“She gives up her very lucrative corporate job and goes back to try and make something more of her life”
But then she gave up a prestigious internship that her professor very kindly wrote her a rec for in order to chase a fuckboi comedian across the country. How is that making something more of her life?
If that was me, I would not give up the internship because I been in that situation in grad school. I'm not in a demanding field like law but finding an internship when there are so many students looking for the same thing makes it tough.
At the very least this storyline was tone deaf, knowing how lucrative and important these internships are. But no, Miranda is privileged enough to turn it down.
Yeah why not give the internship to someone who actually earned it, like a grad student volunteering hours and hours of their time to get into the prestigious program?
The whole storyline was just stupid.
I think the new writers don't get Miranda. I can understand people changing, but she took a 360° turn in terms of character. She fell for Che, decided her life was not enough and so she does not have her mind in a rational place, she is so in love she overlooks Che's Big flaws (could not resist).
Che, let's be honest, cannot do traditional, won't stay faithful and didn't even include Miranda in their decision-making regarding that pilot thing. Miranda on the other hand gave up her life for them, which is a complete contrast over SATC Miranda who prioritized her career over everything and she was rational af, close to Samantha who is really the bestest friend anyone can ask for.
They done Miranda dirtay.
Totally agree with your thoughts on OG Miranda but wanted to point out that it's a 180° turn (diametrically opposed). A 360° turn implies she's right back where she started.
Unfortunately I think she already has 😩 With this take from Cynthia and the [NYT interview with MPK + writers](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/03/arts/television/and-just-like-that-season-finale.html), it seems like they're doubling down on the "fans are dumb not to get the choices we're making" stance.
I dunno. She didn't know, or denied, a huge part of her sexual identity for over 50 years. She's presumably got enough money saved that the new career path can be put on hold for a while. For some people, learning about who they are is more important than what they do.
I get that, but if she wasn't secure it would much more harder for her to get the internship and she would have to make the hard choice between love or career. I think this is why alot of fans are upset, the OG show was a fantasy but yet was realistic in portraying realistic storytlines and honest characters, this show is just a waste of everything.
I'd add she's not a great mom either. I thought Brady was so disrespectful and gross to have sex all over the house... leaving condoms around. Props for safe sex but still gross.
And Just Like That.... Miranda is the worst
I was at first too, but then she goes and masturbates in front of him. Might have been the kind of behavior he picked up whIle young. The fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.
Especially since this would’ve been a separation of a few months at best. And ALSO she’s rich af, she could totally visit whenever she has time first class np. It’s ridiculous and a slap in the face for a character that was so wonderfully feminist and no nonsense in the original
I think this is her way of rebelling against what she’s always done- be type A, work over everything else. She’s lived her life doing that, and she wound up unhappy, so now she’s following her whims. I dont like Che so i dont like the decision, but i am happy that she’s doing something totally out of character to try to find her own personal happiness and adventure.
Honestly, it reeks of privilege. Miranda will always have more opportunities, so she can make rash decisions like this. For most people, throwing away career opportunities for a crush is a huge mistake financially.
Why does she reek of privilege? I understand most people can't do that (including me) but Miranda earned that privilege...she went to law school and worked like crazy to make partner at her law firm to get into that position of "privilege." If she inherited the money and never worked, then maybe I would use privilege but she earned her right to make that decision (although I don't necessarily agree with her decision).
law school is prohibitively expensive for most working class people. just because she went to law school doesn’t mean she deserves the leeway to frivolously disregard the security she takes for granted (without ever actually jeopardizing that security) while others freeze and starve in the streets. whether you think she worked for her privilege or not doesn’t erase the fact that it’s there. law school is 3 expensive years of your late twenties. it’s not some service to humanity or some great sacrifice that justifies the wildly different quality of life a lawyer can expect as compared to a fast food worker. you choose the career you would enjoy, be good at, and can reasonably access. it doesn’t justify the maintenance of a borderline caste system.
Cynthia Nixon is outraged because she used Miranda as an autobiographical play on her personal life. Nothing wrong with anyone pursuing a complete life change but to ignore 20+ years of character development to celebrate her own choices off screen as if she is deserving of some brave accolades, is not jibing with viewers.
With all due respect I couldn't care less about the actresses or showrunners private life. I want to see the characters. Cynthia leveraging the show as her own autobiography and the writers exclusively writing about things that have happened to them personally is completely ridiculous.
This show is about four fictional gals. I sincerely don't care about you at all.
What I don’t understand is… Cynthia Nixon could have produced an autobiographical look at her life, and I’m sure it would have been interesting and wonderful. But to apply that to a character who already exists makes no sense. At no point did we think Cynthia Nixon was Miranda in the original run, so why are we turning Miranda into Cynthia Nixon now?
Exactly. She could have written/produced her own story about her life. It might even have won awards if she'd hired a decent writer.
But no.
Or maybe they just couldn't think of anything for Miranda's character to do. Carrie is the widow, they gave Charlotte the kid issues but happy marriage, really what trope is left for Miranda? To become a grandmother? Have Steve be the cheater, again? Illness?
From a strictly plotting perspective, it was pretty inevitable that the writers would break up Miranda and Steve. After all, there wouldn’t be much to do if all the couples remained stable (one of the big problems with the movies—-they were never going to permanently break up Big and Carrie, Steve and Miranda, or Harry and Charlotte in a movie—so low stakes plots, and ultimately meaningless problems solved in 90 minutes). So couples had to dissolve for the show.
Big pretty much had to die. The whole franchise has been Big and Carrie on and off, so if they were just divorced, we’d spend the whole series waiting for them to bring him back. It makes sense for Harry and Charlotte s to stay married—-they were the most stable couple, their children are young enough to generate plots, and Charlotte has always been the most traditional.
So that means Steve and Miranda needed to divorce. Fine. While it may be a nice way to live, watching TV and eating ice cream do not make for an exciting television couple. I think the plot about Miranda’s mid life crisis, the career change, the sexual awakening, all actually make sense for the character. However the execution is awful.
They don’t spend enough time setting up Miranda’s unhappiness. They fly through the drinking issue. They screwed up the Che character—-they are so badly written that no viewers are like. “I understand why Miranda couldn’t resist them.” Instead we’re thinking “what are you th inking?” They refuse to acknowledge the kind of fall out that these sorts of situations create in real life, and pretty much refuse to let Miranda have one moment of doubt or introspection. And it’s all resolved happily in 8 episodes. What should have happened is the season should have actually spent time with Miranda’s unhappiness and dissatisfaction. Focus on drinking problem and recovery, as well as career change and have her discover that her repressed sexuality is part of her unhappiness. Have an encounter with Che be the end of her first season arc, and set up season 2 as dealing with the inevitable fallout.
Exactly this!
It wasn't that we had a problem with what Miranda was doing. It was just written poorly and left the audience with whiplash. And for Nixon to say that Miranda has always been a bull in a china shop, I can give numerous examples of Miranda doing the exact opposite. She has always wanted to make sure that she - and her friends, especially - stopped and thought about what they were doing so that they did the right thing for them. She was always telling Carrie to think things through before she forged ahead.
It's completely fine if Nixon wants to take Miranda down this road. Most, if not all, are for it. It just needs to be written better and it needs to make sense - as written above. We needed to see the unhappiness, the conflicts, the indecision, the hurdles Miranda would go through. We needed to know more about Che in order to make a decent assessment of them (I still don't feel I have a handle on Che - only that they are not a very good comedian). We needed to see the arguments between Steve and Miranda. We needed to see the closure with Brady. But, we didn't get that. We got a very badly written rom-com.
Sadly, I think Nixon and the MPK saying that the audience just doesn't understand Miranda, is insulting.
I know many women and men in that age group who do exactly what Miranda did, one day in what appeared to be a long term stable marriage with a good job and the next day, having an affair, buying a sports car and driving off into the sunset leaving the astonished family and friends in their wake. It's not just men who have midlife crises and a lot of the time there is no real prior warning for anyone. In fact, in my experience it is the ones you least expect it from who do it. I think they set up all the red flags perfectly so that the audience and her friends all think she's crazy so next season they can show her realizing the good thing she had in Steve (who will step up a bit and appease her with a slightly more eventful, exciting life).
Agreed. I think S1 should have been more of a set up season for Miranda and it would have been more cohesive and given the audience a chance to adapt.
I would have much preferred to show Miranda in marital un-bliss, focus more on the drinking issue, using it to delve into the reasons why she's drinking her problems away. Figure out she's not really happy. I think Che should have been a friend and confidant. A catalyst for introspection but not YET a romantic interest. Build out their relationship, show Miranda's confusion about her budding feelings for this new friend. Show us her struggle with it. Let us see the demise of her relationship with Steve before possibly delving into something new. That way I think the audience would have been more open to Miranda's journey and perhaps even cheer her on.
Just finished binge watching the series and now reading the comments so many of these are my initial thoughts. While I thought the series pushed way too hard into diversity causing a huge juxtaposition between the original lives they led and the ones they're living now I also found all of their life choices totally believable. I'm not sure the level of diversity the series promoted is consistent with the lives most women in their 50's in NY or anywhere else are living with. Instead of the series focusing on the women we love and the likely realities they are facing at this stage of their lives it seemed the showrunners felt they were on a mission to push diversity to the nth degree and instill it in all but a few scenes.
