:34
  bottle game where we have this notion that all
• 44:37
  of these men and women are just kind of interacting
• 44:39
  in all these different ways, sexually and romantically,
• 44:42
  but that it was so. casual, right? In the sense
• 44:46
  that just depicted as part of life, right? That
• 44:48
  Carrie and her friends, they go to gay bars,
• 44:51
  they go to gay clubs. Again, I just watched the
• 44:53
  episode where Miranda encounters her younger
• 44:56
  coworker at the law firm at the gay bar and he
• 44:59
  doesn't want to be outed. She doesn't want to
• 45:01
  be outed to someone who is pregnant and all of
• 45:03
  these different ways. And of course, also Samantha's
• 45:07
  relationship. She has a relationship with a woman
• 45:11
  that goes on for several episodes. And there's
• 45:13
  this big question, what kind of relationship
• 45:15
  is this? She wants more sex. She just doesn't
• 45:18
  want sort of the talk. And it really is amazing.
• 45:22
  And I think that's exactly it. the, well, I guess
• 45:27
  by creatives, it was just Michael Patrick King,
• 45:29
  right, because who knows what Darren Starr thinks
• 45:31
  about. But it was so interwoven that my suspicion
• 45:35
  has been that simply a lot of the people who
• 45:38
  levied those critiques had simply never watched
• 45:39
  the show. And simply assumed, right, that something
• 45:42
  that had come out in 1999, that it would have
• 45:45
  been, because it focused on four women, that
• 45:48
  it would not have had any contacts with the gay
• 45:51
  world. But It did it did in all of these different
• 45:55
  different ways and behind the scenes as well
• 45:57
  And behind the scenes as well. And so I completely
• 45:59
  agree with you. That critique was so bizarre.
• 46:02
  But again, as you say, the idea that then Michael
• 46:05
  Patrick King and SJP apparently that they internalize
• 46:09
  that is remarkable that the the impulse never
• 46:13
  seems to have been. Let's defend the original
• 46:16
  show and let's talk about all of the different
• 46:18
  ways in which sexuality came up. Queerness came
• 46:21
  up. But to do this sort of overloaded Okay, all
• 46:27
  of these things that you said weren't there,
• 46:29
  we're going to do this new series and shove them
• 46:31
  in in the most awkward, no pun intended, right?
• 46:34
  In the most awkward, completely transparent way.
• 46:37
  And performative ways where there is nothing
• 46:40
  organic or natural or even interesting about
• 46:43
  them. So let's start talking as painful as it
• 46:47
  is. So and just like that just like that we got
• 46:51
  a terrible series a terrible series from a wonderful
• 46:54
  series from a wonderful series and We won't really
• 46:56
  talk about the two movies that came out. Okay
• 46:59
  first movie I think was Good. Second movie was
• 47:02
  terrible. That's pretty much what I would say
• 47:04
  about those. Although even the second movie,
• 47:06
  I would say, has some redeeming, interesting
• 47:08
  questions in it about Big and Carrie. Is it okay
• 47:12
  to take a few nights off and sleep in your old
• 47:15
  apartment? Would you have to be together all
• 47:17
  the time? I think before they go to Abu Dhabi,
• 47:20
  there are some interesting things happening.
• 47:23
  And it's interesting to finally see them as a
• 47:26
  married couple. which we don't see in the first
• 47:30
  movie, since they get married at the end of it.
• 47:33
  And so that was interesting to say, all right,
• 47:35
  this great relationship that has gone through
• 47:37
  all of this rocky period, what does it look like
• 47:40
  when they're both just sitting in bed? reading
• 47:42
  as an old married couple. But it's also interesting
• 47:44
  when Carrie says to, and again, this is all of
• 47:47
  us not wanting to talk about Carrie saying to
• 47:50
  Big, he's on the sofa, which apparently they've
• 47:52
  taken, you know, six months waiting for them
• 47:53
  to come in and she says, let's go out, let's
• 47:55
  go out. And he's like, no, I'm tired. I just
• 47:57
  want to stay here or order sushi or whatever.
• 48:00
  And she's like, no, we can't be that couple.
• 48:03
  And then you realize, right, Carrie, you have
• 48:06
  this guy that you've wanted to be with forever.
• 48:08
  And I guess you've been married now for a year
• 48:10
  or two. and when will you ever be satisfied?
• 48:15
  That's really the question. When will you ever
• 48:17
  be satisfied? And we don't know what the answer
• 48:21
  to that is still, but it's funny to see her in
• 48:25
  domestic supposed bliss with Big in this fantastic
• 48:29
  apartment. Giant closet. Tons of money. She can
• 48:31
  do whatever she wants. She can go out with the
• 48:33
  girls and he's just hanging out and she is nagging
• 48:38
  away. Nagging away. And to the point where he
• 48:41
  has to get dressed up and go out to this premiere
• 48:43
  with her. And you just wonder, when will this
• 48:45
  woman stop? When will she be satisfied? I hate
• 48:49
  to say it. No, I hate to say it, too. But that
• 48:50
  is it. So we have then the new creation of And
• 48:56
  Just Like That, which, what, came out? a couple
• 48:58
  of years ago, 2022 maybe? And so we're on the
• 49:03
  third season of that show. For some reason, HBO
• 49:06
  Max keeps bringing it back. It's the only intellectual
• 49:08
  property that could be brought this many times
• 49:11
  back after such bad reviews. Okay, so let's just
• 49:15
  go through. Okay, it's terrible. We are in agreement.
• 49:19
  It's terrible. It is an abomination. And it gets
• 49:22
  worse. And it gets worse. And it is an absolute
• 49:25
  slap in the face. to the original series, to
• 49:30
  people, I think, who really loved the original
• 49:32
  series. And I would argue to the people who are
• 49:35
  performing on the series. And the people performing
• 49:37
  on the series. All of whom are great actors and
• 49:41
  actresses. I don't have any beef with anyone
• 49:44
  who was on the show, actually. I mean, even Che
• 49:47
  Diaz on some other show may have been fine. Perhaps.
• 49:51
  I never watched Grey's Anatomy, so who knows?
• 49:53
  There's nothing wrong with Sarah Ramirez, right?
• 49:57
  Nonetheless, this whole constellation of humans,
• 50:02
  so many of them, and all acting like they are
• 50:07
  not in their 50s or late 50s, but in their hundreds,
• 50:12
  is one of the strangest things that I have ever
• 50:16
  seen. And the thing that I continually say, and
• 50:19
  I will say it on the podcast, is that when Kerry
• 50:22
  dated Petrovsky, he was a sexy, interesting,
• 50:27
  creative... quote, older man, and that was the
• 50:30
  whole big thing about him, and Samantha's like,
• 50:33
  well, I wonder how old he must, if he was this
• 50:35
  age, I must be this age, and okay, so Petrovsky
• 50:37
  was in his 50s when Carrie was dating him, and
• 50:40
  everyone thought he was fabulous, maybe not Miranda,
• 50:44
  but the University of New York thought he was
• 50:47
  fabulous. Intellectual, creative, famous. He
• 50:49
  had friends, he had all kinds of people in his
• 50:51
  apartment. Friends with Oscar de la Renta. Right,
• 50:52
  right. And so now we have hip replacements, we
• 50:56
  have people who can't hear, we have people who
• 51:00
  are impotent, and for some reason, the Petrovskys
• 51:03
  of the world have been replaced with true geriatrics
• 51:08
  who do not resemble their original characters.
• 51:13
  But, okay, so let's just back up for a second.
• 51:15
  So we have, right, we have... Big is disposed
• 51:20
  of in literally the first episode. So he's off
• 51:25
  the scene. Obviously, Samantha is generally not
• 51:29
  present, right? We have one phone call or something
• 51:31
  and flowers send. So when the and just like that
• 51:35
  begins, Miranda and Steve are married. And again,
• 51:38
  they seem to be million years old. A million
• 51:42
  years old. Charlotte and Harry still together
• 51:45
  and Charlotte has had a lot of unfortunate fillers
• 51:49
  when we begin the show. Aiden is not yet around,
• 51:54
  although he will be in season two, and we have
• 51:59
  then a show that I mean, as you say, sometimes
• 52:04
  everyone seems 100. And Steve, of course, was
• 52:07
  maybe like exhibit A for that. More than 100.
• 52:10
  So Steve, not sex. Okay. People, as you point
• 52:14
  out, people are still or can be sexy in their
• 52:17
  50s, 60s, and on. Of course. And on. We know
• 52:20
  many actors and actresses. Just keep it up forever.
• 52:23
  Who are. Yes. And many of them, again, on show.
• 52:26
  I mean, Julianne Moore is in everything now.
• 52:28
  Yes. Okay, Nicole Kidman in everything, right?
• 52:31
  We can, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, right? None of
• 52:34
  these people are young. However, they are still
• 52:38
  sexy and doing their thing. Dynamic. And we have
• 52:41
  then Steve depicted as, again, elderly, right?
• 52:45
  And in sort of, I don't want to go out and...
• 52:48
  Miranda, of course, when the show begins, she
• 52:51
  has gone gray. Right. So we have sort of silver
• 52:53
  hair, but not sort of sexy silver hair. No. Not
• 52:56
  Stacy London's stripe. No. And as you say, we
• 52:59
  have people who seem to be aged in a miserable,
• 53:04
  not doing things. Carrie has hip surgery. Hip
• 53:07
  surgery. That is an episode. Hip surgery. But
• 53:09
  at the same time, I would argue, in the show
• 53:13
  overall, there also is a refusal. to talk about
• 53:18
  other components of aging. There's a refusal
• 53:21
  to acknowledge that these characters are aging.
• 53:25
  So to me, one of the many things wrong with it,
• 53:28
  many, many, many things wrong with it, is this
• 53:31
  bizarre juxtaposition of Steve is now a million
• 53:36
  years old, Harry is now a million years old,
• 53:38
  but then lots of other people are in relationships
• 53:43
  with 30 -year -olds or are getting hit on by
• 53:48
  30 -year -olds. Right. I have to say, so before
• 53:51
  I let you talk. Okay. It's one in the most recent
• 53:57
  season where Miranda gets the crush on the weight
• 54:01
  person who was making this table -side guacamole.
• 54:04
  At Roja Makakana, which is right around the corner
• 54:08
  from the Empire. Oh, interesting. I didn't notice
• 54:11
  that. Yes. We have then Miranda, who's what?
• 54:15
  At least 60, who is hitting on this poor weight
• 54:20
  person and who asks her out. Now, if this were
• 54:26
  a man hitting on a weight person, it would look
• 54:32
  super creepy, super gross. But we have, again,
• 54:36
  this bizarre thing throughout the show that the
• 54:41
  older characters are, again, getting hit on,
• 54:45
  hitting on these younger people, and things like
• 54:47
  that. The gardener, right? The wait person, which
• 54:50
  I think is bizarre and creepy. Again, because
• 54:54
  old, but then also, but my dating field is still
• 54:58
  wide open, and I can hit on people who are like
• 55:00
  25 or 30. Do you know what I mean? That just
• 55:03
  seems so strange to me. I do. I'm gonna... pivot
• 55:06
  though to talk about something else because it's
• 55:09
  this is for me the hardest thing about the show
• 55:12
  is all the extra characters that came in to answer
• 55:17
  the question of diversity and they came in and
• 55:22
  again I have nothing against these actors and
• 55:25
  actresses loves George Washington and Hamilton
• 55:28
  and You know, you have LTW and we had Karen Pittman,
• 55:32
  who's fantastic in so many other things. The
• 55:34
  morning show, we have the SEMA character, also
• 55:39
  fantastic. She was in Homeland, right? I don't
• 55:43
  remember. Well, she's been in a lot of others.
