Every And Just Like That… character, ranked by how terrible they are

Thanks to Kim Cattrall’s blatant refusal to ever be in the same room with her former costars again, promiscuous-and-proud Samantha only appears in And Just Like That… via text message from London. It’s a modern-day epistolary relationship with her ex-BFF Carrie, with whom she had a falling-out in the years since the second Sex And The City movie. I have a hunch she’d set beautiful fire to the series if she were on it; but as it stands, she gets bonus points for being the only person in Carrie’s life to actually take her to task for her callousness and narcissism. (Cattrall has signed on to make a brief cameo in season two, and I can’t wait.)

Steve (David Eigenberg) is the original wife guy. When he first showed up as Miranda’s one-night stand in the second season of Sex And The City, viewers were immediately smitten. (A kind-eyed bartender who’s also a fireman? Come onnnn.) But things have cooled between the pair in the two decades since Miranda proposed over a mug of beer. Steve is as lovely as ever, but the chemistry between the two has all but vanished. The fact that he’s unerringly decent to her even after she admits she’s been routinely cheating on him is almost psychotically nice. Here’s hoping our sweet boy finds new love in the wake of his divorce.

Considering the level of helicopter-momming they’ve had to deal with, the Goldenblatt kids turned out to be shockingly well-adjusted. Like Charlotte, Lily (Cathy Ang) is an overachiever and lover of fashion who’s 16 going on 45; but unlike her mom, she’s emotionally perceptive—and that goes double for her younger sibling Rock, née Rose (Alexa Swinton), when they come out as gender-fluid. It takes Charlotte way too long to embrace her kid’s transition—she’s a Gen-Xer in the art world, mind you—and it’s Lily who lays down the law when her mom dismisses Rock’s journey as merely “a phase.” As for Rock themself, they’re living their best queer, label-free, skater-boi life, and it’s great.

To the show’s credit, the first season of And Just Like That… attempted to address Sex And The City’s ’90s-typical sea of whiteness by adding people of color both in front of and behind the camera. One of the best new faces is Dr. Nya Wallace (Karen Pittman), Miranda’s law school professor who’s also spearheading the development of a Brooklyn women’s shelter. Even though Miranda makes loud, racist assumptions about Nya as a Black woman when they first meet, the latter not only forgives Miranda, but befriends her. This lapse in judgment aside, she’s a total badass who’s smarter than anyone else on the series. There’s a thin subplot about Nya’s struggles to get pregnant that we hope will get explored in more depth this season.

Let’s face it: There’s simply no replacing Samantha. It’s like if the Beatles tried to sub in some other guy for John Lennon. But the show tries its best with the addition of Seema Patel (Sarita Choudhury), a real estate broker who helps Carrie find a new apartment. Like our dear Ms. Jones, Seema is sexy, confident, and happily sleeping around; unlike Samantha, however, she genuinely wants to fall in love. Carrie folds Seema into the gal gang once the two become friends, but she never quite gels with the rest of them—probably because they’re all myopic fools and she’s sharp as a tack, but also because she’s not a dirty one-liner machine like her predecessor. But overall, Seema is pretty dope; her only sin is standing by all of Carrie’s terrible life choices.

When we last saw Charlotte’s gay bestie Anthony (Mario Cantone), he got hitched to Stanford Blatch (Willie Garson), who was literally the only other gay dude in Sex And The City. We’ll never know what the couple’s plot arc would have been, as Garson died partway through filming; the show course-corrected by sending Stanford off to Tokyo after an abrupt divorce. The newly single Anthony is now running a bakery exclusively staffed by beautiful men, and his arc feels true to the middle-aged gay divorcé experience: He’s hooking up with a series of guys whom he’s barely vetted (one reveals himself to be a Holocaust denier over dinner at the Goldenblatts) and considering plastic surgery to make himself more eligible. If only he could get himself free of his awful friends.

Okay, yes—objectively, Miranda is the biggest asshole of season one. But she also has far and away the most interesting arc—and that’s because she’s the only one of our three ladies to make big moves to change her life. Hobbes haters argue that it’s not realistic for the original series’ most pragmatic character to devolve into the steaming hot mess she becomes on And Just Like That…. But that’s the human condition, baby! You feel your life grow stale, so you toss everything that used to define you in the garbage, recyclables and all. Miranda cheats on her cinnamon roll of a husband; lies to everyone around her; all but gives up on parenting her son; and, worst of all, lets her best friend’s boss finger her in the kitchen while said best friend is recovering from surgery and crying for help. But listen—late-in-life queer awakenings are messy, especially when you’re a secret alcoholic who realizes your marriage is dead on the slab. Miranda sucks now, sure; but she owns the hell out of it, and there’s something admirable about that.

On the surface, Charlotte is the most decent and rational of the big three. Unlike Miranda and Carrie, her life has turned out exactly the way she wanted: palatial apartment, very nice—and very rich—husband, two great kids. In fact, her biggest problems (aside from Rock’s transition, which isn’t actually a problem!) are that she’s too competitive at tennis and that her kids—gasp!—don’t see eye-to-eye about décor schemes. Charlotte has become prudish to the point of sex-negativity, makes Carrie’s grief over Big all about her, and is fixated on outward appearances. The show’s ickiest subplot centers on Charlotte’s anxiety about her new friends (Nicole Ari Parker and Chris Jackson) being the only Black people at her dinner party—because she needs to be perceived as having a diverse social circle. But beyond that, the worst thing about Charlotte 2.0 is that she’s just, well, really boring.

Oh, where to begin with Che (Sara Ramírez), a deeply unfunny standup comic who co-hosts a sex-advice podcast with Carrie? They’re charming as hell—how could Ramirez play a character who isn’t? But underneath that charisma runs a deep river of self-absorption. No wonder they’re a match made in … bar basement … for the equally solipsistic Miranda. We should’ve known what we were in for the second Che pressed a literal “woke moment” button on the podcast—and it only gets worse from there. Does Che, I must stress again, finger Miranda in Carrie’s kitchen while an injured Carrie suffers alone? Do they say things like “DM me if you wanna chill again soon” and “I’ve done a ton of weed”? Yup. But worst of all, Che breaks the news to her girlfriend that they’re moving to L.A. via standup set. Rude!

I couldn’t help but wonder … in the decades since Sex And The City premiered in 1998, how did Carrie Bradshaw go from one of the most provocative characters on TV to a total drip? Consider the first season of the original, in which Carrie has casual hookups galore, watches sex tapes with her artist buddy, and writes about everything from vibrators to spanking fetishes to anal. In And Just Like That…, on the other hand, she balks at the idea of even talking about masturbation and is shocked to discover that her husband watches porn sometimes. When Big (Chris Noth) kicked the bucket, the show had the potential to tell a fascinating story about what mourning looks like for the impulsive, sex-driven Carrie. But the woman we knew is long gone. This version obsesses over her dead husband’s ex-wife, spends 100 years looking for the right apartment, is a total Karen to her younger neighbors, willfully ignores her best friend’s downward spiral, and goes on exactly one date. I’m not saying I don’t feel for Carrie; losing your husband and undergoing major surgery in a matter of months is rough, and Parker beautifully conveys Carrie’s grief. But in the end, she’s the main character on a TV show—and that means she has to be, y’know, interesting to watch.