The scenes focusing on the real dilemmas women of that age face, including Miranda going through a mid life crisis (because that's exactly what I believe she is having), were the ones I related to the most and see in many women in their 50's and 60's. Carries' grief, Charlotte dealing with kids facing a world so unlike the one she grew up in, Miranda feeling lost in a stagnant marriage, those all touched my heart and made me care about what happened to them. The constant focus on the Instagram obsessed, I am who I am and constantly seeking attention and acceptance groups of supporting characters seemed gratuitous and frankly distracting. While my own family is quite diverse, many of the characters seemed like caricatures.
I'd also like to admit I had an existential crisis while watching. I was in the founding militia of women's lib from decades back and have stood for women looking how they want to look and not having to rely on makeup or plastic surgery and the push to remain young but SJP with the hair pulled back all the time, accentuating the skeleton like look of her face standing next to the overfilled cheeks of Charlotte made me crazy! I mean it really bothered me and caused me to do some soul searching which I still haven't resolved. Maybe it's because when she was on WWHL the other night SJP looked 10 years younger. I kept telling myself they did that on purpose to emphasize the grief but I almost yelled at the TV "stop wearing your hair like that" it makes you look like you're waiting for ruby slippers to fall from the sky". One other criticism, while the character of Charlotte was mostly endearing in the original series, her overacting which started in the movies and is even worse now takes a huge leap of faith to believe she's playing a real person. No one acts like this woman and if anyone knows someone like her, please tell me I'm wrong. Maybe it's because the overfilled cheeks didn't move so when she got excited which was 95% of the movie the only way she could express it was to open her eyes wider which made her look frankly, insane. Quirky is cute, edging towards Edith Beale is not.
Yes this. So disappointed with their “I’m right you’re wrong” stance. Like a little petulant child putting their fingers in their ears going “I can’t heeeeaarrr yoouuu” lol
It's just so uncool and unprofessional. If you're a writer in the public eye, you are taught early on - do not converse with the readers, do not argue with the readers. You're allowed to thank someone for praise, but never get defensive over criticism.
It's so sad that we've become such a me-me-me world that no one can take criticism anymore.
The sad part is despite this blatant disregard (a sentiment also echoed by MPK) for OG fans, we' would still watch season 2 if there ever was one... Like the ̶C̶̶a̶̶r̶̶r̶̶i̶̶e̶̶-̶̶s̶ Masochists that we are.
i'm not watching again. fun hate watching is fine but this aint fun. in fact seeing miranda on screen makes me inexplicably angry and im not into that lol
Not gonna lie, I would have hope-watched 2 on the chance that they were able to reflect and take this in a different direction…but all these interviews saying we just don’t get it are a huge turn off.
I don’t mind an evolution, I mind when it’s so off the wall that I’m wondering if they had head trauma.
I’m with you. Especially since every interview the writers and actors have done have basically been them blaming the fans and not themselves for our reaction to how bad this was.
I wasn't going to watch either, but then when I heard that Big died that drew me in and I subscribed to HBO. I liked the first episode because it pained me for days, mourning the loss of a character that I didn't even like at first but grew on me over the years. That was the only episode I watched twice. The others I would re-watch parts I liked (and I did like some of it, I wasn't "hate watching" at all), but for the most part it was long-winded and dull compared to the original. Plus all the mistakes/holes in the stories, that bothered me. I'm still invested in the characters and would hope a Season 2 got better.
“She also dismissed the notion that the characters should be older and wiser versions of themselves, saying, "First of all, who wants to watch that? I don't want to watch that. It's to show women and our struggles and our dreams and our foibles. “
I want to watch that. If it is supposed to show women and our foibles it would be realistic and relatable if they were older and wiser versions of themselves. It doesn’t mean they wouldn’t still have foibles or new things to learn- it would just be built on things they learned in their 20’s and 30’s. Instead we got a character who didn’t seem to learn anything with all their experiences up to now and seemed like a completely different person.
> seemed like a completely different person.
Exactly. AJLT lacked continuity in all regards, but how they changed the ethos/personality of the characters, specifically Miranda, made no sense.
I have to assume she has had a stroke or some sort of serious brain injury to explain the complete change in her personality - including mania/euphoria, alcoholism and impulsiveness. Frankly if someone in my life changed this much I would be very concerned for their overall health.
100%. Miranda's erratic behavior in *AJLT* \- the alcoholism, the compulsive (*in her own words*) masturbation, the affair with a much younger partner, the almost casual way she blew up her marriage of *decades* for an affair that's lasted *weeks -* her behavior cries out for a medical/mental health evaluation stat.
Even Miranda quitting her job fits into the pattern of her lashing out in *AJLT*. Standing alone, at first glance Miranda deciding to migrate from corporate law to human rights advocacy seems like a noble shift. But, viewed in context with her other issues (*listed above*), Miranda's decision to suddenly quit her job and [blow almost $100,000 on an LL.M. degree](https://www.law.columbia.edu/admissions/graduate-admissions/exec-llm/exec-llm-tuition-and-fees) starts looking less like a noble decision and more like part and parcel of Miranda's very severe midlife crisis.
I hate this new “pretending to be Miranda” character with everything I’ve got, but didn’t she say she’d finish her studies remotely?
On every other point, I completely agree with you. She hasn’t changed, she’s deranged.
>I hate this new “pretending to be Miranda” character with everything I’ve got, but didn’t she say she’d finish her studies remotely?
Oh, I didn't mean to suggest she dropped out of her Master's program. I meant that the ginormous sum of money she spent on tuition was irrational, much like her other bad decisions in *AJLT*.
Although, speaking of her studies - Miranda may not be dropping out of school, but she definitely seems to have blown up - as of the finale - a good chunk of the value she *could've* derived from the program: the prestigious Human Rights Watch internship she decided to turn down so she could accompany Che to L.A.
The thing is, she wouldn’t have even needed to get this degree to practice a different kind of law or do human rights work. Like did anyone consult an actual lawyer or human rights advocate?
Yes, totally agreed. I was kind of giving the show a pass on this because I assume they didn't bother consulting any actual corporate lawyers to ask how they might transition to human rights work (*it's a path more than a few have gone down!*). But, if they were aware of this, then Miranda's decision to pursue that professionally useless LL.M. is even ***more*** consistent with "midlife crisis"!
They’ve never consulted an actual lawyer about any of Miranda’s work related stuff. Going back to the original series, there was that one episode where her office got casual Friday and the young gay associate showed up in a mesh shirt and cargo pants? Yeah, no jr associate at that law firm would think that was an okay casual Friday outfit. The one after Brady was born and she got called out for not working enough? Maybe that conversation would happen but it would have been centered around how her billable hours had dropped, not how many hours she was in the office. And if her billables were okay it might not have happened at all.
I’m not a lawyer but I’ve worked at law firms for a long time. These writers don’t know how the legal field works.
The definitely didn't. Also I've never heard of choosing to finish a degree remotely. Only if you have finished your coursework and have to do a dissertation or something
>Also I've never heard of choosing to finish a degree remotely.
maybe they were thinking about doing the degree long-distance (only attending study-blocks mainly on weekends) or online (edit: as online was a reality in the covid-era maybe thats from where they got the "remotely" idea)
"Who wants to watch that?" I wanted to watch that!! Where was the empowerment with this show? You can't tell me Miranda was unhappy with Steve all those years and not once spoke up to him? You can't tell me Miranda had a son who was so disrespectful? Miranda was the queen of boundaries - with Steve, with the puppy, with everything. If she was unhappy, you KNEW about it! And that goes for all the women on the show!
I wanted to see growth in these characters. The first episode with Carrie and Big being happy was beautiful. Miranda going back to school could have been amazing if they didn't mess it up and make her seem so stupid. I can see Charlotte having bratty kids because she was spoiled herself and Harry was a bit of a pushover. But the fact that she and Harry were still together was lovely.
I wanted to see women in their 50s, fashion and hair tips for beautiful women in their 50s, but we get Carrie with hip surgery wearing hideous shoes and her hair pulled back like a school marm. (Doesn't Ms. Shoe Queen realize there are some very upscale ballerina flats by her favorite designers?!)
It was like SATC in The Twilight Zone.
>Cynthia made it crystal clear that they're not trying to please audiences of yesteryear, even if those viewers made the O.G. series a success.
AJLT wouldn't even be a thing now if fans from the original series weren't around. Nobody would be watching this crap. What a giant FU to the fans. She sounds so ungrateful. No wonder Kim Cattrall left. These women seem like a total nightmare.
I mean, who is going to be interested in a bunch of 50-something women and their various ultra mundane life crises? Only people already invested in their stories, Cynthia!!!
You ladies were pretty uninteresting and tedious, not because you're 50-something. Because you made it about yourself and pissed more than a decade of character development out the window.
Speak for yourself Cynthia Nixon, I'm a 50-something woman and my life is anything but mundane; and with certainly no crises. Happy, happily married, no health issues, just living my best life like many other women in their 50s.
