Sex and the City’s Miranda was the show’s quintessential career woman: brilliant, confident, level-headed, taking on the patriarchy of the male-dominated world of law with relative ease. She was someone we could admire and aspire to be, even if she was just a tad too Type A. In And Just Like That, we might have expected this no-nonsense woman to be rethinking choices she made in earlier years, exploring her sexuality, contemplating a career change and even a divorce. What we did not expect: Someone who seems as if they don’t know themselves at all, who is deceitful, naive, lost, stumbling and tone-deaf to a changing world. Even if you didn’t know the OG Miranda, this new character is simply unlikeable, making one bad choice after another. Like much else about AJLT, the show squandered the potential it had in Miranda’s storylines. First up: The unhappiness in her stagnant marriage to fan favorite Steve (David Eigenberg). We were intrigued when Miranda said out loud to Carrie a few episodes ago that she wasn’t happy; and when Miranda talked about how going home to an empty house after a fulfilling day at a meaningful career sounded great to her, it seemed like the show was really going to explore the female midlife crisis. After all, “having it all” isn’t just something you worry about in your twenties and thirties, but in your fifties and beyond. The show took the air out of that real and relatable topic by, for one, turning Steve into a bumbling, inept old guy and using his hearing loss as evidence of that—a huge offense to the deaf community. Plus, although the hot bartender of SATC was good in bed, he’s apparently now forgotten how to do the deed, giving new meaning to Miranda’s classic SATC line “Bye, great sex!” AJLT seems to be using Steve’s new, unattractive qualities to justify why Miranda strays from him.
Did Miranda settle for Steve on Sex and the City?
Let’s set present-day Steve aside for a moment, though. Did Miranda settle for Steve in the first place on SATC? After all, they were always an “opposites attract” type of couple, and their relationship only grew into something serious after she unexpectedly got pregnant with their now-teenaged son, Brady. That’s something worth examining, and it could have been better executed on AJLT with more interaction between them, a deeper dive into the current state of their decades-long marriage, and a more fully formed character in Steve. Instead, Miranda simply cheats on Steve. That she’s unfaithful with non-binary comedian Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez) as part of her sexual reawakening is not the point. Viewers hate how Miranda blew up her marriage behind Steve’s back without so much as a conversation with him about her discontent until she asks for a divorce. We wholeheartedly agree with the “Justice for Steve” movement: Steve deserves better than Miranda, not the other way around. Miranda’s lack of concern about being unfaithful to Steve also feels like an unjustified, 180-degree turn from the stance she took during the first Sex and the City feature film, when he cheated on her during one of their previous sexless stretches. To compare the self-loathing Steve exhibited while owning up to his misstep and the anger Miranda threw back at him—“it’s the cheating part, the behind-my-back part, the violation of the trust, that’s what killing me,” is what she said at the time—with her almost blasé attitude in 2022 feels nearly like gaslighting.
Will Miranda end up with Che on And Just Like That…?
Next, let’s take that relationship with Che (who uses they/them pronouns). It started, oddly, with a couple of instances of shotgunning weed—weed-smoking being one of the only defining aspects of Che’s character—and was consummated with a drunken Miranda (we’ll get to her drinking in a minute) having loud sex with them in Carrie’s kitchen while she was supposed to be helping her friend recover from surgery. In one of the show’s most bizarre sequences, this transcendent experience for Miranda was juxtaposed with a bedridden Carrie attempted to pee in a bottle—and then spilling the contents all over her sheets. What could have been a poignant exploration of a middle-aged, queer coming-out instead exposed Miranda’s selfishness with both Steve and Carrie—as well as with Che, who believed her to be in an open marriage. She also hides the truth from Brady, literally sneaking around so he won’t see her at a rally where Che was speaking. Miranda gets mad at her friends when they call her out on her poor decisions. According to Miranda, none of this matters because she’s “never felt so alive,” which is apparently an excuse for self-centeredness and deception. Miranda might be getting her comeuppance soon, though. She’s oddly giddy and naive about her future with Che, who admits they don’t do traditional relationships—so being “in love” might mean something different to them than to Miranda. But she overlooks this, giggling girlishly as she announces to Carrie that she’s “in a rom com” and chasing after Che to surprise them at their show in Cleveland, which seems like a very bad idea. (Although—warning: mild AJLT episode 9 spoiler alert!—that trip to Cleveland is never shown onscreen and not even mentioned in the next episode, so presumably it went ok? But it’s another example of AJLT practically running away from the storylines it chooses to set up.) Even Carrie was confused at this new version of Miranda, dismissing her with, “Safe flight, whoever this is.” Will Miranda end up with Che? We think not.
Did Miranda have a drinking problem on And Just Like That…?
Then there’s Miranda’s drinking, which was subtly worked into the show’s earlier episodes and actually executed quite well at first as it hinted at an exploration of mom “wine culture”—but like the trip to Cleveland that we never saw or heard about again, that was all quickly dropped as soon as Miranda decided to go cold turkey. Did Miranda have a drinking problem? All signs pointed to yes, but according to AJLT, a sexual awakening is a cure for alcoholism. The nail in her character’s coffin is Miranda’s foot-in-mouth interactions with her Black human rights professor, Dr. Nya Wallace (Karen Pittman). Although their friendship has moved into more normal territory as they discuss the trappings of motherhood—and Nya has gotten her own storyline about her relationship with her husband and their inability to get pregnant—the first few episodes were cringe-worthy. As a decades-long New Yorker, well-read intellectual and a lawyer studying human rights, Miranda wouldn’t be unfamiliar with how to talk to Black people—but oddly she is, digging herself into a big hole of microaggressions as she attempts to be “woke.” It was flat-out embarrassing and out of character for how viewers would expect Miranda to act in 2022—not as if she’s been plopped here straight from 1999, but as an intelligent woman who’s actually experienced the past 20 years. Miranda’s uneven characterization and the mishandling of her storylines fails the woman viewers know well—and fails viewers themselves. Even without any reference to the Miranda of SATC, AJLT doesn’t do justice to the importance of queer storylines and representation on television, or give a realistic exploration of marriage, career and friendship in middle age. It dismisses an important discussion about female alcohol dependence. And Miranda’s failure at being an ally bungles the attempt to interject the show with more characters of color. Unfortunately, And Just Like That is as out of touch as it believes Miranda to be. Next, what’s Carrie Bradshaw’s NYC address? All the details on her iconic Sex and the City apartment.