• 55:45
  A million years ago, she was in Mississippi Masala,
• 55:47
  which is a great film with Denzel Washington.
• 55:49
  She's been in a lot of things. So these are fine
• 55:53
  actors and actresses. I do not, for the life
• 55:56
  of me, understand why they came in with seemingly
• 56:00
  no purpose. Just to sort of have us to say we're
• 56:04
  here and now Charlotte has a black friend and
• 56:07
  now Carrie has an Indian friend and now we can
• 56:11
  be quote exposed to other cultures. And other
• 56:14
  than that, there really isn't anything else going
• 56:17
  on. Point A is that the last episode about LTW
• 56:22
  was, no joke, I don't know if you saw it or not,
• 56:24
  about her. talking in her sleep. I did see that.
• 56:28
  Okay. I did. And her husband has to sleep in
• 56:32
  the guest room. That to me is not inviting any
• 56:37
  kind of conversation about the things that I
• 56:41
  thought that the creatives wanted to. But I think
• 56:45
  they are incapable of discussing those things.
• 56:50
  And I think in part is because Michael Patrick
• 56:52
  King has been writing most of the episodes. I'm
• 56:56
  not sure if he, if he wrote all of the ones from
• 56:58
  this season, but I was, I was thinking about
• 57:00
  it in that she's making this film. She's making
• 57:04
  a film about 10 unsung African -American women
• 57:09
  and that nobody knows about. And this is going
• 57:11
  to be on PBS. Number one on the list is Phyllis
• 57:16
  Wheatley. And to me, it's where are you in the
• 57:22
  world of black culture that you think that people
• 57:25
  have never heard of Phyllis Wheaton? Well, especially
• 57:28
  as a parent of a child going to an elite New
• 57:32
  York private school that that isn't part of the
• 57:37
  canon. And this is somebody who, again, in the
• 57:39
  art world, she has Gordon Parks photographs on
• 57:42
  her walls, right? So I don't understand where
• 57:45
  Phyllis Wheatley is an unsung, unknown, like,
• 57:50
  obscure figure. And to me, that is Michael Patrick
• 57:53
  King, who simply googles. He's so clueless, right?
• 57:58
  So clueless and simply googles African -American
• 58:01
  women. And it's like, wasn't it in the first
• 58:03
  season where Charlotte kind of schools LTW's
• 58:08
  mother -in -law on, oh, well, African -American
• 58:10
  artists, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it had that
• 58:12
  same kind of feel, like Michael Patrick King,
• 58:15
  or whoever wrote the episode, sitting there and
• 58:17
  saying, oh, wait, I'm so sensitive about those
• 58:20
  charges that there was not sufficient diversity,
• 58:23
  that I need to sort of, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 58:25
  And again, in this unbelievably painfully transparent
• 58:29
  way. And what it came across in that first season,
• 58:33
  I just used the word right, in that first season,
• 58:36
  is if Michael Patrick King simply sat there and
• 58:39
  said, everybody needs a friend of color. So inorganic
• 58:44
  and just respond, a perfect lesson in, it's almost
• 58:49
  like crowdfunding art, right? Where he was simply
• 58:53
  responding to these online critiques as opposed
• 58:56
  to saying what is organic. And I think a good
• 58:59
  example for me is Lily. Right, so we have Charlotte's
• 59:03
  daughter that we do encounter, of course, in
• 59:05
  this very touching way at the end of the original
• 59:08
  series. Again, one of the tear -jerking, when
• 59:10
  they get that envelope from China and she's crying
• 59:14
  and she says, that's our baby. Cry, cry, cry,
• 59:16
  cry, cry, cry, right, total waterworks. But what
• 59:18
  would be really interesting is that if we, I
• 59:22
  want to see that character, and maybe it happened
• 59:23
  in season two and you can tell me. It did not.
• 59:25
  But I want to see that character say, I want
• 59:28
  to discover my Asian identity. I want to know
• 59:31
  who my parents are. I'm not just going to sit
• 59:35
  here on Park Avenue playing the piano, but I
• 59:38
  reject being a Jew. I reject being here with
• 59:41
  white parents. I want to see... But also that's
• 59:45
  a callback and one that is never answered to
• 59:48
  when Charlotte and Trey were thinking about adopting
• 59:50
  a Mandarin baby. And you see Charlotte with the
• 59:53
  headphones, trying to learn Mandarin, and of
• 59:57
  course Bunny quashes that dream. But you could
• 1:00:00
  see the possibility later in life, especially
• 1:00:02
  with a partner like Harry, where that could become
• 1:00:05
  part of the Lily storyline. But of course it's
• 1:00:09
  not. It's not. Jewish and we're going to pretend
• 1:00:13
  like this has just happened sort of Uncomplicatedly
• 1:00:17
  and the big problem is rock. Mm -hmm, right?
• 1:00:20
  Which again is is a problem that can exist But
• 1:00:26
  then that also just happens. It's accepted All
• 1:00:31
  is cool and again one of the things that actually
• 1:00:35
  for me is most of fans of is that rock didn't
• 1:00:38
  have to go through with the b 'nei mitzvah. That
• 1:00:42
  Charlotte and Harry were like, oh well, you just
• 1:00:44
  didn't, you know, you didn't feel like doing
• 1:00:45
  your work or whatever, so we'll just let Charlotte
• 1:00:47
  do it. It's like, no, hold your kid accountable,
• 1:00:51
  right? Make them do it. You've given this event,
• 1:00:56
  right, that's prepared, we have a rabbi, do it.
• 1:00:59
  Right. And so the message is, well, whatever.
• 1:01:04
  Like, Rock just wants to be Rock and doesn't
• 1:01:05
  really think that they're Jewish. And, you know,
• 1:01:08
  again, one wonders why this conversation didn't
• 1:01:10
  happen before five minutes before they have to
• 1:01:13
  go out and do this. But again, the messaging
• 1:01:16
  is all over the place. It's all over the place.
• 1:01:19
  And it again is so. transparent and I'm thinking
• 1:01:24
  of the the dinner table conversation where Lily's
• 1:01:27
  boyfriend comes over and He's he's like well.
• 1:01:30
  I also have a boyfriend right and then you have
• 1:01:32
  this super awkward and cringy He's polysexual
• 1:01:37
  and I was like actually if he has a boyfriend
• 1:01:39
  and a girlfriend. He's polyamorous He's polyamorous.
• 1:01:42
  I mean and and they even say oh rock You know
• 1:01:45
  all of those strange phrases the kids are using
• 1:01:48
  these days, but it was so clearly shoehorned
• 1:01:53
  in there. There is nothing organic about it.
• 1:01:56
  And I think, like, as you say with the LTW and
• 1:01:58
  the, oh, she's talking in her sleep, that character
• 1:02:03
  could simply be excised from the entire show.
• 1:02:07
  We would lose nothing. We would lose absolutely
• 1:02:10
  nothing. There would be nothing. Nothing. Because
• 1:02:12
  it really is, as people said in the first season,
• 1:02:16
  that it's simply Charlotte. but who is African
• 1:02:20
  American. And that too, all of these things that,
• 1:02:25
  again, reflection about what does it mean for
• 1:02:27
  her to be a black woman in this world. And the
• 1:02:31
  college application thing where her son's saying,
• 1:02:34
  oh, the college counselor says that I'm not black
• 1:02:36
  enough or whatever. And I shouldn't talk about
• 1:02:38
  playing lacrosse. And I want to see more things
• 1:02:41
  like that, but it really is just that Michael
• 1:02:43
  Patrick King, I think, just cannot process. cannot
• 1:02:47
  process. And what's interesting, again, is that
• 1:02:50
  the insensitivity to LTW and to her son is the
• 1:02:54
  same insensitivity to the Samantha boyfriend.
• 1:02:59
  There hasn't been any growth, in other words.
• 1:03:01
  If the charges were well, there should have been
• 1:03:03
  more sensitivity towards the character with the
• 1:03:07
  food, the chef, and her brother who dated Samantha,
• 1:03:11
  and that was treated... callously or carelessly
• 1:03:14
  that then later on we'll get it right. And they
• 1:03:18
  don't. They don't. They don't. They don't. But
• 1:03:21
  it's the sort of thing where clearly getting
• 1:03:23
  it right would not mean just bringing in other
• 1:03:27
  writers. Right. And maybe they have, but I think
• 1:03:31
  that the... hunger that is so clear in that show
• 1:03:35
  to say, all right, well, let's, let's depict
• 1:03:38
  all of these other 20 somethings and early 30
• 1:03:41
  somethings. And again, they can talk about all
• 1:03:42
  their, their sort of super sexy lingo and the,
• 1:03:47
  it just takes time away space away from these
• 1:03:52
  concrete relationships. And one of the things
• 1:03:53
  I don't remember which episode it was, you can
• 1:03:55
  tell me in the most recent season, there's an
• 1:03:58
  episode where they never engage. The friends
• 1:04:01
  never engage, right? Super separate. There's
• 1:04:03
  like one phone call between, I think, Miranda
• 1:04:05
  and Carrie. But other than that, they're just
• 1:04:07
  separate. Maybe when Carrie and Seema go to Virginia.
• 1:04:10
  It might have been. Oh, it's the episode where
• 1:04:13
  Miranda becomes the meme, because she says wild
• 1:04:16
  cunt. And I think it's that. But they're all
• 1:04:19
  just completely separate, right? As if they're
• 1:04:21
  occupying these different shows. And again, if
• 1:04:25
  someone who, maybe one of our five friends, but
• 1:04:28
  maybe somebody else, can please tell me when
• 1:04:30
  Harry got a father. When? When did that happen?
• 1:04:33
  I had to pause the show when Harry said, my father
• 1:04:37
  is in town. And I said, Harry has a living father.
• 1:04:42
  Did he come to the wedding? I mean, did he approve
• 1:04:46
  of Charlotte? What happened with the conversion?
• 1:04:49
  That whole conversation with Harry and Charlotte
• 1:04:51
  about Harry's mother being dead. And now you
• 1:04:55
  mentioned the Holocaust. And what about the birth,
• 1:04:58
  right? In Charlotte, we see the birth of Rose.