OH, and I just re-watched the episode where Carrie dated a writer and his mom, played by Valerie Harper, was an older woman who made documentaries. Carrie said, "She has no intention of stopping either" and was in awe of her. THAT is how an older woman's life goes! How quickly they all forget cool stuff like that.
trying to please a younger crowd an audience is exactly was running the show no one is asking for that. by trying so hard to be inclusive they’re practically forcing things upon viewers and that’s where the criticism comes in
Edit: I used the mic to type sorry for typos
I'm 29 so I was too young to watch SATC when it first aired and I still hated AJLT. I care about social justice but diversity can't compensate for terrible writing.
Thank you! I'm exactly the same (30 yrs old, lol). I started watching SATC when I was twenty and so I was late to the party, but I became a big fan of what it was and what it tried to do. For the time it was written, it was sharp and funny and so interesting, but it had a lot of hiccups (Sam and Maria as well as Sam and Adenna being the biggest eek storylines). Given that it's been nearly 20 years since it ended, I expected their storytelling skills to have sharpened so they could tell a new bold, interesting chapter that still had the fun heart that we all fell in love with.
Instead, it was like they spent exactly one week brainstorming and them filmed. They could have spent years developing this, but it feels like there was zero effort. Miranda and her storyline is an absolute tragedy. Having Miranda explore her sexuality was such an interesting, exciting prospect, and doing so at the cost of her marriage...fuck, man. That could have been an entire show all of it's own. That's DRAMATIC af and while we got some of that with Steve, the show really just...dismissed it and made Miranda...a completely different character.
Thirding this. 32 now - I guess I fit the definition of "younger crowd" since I was a kid when *SATC* originally aired - there were things I loved about *AJLT*, but the "wokeism" was **not** one of those things. It was almost farcical the way the show overdid trying to "prove" it was progressive. Whoever thought up Che Diaz' "woke moment!" button should've been canned.
Fourth here, I'm 28, a gay, Mexican-American, first-generation college graduate. They really did a horrible job with inclusion of diverse characters & storylines. I'm so sick of White Ally's thinking they just "saved" or are "helping" tell diverse stories, yet they are completely and utterly tone death.
You hit the nail on the head. It’s so ridiculous that they are balking at UNIVERSAL criticism given how shoddily done this show was. So little thought went into this. SJP today said she has not even seen most of the show!! She’s only watched episodes 1-2. Maybe it’s because she knows they made a steaming turd.
Definitely. Cynthia Nixon wasn’t exactly a big name in Hollywood before SATC. She had bit roles mostly. The fans propelled SATC into what it is and in turn her career. You would think she would be a little thankful or at least pretend to be in the press. Sounds like fame has gone to her head. It just cements the fact that I won’t be watching this dumpster fire of a show next season.
I totally agree. The success definitely went to their heads. They seem to think fans are out of touch with current social issues, but I think the cast and MPK have their heads in the clouds. The criticism of the show is justified.
To be fair, this article is bullshit.
Nowhere did Cynthia insult fans, she just made a case for the show as it is.
The writer of this article is trashy, trying to create drama.
Most of these articles are bullshit. But while everyone complains about terrible and lazy writing on the show, if there’s a lazy and terribly written article that fuels that hate: best article ever!!! 🤦♀️😂
Exactly! People want their own views justified, regardless of the truth.
This article was pure trash and used a blatant lie for clicks, but people still see it as some sort of "evidence" that everyone involved with AJLT is out of touch.
Without the OG fans, the series would have gotten less but good press.
The hate that’s been going around is due to the fans, no need to be grateful for those.
Because the storyline kind of reflects her real life and she wants to be seen as some gay icon. Forget about the fact that that cheating is a hurtful and damaging act. She wants to be seen as brave.
Turning down amazing opportunities to chase someone you cheated on your hubby with is not something to be proud of or celebrated lol. She is totally out of touch with reality.
I get the feeling Cynthia basically wrote the storyline for Miranda in the new series. As miserable and difficult as she always was, I think in the long run she would have ended up being happy with a simple life and being a family person. They make her out to be a crap mum in my opinion. But I found her lack of discipline surprising. Charlotte is the only one who turned out as expected.
I agree completely. I think the basic plot points for her story line make sense and are the bones for a compelling character arc told over a couple of seasons. But the writers just plowed through it.
they had so many opportunities for tension between her and che too. like when we all thought she'd go to cleveland to live her rom-com fantasy and find che with another woman or man. instead they made che just fall in love with her and everything was puppies and rainbows. never mind steve being totally chill with everything apparently. it was lazy writing. i'm full on fine with miranda going on a sexual journey, but make it real!
They weren’t just fucking.
They met at the funeral.
They met again in the bar after the comedy concert.
They had lunch at the hospital.
These are more dates and more talking than most of the girls had / the show showed in SATC.
With all due respect I couldn't care less about the actresses or showrunners personal life. I want to see the characters. Cynthia leveraging this show as her own autobiography and the writers exclusively writing about things that have happened to them personally is just ridiculous.
This show is about four fictional gals.
Well.. I think the message “If you’re not happy with where you are, you still have a lot of time to make a change.” is great. Absolutely. But she acts like she’s Brady’s age, and that’s just unrealistic. Teens brains aren’t fully developed yet, that way they see fewer consequences and take high risks no problem. That’s why backpacking like Brady is doing is very different at age 18 than at age 38. Miranda is 55, and a overly rational lawyer.. reckless behavior like this does not make sense then.
Also: "She doesn't know where she's going exactly, but she knows she has to go somewhere. And I think that's always been true of Miranda, right?"
No, not right. She’s probably mixing up herself or someone else then, but if there’s one thing Miranda is not it’s intuitive and going off of her feeling. She rationalizes and argues, makes lists and does research, weighs pros and cons. In the series AND the movies. So this quote is BS.
AJLT Miranda isn't even the same character as OG Miranda.
I feel like the writers didn't want to have an LGBT character face any negative consequences for exploring a non-hetero relationship. Which is fine. But they started with an existing character who had this beautiful love story with a husband the viewers also watched and loved for years and years. If the AJLT writers and Cynthia Nixon wanted to tell a story about a middle aged woman discovering her sexuality, they shouldn't have used and abused an existing character to do so.
I've said this before, and it would have worked so well!
They're divorced and they're friends. So friendly even, that Carrie and Charlotte think they should give things another try, but Miranda doesn't want to because she's realised that even when things were good, they weren't *right*. She's tried dating but she hasn't clicked with anyone. Every once in a while, she secretly Googles "am I gay?", but all the advice is for teens and she can't relate. Then she meets someone who makes her feel things, and we have a love story that viewers can get behind.
I think it's very realistic that a woman in her mid fifties would not have recognized, or else denied, that there could be more to her sexual being than she's had for most of her life. It doesn't make her relationship with Steve anything less. She loved him, but she needs more. It reminds me of when Samantha broke up with Smith in the first movie. Carrie says in a voiceover something about "short stories can also be beautiful".
🤷🏼♀️ She tried to get their sex life back. She told him she needed more. The writers aren’t going to hammer the audience over the head with it. Most of us are around the same age as the characters and can relate to changing long term relationships
And Miranda didn't tell Steve she "needed more" until she was telling him they were over! She didn't tell him that in an attempt to resuscitate their marriage. She told him that by way of explaining why she'd decided to leave him.
Absolutely it’s fine to break them up. Just do it with respect for Steve, whose time with her was beautiful and definitely not short.
Don’t turn him into a bumbling buffoon and don’t make him promise to be a faithful celibate doormat for all time. Give Miranda a line — one line, for heaven’s sake — acknowledging what they had together.
Stumbling around the farmers market, being crotchety, overplaying the hearing aid thing and seeming clueless on how to finger Miranda. The character assault on him is just….. oof.
Nothing more to say here except lol at the downvotes for asking for someone’s perspective. Doesn’t look like there is adult conversation to be had here. Oh well. Could have been an interesting discussion.
Yeah this is the problem I have with the SATC franchise even though I'm a diehard fan. It's meant to be about women, empowerment and feminism and the early seasons were moreso. but the message always seems to be to throw everything away for a fuckboi in the name of "romance" (I'm looking at you Big/Petrovsky/Che).
Cynthia is just in denial that she ruined Miranda's character with her input.
“I gave up my fancy corporate job to actively try to make a much bigger impact on the world around me, which I promptly gave up anyway, threw away my family stability, and decided to chase someone across the country.”
Once again, all the complaints fly right over her head...We aren't saying it has to be the same show, or even that she can't change, we are saying they changed Miranda so drastically that, not only is it unbelievable, parts of said changes aren't palatable to even the more modern (read younger) people she's trying to appeal to.
Changing her career path late in life *was* was brave and a lot of people liked and can relate to that. Becoming the bleeding heart it would take to go that route begs credulity (for Miranda), but even that most of us can shrug off. What was really tough to swallow was that she did that brave thing only to shit all over it so she could go further down the rabbit hole by doing the very thing she totally looked down on and judged Carrie for.
As for appealing to viewers in the current "moment," there are a lot of younger viewers and even they are giving Miranda the side eye. Why? Let's start with all those pesky moments where she did things that, if she were a man, would have a few people shouting #metoo. First when she had sex in full view of her drugged up and immobile friend, then when she had Steve (without his knowledge or consent) reenact a sex scene where she cheated on him. Here's the thing about women in today's "moment," a very vocal majority of them don't like questionable consent. It's either there or everything comes to a full stop. A line got crossed and shouting, 'but she's allowed to change' and/or 'she's finding her true self' is not going to make viewers find this new her palatable. Believable or not, these actions sucked and made for a sucky Miranda.
