And Just Like That (???????????)
About ten years ago I had to have a type of surgery that left me in bed doing nothing for a whole month. Okay, I’m lying. I wasn’t really doing nothing: I was binge watching all six seasons of Sex and The City, which became my absolute favorite single-girl tv series of my 20s. Since then, every time a guy broke my heart, disappointed me or just pissed me off in general I would watch an episode of the crazy stories of four single women in the craziest city in the world — my beloved (lol) New York City.
These women and their stories not only kept me company through my loneliest nights, but they taught me to be patient and to embrace whatever shit storm life threw at me. After all, if Carrie Bradshaw had her heart broken on and off for six whole years, I could handle another asshole breaking mine.
For six seasons, Carrie went through several relationships, flings, crushes, dates, men. But one stood out against them all. Mr. Big. He was her guy since season one, episode one, until the very end of season six, all the way through two very successful movies after that. Mr. Big was her Mr. One and Only. Mr. Big was her Mr. BFF.
No matter how many perfect guys went through Carrie’s life, or how many times Mr. Big fucked up (which were MANY), they managed to get their shit together in order to actually become the power couple we all wanted/expected/knew they would be. They became everything I envisioned in my ideal relationship: independent, yet partners in crime. Childless, yet so damn interesting. Old school, but so new age. Open, honest, willing to make it work.
I know it’s stupid to build ideas around fictional characters because they don’t actually exist. But to watch their relationship unfold until they became a 50-something-year-old woman and 60-something-year-old man was a ride I enjoyed thoroughly.
So it came with no surprise that when the Sex and The City sequel And Just Like That… was released on HBO Max this week, I called one of my oldest friends over to sit and watch this thing with me.
It felt magical. Carrie and Big, enjoying their easy-going relationship with each other, married after a whirlwind of many years fighting through bad timing, him marrying another woman, her moving to another country, and the countless times they just tried and tried again.
On this sequel, their first scene together shows Carrie arriving in their apartment that they’ve owned since they got married, kissing him and enjoying him poking fun of her ways as he prepped something in the kitchen. As they sip on a glass of wine before dinner, she walks into the living room to pick which vinyl they’d play that evening — a tradition they started on the third day of the lockdown. It’s time for “Hello It’s Me” from the album Something / Anything by Todd Rundgren, which Big says is his “favorite fucking album,” something Carrie points out he says about every single album they’d listened to. I said to my friend “that’s the kind of life I wanna have in 20 years (with Mr. BFF).”
Later in the episode, Carrie puts on the shoes she wore on their wedding day and proceeds to leave for a recital as Big stays home enjoying his night alone. When she comes back, he’s dying of a heart attack in the shower. JUST LIKE THAT. They motherfucking killed Big. On the VERY FIRST EPISODE of the sequel. After EVERYTHING they’ve been through to be together! I can’t even with these writers right now.
Go ahead, make fun of me for suffering over fictional characters’ tragedy, but I have cried watching the remainder of that episode and I have cried watching the following episode, and I am crying now just thinking about it.
They were THE team, and even though I always watched this shit because of Carrie’s strong personality and independent ways, I think most of us reached a point where we would absolutely not picture her as a single woman again. Big was end game. Big got Carrie like no one else did.
The magic of movies is that they make us feel for the characters. They make us get involved emotionally in things that have absolutely no connection to our own life events and emotions. But what really hit me there was watching the other couples in the series showing their appreciation for each other, while they realized how absolutely lucky they were for still being there, standing with each other. And all I wanted was to do the same with my man, Mr. BFF, my number one since season one, episode one.
It’s okay that we can’t hug each other right now, or sleep next to each other right now or play some of my favorite albums on the record player in my living room while sipping on wine right now. It’s okay right now. Because right now won’t last forever. I saw a poem the other day that said:
(…) And it kills me that your place happens to be 6,189 miles away,
But that has never meant I don’t love you like you live next door.
(…) So I will wait as long as it takes,
I will fight as hard as you need,
I will love you as much as I can,
Because state lines and 7-hour plane flights
Are a small price to pay
For the forever I cannot wait to spend with you.
Right now we are doing the best we can and let me tell you, we are doing pretty great. And I won’t ruin the chances of the present time by thinking too far ahead in the future, but the distance doesn’t matter when I know that in 20 years, if I ever have a living room of my own, filled with my favorite albums and a record player and wine and the man I love next to me, I’ll hug him tight and make sure he knows that I am undoubtedly the luckiest, happiest girl in the world.
Now excuse me as I pretend that this new bullshit sequel doesn’t exist and that Carrie and Big are still somewhere in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, sipping on expensive wine while listening to “Hello It’s Me” by Todd Rundgren and having an excellent night, thank you very much.