• 1:05:03
  Why is Harry's father not there? Who knows? I
• 1:05:06
  cannot believe that Harry has a father. Now he
• 1:05:09
  is a convenient plot point. But, but this is
• 1:05:12
  another important thing that we have to talk
• 1:05:14
  about before we run out of time. And that is,
• 1:05:17
  I posit that Michael Patrick King hates every
• 1:05:22
  male character now. The men are just too, too
• 1:05:28
  a man. They, so Steve is gone, right? We're never
• 1:05:31
  going to see him again. I think we will see him
• 1:05:32
  again. I think we're going to get him coming
• 1:05:34
  out of the crab shack on the boardwalk. So, but
• 1:05:40
  he is gone for now. But we know that Brady is
• 1:05:42
  working there because he had on the Scout. Yes,
• 1:05:44
  the Scout t -shirt. So I think we're gonna see
• 1:05:46
  Steve again. Perhaps, perhaps. Although the last
• 1:05:49
  time I - Not that I'm dying to or anything, but
• 1:05:51
  I - Well I want to see like sexy Steve looking
• 1:05:55
  incredible and has his hearing back and is like
• 1:05:58
  living his best life. We're not going to be getting
• 1:06:00
  that. I know. So Aiden, we have this totally
• 1:06:03
  bizarre - Okay. Five year plan. Okay, let's for
• 1:06:07
  a second. I do feel like we have to discuss the
• 1:06:11
  Aiden of it all, because that shit show that
• 1:06:15
  we saw in his house, which if we're gonna put
• 1:06:17
  that in the comedy category, this is where shows
• 1:06:20
  like The Bear, where they're like, oh, it's a
• 1:06:22
  comedy. It's not a comedy. The same vibes, right?
• 1:06:25
  People screaming at each other across the table.
• 1:06:28
  These, what I don't understand, Aiden's children
• 1:06:31
  are, one's at UVA, so college age, one, let's
• 1:06:35
  say. Turning 21. One's maybe, I don't know, 18
• 1:06:38
  or something, 17. And then we have Wyatt, who...
• 1:06:42
  What, 16? How young? He looks like a baby. He
• 1:06:45
  looks like a baby, but in reality, he's probably
• 1:06:48
  15 or 16 years old. And these other older kids
• 1:06:52
  are away, and they're like, it's always the Wyatt
• 1:06:55
  Show. And I'm just like, what are the dynamics
• 1:06:58
  in this household? Why do I, but why do I even
• 1:07:01
  care? Why do I even care? Because this isn't
• 1:07:03
  the show. This isn't what we're - This isn't,
• 1:07:05
  I didn't, I didn't sign up. But that's, but what
• 1:07:08
  is important to say though is that obviously
• 1:07:12
  in the first show there were very heavy problems,
• 1:07:16
  right? Yes. Samantha gets cancer, right? Miranda's
• 1:07:19
  mother dies. Steve gets cancer. And so it's not
• 1:07:23
  that, oh, okay, we can't have these moments of
• 1:07:26
  profound drama. It's not that. No. It's that
• 1:07:29
  the, Tonally, it is always so off. But also,
• 1:07:34
  like, even narratively. So that friggin' kid,
• 1:07:37
  right, breaks the fucking window of the... I'm
• 1:07:41
  like, I would call the cops on my own kid if
• 1:07:43
  he did that. But we have no idea how that ended
• 1:07:46
  at all. And for some reason, Carrie has no idea
• 1:07:50
  that it's this bad. So even if Aidan's like,
• 1:07:53
  well, I have this five -year plan because let
• 1:07:55
  me tell you... My house, here are the kinds of
• 1:07:59
  things that go on in my house. And it's not just
• 1:08:01
  that my kid, you know, got into this accident.
• 1:08:04
  Got drunk or whatever. It's that my kid needs
• 1:08:06
  to be monitored. Maybe we need to put him in
• 1:08:09
  some kind of institution. I just can't, rather
• 1:08:11
  than I won't see for five years, I just can't
• 1:08:13
  be in a serious relationship right now. Because
• 1:08:16
  I have to take care of my kid. Which I think
• 1:08:19
  most people are like, we get that. Right? And
• 1:08:21
  here, by the way, Carrie, are some of the things
• 1:08:24
  that have happened in the past week. In which
• 1:08:26
  case, she would have never gone to Virginia.
• 1:08:31
  again, it's all over the place and Aiden who,
• 1:08:36
  one of the sadder things about all of this is
• 1:08:38
  that Aiden who in the series was, you know, the
• 1:08:42
  rock, the, you know, the guy who you could, you
• 1:08:44
  know, shoulder cry on. Super stable. And also
• 1:08:47
  really funny and, you know, just somebody that
• 1:08:50
  you were kind of rooting for Carrie to be with
• 1:08:52
  because you knew he would be a good husband and
• 1:08:55
  a good father. And now he is in a sad life with
• 1:08:59
  these sad kids. Jerking off in the truck. Passive
• 1:09:02
  aggressive ex -wife, right? Like doing God knows
• 1:09:06
  what, swimming in a pond. And it's just so, so
• 1:09:11
  sad of what has happened to him. i agree it is
• 1:09:15
  sad we are seeing him not in any kind of position
• 1:09:18
  of yes stability or strength but it's also but
• 1:09:21
  that's part of the reason why it really bothered
• 1:09:23
  me that we don't know what happens after the
• 1:09:26
  kid again it's like where where is the kid is
• 1:09:29
  the kid after he breaks this window is he sleeping
• 1:09:32
  peacefully in his own bedroom has he gone gone
• 1:09:34
  off to Juvie Hall, is he hospitalized? I think
• 1:09:37
  we're gonna find out next episode. Perhaps. But
• 1:09:40
  that also, to me, to cycle back for a minute
• 1:09:42
  about how bizarre the age stuff is for me in
• 1:09:45
  the series, what person, man or woman, really,
• 1:09:50
  at the age that Carrie and Aidan are, are going
• 1:09:53
  to say will hit the pause button for five years.
• 1:09:58
  Right. Okay, they're not 25. No. Right. They
• 1:10:00
  could both be dead in five years. Right? Right.
• 1:10:03
  Right. And the idea that, yes, if Carrie were
• 1:10:07
  going to say, okay, you know, I have no interest
• 1:10:09
  in a relationship or whatever, but it is so bizarre
• 1:10:13
  to me that, and again, that's someplace where
• 1:10:16
  I'm like, I don't understand. Are they still
• 1:10:18
  acting as if everyone is 25 and 30, or are they
• 1:10:21
  acting like they're 100? Because Aiden does look,
• 1:10:23
  he looks old, as he should. As he should. I mean,
• 1:10:28
  he still looks great. But he looks... downtrodden,
• 1:10:32
  he looks miserable, he looks again as if all
• 1:10:34
  of this stuff has weakened him. Yes, but here
• 1:10:38
  is the other problem which you and I have talked
• 1:10:39
  about but I have to say on the podcast. The way
• 1:10:43
  that Unjust Like That, especially in this third
• 1:10:45
  season, has been framing Carrie and Aiden is
• 1:10:48
  as if, in the series, they were the central love
• 1:10:52
  story. Yes. Yes. I agree. And they weren't. Yes.
• 1:10:54
  We have read cons the entire thing. She ditched
• 1:10:57
  him the first time. Well, she cheated on him
• 1:10:59
  the first time. The second time, she said, no
• 1:11:02
  thanks to marriage. And then she moved on. And
• 1:11:07
  the idea that now Carrie and Aiden would wait
• 1:11:10
  for each other for five years when they didn't
• 1:11:12
  wait for each other and they didn't really, well
• 1:11:14
  at least Carrie didn't, won Aiden the last time
• 1:11:19
  is just... Bonkers it is so bonkers that big
• 1:11:24
  has been written out of the series even in passing
• 1:11:28
  Even in oh like what happened to that big sofa,
• 1:11:32
  right? Why isn't that in the house that sofa
• 1:11:37
  was like $10 ,000 or something and it's some
• 1:11:40
  like vintage piece she found and god knows where
• 1:11:43
  where is it? I want to know where all the stuff.
• 1:11:46
  I understand that when big died she wanted to
• 1:11:49
  like repaint the apartment, and it was a lot
• 1:11:52
  of painful memories. But Big is not even mentioned
• 1:11:55
  in dialogue. Do you remember when you and Big
• 1:11:57
  went to the Hamptons? None of it. None of it.
• 1:12:00
  But, and the question is, would that be the case?
• 1:12:05
  without the accusations against Chris Noth. And
• 1:12:08
  who knows? Who knows? Who knows? But I think
• 1:12:11
  given all of the other debacles and all of the
• 1:12:14
  other weird disconnects between and just like
• 1:12:16
  that in the original series, I think it's perfectly
• 1:12:18
  likely that they would have retconned the entire
• 1:12:21
  thing, even without the Chris Noth issue. And
• 1:12:24
  because we always have to have this notion that
• 1:12:27
  that Carrie is pursuing a soulmate. Right. It
• 1:12:30
  always has to be that. Right. And so it can't
• 1:12:32
  just be, Oh, she's dating some like sexy guy
• 1:12:35
  who lives five blocks away from her and he's
• 1:12:39
  great and talented and nice and all of this other
• 1:12:41
  stuff. Right. It has to be a return to this great
• 1:12:44
  love. And obviously the two great loves can't
• 1:12:48
  coexist as we saw in the original series. And
• 1:12:52
  it was very much the case, as you say, Aiden
• 1:12:54
  was not this great love, right? It was always
• 1:12:56
  big, but now we've retconned the entire thing.
• 1:12:59
  Now it's Aiden. And now everyone is saying, oh,
• 1:13:02
  your great love was Aiden. And so you'll wait
• 1:13:04
  for him. And we're all like, what are you talking
• 1:13:07
  about? He was not the great love. And the great
• 1:13:11
  love is now sadly gone. And what has happened
• 1:13:15
  to all the big stuff? Again, I still want to
• 1:13:19
  know. There are so many questions I have. A huge
• 1:13:21
  one besides why does Harry have a father is what
• 1:13:24
  has happened to the Hamptons house that big and
• 1:13:28
  Carrie used to go to on the weekends. Well, maybe
• 1:13:31
  they just sold it, and that's partly how she
• 1:13:33
  can afford Gramercy Park. Wasn't there an episode
• 1:13:36
  where she and Seema went there? I don't remember.
• 1:13:38
  That must have been in season two, which I'm
• 1:13:41
  spotty with. I just cannot understand. She obviously
• 1:13:44
  has so much money. I mean, she can just do whatever,
• 1:13:48
  rip out gardens. This is Gramercy Park, mansion.
• 1:13:53
  She can do whatever. It's no issue for her. Again,
• 1:13:57
  there's no sense of what it is her purpose is
• 1:14:01
  and other than sitting and moping over Aiden
• 1:14:05
  even though Why is she moping over Aiden when
• 1:14:09
  she hadn't talked to Aiden for like 20 years
• 1:14:11
  or something? It's well, okay. I have to mention
• 1:14:14
  one tiny tiny thing. Go ahead about about that
• 1:14:17
  house, and this really bothered me, but it was
• 1:14:20
  a perfect instance of how the show is so bizarre,
• 1:14:24
  and again, makes these choices where you're like,
• 1:14:26
  where the hell did that come from? Okay, when
• 1:14:28
  Miranda has Joy over and Joy's terrible friends
• 1:14:32
  come over when Miranda is house sitting, a tiny
• 1:14:35
  thing that drove me batshit. One of Joy's friends
• 1:14:39
  lights up a cigarette. Yes, I saw this. That
• 1:14:42
  bothered me so much because again quote -unquote
• 1:14:44
  in universe i was like well okay if i'm house
• 1:14:47
  sitting for my friend i'm not gonna let someone
• 1:14:49
  smoke i'm especially not going to do that where
• 1:14:51
  my friend is a former smoker i'm especially especially
• 1:14:54
  not going to do that where the whole point right
• 1:14:57
  is. Aiden and Carrie's relationship, originally,
• 1:15:02
  can only move forward if she quits smoking. Right?