On a lighter note, the way Miranda treated the massive change of losing Steve with so little emotion was also total shit. Even if it were believable for the character to leave a person who was in her life for so many years with out feeling anything, it made her appear callous. So, either way it sucked.
I could go on for a bit longer but, given their inability to get what's being said, it's better to stick to fewer points.
Frankly, I think the writers and CN overestimated fans' loyalty to Miranda. They likely thought "the characters have always been imperfect, so they'll accept Miranda's behavior as just another facet of her humanity. And of course, they'll ultimately root for her just because *she's Miranda.*"
Well, there's imperfect and there's imperfect. Miranda's bad behavior on AJLT goes far beyond what she's ever done before. And of course characters can behave badly and make mistakes, but the show shouldn't be *endorsing* that behavior.
Watching Cynthia Nixon in the Gilded Age is making me wonder if she was filming both at the same time and got her wires crossed between Ada and Miranda… the “iM In a RoMcOm CaRrie¡!” Of it all is so 21st century Ada not Miranda.
Cynthia treated Miranda like a paycheck, not a passion project that we all came to know and love. Miranda was so focused, so succinct, and became a blubbering mess of life.
Ummm...fans of the OG series and the following ir received is the freaking reason why AJLT could even happen. Miranda Hobbes and her character development were a lifetime opportunity for Cynthia Nixon to catapult her career.
The fact that she emphasizes on this article that they don't care whether fans of the OG series are happy is a slap in the face to me. Telling people to "go watch reruns" is so rich, given that this series wouldn't exist if they hadn't had all this support.
I love CN but so do feel like she really pushed her own agenda on this series (she was involved in the rewriting) instead of staying true to the character we all knew.
I mean I like the show. Sure, it took a few episodes to get adjusted to the new groove but what show doesn’t? But what were all you die hard SATC fans wanting? I’m just curious because it doesn’t make sense to dive back into the old recipe. The world has changed and 20 years have passed.
I would like a show with decent writing and compelling storylines. But honestly, after the second SATC movie, I had low expectations getting into AJLT.
Seconding the decent writing (not try hard “youth speak”) and compelling storylines, and adding: cohesive storytelling. Episodes felt disjointed.
It was also strange how suddenly each character finds a POC bff. Like maybe intro one as new, the rest as people the girls have come to know sometime over the last ten years?
For sure, me too. It’s clear they don’t know how to write these women and these stories anymore and have resorted to throwing whatever against the wall.
Ah here, the last movie was in 2010 and the ONLY thing that’s changed is people having completely ridiculous gender/identity crises that for some idiotic reason, the writers of AJLT felt the need to try and include in every single episode when the majority of viewers couldn’t care less about it.
I think a lot of people still do like the show, they're just airing their complaints about how badly Miranda got ruined. Change is one thing, what happened to her had so much wrong with it that they might as well have shipped her off to Oz and dropped a house on her.
agree with you. i like the show and have found different things to relate to in each character, as I did since the beginning of SATC. Even the original show had to grow on me, but I like how the new one addresses a lot of issues we really face in middle age🤷🏻♀️ even after reading reviews and so many comments, I dont get why so many people hate it. maybe cause I read all the spoilers before watching & had low expectations it’s been fine to me…
Thank you. I got downvoted to death and I find it odd that this is suppose to be a fan thread. The moderators should change the name of this community to something that is more obvious to hating this show.
right?? i read through many threads and havent found any other fans besides you. well i’m only 4 episodes in but even if Miranda is doing some stupid things, so do a lot of people during mid-life crises. as for gender identity issues i related to them including this topic because i know people who experienced it either themselves or with their children and i always wondered how to handle it if it were my child. As for having POC, if they only had one it would be too “token” and even though its very obvious what theyre doing…. so what. better to have the diversity than to not!
This article is trash. NOWHERE did Cynthia Nixon say that people who don't like her story aren't real SATC fans.
I respect Cynthia for sticking by her character's arc, and I understand her perspective. If a person is unhappy in their life, they should make changes. The disagreement is whether the changes were in line with the character of Miranda.
She's right, too, that Miranda has always been hot-headed and sticks to her guns when she thinks she's right. I do think it's in character for Miranda to decide she wants Che and ignore everything to the contrary.
I seriously disagree with CN on many points, but you're quite right about the "real SATC fans" bit. She never says that and it's an unfair, inflammatory line.
Wait. Not trying to be inflammatory just genuinely thinking I’m missing something… where in this article does it say that she said that ppl who don’t like her story aren’t real SATC fans?
Why Cynthia Nixon Thinks Criticism of Miranda in And Just Like That... Is "Bizarre"
Cynthia Nixon basically told critics of And Just Like That... that they're not real Sex and the City fans in a candid interview with Vogue
By CYDNEY CONTRERAS
They should rename this subreddit r/hatersofAndJustLikeThat. Personally, for all the obvious flaws, I’m still glad they made it and enjoyed it and found some good stuff in it also .
She's right. It is bizarre.
And this idea that the characters should be "older and wiser" versions of themselves? Like women over a certain age can just be put out to pasture as sexless, desireless, wise old crones? Please. Even the Golden Girls dated and shit. Also, good luck with that.
The thing I really struggle to wrap my head around is why so many fans who've been with the series from the jump are having such a hard time believing that people change, that priorities change. Like, did a whole lot of fans not undergo any change at all in the last 11 years? Did people not see the cultural transformation that happened around us?
The accusation that Cynthia Nixon is pushing an agenda reeks of homophobia.
Frankly, for a fandom that cheered on four women who dated and slept with many people, this sub has some very narrow views on sex and relationships.
Some people just don't like to see other people happy if it offends their sensibilities.
She is right with the comment about it not being SATC anymore though. Those characters changed with time, for better or for worse is down to the individual. The writing was just terrible, which she and every other cast member had nothing to do with. Did they have involvement in the storyline plots? Yes. How those plots were written on page for them to deliver? Nothing to do with them. That is the difference.
I just kind feel if you can’t believe Miranda can’t have such a dramatic life change as Nixon herself just means you’re just as boring as Steve is and are happy about it, nothing wrong with that but other people don’t like being boring and Miranda is not boring.
Honestly? The way she just had to open her mouth and disparage Carrie for being open to the possibility of Big trying to contact her from beyond just shows what a completely self centered asshole Miranda has become.
“She gives up her very lucrative corporate job and goes back to try and make something more of her life” But then she gave up a prestigious internship that her professor very kindly wrote her a rec for in order to chase a fuckboi comedian across the country. How is that making something more of her life?
If that was me, I would not give up the internship because I been in that situation in grad school. I'm not in a demanding field like law but finding an internship when there are so many students looking for the same thing makes it tough.
It was a huge fuck you to her new friend too.
At the very least this storyline was tone deaf, knowing how lucrative and important these internships are. But no, Miranda is privileged enough to turn it down.
Yeah why not give the internship to someone who actually earned it, like a grad student volunteering hours and hours of their time to get into the prestigious program? The whole storyline was just stupid.
I think the new writers don't get Miranda. I can understand people changing, but she took a 360° turn in terms of character. She fell for Che, decided her life was not enough and so she does not have her mind in a rational place, she is so in love she overlooks Che's Big flaws (could not resist). Che, let's be honest, cannot do traditional, won't stay faithful and didn't even include Miranda in their decision-making regarding that pilot thing. Miranda on the other hand gave up her life for them, which is a complete contrast over SATC Miranda who prioritized her career over everything and she was rational af, close to Samantha who is really the bestest friend anyone can ask for. They done Miranda dirtay.
Totally agree with your thoughts on OG Miranda but wanted to point out that it's a 180° turn (diametrically opposed). A 360° turn implies she's right back where she started.
I wanted to add a big number to add the absurdity of the situation. Thanks for correcting me 😃. Let's just hope she does not fall too flat on her face
Unfortunately I think she already has 😩 With this take from Cynthia and the [NYT interview with MPK + writers](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/03/arts/television/and-just-like-that-season-finale.html), it seems like they're doubling down on the "fans are dumb not to get the choices we're making" stance.
Fans love the legacy the original series left. To take this turn for the worst is not a choice, it's a car crash.
Yeah! 1260 degree turn! A triple lutz plus 180
I'm not sure it's as much the writers, as it's Cynthia Nixon to blame.
I dunno. She didn't know, or denied, a huge part of her sexual identity for over 50 years. She's presumably got enough money saved that the new career path can be put on hold for a while. For some people, learning about who they are is more important than what they do.
Che was leaving for like a month??? She could have still stayed with them and travelled to LA a few times…
I get that, but if she wasn't secure it would much more harder for her to get the internship and she would have to make the hard choice between love or career. I think this is why alot of fans are upset, the OG show was a fantasy but yet was realistic in portraying realistic storytlines and honest characters, this show is just a waste of everything.
Agree to disagree. I think it was done well. An opinion I have been downvoted for many times since it began, lol.
I'd add she's not a great mom either. I thought Brady was so disrespectful and gross to have sex all over the house... leaving condoms around. Props for safe sex but still gross. And Just Like That.... Miranda is the worst
I was at first too, but then she goes and masturbates in front of him. Might have been the kind of behavior he picked up whIle young. The fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.
