An episode late in “And Just Like That . . .” ’s 2nd period released a formerly unthinkable state of affairs: that Carrie could sell her Upper East Aspect brownstone apartment, one particular of the handful of constants in the quarter-century-previous “Sex and the City” franchise. After the death of her longtime appreciate desire, Mr. Massive, in the pilot of the sequel series, Carrie remaining their marital dwelling and moved back into her cozy if lavishly reupholstered just one-bed room suite, her dedication to start out above in widowhood echoing the defiantly not-unfortunate singledom of her thirties. The authentic clearly show offered its city romance by way of that third-ground walkup: Carrie kissed innumerable gentlemen on its stoop, looked out its street-experiencing window although typing her weekly column, and (fairly implausibly) stored a warehouse’s truly worth of designer duds in its huge-for-New-York closet. The location was so vital to the series’ attractiveness that followers built its front techniques a tourist vacation spot. But, in “And Just Like That . . .,” when Carrie rekindles her connection with one more “Sex and the City”-period paramour, Aidan, two a long time after their broken engagement, he refuses to set foot in the unit exactly where she confessed to her affair with Huge. And so she phone calls up her mate and true-estate agent, Seema, to buy a 4-bed room mansion in Gramercy Park—the form of home that could accommodate a lifetime with Aidan and his sons, need to the boys check out 1 working day. The condominium is poised to go to Lisette, an artsy, lovelorn neighbor who’s going through some housing drama of her individual, and in whom Carrie sees her more youthful self.
Genuine estate is the yardstick by which “Sex and the City” calculated some of its biggest developments. Right after Carrie and Aidan’s engagement finished, she practically missing her apartment—he’d bought the position when her building went co-op, with the intention of moving in—until Charlotte arrived to her monetary rescue in one particular of the show’s most explicit endorsements of woman friendship in excess of heterosexual compromise. Charlotte secured her have abode just after the dissolution of her impulsive first marriage, and Miranda marked her dedication to her increasing family members by going from her prewar in Manhattan to a bigger town property in Brooklyn. “And Just Like That . . .” has ongoing to use house-hopping as an indicator of the characters’ states of head on an even grander scale, helped by the simple fact that the main trio has, considering that the “Sex and the City” times, occur into around-fantastical prosperity. Early on, in the midst of her grief about Massive, Carrie moves into an all-white, oppressively modern day downtown eyesore. She purchases and sells it in the span of a solitary episode—congrats to Seema on that fee, I guess—then settles back again on the U.E.S.
For a franchise (and nostalgic viewers) struggling to recapture a exact combine of substance fantasy and psychological relatability, Carrie’s apartment has been an oasis. It’s arguably the only facet of the series that’s been current devoid of getting rid of its previous magic, the huge teal bouquets in her dwelling-home wallpaper and the matching jewel-toned bookshelves as exuberant and surprising as the most effective of her vogue. The to start with period been given criticism for portraying center age as dreary—the protagonists grappled with death, decay, and a doddering cluelessness pertaining to social change. For all their affluence, no a person had a job or a spouse value envying anymore, and, devoid of the return of the “Sex and the City” costumer Patricia Area, even the outfits fell flat. The characters’ adventures, too, have turned insular and domestic. Carrie and Aidan commit a great deal of their time collectively in the blank box of an Airbnb that the pair rented as a enjoy nest. For most of the collection, Charlotte could reliably be located in her kitchen area or in her children’s bedroom, and her close friend Lisa is for good remaining interrupted by her partner or offspring in the stroll-in closet wherever she seemingly edits her documentaries.
Carrie was the early two-thousands’ most influential flâneuse, and authentic estate should be the all-natural compensatory pleasure of following close to the form of girls that she and her coterie have become—style-minded spenders who consider pleasure in their expertise of the town and are really, really prosperous. That would clarify why the most produced member of the new ensemble is Seema, a superior-finish broker with a crafted-in purpose to showcase Manhattan’s most eye-popping residences, and why a lot of extra scenes just take area at dwelling. Absent other resources of aspirational attract, the series dangles the risk of house porn early and generally.
And however the vast bulk of those would-be indulgences are as underwhelming as the tale traces. The sophomore year has taken viewers to a lot of a grandiose domicile, but it struggles to convey luxury with individuality, and consequently luxury worthy of coveting. In distinction to the storybook Manhattan of the initial collection, “And Just Like That . . .” seems to emphasize the profound sterility of so numerous New York houses. Where by Carrie’s condominium is a beautiful reflection of her model, Charlotte’s Park Avenue flat only showcases her stuffy facet, and Lisa’s business office-closet is uncharacteristically beige. (This, lest we neglect, is a girl who attended the Achieved Gala in a crimson Valentino robe with a teach that could upstage a peacock and a headpiece that transformed her into an otherworldly dandelion.) The glorified loft inhabited by a tech founder who briefly dates Carrie, the thirty-7-thousand-dollar-a-thirty day period condominium that Seema demonstrates a Marvel director, and even Seema’s personal position all sense depressingly nondescript. Legislation professor Nya’s heat-toned, brick-lined, academia-core bachelorette pad could possibly be the closest matter that the new demonstrate has to an enviable, individualized space—but, after Miranda gets Nya’s reluctant roommate, it is addressed primarily as a site of irritation.
Once in a while, we get flashes of the aesthetic eclecticism that was so integral to the outdated series’ attraction. In “And Just Like That . . .” ’s first time, Carrie fortunately ended a night eating popcorn in her apartment in a dove-grey Versace gown with a prodigious mille-feuille skirt. She describes the dress as her “pride and joy,” and it was apt that she would fairly threat getting Jiffy Pop grease on it than permit it stay in the closet, pristine and unappreciated. Maybe that is why her Gramercy Park digs are so disappointing. Alternatively than attesting that new beginnings await in one’s silver decades, the plot position lands as still another miscalculation of which aspects of “Sex and the City” to jettison, and which kinds to cherish. That the acquisition was inspired by her wan, rushed, retconned romance with Aidan is disenchanting ample the blandly opulent, distinctly un-Carrie seem of the spot is an extra blow. There’s a great deal to criticize about her flavor, but she’s hardly ever attempted so really hard to hide it. ♦