• 1:15:05
  And this is very much balanced with the whole,
• 1:15:06
  like, you know, vague is also the addiction.
• 1:15:08
  But I was like, who the fuck does that? Who says
• 1:15:10
  I'm house -sitting and I want to let my friend
• 1:15:14
  of a friend... I was thinking from a preservation
• 1:15:17
  point of view also. I mean, that's really where
• 1:15:19
  my head went, because I'm thinking, okay, Gilded
• 1:15:21
  Age, they're trying to somehow channel gross
• 1:15:24
  age, kind of even smoke in this building, because
• 1:15:28
  it's... who knows the last time it was renovated,
• 1:15:32
  it could be easily flammable, and again, are
• 1:15:36
  there building codes that would allow you not
• 1:15:37
  to smoke in this building? That was the first
• 1:15:40
  thing that came to mind when that woman lit up.
• 1:15:42
  It was so bizarre. It was so bizarre, and that
• 1:15:44
  Miranda wouldn't say, hey, you need to go outside.
• 1:15:48
  Again, I'm cat sitting. And your point that you
• 1:15:51
  asked me earlier is why people are in full size
• 1:15:53
  beds now. Tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny beds that
• 1:15:57
  are smaller than their beds were in the original
• 1:16:00
  series and smaller than Seema's bed. And I don't
• 1:16:03
  know why Charlotte's bed has gotten so small.
• 1:16:07
  When the budget is obviously gigantic through
• 1:16:10
  the roof. I mean, they're wearing multi, you
• 1:16:14
  know. Outfits that are very very expensive and
• 1:16:18
  they are curating every piece and they're shooting
• 1:16:21
  all over the place And so you would think that
• 1:16:24
  they could spring for king -sized beds California
• 1:16:28
  King makes absolutely no sense. Absolutely no
• 1:16:31
  sense. Yeah, but also Seema is smoking. Yeah,
• 1:16:35
  how many yeah, how many 60 year old women? Affluent
• 1:16:40
  women. Do you know who smoke? Cigarettes see
• 1:16:43
  I think the reason why SEMA is smoking is because
• 1:16:47
  she is the Samantha Samantha Stand -in and she
• 1:16:50
  can be sexy without a cigarette as if we are
• 1:16:53
  living in like 1940 or something. I mean, I don't
• 1:16:56
  know why she smokes I guess it's just to be irreverent
• 1:16:59
  and again, you know, I'm a former smoker and
• 1:17:02
  I know you know, whatever But it is odd that
• 1:17:06
  Seema, who cares about how she looks, who cares
• 1:17:08
  about aging and wrinkles and all that kind of
• 1:17:11
  stuff, is still smoking. And also smoking to
• 1:17:16
  the point that she lights her hair on fire. isn't
• 1:17:23
  a great plot point for someone in their 60s.
• 1:17:26
  It's not. And this is why, one more time, I find
• 1:17:29
  me aging. Yes. Again, it's like, well, since
• 1:17:32
  I did miss so much of season two, are they talking
• 1:17:35
  about menopause? For what? Yes. There's no...
• 1:17:39
  To some extent, but nothing like when in the...
• 1:17:44
  I guess it was the second film and Samantha had
• 1:17:45
  all the pills and it was so stupid, but nonetheless,
• 1:17:49
  they were talking about it. Well, that's... But
• 1:17:51
  there's no conception. right in that show. And
• 1:17:53
  this is where I do think it was true of the first
• 1:17:55
  series. I think it's true here. Michael Patrick
• 1:17:58
  King, again, writes them as if they are gay men.
• 1:18:02
  He just does in the sense that, okay, we are
• 1:18:05
  hitting on the 30 -year -old. We are in a dating
• 1:18:08
  and sex world as if, again, the number of women
• 1:18:13
  in their 50s and 60s, right, who are regularly
• 1:18:16
  hit on by younger men is vanishingly small. I
• 1:18:22
  say this as a woman in my 50s. This is just a
• 1:18:24
  reality. I think probably even in New York City.
• 1:18:28
  But this is so much depicted. Again, super, got
• 1:18:32
  tons of men that Seema is meeting on online dating.
• 1:18:36
  She doesn't want to do the matchmaker because
• 1:18:39
  the whole idea that she is going to sort of not
• 1:18:41
  show her true personality. And it was also really
• 1:18:45
  remarkable that we had Seema say, I think it
• 1:18:47
  was in that matchmaker episode, oh, well, I wish
• 1:18:50
  I were a lesbian because my life would be so
• 1:18:53
  much easier in terms of dating. And I was like,
• 1:18:55
  do people still say things like that? Which actually
• 1:18:59
  does probably point us to one of the biggest
• 1:19:01
  changes. And that is Miranda. Miranda. And the
• 1:19:06
  interesting thing, of course, about that... is
• 1:19:09
  that you're going back to the episode early on
• 1:19:11
  when Miranda and Sid go on their date and they
• 1:19:15
  have the softball game and then Miranda's like
• 1:19:17
  look I want to make partner and this is the only
• 1:19:19
  way I'm going to do it and then at the very end
• 1:19:22
  she kisses Sid she's like nope nope It's confirmed.
• 1:19:26
  It's confirmed that Miranda is straight. It is
• 1:19:30
  confirmed that Miranda is straight. And of course,
• 1:19:34
  people change and evolve and doesn't mean that
• 1:19:36
  she can never, never be queer. However, now it
• 1:19:41
  is to the point of Such cartoonishness, such
• 1:19:46
  unserious examination of her sexuality. I mean,
• 1:19:50
  with Che, it was just bananas. Just bananas.
• 1:19:55
  It made no sense. The couple made no sense. Miranda
• 1:19:58
  would never have dated someone like Che in the
• 1:20:03
  real series. I mean, if she had problems with
• 1:20:05
  Steve, right? I mean, all of her issues with
• 1:20:08
  Steve were replicated in Che. who in some ways
• 1:20:12
  was more irresponsible, more uncaring. Steve
• 1:20:17
  had an emotional sensitivity that Che just did
• 1:20:19
  not. I mean, to extent, Che made fun of Miranda
• 1:20:22
  on stage. It was horrible. Now Miranda is dating
• 1:20:29
  and dating what we would think of maybe more
• 1:20:32
  appropriate people. She dated, so there was the
• 1:20:36
  supposed to be funny episode with her and Rosie
• 1:20:38
  O'Donnell, which ended up not being funny. It
• 1:20:40
  was so awful. So awful. And now she's dating
• 1:20:44
  the woman who works for the BBC, which seems
• 1:20:47
  like a better match for her. We'll stay tuned
• 1:20:51
  and see what goes on with that. But it is just...
• 1:20:55
  It really is an abomination that the storyline
• 1:20:59
  that it seems like they want to again appease
• 1:21:03
  those who criticize the show with is given the
• 1:21:07
  worst writing and Miranda for at least for the
• 1:21:11
  first two seasons of and just like that was unrecognizable
• 1:21:15
  And I think that, I mean what, and I appreciate
• 1:21:18
  what you're saying in terms of people changing
• 1:21:20
  and evolving, and obviously it's based upon Cynthia
• 1:21:22
  Nixon's own experience of being married to a
• 1:21:24
  man and then falling in love with a woman. But
• 1:21:26
  I think what I really dislike about it is not,
• 1:21:29
  is that it seems to me to be a trope in television
• 1:21:34
  particularly, that women, have this kind of changeable
• 1:21:39
  sexuality. And I mean, men never do. Men never.
• 1:21:42
  It's not like we're going to be shown either
• 1:21:44
  a gay man who decides he's straight, or a straight
• 1:21:47
  guy who's 50 and then says, all right, I'm gay.
• 1:21:51
  It is always women. in shows, right, who have
• 1:21:55
  this kind of fluidity in terms of their sexuality,
• 1:21:57
  who are like, I'm going to be bisexual. I think
• 1:21:59
  of the worst case scenario, which is in my crazy
• 1:22:02
  ex -girlfriend, Rachel Bloom, where one of the
• 1:22:06
  characters just is like, oh, well, I guess I'm
• 1:22:09
  with a woman now, right, with no indication that
• 1:22:11
  it was, again, organic. it seems that is very
• 1:22:15
  odd to me. And what is so interesting is your
• 1:22:17
  earlier point about Samantha, which is that Samantha
• 1:22:21
  getting with Maria, you're like, well, it's a
• 1:22:24
  little It's a little bit of a reach, but Samantha
• 1:22:25
  is up for anything. Yes. And established. And
• 1:22:29
  you're like, right. And she was with her, and
• 1:22:31
  you can imagine that Samantha may have hooked
• 1:22:33
  up with other women before just for fun or whatever.
• 1:22:38
  Samantha's so adventurous, and you feel like,
• 1:22:40
  okay, she's going to go for it, and she's in
• 1:22:43
  this relationship with Maria for a few episodes,
• 1:22:45
  and it isn't such a reach. It isn't. for exactly
• 1:22:50
  these reasons, right? That we have all of this
• 1:22:52
  buildup in terms of her sexual personality. And
• 1:22:54
  then it makes sense that the reason they break
• 1:22:56
  up is that that component of the relationship,
• 1:22:59
  the sexual component, just falls by the wayside.
• 1:23:01
  And it's just the sort of sitting in the bathtub
• 1:23:03
  and relating or whatever. But that's the thing
• 1:23:05
  is that the idea that Miranda, who at this point
• 1:23:08
  is what, 50 plus, and as you say, where we have
• 1:23:11
  that episode where the whole point of that earlier
• 1:23:14
  episode is that she is not a lesbian, then again,
• 1:23:18
  doesn't just say, well, you know I think maybe
• 1:23:20
  Steve and I will you know I'll try to bring a
• 1:23:21
  woman into our sex life right Steve or whatever
• 1:23:23
  that overnight it's I'm a lesbian now and to
• 1:23:29
  me and fitting that trope is just so annoying
• 1:23:33
  it just doesn't work and then as you say the
• 1:23:35
  writing is Terrible and this and that our first
• 1:23:39
  sexual encounter is I believe in Carrie's kitchen
• 1:23:43
  So Carrie is peeing into a bottle that she doesn't
• 1:23:48
  even get the courtesy of a sexual encounter Where
• 1:23:53
  there's some meaning or there's some? Escalation
• 1:23:56
  or anticipation or any of that. It's just this
• 1:23:59
  awful cringe thing that happens And again, with
• 1:24:05
  Che, the idea that Che was supposed to be visiting
• 1:24:09
  Carrie is like hitting on Miranda in the bathroom
• 1:24:12
  or in the kitchen is just, oh, nobody wanted
• 1:24:16
  to watch that. Nobody. And I mean, as I mentioned
• 1:24:19
  to you, I really could have gone forever without
• 1:24:21
  seeing the Rosie O'Donnell, like, nun. sort of
• 1:24:26
  aftermath and I thought it was just that to me
• 1:24:28
  was so again shoehorned in right and I was like
• 1:24:31
  why does she have to be a nun right why and we've
• 1:24:34
  already done why and we've already done the nun
• 1:24:36
  and the nun is a character in the Samantha episode
• 1:24:42
  where she waits in the waiting room to get cameo.