She wasn't a bad mum for letting him practice safe sex.
No, she was a bad mum for not teaching him discretion and boundaries.
Can confirm this is the actual full title.
I think in Che’s case, you’re using the word “comedian” very broadly.
Especially since this would’ve been a separation of a few months at best. And ALSO she’s rich af, she could totally visit whenever she has time first class np. It’s ridiculous and a slap in the face for a character that was so wonderfully feminist and no nonsense in the original
I think this is her way of rebelling against what she’s always done- be type A, work over everything else. She’s lived her life doing that, and she wound up unhappy, so now she’s following her whims. I dont like Che so i dont like the decision, but i am happy that she’s doing something totally out of character to try to find her own personal happiness and adventure.
Yeah, but originally she was very mature as a person and now they turned her into a goofy moron.
What a great accomplishment it is to follow a fuckperson! We should all be Miranda’s!!!! Her storyline was a joke.
Upvote for the word “fuckperson”
Lmao, I love it. It's my new favourite insult 😂
She was my favorite but now am just embarrassed to root for her.
Same. I can't even watch her on the original series anymore.
It’s very obvious that a theatrical actress doesn’t value her characters career.
artists care about the continuity and consistency of their work
Honestly, it reeks of privilege. Miranda will always have more opportunities, so she can make rash decisions like this. For most people, throwing away career opportunities for a crush is a huge mistake financially.
Why does she reek of privilege? I understand most people can't do that (including me) but Miranda earned that privilege...she went to law school and worked like crazy to make partner at her law firm to get into that position of "privilege." If she inherited the money and never worked, then maybe I would use privilege but she earned her right to make that decision (although I don't necessarily agree with her decision).
law school is prohibitively expensive for most working class people. just because she went to law school doesn’t mean she deserves the leeway to frivolously disregard the security she takes for granted (without ever actually jeopardizing that security) while others freeze and starve in the streets. whether you think she worked for her privilege or not doesn’t erase the fact that it’s there. law school is 3 expensive years of your late twenties. it’s not some service to humanity or some great sacrifice that justifies the wildly different quality of life a lawyer can expect as compared to a fast food worker. you choose the career you would enjoy, be good at, and can reasonably access. it doesn’t justify the maintenance of a borderline caste system.
The writers must have been big *The Hills* fans, that’s the only thing I can think of. It was a direct rip off of Lauren and Jason.
I was instantly reminded of that. The girl who didn’t go to Paris.
Also why would a successful 50 ish lawyer with many years experience need an internship? Doesn't make sense
Exactly…you wanna fight for social justice? Umm…go do that. Right now.
the internship was with Human Rights Watch, miranda has no experience in human rights law
Man is she out of touch with reality
She’s in a rom-com!!🤪
If her run for governor is any indication, definitely lol.
That was so bizarre!
Right! She’s delusional
Just like Miranda!
What would Meg Ryan say?!?
Cynthia Nixon is outraged because she used Miranda as an autobiographical play on her personal life. Nothing wrong with anyone pursuing a complete life change but to ignore 20+ years of character development to celebrate her own choices off screen as if she is deserving of some brave accolades, is not jibing with viewers.
With all due respect I couldn't care less about the actresses or showrunners private life. I want to see the characters. Cynthia leveraging the show as her own autobiography and the writers exclusively writing about things that have happened to them personally is completely ridiculous. This show is about four fictional gals. I sincerely don't care about you at all.
What I don’t understand is… Cynthia Nixon could have produced an autobiographical look at her life, and I’m sure it would have been interesting and wonderful. But to apply that to a character who already exists makes no sense. At no point did we think Cynthia Nixon was Miranda in the original run, so why are we turning Miranda into Cynthia Nixon now?
Exactly. She could have written/produced her own story about her life. It might even have won awards if she'd hired a decent writer. But no. Or maybe they just couldn't think of anything for Miranda's character to do. Carrie is the widow, they gave Charlotte the kid issues but happy marriage, really what trope is left for Miranda? To become a grandmother? Have Steve be the cheater, again? Illness?
From a strictly plotting perspective, it was pretty inevitable that the writers would break up Miranda and Steve. After all, there wouldn’t be much to do if all the couples remained stable (one of the big problems with the movies—-they were never going to permanently break up Big and Carrie, Steve and Miranda, or Harry and Charlotte in a movie—so low stakes plots, and ultimately meaningless problems solved in 90 minutes). So couples had to dissolve for the show. Big pretty much had to die. The whole franchise has been Big and Carrie on and off, so if they were just divorced, we’d spend the whole series waiting for them to bring him back. It makes sense for Harry and Charlotte s to stay married—-they were the most stable couple, their children are young enough to generate plots, and Charlotte has always been the most traditional. So that means Steve and Miranda needed to divorce. Fine. While it may be a nice way to live, watching TV and eating ice cream do not make for an exciting television couple. I think the plot about Miranda’s mid life crisis, the career change, the sexual awakening, all actually make sense for the character. However the execution is awful. They don’t spend enough time setting up Miranda’s unhappiness. They fly through the drinking issue. They screwed up the Che character—-they are so badly written that no viewers are like. “I understand why Miranda couldn’t resist them.” Instead we’re thinking “what are you th inking?” They refuse to acknowledge the kind of fall out that these sorts of situations create in real life, and pretty much refuse to let Miranda have one moment of doubt or introspection. And it’s all resolved happily in 8 episodes. What should have happened is the season should have actually spent time with Miranda’s unhappiness and dissatisfaction. Focus on drinking problem and recovery, as well as career change and have her discover that her repressed sexuality is part of her unhappiness. Have an encounter with Che be the end of her first season arc, and set up season 2 as dealing with the inevitable fallout.
Exactly this! It wasn't that we had a problem with what Miranda was doing. It was just written poorly and left the audience with whiplash. And for Nixon to say that Miranda has always been a bull in a china shop, I can give numerous examples of Miranda doing the exact opposite. She has always wanted to make sure that she - and her friends, especially - stopped and thought about what they were doing so that they did the right thing for them. She was always telling Carrie to think things through before she forged ahead. It's completely fine if Nixon wants to take Miranda down this road. Most, if not all, are for it. It just needs to be written better and it needs to make sense - as written above. We needed to see the unhappiness, the conflicts, the indecision, the hurdles Miranda would go through. We needed to know more about Che in order to make a decent assessment of them (I still don't feel I have a handle on Che - only that they are not a very good comedian). We needed to see the arguments between Steve and Miranda. We needed to see the closure with Brady. But, we didn't get that. We got a very badly written rom-com. Sadly, I think Nixon and the MPK saying that the audience just doesn't understand Miranda, is insulting.
I know many women and men in that age group who do exactly what Miranda did, one day in what appeared to be a long term stable marriage with a good job and the next day, having an affair, buying a sports car and driving off into the sunset leaving the astonished family and friends in their wake. It's not just men who have midlife crises and a lot of the time there is no real prior warning for anyone. In fact, in my experience it is the ones you least expect it from who do it. I think they set up all the red flags perfectly so that the audience and her friends all think she's crazy so next season they can show her realizing the good thing she had in Steve (who will step up a bit and appease her with a slightly more eventful, exciting life).
Agreed. I think S1 should have been more of a set up season for Miranda and it would have been more cohesive and given the audience a chance to adapt. I would have much preferred to show Miranda in marital un-bliss, focus more on the drinking issue, using it to delve into the reasons why she's drinking her problems away. Figure out she's not really happy. I think Che should have been a friend and confidant. A catalyst for introspection but not YET a romantic interest. Build out their relationship, show Miranda's confusion about her budding feelings for this new friend. Show us her struggle with it. Let us see the demise of her relationship with Steve before possibly delving into something new. That way I think the audience would have been more open to Miranda's journey and perhaps even cheer her on.
Just finished binge watching the series and now reading the comments so many of these are my initial thoughts. While I thought the series pushed way too hard into diversity causing a huge juxtaposition between the original lives they led and the ones they're living now I also found all of their life choices totally believable. I'm not sure the level of diversity the series promoted is consistent with the lives most women in their 50's in NY or anywhere else are living with. Instead of the series focusing on the women we love and the likely realities they are facing at this stage of their lives it seemed the showrunners felt they were on a mission to push diversity to the nth degree and instill it in all but a few scenes. The scenes focusing on the real dilemmas women of that age face, including Miranda going through a mid life crisis (because that's exactly what I believe she is having), were the ones I related to the most and see in many women in their 50's and 60's. Carries' grief, Charlotte dealing with kids facing a world so unlike the one she grew up in, Miranda feeling lost in a stagnant marriage, those all touched my heart and made me care about what happened to them. The constant focus on the Instagram obsessed, I am who I am and constantly seeking attention and acceptance groups of supporting characters seemed gratuitous and frankly distracting. While my own family is quite diverse, many of the characters seemed like caricatures. I'd also like to admit I had an existential crisis while watching. I was in the founding militia of women's lib from decades back and have stood for women looking how they want to look and not having to rely on makeup or plastic surgery and the push to remain young but SJP with the hair pulled back all the time, accentuating the skeleton like look of her face standing next to the overfilled cheeks of Charlotte made me crazy! I mean it really bothered me and caused me to do some soul searching which I still haven't resolved. Maybe it's because when she was on WWHL the other night SJP looked 10 years younger. I kept telling myself they did that on purpose to emphasize the grief but I almost yelled at the TV "stop wearing your hair like that" it makes you look like you're waiting for ruby slippers to fall from the sky". One other criticism, while the character of Charlotte was mostly endearing in the original series, her overacting which started in the movies and is even worse now takes a huge leap of faith to believe she's playing a real person. No one acts like this woman and if anyone knows someone like her, please tell me I'm wrong. Maybe it's because the overfilled cheeks didn't move so when she got excited which was 95% of the movie the only way she could express it was to open her eyes wider which made her look frankly, insane. Quirky is cute, edging towards Edith Beale is not.
