And Just Like that S3 cont’d - And Just Like that, it was the finale 😭

[Netaporter]

Previous thread here

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/5364045-and-just-like-that-s3-cont-and-hopefully-s4-the-one-where-we-hope-carrie-finally-bins-aidan?page=39&reply=146259107

Join us to discuss the penultimate episode and the finale. If you’ve watched the latest episode, please write spoilers at the top of your post so no one sees spoilers in their ‘threads I’m on’ feed.

I was just thinking if they did a spin off series from it ….
I don’t think there is any scope for that at all . But of the original three characters left in AJLT , Carrie , Miranda and Charlotte I would go for Miranda .
I wouldn’t want Carrie , I love SJP but I do think that I now see SJP rather than Carrie when she is on screen and Carrie just annoyed me in the last few series .
Charlotte I also found irritating , the wooden acting , underuse of Harry .
But Miranda - after Che, I could get on board with how her life pans out . I love Joy and Steve is fine . Brady with a baby , almost comes full arc , as Miranda becoming accidentally pregnant with Brady brought her and Steve back together .

I don’t really want a film as others have suggested as sadly I am over the characters of Charlotte and Carrie .
Would also be happy for Anthony to be in a new series and Seema too .
I wouldn’t want Charlotte and Carrie to be killed off but just not appear on screen in it - like they did for Samantha . If they could bring Samantha back too !

Well, in that case, I'm glad we were spared it to be honest

I think I figured out what I would like the ending to be. Dinner should've happened at Carrie's place. The karaoke machine should have been put to good use and at some point, the six of them should have just done a song or a dance together - five women & Anthony - while the other family members looked on. Because that's the real family. Or did they want to take that family away from us now? Maybe they do because maybe that's their whole thing about people coming in and out of your life.

and at some point, Sam could message and say "karaoke... I don't do that".

And we could still have had Carrie dancing on her own/alone after everyone leaves.

I've seen people saying "they didn't know it was a series finale". Even if they didn't, as a standalone episode, it's bad. I'm trying to think what might have been added in, but even if you try and figure out a cut and paste in your head, it's unnecessary.

I think some of the random things in life have been quite well referenced. I understand what they were trying to say about community and New York and different neighbourhoods. But wow, what a clunky way of saying it.

some of the ideas should've worked so well in the show but they have somehow been badly executed. For example, Herbert going to the political results and the scene in the lift, followed by the next scene in the lift... that should work. So I don't know exactly what they did wrong. Pace? Length of scene?

if I was Sarita Choudhury I would still be walking around muttering "how can my last line be about gluten?"

And LTW's documentary series. That would be a great one! Could have been so nicely done and referenced.

and at some point, Sam could message and say "karaoke... I don't do that".
Rightly so after the karaoke scene in Abu Dhabi. Cringeworthy.

Yes - a firm no to the karaoke - Sex and the City 2 is still seared on my brain. Abu Dhabi don't.
The "I don't miss gluten" line was meant to be a metaphor about accepting a relationship without the wedding.
The article pp posted with the writer was interesting but he doth protesteth too much...it was an awful cancellation add-on and if not, that makes it worse.

@EmeraldRoulette you're welcome! I watched all 5 seasons at the time, but the vibe was definitely diff in S5 (new, younger lawyers introduced etc).

The last episode of S4 was titled The Wedding (which they kept as the title), and Ally and Larry were meant to be married in that episode. The show honestly never really recovered after Larry left.

Poor Seema’s gluten line was absolutely blink and you miss it though - that scene was what, about 1.5 seconds long! The metaphor might have actually become apparent given more context. In such a short episode anyway, they could have been a LOT more generous with the secondary storylines.

That interview with MPK was such a pile of steaming bullshit.

I just rewatched An American Girl in Paris parts 1 & 2 and OMG, such love and care between the characters. Le sigh!

I’ve just rewatched it too. The difference between these episodes and AJLT is vast… such wonderful storylines. Charlotte and Harry being let down by a birth couple and then getting the news that they will be getting a baby after all… Miranda and Steve – probably my favourite storyline, the love between the pair of them is wonderful – working through the difficulties with his mum and Magda watching on, Samantha finally admitting that she loves and needs Smith, and the scene with Carrie and Big when she trips him up in the hotel: the laughter between the two of them is so natural and contagious. Wonderful!

Miranda was much better in this series imo and I loved her apartment and Joy and her chat with Shteve.
I am glad Carrie didn't end up in old apartment. Her money seemed to mean she could go back and forth on decisions at will so at least that part meant she had to move forward and live with decision, like the rest of us!! Also, while she'd kept it, she'd lived her married life in her fab apartment with Big.
The mention of 22 years, again, to Lisette re Aidan would give you the rage!!

