That sound you can hear – that faint but persistent chuckle – is Kim Cattrall laughing. The actor was the only one of the original Sex and the City cast to decline to join And Just Like That …, the sequel to the much-loved, era-defining show. The rest of them stayed, and suffered. But at least they were getting paid. Viewers – if they did stay, which many of us did out of a potent blend of desperate hope that things would improve, and fascinated horror as they did not – had no such solace. The end of the 10-episode run has now been reached, with the finale refusing to redeem anything that had gone before.
It could have, should have, been great. The idea of best friends Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda returning to navigate the complexities of female life and friendship in their 50s – a rare televisual sight – was a fine one (even if Cattrall’s Samantha would be missed). New writers and characters were brought in to address the glaring whiteness and heteronormativity of the original. Michael Patrick King was in charge, as he had effectively been for much of Sex and the City.