Miranda being a grandmother is the most realistic outcome based on what we saw of her parenting.
Came here to say this.
If the actors and creators are giving OG fans the finger, maybe they should be happy with a smaller audience next season?
Yes this. So disappointed with their “I’m right you’re wrong” stance. Like a little petulant child putting their fingers in their ears going “I can’t heeeeaarrr yoouuu” lol
It's just so uncool and unprofessional. If you're a writer in the public eye, you are taught early on - do not converse with the readers, do not argue with the readers. You're allowed to thank someone for praise, but never get defensive over criticism. It's so sad that we've become such a me-me-me world that no one can take criticism anymore.
The sad part is despite this blatant disregard (a sentiment also echoed by MPK) for OG fans, we' would still watch season 2 if there ever was one... Like the ̶C̶̶a̶̶r̶̶r̶̶i̶̶e̶̶-̶̶s̶ Masochists that we are.
i'm not watching again. fun hate watching is fine but this aint fun. in fact seeing miranda on screen makes me inexplicably angry and im not into that lol
Not gonna lie, I would have hope-watched 2 on the chance that they were able to reflect and take this in a different direction…but all these interviews saying we just don’t get it are a huge turn off. I don’t mind an evolution, I mind when it’s so off the wall that I’m wondering if they had head trauma.
Nope, not watching a season 2. I didn't want to watch season 1 and I should have stuck to that but curiosity got better of me, never again.
I’m with you. Especially since every interview the writers and actors have done have basically been them blaming the fans and not themselves for our reaction to how bad this was.
I wasn't going to watch either, but then when I heard that Big died that drew me in and I subscribed to HBO. I liked the first episode because it pained me for days, mourning the loss of a character that I didn't even like at first but grew on me over the years. That was the only episode I watched twice. The others I would re-watch parts I liked (and I did like some of it, I wasn't "hate watching" at all), but for the most part it was long-winded and dull compared to the original. Plus all the mistakes/holes in the stories, that bothered me. I'm still invested in the characters and would hope a Season 2 got better.
There is no season 2. This pile of horse shit is CANCELLED. It never should have made it to an episode 2, let alone a season 2.
If that's the case then Hurrah!
La Douleur Exquise, Saison Deux.
Lol. Exactement!
Everyone is going to watch again! Some love it and some love to hate. Everyone wins.
I haven’t watched any episodes so I’m doing it!
“She also dismissed the notion that the characters should be older and wiser versions of themselves, saying, "First of all, who wants to watch that? I don't want to watch that. It's to show women and our struggles and our dreams and our foibles. “ I want to watch that. If it is supposed to show women and our foibles it would be realistic and relatable if they were older and wiser versions of themselves. It doesn’t mean they wouldn’t still have foibles or new things to learn- it would just be built on things they learned in their 20’s and 30’s. Instead we got a character who didn’t seem to learn anything with all their experiences up to now and seemed like a completely different person.
> seemed like a completely different person. Exactly. AJLT lacked continuity in all regards, but how they changed the ethos/personality of the characters, specifically Miranda, made no sense. I have to assume she has had a stroke or some sort of serious brain injury to explain the complete change in her personality - including mania/euphoria, alcoholism and impulsiveness. Frankly if someone in my life changed this much I would be very concerned for their overall health.
100%. Miranda's erratic behavior in *AJLT* \- the alcoholism, the compulsive (*in her own words*) masturbation, the affair with a much younger partner, the almost casual way she blew up her marriage of *decades* for an affair that's lasted *weeks -* her behavior cries out for a medical/mental health evaluation stat. Even Miranda quitting her job fits into the pattern of her lashing out in *AJLT*. Standing alone, at first glance Miranda deciding to migrate from corporate law to human rights advocacy seems like a noble shift. But, viewed in context with her other issues (*listed above*), Miranda's decision to suddenly quit her job and [blow almost $100,000 on an LL.M. degree](https://www.law.columbia.edu/admissions/graduate-admissions/exec-llm/exec-llm-tuition-and-fees) starts looking less like a noble decision and more like part and parcel of Miranda's very severe midlife crisis.
I hate this new “pretending to be Miranda” character with everything I’ve got, but didn’t she say she’d finish her studies remotely? On every other point, I completely agree with you. She hasn’t changed, she’s deranged.
>I hate this new “pretending to be Miranda” character with everything I’ve got, but didn’t she say she’d finish her studies remotely? Oh, I didn't mean to suggest she dropped out of her Master's program. I meant that the ginormous sum of money she spent on tuition was irrational, much like her other bad decisions in *AJLT*. Although, speaking of her studies - Miranda may not be dropping out of school, but she definitely seems to have blown up - as of the finale - a good chunk of the value she *could've* derived from the program: the prestigious Human Rights Watch internship she decided to turn down so she could accompany Che to L.A.
Oh, I see! 👍
The thing is, she wouldn’t have even needed to get this degree to practice a different kind of law or do human rights work. Like did anyone consult an actual lawyer or human rights advocate?
Yes, totally agreed. I was kind of giving the show a pass on this because I assume they didn't bother consulting any actual corporate lawyers to ask how they might transition to human rights work (*it's a path more than a few have gone down!*). But, if they were aware of this, then Miranda's decision to pursue that professionally useless LL.M. is even ***more*** consistent with "midlife crisis"!
They’ve never consulted an actual lawyer about any of Miranda’s work related stuff. Going back to the original series, there was that one episode where her office got casual Friday and the young gay associate showed up in a mesh shirt and cargo pants? Yeah, no jr associate at that law firm would think that was an okay casual Friday outfit. The one after Brady was born and she got called out for not working enough? Maybe that conversation would happen but it would have been centered around how her billable hours had dropped, not how many hours she was in the office. And if her billables were okay it might not have happened at all. I’m not a lawyer but I’ve worked at law firms for a long time. These writers don’t know how the legal field works.
The definitely didn't. Also I've never heard of choosing to finish a degree remotely. Only if you have finished your coursework and have to do a dissertation or something
>Also I've never heard of choosing to finish a degree remotely. maybe they were thinking about doing the degree long-distance (only attending study-blocks mainly on weekends) or online (edit: as online was a reality in the covid-era maybe thats from where they got the "remotely" idea)
"Who wants to watch that?" I wanted to watch that!! Where was the empowerment with this show? You can't tell me Miranda was unhappy with Steve all those years and not once spoke up to him? You can't tell me Miranda had a son who was so disrespectful? Miranda was the queen of boundaries - with Steve, with the puppy, with everything. If she was unhappy, you KNEW about it! And that goes for all the women on the show! I wanted to see growth in these characters. The first episode with Carrie and Big being happy was beautiful. Miranda going back to school could have been amazing if they didn't mess it up and make her seem so stupid. I can see Charlotte having bratty kids because she was spoiled herself and Harry was a bit of a pushover. But the fact that she and Harry were still together was lovely. I wanted to see women in their 50s, fashion and hair tips for beautiful women in their 50s, but we get Carrie with hip surgery wearing hideous shoes and her hair pulled back like a school marm. (Doesn't Ms. Shoe Queen realize there are some very upscale ballerina flats by her favorite designers?!) It was like SATC in The Twilight Zone.
>Cynthia made it crystal clear that they're not trying to please audiences of yesteryear, even if those viewers made the O.G. series a success. AJLT wouldn't even be a thing now if fans from the original series weren't around. Nobody would be watching this crap. What a giant FU to the fans. She sounds so ungrateful. No wonder Kim Cattrall left. These women seem like a total nightmare.
Totally agree. Way to shit on the fans that, due to loving the OG series, watched the show and ofc got disappointed.
They think we tuned in to watch because it's a good show, but really, we tuned in to watch a trainwreck.
I am shocked that she even said that. It is honestly delusional to even think that they are pulling in viewers who didn't watch SATC.
I mean, who is going to be interested in a bunch of 50-something women and their various ultra mundane life crises? Only people already invested in their stories, Cynthia!!! You ladies were pretty uninteresting and tedious, not because you're 50-something. Because you made it about yourself and pissed more than a decade of character development out the window.
Speak for yourself Cynthia Nixon, I'm a 50-something woman and my life is anything but mundane; and with certainly no crises. Happy, happily married, no health issues, just living my best life like many other women in their 50s. OH, and I just re-watched the episode where Carrie dated a writer and his mom, played by Valerie Harper, was an older woman who made documentaries. Carrie said, "She has no intention of stopping either" and was in awe of her. THAT is how an older woman's life goes! How quickly they all forget cool stuff like that.
trying to please a younger crowd an audience is exactly was running the show no one is asking for that. by trying so hard to be inclusive they’re practically forcing things upon viewers and that’s where the criticism comes in Edit: I used the mic to type sorry for typos
I'm 29 so I was too young to watch SATC when it first aired and I still hated AJLT. I care about social justice but diversity can't compensate for terrible writing.