Just catching up on The Gilded Age, and noticed that the suffragist campaigner, Frances Harper, is played by LisaGay Hamilton, who was Kendall, the neighbour who helped Miranda with a non stop crying Brady. And I remembered @Netaporter pointing out that Mrs Fish is Carrie’s editor. Then I found this article about all the actors in The Gilded Age who have been in SATC, which is not that many, but still an interesting bit of trivia for anyone interested.

https://people.com/every-actor-who-has-appeared-on-the-gilded-age-and-sex-and-the-city-universe-11787970

I’m rewatching series 6 too - the series that people thought was a bit crap when it first aired! Also wholly MPK-run with some of the same writers as AJLT. It’s night and day, isn’t it? How did it go so very wrong?

It went wrong because of two reasons: they brought in mostly new writers to the franchise who were shit at their job. Also, an agenda to tick as many boxes as possible in a misguided attempt to not offend anyone.

And paying a million per episode for all leads. And then letting them all produce it.

Could not agree more @EachandEveryone I mean a million per episode AND production rights?? Too many cooks springs to mind & if they had have slashed their budget surely they (MPK, SJP et al) could have made a feature length tie up last proper episode?

I know she was done dirty by the writers more than anything but the idea that Kristin Davies got $1m for some of the episodes this series is ludicrous.

Kristin Davis was no more overpaid than Cynthia Nixon and SJP. Ideally, some of the costs should have been spent on hiring better writers, but presumably the episode fee and executive producing roles were what the three leads and their agents took to HBO as contract stipulations in the pre-production phase in 2020 and therefore HBO had no option to agree - Kim Cattrall was already out, so they needed SJP and the other two on board.

No, the salary for all of them was excesssive, I totally agree. But Kristin had episodes where she barely featured - the writers had zero ideas for Charlotte this series.

Come on, it takes a lot to fall on your bed!

They went so wrong, didn’t they?

I watch a really interesting YouTuber called Coffee and Cults. She’s an Anglo American industry insider. She’s done some really good podcasts on the shenanigans that went on behind the scenes in a number of 90s/2000s shows including SATC (she’s done one on the SJP/KC rift that goes into the industry power SJP wielded at the time she agreed to play Carrie).

Anyway, she’s done quite a bit about reboot series including the cancellation of AJLT, and said one of the problems is that the writers just never seem as familiar with the characters and how they have behaved (in the original series) and would likely behave going forward than the fans who have watched the shows over and over. She said these reboots would be better off employing an ordinary super fan as a script consultant than any number of “writers room” type set ups with people who might be talented, but don’t understand their subject.

That comment reminded me a bit of Hacks. The reason Ava, a twenty-something, talented, woke comedy writer, is able to write so well for a veteran comedian, Debra, whom Ava at first regarded as a washed up dinosaur, is because Debra forced her to catalogue all her old videos and scripts. In doing so, Ava became a huge fan of Debra’s work and started to understand how she ticked and how to write for her and the mutual respect (and love) blossomed. I didn’t ever feel that the writers of AJLT either knew or understood the characters or that they particularly liked them, let alone loved them.

Charlotte should have been more about the menopause - her vertigo was menopause but it wasn’t properly explained? They hinted at that with her periods thing way back but then dropped it.

I haven't listened to any of the Writers' Room podcasts as, by the accounts of the people who do, they are quite unbearable. But it sounds very much like they are not listening to viewers' feedback and dismissing them as phobic or missing the point they are looking to make, or picky about details. They are totally underestimating how much people knew and cared about the original characters - like you say, they needed people who really got what they were about.

They're high on how clever they are without really entering into a contract with their audience on whether what they were writing was landing. They seem to have thought that by declaring AJLT a totally different show to SATC they could just brush off the past, while simultaneously of course needing SATC to have existed and have been insanely popular to have a show at all. They've spent so much time on the fashion and design of the show and so little time on the characterisation, and it says a lot that after every single episode everyone is bewildered by endless details of logic or storyline - who/what/why/when details that distracted from really connecting with the new series.

I just started The Carrie Diaries on ITVx - it's very teeny but I'm randomly quite enjoying it. Their vision of a young Carrie. I think SJP may have consulted on it?

Also, can't be a coincidence that the pilot of the Carrie diaries features both Bette Davis Eyes and an acoustic version of Girls just want to have fun- just like Charlotte's bday party. Also realised how perfect the latter song would have been to end AJLT - I also love Ally McBeal and can't believe they chose a song forever synonymous with that! Silly silly writers.

Her vertigo (horribly researched and overacted) was BPPV - hence her mention of needing to do an Epley Manoevre, when it first occurred at the gallery.

God but after hearing about Samantha's in Sex and the city 2, yam, yam, so much yam we might as well have been watching Grace and Frankie, I'm kind of glad we didn't.
Am menopausal myself, want escapism and fashion, not more reminders of hot flushes, insomnia and brain fog tbh.