[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for And Just Like That…, Episode 2, “Little Black Dress.”]
The Pitch: The blunt truth of being alive is that there’s no such thing as a happy ending. Everyone has happy and sad moments over the course of their time on this earth, and when the inevitable comes all you can hope for is that it’s not too soon, and that the good outweighed the bad as much as possible.
This is an annoying and awful truth, which is just one reason why we’re a culture obsessed with stories, and why the Sex and the City continuation And Just Like That… is both a very welcome trip home to visit old friends, and also an existential crisis in the works.
A Big Twist: HBO Max deliberately withheld screeners from critics until the moment of the show’s premiere on the streaming service, and after watching the first two episodes it’s easy to understand why — frankly, it’d impossible to talk about the show in a spoiler-free context.
While it was known that the show would reunite three out of the four original cast members, plus their respective partners and BFFs, the premiere makes nimble work of setting up the current status quo for Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), and Charlotte (Kristin Davis), then proceeds to upend at least one life by saying goodbye to Mr. Big (Chris Noth), who dies from a heart attack at the end of Episode 1.