• 1:24:47
  And there's a whole storyline that the nun can't
• 1:24:51
  get attention. She's a nobody, but she's waiting
• 1:24:54
  because she has breast cancer. And Samantha says,
• 1:24:57
  oh my gosh, you haven't had sex and you still
• 1:25:00
  have breast cancer. So it isn't me because I'm
• 1:25:02
  just like slutting. So we've already been through
• 1:25:06
  that dialogue. It's a different storyline, but
• 1:25:09
  I just feel like, oh, we just. pulling out the
• 1:25:12
  same outfits over and over again, trying them
• 1:25:16
  on different people, but there's not any difference
• 1:25:19
  in what's going on. And again, without any adaptation
• 1:25:24
  for age. And so, I mean, as I think you pointed
• 1:25:26
  out in one of our conversations outside of the
• 1:25:28
  pod, so now we have another ED storyline, right?
• 1:25:32
  We have another, Charlotte has another guy who
• 1:25:34
  can't get it up. And it was like for Charlotte
• 1:25:36
  of all people. I mean, after we've already gone
• 1:25:39
  through at least five episodes of Trey not being
• 1:25:41
  able to get it up, and the sex therapist, and
• 1:25:44
  Rebecca, and Schooner, and all of that, right?
• 1:25:48
  Now we have Harry, who I think is going to have
• 1:25:50
  prostate cancer. I think that's coming down the
• 1:25:53
  pipeline. Between the peeing episode and this
• 1:25:57
  now, I think that's where things are going. I
• 1:26:00
  could be wrong. Well, I hope so. But I just think
• 1:26:03
  there's another cancer coming because it's sex
• 1:26:06
  in the city and there always seems to be cancer
• 1:26:08
  somewhere. But even, I mean, that would be interesting.
• 1:26:11
  I mean, I hate to say it, poor Harry, but in
• 1:26:13
  terms of say if Charlotte became a widow. yeah
• 1:26:15
  right and then i mean obviously she is working
• 1:26:17
  now but if she if all of a sudden that's the
• 1:26:19
  thing i want to see charlotte's family impoverished
• 1:26:23
  right radical change yes radical radical radical
• 1:26:28
  change i want to see i want to see lily say i
• 1:26:31
  reject my white parents i reject judaism i want
• 1:26:34
  to find out about my asian heritage i want to
• 1:26:36
  see charlotte impoverished i want to see carrie
• 1:26:38
  basically say forget you aiden right and i'm
• 1:26:40
  going to date some normal guy who who is here
• 1:26:42
  i'm going to tape laranda wood yeah Yes, we all
• 1:26:45
  want to see Blair Underwood back We all want
• 1:26:49
  to see that but I will say I will say again I
• 1:26:51
  mean the the Lisa Todd Wexley that is a diff
• 1:26:54
  that is a separate show. There is no need for
• 1:26:57
  that character at this point She's simply going
• 1:26:58
  and she's going to have enough with the editing
• 1:27:00
  guy and then that's gonna happen but that involves
• 1:27:04
  none of the other characters and it'll be a side
• 1:27:07
  conversation with Charlotte about it and Charlotte
• 1:27:09
  will be appalled because Charlotte's always appalled
• 1:27:12
  when people cheat on their spouses and there'll
• 1:27:15
  be no mention of course of when Carrie cheated
• 1:27:17
  on Aiden because Big does no longer exist but
• 1:27:23
  the chaos of it all is is just going to linger
• 1:27:30
  and it is impossible to imagine a scenario where
• 1:27:35
  viewers are satisfied or even where there's any
• 1:27:39
  kind of exploration in ways that would have that
• 1:27:45
  we would have imagined from the first show of
• 1:27:47
  like, where do we see these characters when they're
• 1:27:49
  in their 50s or 60s? They're doing these cool
• 1:27:52
  things and they're going to these fun parties
• 1:27:55
  and they're eating at these restaurants and they
• 1:27:57
  do have kids and maybe they're taking them to
• 1:27:59
  college or I don't know, things like that. And
• 1:28:01
  none of that is happening. But again, it's still
• 1:28:06
  to me, as with the age thing, there is this bizarre
• 1:28:10
  juxtaposition of like okay well but Carrie is
• 1:28:13
  going out for drinks with her you know the 30
• 1:28:15
  year old jewelry designer right who they are
• 1:28:18
  they are doing these weird sorts of things and
• 1:28:22
  so it's like okay they're not doing the things
• 1:28:24
  we want to see them doing at that age no instead
• 1:28:28
  right they're not doing the cool fun stuff to
• 1:28:31
  be in their 50s and 60s they're not throwing
• 1:28:33
  the Candice Bergen splat party they're not Instead,
• 1:28:37
  they are going to clubs with the 20 -somethings,
• 1:28:41
  going to a bar with the 20 -somethings. and something
• 1:28:45
  else where Michael Patrick King is simply, again,
• 1:28:49
  not just retconning things, but he is constructing
• 1:28:51
  these episodes as if he sat in a room with a
• 1:28:56
  focus group, right, of 25 -year -old Gen Z, right,
• 1:29:01
  the most woke Gen Z you can possibly imagine,
• 1:29:03
  and said, what do you, give me the checklist,
• 1:29:06
  right, give me the checklist. And it's like,
• 1:29:08
  oh, okay. And that's, again, it is so. inorganic.
• 1:29:14
  And so he simply wants, he wants to have that
• 1:29:17
  Gen Z world and plug these 50s, 60s people into
• 1:29:22
  it. But he only wants it to be in New York because
• 1:29:25
  as we know, Virginia might as well be Mississippi.
• 1:29:29
  And rural Mississippi. It might as well be...
• 1:29:33
  a place, a town of three. That dress shop thing
• 1:29:36
  was like, oh my god. And it was insulting. It
• 1:29:39
  was insulting. In a lot of ways. It was. Not
• 1:29:41
  just because, again, there's lots of shops that
• 1:29:43
  exist and like whatever that shop owner wants
• 1:29:46
  to own, that's fine, right? And Carrie also wears
• 1:29:49
  things that are fucking crazy. So the idea that
• 1:29:51
  Carrie is wearing like a maxi dress with flowers
• 1:29:54
  on it, that is not the craziest thing that she's
• 1:29:56
  ever worn. She wore a hat the size of like Jupiter
• 1:30:00
  the other day. So what, so Kara wearing a maxi
• 1:30:05
  dress that isn't like Dolce & Gabbana isn't a
• 1:30:08
  big deal. It really, actually the maxi dress
• 1:30:10
  she was wearing was, so everything fit perfectly.
• 1:30:13
  It fit and it didn't look any worse than the
• 1:30:16
  outfit she had on before, which was like that
• 1:30:18
  sweater and like those - With that ridiculous
• 1:30:20
  hot pink dress. Crazy heels and like - totally,
• 1:30:24
  totally unpractical for where she was going.
• 1:30:26
  I don't understand why there was so much fun
• 1:30:28
  made of that dress store. It wasn't like she
• 1:30:30
  came out looking, I don't know, like Amish or
• 1:30:33
  something. And then the idea that there would
• 1:30:35
  be no target, the target would be, what did he
• 1:30:37
  say? An hour away. An hour away. There would
• 1:30:39
  be nowhere to eat. There would be nothing for
• 1:30:41
  them to do. in Virginia, of all places. And that
• 1:30:45
  the sun goes to UVA. Charlottesville is a thriving
• 1:30:49
  town. Plenty of people live there. All kinds
• 1:30:52
  of schools. I've lived there. It's almost a D
• 1:30:56
  .C. suburb now. The idea that these people, and
• 1:30:59
  that Aidan, who is a global... furniture slash
• 1:31:03
  textile designer who was married to one for a
• 1:31:06
  very long time, that those people don't have
• 1:31:09
  any kind of cosmopolitan insights is very, very
• 1:31:13
  strange. And that these are former New Yorkers.
• 1:31:16
  Aidan and his wife, right? When we see them in
• 1:31:19
  the series, he's got the baby strapped to him.
• 1:31:22
  And right, maybe they moved out there at some
• 1:31:24
  point, but they act like they are from the Boondocks.
• 1:31:29
  I said, but again, I was wondering, I was like,
• 1:31:32
  does Michael Patrick King only know about not
• 1:31:35
  New York stuff because he watched like, Hee Haw,
• 1:31:38
  and that's what he thinks of what he thinks of
• 1:31:41
  the South. I agree. That dress store was, it
• 1:31:43
  was so offense. But as we were also talking about
• 1:31:46
  outside of the pod, we've already done. The hairy
• 1:31:50
  fish out of water. I'm trying to make the apple
• 1:31:53
  pie in the cut -offs. And in Southern episodes,
• 1:31:56
  it really was in rural upstate New York. Yes.
• 1:31:59
  It was not normal. Yes, it was a port city with
• 1:32:05
  lots of stuff around it. And again, the idea
• 1:32:09
  that Carrie in Suffern, upstate New York in that
• 1:32:13
  tiny little cabin with no air conditioning, making
• 1:32:16
  the pies, Samantha has sex with like the farmer
• 1:32:18
  next door, whatever that was, is very, very different
• 1:32:22
  than Aiden who now has this gigantic house with
• 1:32:26
  a guest house and a pond and does he make the
• 1:32:30
  furniture anymore? Like, what does he do? Who
• 1:32:33
  knows? Who knows? How are they paying for UVA?
• 1:32:35
  I mean, I know it's in -state tuition, but still.
• 1:32:37
  But he still, again, when his son is having a
• 1:32:39
  bad night, he's still sleeping in the same bed
• 1:32:40
  with his son. So strange. But also think that
• 1:32:44
  there's like virtual reality paintball close
• 1:32:46
  enough to go to, but not a target for Carrie
• 1:32:49
  to get like... Good point. There's a mall that
• 1:32:53
  has the zombie thing, but not anywhere where
• 1:32:58
  a CVS or anywhere where Carrie could get clothes.
• 1:33:03
  Somehow there's a mall, but nowhere to buy clothes.
• 1:33:06
  The entire show is so riddled with paradoxes
• 1:33:11
  that make no sense. just really quickly because
• 1:33:14
  we've actually been talking for an hour and a
• 1:33:16
  half. But look, we've got a lot to get off our
• 1:33:20
  chest. We could go on. And this is also, for
• 1:33:22
  our listeners, this is one of the most cherished
• 1:33:26
  texts for me. And it is something I live by.
