Reboot Regret: Why "And Just Like That" Was a Hot Mess in Heels

Diversity without depth - AJLT's fatal mistake

Three women, countless subplots, and still not enough to replace one Samantha Jones. The clothes tried to carry the weight, but the soul of the show left when she did. Photo courtesy HBO.

When And Just Like That got canceled, I didn’t cheer. I exhaled. Deeply. Like someone finally hit pause on a podcast you hate but keep listening to out of guilt, nostalgia, or morbid curiosity. Or those video compilations on YouTube of car crashes. Freight train versus box truck is a personal kink of mine.

This wasn’t a show that needed closure—it needed a mercy killing.

Michael Patrick King, come to the podium. You owe the women of color and nonbinary characters you conjured into existence an apology. Preferably handwritten, and not on a Post-it note. Because what you gave us was not representation. It was tokenization dressed in painfully overwritten dialogue and fucking weird Blippi-esque outfits. These characters didn’t get stories; they got stereotypes. Every scene felt like it was written by someone who just skimmed a diversity training manual and thought, “Got it. Give the queer one a podcast mic and make the Black one a Temu knockoff of Michelle Obama. Slay!”

No one bonded with these characters because they weren’t characters. They were LinkedIn DEI goals with a wardrobe budget. You can’t just assign someone an identity and then forget to make them human.

Some fans will tell you this show was a “new take for a new world”—a more evolved encapsulation of now. I'm calling crap on that, Susan. It could have been. But it wasn’t. Characters introduced were not to expand the universe, but to check off boxes for the sake of the algorithm. They weren’t written as people with beating hearts, conflicting desires, and actual arcs. They were plot devices. Talking points. Literal Instagram slides brought to life.

Only AJLT could take a powerhouse talent like Sara Ramirez, a future EGOT, and reduce them to a chaotic TED Talk in cargo pants.

Che Diaz was a TikTok punchline in human form—quirky, cringey, and wildly overexposed. Lisa was a sidequest so disposable they couldn't decide if she had a dead dad or not, and was only there to make Charlotte seem like she “gets it now.” Seema had potential, but no real intimacy with the main trio beyond fabulous brunch banter and the occasional “you go, girl” moment.

Oh yeah, wasn't there a Nya in there for awhile? Whatever happened to her? Poof, she's gone! These characters deserved real stories—not crumbs of inclusion dressed up as progress.

And yet not one of them—and honestly, the entire lot combined —could fill the sequined slingbacks of Samantha Jones.

Samantha wasn’t just comic relief—she was the engine, the spark, the unapologetic pulse of the original series. She didn’t need to explain her confidence or justify her choices. She just was. What we needed wasn’t a long-distance cameo. We needed her chaos. Her power. Her walking into brunch and announcing, “I’m dating a guy with the funkiest tasting spunk!” and jumpstarting everyone’s morning like only she could. She was the soul of the show—and without her, the reboot felt like a mimosa with no champagne.

Actual footage of Kim Catrall after today's August 1 announcement of the end of "And Just Like That."

And then, there’s Carrie.

This reboot had the perfect opportunity to show us an older, wiser, still-gloriously-messy version of the woman who once made us believe you could write one column a week and still afford Manolos. But instead of evolution, we got stagnation.

Carrie's character wasn’t assassinated. She was diluted with a Restoration Hardware catalogue and curated grief. Rigid. Prude. Emotionally avoidant. A former sex columnist who blushes at anything risqué and reacts to intimacy like it’s a pap smear? Girl, please. You once wrote about a politician who wanted to pee on you! Now you’re clutching your pearls at the mention of a vibrator?

And then there’s the whole Aidan arc—if we can even call it that. Why did they drag this flannel out of the log cabin again? HE LEFT YOU. MULTIPLE TIMES. He married someone else. Had kids. Showed up again to gaslight you into giving up your apartment and your dignity. And you said… sure babe?

This was the Y2K heroine in Prada we idolized?

They should have pulled the plug the minute this fucking hat showed up on set.

Watching Carrie play human welcome mat for a man who clearly needed therapy more than a rekindled situationship was not growth. It was regression. She’s the original “pick me” girl—begging for crumbs from emotionally unavailable men while clad in couture she can't afford. Mark my words: she’ll be 87, in a Christian Dior nightgown, texting a ghosted situationship from a nursing home she doesn’t even remember choosing.

Sex and the City was revolutionary. Raw. Daring. Messy in the best way. It made women feel seen—and not in that HR workshop way AJLT tried to replicate. So why dig up its body, sew on mismatched limbs, and zap it with the lightning bolt of performative wokeness?

This wasn’t a revival. It was a creepy Frankenstein reanimation.

And just like that... may it finally rest in peace.