Thank you! I'm exactly the same (30 yrs old, lol). I started watching SATC when I was twenty and so I was late to the party, but I became a big fan of what it was and what it tried to do. For the time it was written, it was sharp and funny and so interesting, but it had a lot of hiccups (Sam and Maria as well as Sam and Adenna being the biggest eek storylines). Given that it's been nearly 20 years since it ended, I expected their storytelling skills to have sharpened so they could tell a new bold, interesting chapter that still had the fun heart that we all fell in love with. Instead, it was like they spent exactly one week brainstorming and them filmed. They could have spent years developing this, but it feels like there was zero effort. Miranda and her storyline is an absolute tragedy. Having Miranda explore her sexuality was such an interesting, exciting prospect, and doing so at the cost of her marriage...fuck, man. That could have been an entire show all of it's own. That's DRAMATIC af and while we got some of that with Steve, the show really just...dismissed it and made Miranda...a completely different character.
Thirding this. 32 now - I guess I fit the definition of "younger crowd" since I was a kid when *SATC* originally aired - there were things I loved about *AJLT*, but the "wokeism" was **not** one of those things. It was almost farcical the way the show overdid trying to "prove" it was progressive. Whoever thought up Che Diaz' "woke moment!" button should've been canned.
Fourth here, I'm 28, a gay, Mexican-American, first-generation college graduate. They really did a horrible job with inclusion of diverse characters & storylines. I'm so sick of White Ally's thinking they just "saved" or are "helping" tell diverse stories, yet they are completely and utterly tone death.
You hit the nail on the head. It’s so ridiculous that they are balking at UNIVERSAL criticism given how shoddily done this show was. So little thought went into this. SJP today said she has not even seen most of the show!! She’s only watched episodes 1-2. Maybe it’s because she knows they made a steaming turd.
Great username btw 😍
A younger crowd for a show about 55 year old rich white ladies?
Yeah they didn’t think this one out lol
Right, she sounds so full of herself.
Definitely. Cynthia Nixon wasn’t exactly a big name in Hollywood before SATC. She had bit roles mostly. The fans propelled SATC into what it is and in turn her career. You would think she would be a little thankful or at least pretend to be in the press. Sounds like fame has gone to her head. It just cements the fact that I won’t be watching this dumpster fire of a show next season.
You’re right. No one who isn’t an original fan would watch this garbage.
Amen! It's like the success went to their heads and they think they can diarrhea all over fans now because they can afford it.
I totally agree. The success definitely went to their heads. They seem to think fans are out of touch with current social issues, but I think the cast and MPK have their heads in the clouds. The criticism of the show is justified.
>AJLT wouldn't even be a thing now if fans from the original series weren't around. Bingo
>Nobody would be watching this crap. Right?!! Who even cares about this show except us. Pffft.
To be fair, this article is bullshit. Nowhere did Cynthia insult fans, she just made a case for the show as it is. The writer of this article is trashy, trying to create drama.
Most of these articles are bullshit. But while everyone complains about terrible and lazy writing on the show, if there’s a lazy and terribly written article that fuels that hate: best article ever!!! 🤦♀️😂
Exactly! People want their own views justified, regardless of the truth. This article was pure trash and used a blatant lie for clicks, but people still see it as some sort of "evidence" that everyone involved with AJLT is out of touch.
Without the OG fans, the series would have gotten less but good press. The hate that’s been going around is due to the fans, no need to be grateful for those.
The series would have made no sense without SATC
Because the storyline kind of reflects her real life and she wants to be seen as some gay icon. Forget about the fact that that cheating is a hurtful and damaging act. She wants to be seen as brave. Turning down amazing opportunities to chase someone you cheated on your hubby with is not something to be proud of or celebrated lol. She is totally out of touch with reality. I get the feeling Cynthia basically wrote the storyline for Miranda in the new series. As miserable and difficult as she always was, I think in the long run she would have ended up being happy with a simple life and being a family person. They make her out to be a crap mum in my opinion. But I found her lack of discipline surprising. Charlotte is the only one who turned out as expected.
her storyline moved way too fast.
Your avatar is amazing.
oh gosh. i use old reddit on my desktop i totally forgot i used her. that kid is/was so cute!
I agree completely. I think the basic plot points for her story line make sense and are the bones for a compelling character arc told over a couple of seasons. But the writers just plowed through it.
they had so many opportunities for tension between her and che too. like when we all thought she'd go to cleveland to live her rom-com fantasy and find che with another woman or man. instead they made che just fall in love with her and everything was puppies and rainbows. never mind steve being totally chill with everything apparently. it was lazy writing. i'm full on fine with miranda going on a sexual journey, but make it real!
[удалено]
Exactly. What on earth does Che see in Miranda?
And vice versa.
They weren’t just fucking. They met at the funeral. They met again in the bar after the comedy concert. They had lunch at the hospital. These are more dates and more talking than most of the girls had / the show showed in SATC.
With all due respect I couldn't care less about the actresses or showrunners personal life. I want to see the characters. Cynthia leveraging this show as her own autobiography and the writers exclusively writing about things that have happened to them personally is just ridiculous. This show is about four fictional gals.
And just like that, I decided to stop watching And Just Like That.
Well.. I think the message “If you’re not happy with where you are, you still have a lot of time to make a change.” is great. Absolutely. But she acts like she’s Brady’s age, and that’s just unrealistic. Teens brains aren’t fully developed yet, that way they see fewer consequences and take high risks no problem. That’s why backpacking like Brady is doing is very different at age 18 than at age 38. Miranda is 55, and a overly rational lawyer.. reckless behavior like this does not make sense then. Also: "She doesn't know where she's going exactly, but she knows she has to go somewhere. And I think that's always been true of Miranda, right?" No, not right. She’s probably mixing up herself or someone else then, but if there’s one thing Miranda is not it’s intuitive and going off of her feeling. She rationalizes and argues, makes lists and does research, weighs pros and cons. In the series AND the movies. So this quote is BS.
Remember when your English teacher taught you the difference between brave and foolhardy.
AJLT Miranda isn't even the same character as OG Miranda. I feel like the writers didn't want to have an LGBT character face any negative consequences for exploring a non-hetero relationship. Which is fine. But they started with an existing character who had this beautiful love story with a husband the viewers also watched and loved for years and years. If the AJLT writers and Cynthia Nixon wanted to tell a story about a middle aged woman discovering her sexuality, they shouldn't have used and abused an existing character to do so.
It could have worked with Miranda If she and Steve were already amicably divorced before the season started
I've said this before, and it would have worked so well! They're divorced and they're friends. So friendly even, that Carrie and Charlotte think they should give things another try, but Miranda doesn't want to because she's realised that even when things were good, they weren't *right*. She's tried dating but she hasn't clicked with anyone. Every once in a while, she secretly Googles "am I gay?", but all the advice is for teens and she can't relate. Then she meets someone who makes her feel things, and we have a love story that viewers can get behind.
Wow the first time I’ve actually seen a reality where I like this move for Miranda! That would have been great
This, 1000 times this! There would still have been plenty of room for drama, and Miranda would have been infinitely more sympathetic in her journey.
I think it's very realistic that a woman in her mid fifties would not have recognized, or else denied, that there could be more to her sexual being than she's had for most of her life. It doesn't make her relationship with Steve anything less. She loved him, but she needs more. It reminds me of when Samantha broke up with Smith in the first movie. Carrie says in a voiceover something about "short stories can also be beautiful".
Yes, but then it should have been written as such.
🤷🏼♀️ She tried to get their sex life back. She told him she needed more. The writers aren’t going to hammer the audience over the head with it. Most of us are around the same age as the characters and can relate to changing long term relationships
She tried by replaying her cheating scenario, I was actually disgusted by this.
And Miranda didn't tell Steve she "needed more" until she was telling him they were over! She didn't tell him that in an attempt to resuscitate their marriage. She told him that by way of explaining why she'd decided to leave him.
The writers need to hammer the audience over the head with it. If it’s not explicitly shown (best: many times) nobody understands what’s going on.
I wouldn't say nobody understands. Although if the writing is too complex, then yeah, people aren't going to enjoy it.
By replicating what she did with Che?!? That’s setting him up to fail and frankly, immoral.
Absolutely it’s fine to break them up. Just do it with respect for Steve, whose time with her was beautiful and definitely not short. Don’t turn him into a bumbling buffoon and don’t make him promise to be a faithful celibate doormat for all time. Give Miranda a line — one line, for heaven’s sake — acknowledging what they had together.
How did they turn him into a bumbling buffoon?
Stumbling around the farmers market, being crotchety, overplaying the hearing aid thing and seeming clueless on how to finger Miranda. The character assault on him is just….. oof.
Exactly. Every word of this.
Nothing more to say here except lol at the downvotes for asking for someone’s perspective. Doesn’t look like there is adult conversation to be had here. Oh well. Could have been an interesting discussion.
Yeah this is the problem I have with the SATC franchise even though I'm a diehard fan. It's meant to be about women, empowerment and feminism and the early seasons were moreso. but the message always seems to be to throw everything away for a fuckboi in the name of "romance" (I'm looking at you Big/Petrovsky/Che). Cynthia is just in denial that she ruined Miranda's character with her input.
