At its best, Sex And The City was always a fun, fluffy bit of wish fulfilment. A big part of the appeal was to see its glamorous cast flitting around Manhattan drinking cocktails, wearing designer clothes and hooking up with various men, and imagine what that would be like.
Of course, real life has a way of intruding on the fantasy. When the 9/11 terror attacks rocked New York, the show never directly addressed it, but the twin towers were removed from the opening credits, and Carrie gave a wistful voiceover in which she said “seasons change, so do cities.”
Right now, New York, like the rest of America, is still in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s an unavoidably large elephant in the room, and in a recent interview, Sarah Jessica Parker confirmed that the new episodes of Sex And The City will indeed address it.
While we don’t yet fully know where the revival, known by the title And Just Like That, will take the girls, Parker says that the pandemic will “obviously be part of the storyline because that’s the city [these characters] live in.”
She went on to say that the series will example the ways that the virus has “changed relationships once friends disappear”, adding “I have great faith that the writers are going to examine it all.”
The revival will bring back Parker along with Cynthia Nixon‘s Miranda and Kristin Davis‘ Charlotte, although Kim Cattrall, who played Samantha in the original series and its two movie follow-ups, will be sitting this one out.
It’s unclear how the show might explain her character’s absence, although if we connect the dots here, there’s always a chance they might try and kill her off with COVID. Hopefully it’s not that obvious, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Anyway, Parker says that the new batch of episodes will look at the ways that the beloved characters have and haven’t adapted to the new world of social media and the political realities of the new decade, as well as where they are professionally.
“Is [Carrie] still writing a column?” Parker asked. “Has she written any more books? Or does she have a podcast? What does fashion mean to her now? How have the friendships changed or not changed, and has her social circle grown?”
The Sex And The City revival will stream on HBO Max in the US. Details of a local release are TBC, although the original series is streaming on Binge.