• 1:33:31
  I always ask myself, what would X do? There is
• 1:33:34
  always an answer in Sex and the City for most
• 1:33:37
  problems, really. This, and just like that, there
• 1:33:42
  are no answers to anything. No answers to anything.
• 1:33:45
  And everything is so back -ass words. But one
• 1:33:48
  thing, just tiny little things that I want to
• 1:33:50
  get out. So differences that are unfortunate.
• 1:33:54
  So we have no intro song, right? No intro song.
• 1:34:00
  There's no, again, really as we had right in
• 1:34:02
  the first series, the super distinctive song
• 1:34:04
  where everyone could identify it probably in
• 1:34:06
  the first two notes. So no voiceover, which was
• 1:34:10
  so important in the first series in terms of
• 1:34:14
  bringing everything together. And it seems like
• 1:34:16
  Carrie's writing of that terrible book, which
• 1:34:18
  sounds like it sucks, that's supposed to be tying
• 1:34:21
  these things together. You mean the woman? The
• 1:34:22
  woman in her... Now we don't even get end just
• 1:34:25
  like that. Now we don't even get end just like
• 1:34:27
  that. The woman. But, and then to me, which is
• 1:34:30
  what is the fatal, fatal flaw, they have... doubled
• 1:34:34
  the size of the episodes. So now we basically
• 1:34:37
  have 44, 45 minutes, right? So the writing is
• 1:34:41
  no longer tight. There's no longer a single theme
• 1:34:44
  per episode that every character links to, right?
• 1:34:47
  Sort of as spokes on the wheel, which is so brilliant.
• 1:34:49
  And it really is, you just said, oh my God. you
• 1:34:52
  introduced all of these totally superfluous characters
• 1:34:55
  who did not fit organically in a way that they
• 1:34:58
  maybe could have. And there's the extra show,
• 1:35:01
  right, for our extra time. And it now really
• 1:35:04
  is this sort of weirdly fluid, boring soap opera
• 1:35:09
  that is completely unfunny in a way that it is
• 1:35:13
  a completely different genre of show, among all
• 1:35:16
  of the other differences. And I would add, because
• 1:35:18
  the original series really was the boyfriend
• 1:35:21
  of the week, and who we're gonna see this week,
• 1:35:25
  and who's gonna be with us. And maybe it would
• 1:35:26
  be the jazz guy for two episodes, or again, Underwood,
• 1:35:29
  or whoever. But there's that surprise factor,
• 1:35:32
  and the guy who does this. There's a Seinfeldian
• 1:35:35
  kind of close talker, bed kisser. Guy in therapy.
• 1:35:40
  But there was that element of, again, diversity
• 1:35:44
  of both flaws in the man, but also good things
• 1:35:47
  about the man, and all of the - And how the women
• 1:35:51
  reacted to them. And here, it's the same fucking
• 1:35:54
  people over and over and over again, being more
• 1:35:57
  and more annoying and also falling into the abyss.
• 1:36:00
  Every episode gets more and more depressing.
• 1:36:03
  Nothing good happens. Like, if we thought Lily
• 1:36:05
  was some kind of piano prodigy in the very beginning
• 1:36:08
  of the series, now she like can get it. Who knows
• 1:36:11
  if she can get to college because she's not supposed
• 1:36:13
  to acknowledge like... the real self. And now
• 1:36:17
  she's just like dating this guy who apparently
• 1:36:20
  doesn't see it doesn't seem to bother her that
• 1:36:22
  he also has a boyfriend. And everyone hears that
• 1:36:24
  at the dinner table and no one says anything.
• 1:36:27
  No one says anything. No one says anything. And
• 1:36:29
  the other thing, and that's what bothers me so
• 1:36:31
  much too, is that the old Charlotte, even though
• 1:36:34
  the old Charlotte was certainly socially progressive,
• 1:36:38
  it would have bothered her that her daughter
• 1:36:41
  boyfriend had another partner. Yes. No matter
• 1:36:44
  what gender. That would have bothered her. That
• 1:36:46
  would have made her uncomfortable. And that she
• 1:36:49
  and Harry sit there and are just like, oh whatever.
• 1:36:52
  And the grandfather. And the grandfather. That
• 1:36:55
  no one seems to care. And no one says, does that
• 1:36:58
  bother you Lily? Or that's your arrangement?
• 1:37:02
  It's because of the presence of Rock. But those
• 1:37:05
  two things, because Michael Patrick King doesn't
• 1:37:07
  really understand that those two things aren't
• 1:37:10
  equal, that having a polyamorous relationship
• 1:37:13
  is not the same as being non -binary, he does
• 1:37:16
  not understand that. So he's like, well, Rock
• 1:37:18
  said it was okay. So it is. So it is. There you
• 1:37:21
  go. And it's like, again, so clumsy. It's just,
• 1:37:24
  again, it's not. Organic right nothing. No is
• 1:37:27
  no organic. No, it's just okay. So so let me
• 1:37:31
  ask you this question Okay, best case scenario
• 1:37:34
  because I don't know what episode we're on now
• 1:37:36
  But I'm gonna have to watch the rest of them
• 1:37:37
  just just because just because I'm I'm the army
• 1:37:40
  faithful whatever What is the best outcome for
• 1:37:44
  this season and just like that? I'm not saying
• 1:37:47
  what would make you satisfied, but what do you
• 1:37:50
  think would bring it to an end if this is the
• 1:37:52
  end of the series? Oh, the end of the series?
• 1:37:54
  Yes. I think this season, season three, could
• 1:37:57
  be the end. Let's hope it's the end. Oh god,
• 1:38:00
  I hope so. That is an excellent question. The
• 1:38:06
  only thing I want is to see Anthony with his
• 1:38:10
  successful bricks and mortar store, and maybe
• 1:38:14
  for him to have an age -appropriate partner,
• 1:38:16
  since he also has a much younger boyfriend. Okay.
• 1:38:19
  But in terms of, I mean, Carrie and Aiden, that
• 1:38:22
  needs to go away. Goodbye. Just dump him. Because,
• 1:38:24
  again, narratively, what's the alternative? That
• 1:38:26
  for the next three seasons, we sit around while
• 1:38:28
  they're, like, bone -sexting or whatever, and
• 1:38:31
  so we see Steve, again, Steve's with some, like,
• 1:38:35
  super hot chick and basically, you know, whatever.
• 1:38:38
  Age -appropriate chick? Yes, age -appropriate.
• 1:38:41
  I mean, I'm okay if he's with someone younger
• 1:38:43
  just because, you know, Miranda basically cheated
• 1:38:45
  on him. But ideally age -appropriate. Ideally
• 1:38:47
  age -appropriate. And I honestly couldn't tell
• 1:38:51
  you what else. I mean, really, again, I have
• 1:38:54
  zero, zero investment in... I mean, I like Seema
• 1:38:57
  well enough as a character, but the character
• 1:38:59
  now, again, to me is not moving through reality.
• 1:39:04
  Right. Right. Just not moving. We just don't
• 1:39:06
  also know who she is. And I think... if it were
• 1:39:08
  still Samantha, if it were still Kim Cattrall,
• 1:39:11
  I think we would have been able to work through
• 1:39:12
  that in a different, in a more successful way.
• 1:39:16
  So who knows about Seema? Again, I have no L
• 1:39:18
  -T -W -I, zero, zero, that just needs to become
• 1:39:23
  its own separate show. And whatever. And what
• 1:39:26
  about Charlotte? You just want Charlotte to be
• 1:39:27
  poor. I want Charlotte to be poor, not again
• 1:39:31
  because I dislike Charlotte, because I like her
• 1:39:33
  well enough as a character. But I think that
• 1:39:35
  what we have, I thought it was really funny,
• 1:39:37
  I was in the most recent episode where someone
• 1:39:39
  said like, don't give me those Charlotte eyes.
• 1:39:41
  Right, when the headmaster says that. And I was
• 1:39:44
  like, yes, because what that character is now
• 1:39:47
  is this sort of super hyper, over the top, you
• 1:39:50
  know, like screeching woman who nevertheless
• 1:39:53
  is letting her kids do whatever they want and
• 1:39:56
  sort of, you know, roll right over her. and she
• 1:39:58
  has no other character other than that. And even
• 1:40:01
  she has a younger guy who's hitting on her, that
• 1:40:04
  German guy or whatever. I was like, Jesus, how
• 1:40:07
  do we have to see every single one of these characters
• 1:40:10
  hitting on or being hit on by someone literally
• 1:40:13
  30 years younger than they are? Anyway, so I
• 1:40:17
  would like to see Charlotte. I think it would
• 1:40:19
  be interesting to see her, again, face something
• 1:40:21
  like, oh, Lily is rejecting her family. And I
• 1:40:25
  am, I can't rely on my fabulous Park Avenue apartment
• 1:40:28
  that I got because I married into wealth, basically.
• 1:40:31
  That would be interesting to me. Or even Lily
• 1:40:33
  wants to go to, like, CUNY. Yeah. I mean, even
• 1:40:37
  something like that, which they'd probably be
• 1:40:38
  okay with because they seem to really be okay
• 1:40:41
  with anything despite how mean it they are. That's
• 1:40:44
  another juxtaposition. They're so high maintenance,
• 1:40:47
  but they also seem to be okay with just about
• 1:40:49
  anything. And again, it just doesn't make sense.
• 1:40:52
  And the old Charlotte was not okay with anything,
• 1:40:55
  and she was very prim, and she was very like,
• 1:40:57
  this guy has to be this way, and that's what
• 1:41:00
  made her great. And also, that's what made her
• 1:41:02
  annoying at the same time. But like a very well
• 1:41:05
  -rounded character. Yes, a real person. A real
• 1:41:08
  person. And again, that's what made her attractive
• 1:41:11
  to Trey, but then, of course, fall apart with
• 1:41:13
  Trent, because he didn't think she was a sexual
• 1:41:17
  person. He didn't think she was, you know, as
• 1:41:20
  open -minded as she was, or maybe untraditional
• 1:41:23
  in some ways as she was, or he thought she was
• 1:41:26
  this sort of cookie cutter, wasp, whatever, and
• 1:41:29
  she turned out not to be. And that's why that
• 1:41:31
  storyline. was so good. By the way, I have to
• 1:41:33
  tell you, I'm watching this overcompensating
• 1:41:36
  and Trey is with Connie Britton as the parents.
• 1:41:40
  Kyle McLaughlin and Connie Britton are the parents.
• 1:41:43
  I love that idea. Although he does look, I have
• 1:41:44
  to say, 20 years older than I are because his
• 1:41:48
  hair is, her hair, of course, is fabulous and
• 1:41:50
  she looks incredible and he looks like he could
• 1:41:54
  be on a desk like that. Maybe he will! And maybe
• 1:41:58
  he will. Maybe he will be Harry's oncology person.
• 1:42:03
  That would be interesting. That would be interesting.
• 1:42:06
  I want Blair Underwood back, and I would really
• 1:42:09
  welcome Colin McLaughlin back. Yes, I would too.
• 1:42:12
  I would too. Look, we need some old... I would
• 1:42:14
  take Berger back. I would too. I think Berger
• 1:42:17
  coming back would be kind of cool. I do too.