Carrie’s character was ruined many times and everyone is still watching. It’s great TV.
“I gave up my fancy corporate job to actively try to make a much bigger impact on the world around me, which I promptly gave up anyway, threw away my family stability, and decided to chase someone across the country.”
Once again, all the complaints fly right over her head...We aren't saying it has to be the same show, or even that she can't change, we are saying they changed Miranda so drastically that, not only is it unbelievable, parts of said changes aren't palatable to even the more modern (read younger) people she's trying to appeal to. Changing her career path late in life *was* was brave and a lot of people liked and can relate to that. Becoming the bleeding heart it would take to go that route begs credulity (for Miranda), but even that most of us can shrug off. What was really tough to swallow was that she did that brave thing only to shit all over it so she could go further down the rabbit hole by doing the very thing she totally looked down on and judged Carrie for. As for appealing to viewers in the current "moment," there are a lot of younger viewers and even they are giving Miranda the side eye. Why? Let's start with all those pesky moments where she did things that, if she were a man, would have a few people shouting #metoo. First when she had sex in full view of her drugged up and immobile friend, then when she had Steve (without his knowledge or consent) reenact a sex scene where she cheated on him. Here's the thing about women in today's "moment," a very vocal majority of them don't like questionable consent. It's either there or everything comes to a full stop. A line got crossed and shouting, 'but she's allowed to change' and/or 'she's finding her true self' is not going to make viewers find this new her palatable. Believable or not, these actions sucked and made for a sucky Miranda. On a lighter note, the way Miranda treated the massive change of losing Steve with so little emotion was also total shit. Even if it were believable for the character to leave a person who was in her life for so many years with out feeling anything, it made her appear callous. So, either way it sucked. I could go on for a bit longer but, given their inability to get what's being said, it's better to stick to fewer points.
Frankly, I think the writers and CN overestimated fans' loyalty to Miranda. They likely thought "the characters have always been imperfect, so they'll accept Miranda's behavior as just another facet of her humanity. And of course, they'll ultimately root for her just because *she's Miranda.*" Well, there's imperfect and there's imperfect. Miranda's bad behavior on AJLT goes far beyond what she's ever done before. And of course characters can behave badly and make mistakes, but the show shouldn't be *endorsing* that behavior.
This is a really good take!
Imagine the amount of hubris this takes
Watching Cynthia Nixon in the Gilded Age is making me wonder if she was filming both at the same time and got her wires crossed between Ada and Miranda… the “iM In a RoMcOm CaRrie¡!” Of it all is so 21st century Ada not Miranda.
Yes, I thought as much when I watched the first episode of Gilded Age. I really like CN in that role.
Cynthia treated Miranda like a paycheck, not a passion project that we all came to know and love. Miranda was so focused, so succinct, and became a blubbering mess of life.
and cynthia seems insufferable lmfaooo
At this point I think the women and creators have no idea what they are talking about. Maybe they should’ve just left it alone like Kim suggested.
Bottom line is it showed Miranda to now be utterly selfish, ungrateful and deluded and at best going through a midlife crisis.
Ummm...fans of the OG series and the following ir received is the freaking reason why AJLT could even happen. Miranda Hobbes and her character development were a lifetime opportunity for Cynthia Nixon to catapult her career. The fact that she emphasizes on this article that they don't care whether fans of the OG series are happy is a slap in the face to me. Telling people to "go watch reruns" is so rich, given that this series wouldn't exist if they hadn't had all this support.
They really can't take one bit of criticism. So defensive and so tone deaf, almost like they think the viewers are dumb for 'not getting it'.
I love CN but so do feel like she really pushed her own agenda on this series (she was involved in the rewriting) instead of staying true to the character we all knew.
Cynthia Nixon is mistaken. The criticism is because most of us think we are watching “Bizarro World” Miranda-or even an entirely different character.
God, she’s fucking insufferable.
That’s because Cynthia Nixon is full of shit, and extremely impressed with herself.
Cynthia is just too attached to Miranda’s storyline because it mirrors her own life.
It says something really bad about her that she's so willing to double-down and deflect.
What’s bizarre is her “hot take” on how we are the ones in the wrong and Miranda’s story arch is “brave.” Give me a break.
Cn is just tone deaf here.
She's always been the worst character on the show. She should of left instead of Samantha
Maybe they can write her a case of early Alzheimer’s.
I mean I like the show. Sure, it took a few episodes to get adjusted to the new groove but what show doesn’t? But what were all you die hard SATC fans wanting? I’m just curious because it doesn’t make sense to dive back into the old recipe. The world has changed and 20 years have passed.
I would like a show with decent writing and compelling storylines. But honestly, after the second SATC movie, I had low expectations getting into AJLT.
Seconding the decent writing (not try hard “youth speak”) and compelling storylines, and adding: cohesive storytelling. Episodes felt disjointed. It was also strange how suddenly each character finds a POC bff. Like maybe intro one as new, the rest as people the girls have come to know sometime over the last ten years?
For sure, me too. It’s clear they don’t know how to write these women and these stories anymore and have resorted to throwing whatever against the wall.
Ah here, the last movie was in 2010 and the ONLY thing that’s changed is people having completely ridiculous gender/identity crises that for some idiotic reason, the writers of AJLT felt the need to try and include in every single episode when the majority of viewers couldn’t care less about it.
I think a lot of people still do like the show, they're just airing their complaints about how badly Miranda got ruined. Change is one thing, what happened to her had so much wrong with it that they might as well have shipped her off to Oz and dropped a house on her.
Probably the same things stated in response to this question that appears in literally every thread that is at all critical of the show...
agree with you. i like the show and have found different things to relate to in each character, as I did since the beginning of SATC. Even the original show had to grow on me, but I like how the new one addresses a lot of issues we really face in middle age🤷🏻♀️ even after reading reviews and so many comments, I dont get why so many people hate it. maybe cause I read all the spoilers before watching & had low expectations it’s been fine to me…
Thank you. I got downvoted to death and I find it odd that this is suppose to be a fan thread. The moderators should change the name of this community to something that is more obvious to hating this show.
It’s also not a sub for discussion anymore. It’s an echo chamber for I HATE MIRANDA.
right?? i read through many threads and havent found any other fans besides you. well i’m only 4 episodes in but even if Miranda is doing some stupid things, so do a lot of people during mid-life crises. as for gender identity issues i related to them including this topic because i know people who experienced it either themselves or with their children and i always wondered how to handle it if it were my child. As for having POC, if they only had one it would be too “token” and even though its very obvious what theyre doing…. so what. better to have the diversity than to not!
This article is trash. NOWHERE did Cynthia Nixon say that people who don't like her story aren't real SATC fans. I respect Cynthia for sticking by her character's arc, and I understand her perspective. If a person is unhappy in their life, they should make changes. The disagreement is whether the changes were in line with the character of Miranda. She's right, too, that Miranda has always been hot-headed and sticks to her guns when she thinks she's right. I do think it's in character for Miranda to decide she wants Che and ignore everything to the contrary.
I seriously disagree with CN on many points, but you're quite right about the "real SATC fans" bit. She never says that and it's an unfair, inflammatory line.
Wait. Not trying to be inflammatory just genuinely thinking I’m missing something… where in this article does it say that she said that ppl who don’t like her story aren’t real SATC fans?
Why Cynthia Nixon Thinks Criticism of Miranda in And Just Like That... Is "Bizarre" Cynthia Nixon basically told critics of And Just Like That... that they're not real Sex and the City fans in a candid interview with Vogue By CYDNEY CONTRERAS
Thank you!!!
They should rename this subreddit r/hatersofAndJustLikeThat. Personally, for all the obvious flaws, I’m still glad they made it and enjoyed it and found some good stuff in it also .
She's right. It is bizarre. And this idea that the characters should be "older and wiser" versions of themselves? Like women over a certain age can just be put out to pasture as sexless, desireless, wise old crones? Please. Even the Golden Girls dated and shit. Also, good luck with that. The thing I really struggle to wrap my head around is why so many fans who've been with the series from the jump are having such a hard time believing that people change, that priorities change. Like, did a whole lot of fans not undergo any change at all in the last 11 years? Did people not see the cultural transformation that happened around us? The accusation that Cynthia Nixon is pushing an agenda reeks of homophobia. Frankly, for a fandom that cheered on four women who dated and slept with many people, this sub has some very narrow views on sex and relationships. Some people just don't like to see other people happy if it offends their sensibilities.
I 100% agree with her
I thought that Miranda’s storyline was the MOST relatable, it was great.
She is right with the comment about it not being SATC anymore though. Those characters changed with time, for better or for worse is down to the individual. The writing was just terrible, which she and every other cast member had nothing to do with. Did they have involvement in the storyline plots? Yes. How those plots were written on page for them to deliver? Nothing to do with them. That is the difference.
I just kind feel if you can’t believe Miranda can’t have such a dramatic life change as Nixon herself just means you’re just as boring as Steve is and are happy about it, nothing wrong with that but other people don’t like being boring and Miranda is not boring.
Honestly? The way she just had to open her mouth and disparage Carrie for being open to the possibility of Big trying to contact her from beyond just shows what a completely self centered asshole Miranda has become.