The Missed Opportunity of ‘And Just Like That’

By Leslie Price

And Just Like That, the Sex and the City spinoff that finds its main characters in their 50s and struggling with sexless marriages, widowhood, and parenting, has debuted to mixed reviews. I cannot stop watching, despite the fact that some of the plotlines are absurd; that some scenes are downright painful to watch; and that some of the best characters have been disappeared overseas, rarely to be mentioned again. After all, there aren’t that many shows that center middle-aged women, and a little flash and fantasy is a nice reprieve from the grind of real life. 

The criticism I’ve read of the show tends to focus on its hamfisted handling of gender, race, sexuality, and disability. But one of the weirder things about the new series, to me, is the way it talks about – or rather, doesn’t talk about – money and class.

In the original series, we were granted a vague inkling of the characters’ financial statuses and how they had achieved them. They were career women finding their way in the big city. Carrie was the “poor” one, a writer who rented her apartment and forwent meals for copies of Vogue and expensive shoes. Charlotte married old money and, after that relationship went south, was able to walk away with a piece of prime Park Avenue real estate (and then ended up marrying a new person with money). Samantha’s wealth came from her PR company, and Miranda was a lawyer who made partner. The show was always unrealistic, but money was at least talked about and, I would argue, was the fulcrum of the most compelling episodes. When Carrie finds out she has to buy her apartment or else move out and find somewhere else to rent, we learn she has almost no savings and watch her harangue Charlotte for the money. Miranda buys an apartment all on her own, to the incredulity of her real estate agent; and her financial situation initially complicates her relationship with Steve, a bartender who can’t afford a fancy suit.

But as the show and the characters aged, conversations about wealth dried up. As Vox summarizes, at the end of SATC, “Carrie ends up with the man of her dreams and so much money. Samantha ends up with the much younger man of her dreams and so much money. Charlotte ends up with the man of not quite her dreams whom she loves very much, and a child, and so much money. Miranda ends up with the man of not quite her dreams, and a child, and a Brooklyn brownstone, and so much money.” 

Freed from pedestrian concerns about money and work, the characters of And Just Like That are moorless. Problems such as hip surgery, a loud neighbor, or even alcoholism are surfaced and then rapidly discarded. It’s truly bizarre. 

Now that Samantha’s gone, wealth is the fourth character on the show. It’s not discussed but its presence is asserted constantly, from luxurious apartments to designer clothing and accessories to lunches and dinners at upscale Manhattan restaurants. Money allows Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte a frictionless existence in this soundstage of New York; money – an unspecified but clearly sizable amount – allows Carrie to buy an airy, massive, futuristic riverview apartment downtown (that she hates?) on a whim. While she already owns a beautiful apartment uptown.

Money allows Miranda to leave her hard-won position as partner at a corporate law firm (remember her sneaking naps beneath her desk while pregnant?) to go back to school at Columbia. One assumes that the mortgage on the Brooklyn brownstone she moved to with Steve when Brady was a baby has been fully paid off by now; and I guess Brady’s 529 is already sizable. It’s unclear if Steve is still working (is his bar still open?), but even though breadwinner Miranda is no longer employed, the family doesn’t seem to be suffering from any financial hardship. Similarly, we hear no mention of Harry’s career, even though it’s how he and Charlotte met and how the family manages to afford their posh, uptown, two kids-in-private school lifestyle.

Is Carrie making pin money off the podcast and upcoming book? Is she reading ad copy for BetterHelp and ZipRecruiter, or espousing her love of HelloFresh, to pay for her admittedly expensive highlights? Or is she fully reliant on money from her deceased husband? And why, when the show featured her going to a reading of his will, wouldn’t they lean into the drama of what that all meant explicitly for Carrie? Just how rich is she?

I understand that the show is not meant to be realistic. Perhaps I’m just sensitive about the money issue because in my experience, New York can be a tough place to live when you aren’t extremely wealthy. But I’d argue that they’re missing a major opportunity. Money, always an issue in women’s lives, becomes more pressing the older you get. Many women in their 50s are juggling housing costs while trying to raise children and save for their college tuition. At the same time, we’re supposed to be socking away money for our own retirement.

Getting older is expensive and the unfortunate reality is that women disproportionately face financial hardship as they age. According to the New York Times, “a quarter of working women over 55 are at risk of being among the working poor.” Not for our heroines, though – they have crossed the financial rubicon and now live in a world where money doesn’t matter anymore. Aside from Dr. Nya Wallace’s brief mention of how expensive IVF is, no one seems to be at all encumbered by financial constraints.

There’s still time, though, for the show to make the invisible visible. Perhaps that would mean Miranda paying Steve child support, Charlotte realizing she actually wants to go work again after her impassioned art speech at Lisa Todd Wexley’s dinner party, or Carrie feeling uncomfortable when she realizes the gulf between her lifestyle and that of her new date’s, a private school math teacher (remember when she dated Wade, the owner of a comic bookstore who still lived with his parents?).

Sex and the City started airing 24 years ago, when the world – and I – were very different. Over the course of my twenties, I watched (and rewatched) these women lay paths for their lives while I was still trying to figure mine out. So much felt possible at that point. But in midlife, I’m more of a realist. As it turns out, media is not the most lucrative or stable career. I am absolutely not complaining, but the reality is that I will never live a life uncomplicated by financial concerns like these (fictional!) women do – and I assume that I’m in the majority in this regard. Money is a stress point for most people, especially right now. And while I am totally here for Carrie’s opulent wardrobe and immaculate blowouts, would it hurt the show’s writers to inject a bit of reality in from time to time?