• 1:42:20
  And what I would like to see again, if we're
• 1:42:23
  just going with... Carrie as a writer, and one
• 1:42:25
  of the things we did get, that Carrie is of a
• 1:42:28
  level of something, I don't call it fame, but
• 1:42:31
  at least, whatever. People know who she is, and
• 1:42:33
  she goes on these tours for these books, because
• 1:42:36
  somebody's reading them. And Google wants her
• 1:42:39
  to come or whatever. And I would love for a burger
• 1:42:43
  type to encounter her as a writer so that we
• 1:42:47
  can see her evolving into that intellectual world.
• 1:42:51
  I would like to see that. But who's funny? Well,
• 1:42:56
  that's the thing. Nothing's funny. Nothing's
• 1:42:58
  funny. Nothing's funny. Everything is dark and
• 1:43:01
  dour and gloomy. And even that house, which is
• 1:43:04
  so fabulous. That house, it is no furniture.
• 1:43:08
  But where's the litter box? That's what I want
• 1:43:10
  to know. Lauren, that is the most important question.
• 1:43:13
  Where is the fucking litter box? And is she really
• 1:43:16
  changing? like, cat litter while wearing these
• 1:43:19
  incredible couture outfits and spy keels. Look,
• 1:43:21
  the whole cat of it all is also bizarre because,
• 1:43:25
  as we know, Miranda's the cat. Yes. Yes. And
• 1:43:28
  Miranda's cat was a whole through line through
• 1:43:31
  the series. It was. Fatty. Right? Fatty. Fatty
• 1:43:33
  the cat. Of course. And now we have to deal with
• 1:43:37
  Carrie and this cat and the cat getting out and...
• 1:43:41
  Again, when I saw that LTW had a storyline about
• 1:43:45
  talking in her sleep, I cannot imagine any other
• 1:43:50
  show that would get greenlit. It's so bankrupt.
• 1:43:55
  It is. It is creatively bankrupt. And this is
• 1:43:59
  the last thing I'm going to say. I thought, so
• 1:44:02
  the character of the college counselor, the sort
• 1:44:04
  of Ivy whisperer, if you name a character, Lois
• 1:44:10
  Finger hug. Only so you can put in the terrible
• 1:44:14
  joke finger fuck. Twice. Twice. We heard it twice.
• 1:44:18
  You are creatively bankrupt. You're done. You're
• 1:44:22
  done. You just need to give it up. You just need
• 1:44:24
  to say. And aren't you rich enough? Just to give
• 1:44:26
  it up. Like just give it up. Okay. Oh, actually
• 1:44:28
  I forgot. I lied. One thing I want to say. Yeah,
• 1:44:31
  since now like we're at one hour and five minutes.
• 1:44:33
  That's okay. I mean look, we knew this was gonna
• 1:44:35
  be a long one. Sorry friends. We have a lot to
• 1:44:38
  say about this IP. Because I am so angry at Michael
• 1:44:44
  Patrick King for absolutely destroying this beloved
• 1:44:49
  IP. Yes. Okay. Yes. I think the finale of the
• 1:44:54
  original series was one of the best series finales.
• 1:44:58
  ever, right? In terms of closure, in everything.
• 1:45:03
  I mean, even the, you know, the big thing where
• 1:45:04
  it's like, oh, but you know, deus ex machina,
• 1:45:06
  but nevertheless, I don't care, right? I don't
• 1:45:08
  care. And the idea that you finally learn his
• 1:45:10
  name, right? That you have all of the, it was
• 1:45:13
  just so absolutely perfect. And then the idea,
• 1:45:16
  right? That then you start like completely throwing
• 1:45:18
  in the trash can. I got mad when Samantha and
• 1:45:21
  Smith broke up, like in the first movie. That
• 1:45:23
  bothered, that to me was okay. We're going down
• 1:45:27
  this road. But, and including that it was so
• 1:45:29
  repetitive, but what I wanted to say, because
• 1:45:33
  I'm so angry at Michael Patrick King, you and
• 1:45:36
  I talked about this a long time ago. When Darren
• 1:45:39
  Starr did the uncoupled show with Neil Patrick
• 1:45:43
  Harris a couple of years ago, this is what and
• 1:45:46
  just like that should have been. So obviously
• 1:45:49
  a very similar setup, right? So the stable couple
• 1:45:52
  of almost 20 years and Neil Patrick Harris's,
• 1:45:56
  they weren't married, right? It was just they
• 1:45:58
  were partners. breaks up with him after almost
• 1:46:00
  20 years together. The same thing. How do I navigate,
• 1:46:03
  you know, this, this painful breakup in at this
• 1:46:05
  age when I'm about 50 and dating new people and
• 1:46:09
  the friends who are surrounding them. And he
• 1:46:11
  has his business partner in the real estate business.
• 1:46:14
  And that was something where it was so I mean,
• 1:46:17
  I love the show, right? It was a great show.
• 1:46:19
  I wish they would do another season. It was a
• 1:46:21
  great show. And obviously, I mean, NPH is so
• 1:46:23
  fantastic, but he was so good in that role. And
• 1:46:26
  you really did have this sense of like, okay,
• 1:46:28
  this is what it means for someone to try to be
• 1:46:30
  back in the dating world, right? To go through
• 1:46:32
  this very painful breakup where you thought you
• 1:46:34
  were going to be with this person forever. Yes.
• 1:46:37
  And Darren Star can do that. Yes. But that's
• 1:46:39
  the thing is that this, and just like that, is
• 1:46:41
  the worst case scenario. It is the worst case
• 1:46:44
  scenario. Michael Patrick, it just shows, right?
• 1:46:45
  Darren Star. The genius, right, as we already
• 1:46:48
  knew from Beverly Hills 90210, but Michael Patrick
• 1:46:51
  King, you just want to say, you ain't got it.
• 1:46:54
  Throw in the towel. You're done. The whole point
• 1:46:57
  of it happening again, especially if you're going
• 1:46:59
  to kill off big in the first episode, okay, is
• 1:47:03
  for Carrie to be on the market. Yeah. Sure, she
• 1:47:06
  has to grieve for a little bit. Yeah. But then
• 1:47:09
  she goes on the market. The last thing you do
• 1:47:12
  is pull out. Yeah. the old boyfriend who we've
• 1:47:16
  long said goodbye to and happily so. Not in a
• 1:47:19
  bad way. And she left in a good place with him
• 1:47:22
  in the second movie and even in the series and
• 1:47:25
  you didn't even need him in the second movie.
• 1:47:27
  There were already issues with her and Big. So
• 1:47:31
  the idea that this is the solution is to have
• 1:47:34
  Carrie back with Aiden. In a long -distance relationship.
• 1:47:37
  In a long -distance relationship. And also that
• 1:47:39
  there were so many teasers when And Just Like
• 1:47:41
  That started that Natasha was coming back, right?
• 1:47:43
  Oh, yeah. Yeah, I forgot about that. And that
• 1:47:44
  went nowhere. Yeah, that went nowhere. There
• 1:47:46
  were a couple characters from the original that
• 1:47:49
  I remember were being featured, but they went
• 1:47:52
  nowhere. And again, the other character that
• 1:47:55
  I sort of liked was the Sheri Oteri character,
• 1:47:57
  which was fun to see her, fun to have her on
• 1:47:59
  the show, but pointless. But pointless. And why
• 1:48:02
  would, as Seema said, we invented mashmaking,
• 1:48:05
  right? Why would Seema have a mashmaker? Why?
• 1:48:08
  She would never be up for that. At 60 years old,
• 1:48:12
  she's going to reinvent herself. I love the Sherry
• 1:48:14
  O 'Terry character, and I really wish that character
• 1:48:17
  existed. She would have been a fun college counselor
• 1:48:20
  for Charlotte. And I've saw her, yes, I can see
• 1:48:24
  her in this world, but not doing this for a woman
• 1:48:27
  of this age who is so set in her ways. successfully
• 1:48:32
  dating. I mean, she just dated some huge film...
• 1:48:35
  Marvel guy. Marvel guy. I mean, she could find
• 1:48:38
  her own men. I mean, she's not real good at long
• 1:48:41
  -term dating, if that's what she wants, but we
• 1:48:43
  don't even know that that's what she wants. It's
• 1:48:46
  unclear. And again, somebody like Asheri O'Terry,
• 1:48:49
  who to me was like one of the... better new or
• 1:48:52
  cameo characters that came in was a lost opportunity.
• 1:48:58
  A missed opportunity. So that also made me mad.
• 1:49:02
  Because the Rosie O'Donnell, which could have
• 1:49:04
  been funny too in another way, was not. Not.
• 1:49:08
  It was the opposite of funny. Yes. It was horrible.
• 1:49:12
  And again, insulting to Rosie. Oh, but Rosie
• 1:49:15
  O'Donnell was on Hacks. We just saw her on Hacks.
• 1:49:18
  in a funny way. Wait, where was she in Hacks?
• 1:49:20
  She was herself! Oh yes! What's crazy about it
• 1:49:25
  is that I have seen those two things within the
• 1:49:27
  same week, so I saw her in that terrible and
• 1:49:30
  just like that episode, but then I saw her in
• 1:49:32
  Hacks playing herself, right, and Jean Smart
• 1:49:35
  is being honored at that like crazy award show,
• 1:49:40
  and Rosie O'Donnell is like, sometimes you have
• 1:49:41
  to do these things, and she was funny and I'm
• 1:49:45
  not like the hugest Rosie O'Donnell fan but at
• 1:49:47
  least there I was like not completely repulsed
• 1:49:51
  by the storyline she was being given and it just
• 1:49:54
  felt so forced and again on end just like that
• 1:49:57
  and depressing and gross and just again it's
• 1:49:59
  like why is she a nun why why is she a nun and
• 1:50:02
  again we already did the hot priest right again
• 1:50:05
  with Samantha in the original series and she
• 1:50:06
  could have been again she could have been a The
• 1:50:11
  tourist stuff was kind of funny, although - But
• 1:50:14
  also mean -spirited! Also mean -spirited. Although
• 1:50:16
  also mean -spirited. And they're making fun of
• 1:50:19
  her that she liked Wicked. I mean, I just thought
• 1:50:21
  that was so bizarre. Well, also someone said
• 1:50:25
  or someone on a podcast or I read somewhere that's
• 1:50:27
  like, they're having table side avocado. How
• 1:50:32
  touristy is that? If that's where they're at
• 1:50:35
  multiple times, by the way, then let's not make
• 1:50:38
  fun of Rosie O'Donnell liking Wicked and singing
• 1:50:42
  the song at the end. I mean, it's fine. Like,
• 1:50:47
  we're all good with it, you know? Again, like,
• 1:50:51
  again, the nuance for this confluence is so strange,
• 1:50:53
  is that the initial one was like, we celebrate
• 1:50:56
  New York, we celebrate like the Fleet Week, right?
• 1:50:59
  We celebrate people of all kinds coming through
• 1:51:01
  New York, and like when Carrie takes Harry's
• 1:51:05
  bachelor friend around, and he's a tourist, and
• 1:51:08
  like she shows him... I don't know what she shows
• 1:51:10
  them, but if he said, I want to go see the Empire
• 1:51:13
  State Building, she would be like, oh, you pig.
• 1:51:16
  Right. Now you get the sense that they're now
• 1:51:20
  making fun of people for eating at the Russian
• 1:51:23
  Tea Room or wherever it was that she went. And
• 1:51:27
  again, it's also intolerant in ways that they
• 1:51:32
  want to be tolerant. Right, I mean intolerant
• 1:51:36
  and where we're also as we said seeing on the
• 1:51:39
  other side By seeing on the other side that then
• 1:51:42
  where Aidan lives is depicted as being again
• 1:51:45
  Heavell, right? And so the people so it really
• 1:51:48
  is this totally there's no sense of fondness
• 1:51:52
  of New York in the same way. We still, as you
• 1:51:56
  and I talked about before, you still have these
• 1:51:58
  bizarre cracks like that Brooklyn is, oh my God,
• 1:52:01
  who would ever go to Brooklyn? Williamsburg.
• 1:52:04
  Williamsburg. Who would ever go to Williamsburg?
• 1:52:05
  Williamsburg. Which is like the center of the
• 1:52:08
  epicenter now in New York. It's just so, so bizarre.
• 1:52:12
  So it's both frozen in time. It is frozen in
• 1:52:15
  time. Another paradox, it is frozen in time,
• 1:52:17
  but also is... completely both showing us old
• 1:52:23
  things, but then doing new things that are completely
• 1:52:25
  bad. Yeah, there's just, it's lost all the fun.
• 1:52:29
  And the last thing I'll say, which makes me the
• 1:52:32
  saddest, is that there has not been, at least
• 1:52:36
  this season, and I'm not including that horrible
• 1:52:39
  Carrie in the dress scene, there has not been
• 1:52:42
  shopping in New York this entire season. There
• 1:52:46
  has not been a Now I saw that I think in the
• 1:52:50
  preview there's like a fashion show or something.
• 1:52:51
  So maybe there will be a party, but there's nothing
• 1:52:54
  Joyful. There's nothing where they can meet up
• 1:52:58
  with other people or where interesting things
• 1:53:00
  can ensue or where someone can have sex in the
• 1:53:02
  coat room Nothing nothing and there is this a
• 1:53:06
  bed bath and beyond Anyway, yeah, sorry there.
• 1:53:08
  Oh, no, I'm sorry. This isn't the gap Right.
• 1:53:12
  I mean when right all this episodes where Carrie
• 1:53:14
  goes with Berger to get the shower curtain Yeah,
• 1:53:16
  and you have this sharper image and you have
• 1:53:18
  all these wonderful going to product in my shirt
• 1:53:21
  product Like when are they going to go anywhere?
• 1:53:26
  anywhere interesting like when Lisa Todd Rodsey
• 1:53:28
  wears that big statement necklace. Where has
• 1:53:31
  she even gotten that from? I want to know where
• 1:53:34
  she gets that. Where do they sell that? I think
• 1:53:36
  you are going to be disappointed because again,
• 1:53:39
  there is no, even though New York now apparently
• 1:53:42
  is like the only cool place and every place else
• 1:53:45
  is completely like nothing. We are not seeing
• 1:53:49
  New York in the same way as you say. No. We're
• 1:53:52
  seeing an empty $30 million, $20 million. I don't
• 1:53:55
  know. Gramercy, park. mansion that will probably
• 1:54:00
  be caught on fire soon. And has already had rats.
• 1:54:05
  And has already had rats. And has already had
• 1:54:07
  some rats. I'm glad that you pointed out that
• 1:54:09
  that's Ryan's brother from the OC. So, The Gardener.
• 1:54:14
  So, I look forward to him again, and he would
• 1:54:15
  not see me some more. So, oh my gosh, we've been
• 1:54:17
  talking for almost two hours. I know. Look, I
• 1:54:19
  said, look, we can keep going. There are so many
• 1:54:23
  wonderful things to say about the original and
• 1:54:24
  so many horrible things to say about the new.
• 1:54:28
  And again, it's not really hate watching. It's
• 1:54:31
  just, it's remorseful watching, and just like
• 1:54:34
  that, and then just turning it off and wanting
• 1:54:37
  to never think about it again. I think for me,
• 1:54:39
  it's... it's hopeful in the sense of saying maybe
• 1:54:43
  someone will wave a magic wand, right? And it
• 1:54:46
  will become meaningful, funny and meaningful
• 1:54:50
  again. But I was also trying to think of something
• 1:54:53
  comparable in terms of like, what's another really
• 1:54:55
  iconic show where you can sort of not imagine
• 1:54:59
  it, but you can think what would it be like if
• 1:55:01
  this iconic show completely changed in every
• 1:55:04
  single possible way, right? What would that even
• 1:55:07
  sort of look like? I don't know. And it's like,
• 1:55:09
  okay, I don't know, Twilight Zone becoming like
• 1:55:10
  a rom -com or something. I don't know. And it
• 1:55:12
  was just, I, yeah. Okay. Michael Patrick King
• 1:55:16
  just needs to. Go away. He just needs to go away.
• 1:55:19
  He's creatively, the bank is closed. The juices
• 1:55:22
  are out. And I really do have to believe, again,
• 1:55:25
  after watching that Sarah Jessica Parker, Howard
• 1:55:27
  Stern episode, that she really hasn't seen the
• 1:55:30
  original. I don't know. I don't know how else
• 1:55:32
  to explain. I've said this many times to you.
• 1:55:34
  I don't know how else to explain, and just like
• 1:55:36
  that, except for the fact that Sarah Jessica
• 1:55:38
  Parker has not seen the original. Otherwise,
• 1:55:41
  she wouldn't understand that they were different.
• 1:55:43
  That they're different. Well, I do think. I mean,
• 1:55:45
  what explains it all to come back to something
• 1:55:48
  I said before and then I'll shut up. What explains
• 1:55:51
  it all is that And Just Like That is not written
• 1:55:55
  for us. Right. It is not written for women the
• 1:55:59
  age of those characters. Or the women who loved
• 1:56:02
  the show when it first came out. Yes. Yes. It
• 1:56:05
  is written, it is designed, it is intended for
• 1:56:08
  25 -year -old Gen Zs. Who will also hate it.
• 1:56:14
  But that is the only explanation that again Michael
• 1:56:18
  Patrick King he read too much stuff online he
• 1:56:21
  said too many angry Gen Z's come up to him and
• 1:56:23
  he designed a show for Gen Z's a big mea culpa
• 1:56:28
  you know I can't I'm not going to destroy the
• 1:56:31
  old show but I am so sensitive to this and again
• 1:56:34
  I'm I just imagine the Gen Z focus group because
• 1:56:37
  it checks right all of these particular boxes
• 1:56:40
  in an un inorganic way that just does, and lots
• 1:56:45
  of shows, right, could do the same kind of thing
• 1:56:47
  in a creatively successful and organic way. But
• 1:56:50
  this one is not doing that. And again, I just
• 1:56:52
  imagine the focus group, right? So we are not
• 1:56:55
  the audience for the show. But I cannot imagine
• 1:56:56
  that focus group because... Everyone I know who
• 1:56:59
  is Gen Z, my own children, my students, would
• 1:57:03
  never like this show. I understand. And would
• 1:57:06
  never relate to it on any level. I would say,
• 1:57:08
  why am I watching this show about a bunch of,
• 1:57:10
  like, old people doing horrible things? But you
• 1:57:13
  have a random 17 -year -old who's quote -unquote,
• 1:57:16
  polysexual. So, Gen Z must love it. I'm obviously
• 1:57:19
  being sarcastic, but I think that that's the
• 1:57:21
  answer, sad to say. Well, do you do you have
• 1:57:24
  a book recommendation for this week? I do, I
• 1:57:27
  do. My book recommendation is actually a novel,
• 1:57:29
  it's fiction, and it is the novel Cherie, C -H
• 1:57:33
  -E -R -I, by the French writer Colette. Because
• 1:57:36
  it is about, Cherie is actually a young man,
• 1:57:39
  I think he's about 25 when the novel begins,
• 1:57:41
  who is in a relationship with a 49 year old woman,
• 1:57:44
  who of course, because she's French, is still
• 1:57:46
  gorgeous and vital and all of this other good
• 1:57:48
  stuff. stuff. And it's basically very much about
• 1:57:50
  aging, about relationships between sort of younger
• 1:57:53
  men and older women, and sort of sexuality around
• 1:57:57
  age 50. So, and Colette was a wonderful writer
• 1:58:00
  and had this amazingly interesting life. So that's
• 1:58:02
  my book recommendation. Do you have one for today,
• 1:58:04
  Lauren? I do. This is still probably one of my
• 1:58:07
  top five non -fiction books. It's the book I
• 1:58:11
  always go back to, especially when I can't write,
• 1:58:14
  which is often. And it is Anne Douglas' Terrible
• 1:58:19
  Honesty, which is mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s.
• 1:58:22
  Which is all about Manhattan and modernism and
• 1:58:28
  all the writers and artists and a lot of the
• 1:58:31
  people actually that the... original characters
• 1:58:34
  reference, the Dorothy Parkers and the Hemingways
• 1:58:37
  and all of those people, and particularly the
• 1:58:41
  interracial dynamics that go on in producing
• 1:58:45
  art. It's a really lovely book that brings together
• 1:58:48
  all different parts of New York and the Harlem
• 1:58:51
  Renaissance and modernism and... ballroom and
• 1:58:56
  all kinds of great things. And Ann Douglas is
• 1:58:59
  just so wonderful. So I recommend it to anyone
• 1:59:03
  interested in reading about the history of New
• 1:59:06
  York and the sort of early art scene. That sounds
• 1:59:10
  really awesome. And that actually reminds me
• 1:59:13
  that we are about to have another season of The
• 1:59:15
  Gilded Age. Yes. I cannot wait. I am very excited.
• 1:59:18
  June 22nd. Is it tonight? No, it's tomorrow.
• 1:59:22
  As of this, no, you are right. It is tonight.
• 1:59:28
  I apologize if I post this later. And our dates
• 1:59:31
  are so up, but very excited for another season.
• 1:59:34
  And I have heard it is amazing and the juiciest
• 1:59:38
  one yet. Good. That will sort of cleanse the
• 1:59:41
  palate from And Just Like That. And thank God
• 1:59:43
  it comes on only a few days later. So you can
• 1:59:46
  erase the memory of the woman. The woman. Well,
• 1:59:53
  I want to thank our listeners for hanging in
• 1:59:56
  with us. Thank you guys for listening in for
• 1:59:57
  two hours. Maybe they've been hitting the pause
• 1:59:58
  button the whole time. Yeah, two hours of rants.
• 2:00:01
  Taking some breaks. Of harps. And not a lot of
• 2:00:04
  harps. Well, some loves in the beginning. Love
• 2:00:05
  in the beginning, harp in the end. But it just
• 2:00:07
  had to be done. But we do love our listeners,
• 2:00:09
  so thank you for tuning in to History Harpies.
• 2:00:12
  And until the next time, Harpies out.