It is natural that with the advancement of time, some works lose strength and meaning or that they even become ‘wrong’, but it is regrettable that – without context – they are judged, erased, or rewritten. Content with submissive women and “macho” men, dominant and even aggressive, today are uncomfortable and unacceptable, but more than that, they are irrelevant. They naturally lose appeal and do not engage with an audience that no longer accepts toxic behavior. What is “lost” with this is the point that collides with the generation that lived at that time, and it is a delicate question.

I have long commented that part of the changes in Game of Thrones was out of tune due to being a story set in times and a patriarchal society – highlighting female mistreatment and abuse – but that little by little, perhaps to “talk to the new generation” or “fear from #metoo – reversed the protagonism of some characters, interfering in the controversial ending. Even the Marvel universe went through this a little bit, it’s part of those transitional years. But then we have Carrie Bradshaw’s universe in Sex and the City, a pioneering series in changing how women wanted to be seen, but that 25 years later, is still trapped by the judgments of an altered culture. All the changes became clearer when it changed its name to And Just Like That, bringing the characters now approaching 60 years old and “lost” in a universe more difficult than that of toxic men, apparently. They, who were modern and daring, are now conservative and outdated. What?

Just like that. Carrie and co questioned many of the constraints on female judgment, but they adapted to them however they could. If at the time Samantha Jones was already the most daring of them, often used for ‘comic relief’, today more than ever it is clear that she was the modernity and oxygen of the franchise, never submitting to what men or women expected of her. Without Samantha, Miranda, Charlotte, and Carrie are more exposed than ever.

Charlotte is kind of easy prey. She was conservative in conservative times: she wanted to get married and have kids, be beautiful, rich, and… happy. She’s bumped her head into several relationships, including marriage, but found the perfect man in Harry. We already knew that behind closed doors she was healthy and it was with some surprise that I saw her as an understandable mother, dedicated but malleable enough to navigate the millennial universe with some tranquility. Her conflicts in the series have always seemed superficial, but her sincerity makes her authentic.

Miranda is a problem. Hypocrisy has always been her main characteristic, hidden in a fake armor of cynicism. She doesn’t move forward in time, the humanity they gave her when she ‘falls in love’ with Steve and her son and Brooklyn’s home life was from pre-millennium time, but an arc that humanized her. Leaving everything for a woman is not the problem – which the showrunners thought it was – but the fact that she resets and is back to being her usual irritating hypocrite, taking away the hope even in fiction that anyone can evolve. To make matters worse, she has a strange obsession with Carrie’s happiness. She is ALWAYS against any relationship that her friend tries. She went against Big, Aidan, she was ok with Berger but radically against Petrovsky, to the point of rescuing Big instead of encouraging her friend to move on with someone else. She disrupts Carrie and Big’s wedding but takes offense when Carrie gives Steve a reason. Miranda is the bitch on duty, always has been, and unfortunately, always will be.

Carrie has been called a toxic narcissist for many years and we’ve always liked her anyway because it was – in our eyes – the coming-of-age process she needed to go through. And just when we thought they were finding the narrative again, a question made it go back to the beginning of the board. “Was Big a big mistake?” she asks. No. And yes.

Big has always been ‘a mistake’, but he represents the wrong romantic ideal that every woman has bought for millennia, which is that a toxic, narcissistic man would recover and become monogamous and perfect when he found out he loved only you and no one else. ALL thought so and believed they could change a man. It’s that Cinderella complex, when the prince crosses the ballroom ignoring all other girls to chase Cinderella alone, and later defines that only those who fit in the glass slipper will be his chosen one, basically reversing the impossibility that he was selling as if he were discarding all of them by choosing only Cinderella. The only one that fits.

Samantha always warned that this myth was wrong, but how could anyone not want to be that special person who manages to be the chosen one who didn’t stay with anyone else but you? As Carrie asked in Season 1 and finally heard on the Season Finale: “Carrie, you are the one”.

Carrie endured six long seasons for Big, but she got him as a prize. He went to Paris after her (at Miranda’s request) and he effectively changed personality for her. All right, he still skidded in the first film – when he left her at the altar – but after his final repentance (via e-mail), he became a different man and died in her arms, 15 years later, redeemed and even unrecognizable. How to say she was ‘wrong’ if she got what she wanted? The question would be, “Miranda, I know Big and I were happy, but was the model we dreamed of really the right one today?”. It has less effect, right? You can’t call Big a Big Mistake…

The motivation to erase Big from the narrative seems to echo the accusations against actor Chris Noth in real life, which leaves the series in even worse shape. Chris Noth is not Big, part of that is at the heart of sexual harassment lawsuits. The actor has nothing to do with the character and now, 25 years later, putting 100% of the problem on his shoulders is wrong. And Just Like That had already solved the problem with Big, there was no need to bury him without dignity. Carrie now says that even sex with him, which we’ve seen her repeatedly say was second to none – it not as good as what she does with Aidan today. It’s low. Give Big what was Big’s. Carrie’s problem with Aidan is different.

Carrie is Mr. Big from Aidan. Instead of acknowledging this and evolving as a person, she dismisses the issue, blaming a toxic culture on the dead. It’s not healthy that 25 years later, having been betrayed and humiliated twice, Aidan still treats Carrie like the love of his life. There’s nothing they’ve experienced that supports that idea, even as it ‘matured’. When I watched Sex and The City I didn’t see Aidan’s dependency, I thought he was the coolest guy that had gone through the character’s life, but I remember being very irritated with her when, after throwing him away, she starts to want him again comes back out of nowhere, insisting and stunning him incessantly. The scream “You broke my heart” was a call to arms from which Carrie literally ran. She does everything she can to win him back, only to throw him out again when he buys the apartment next to hers to live together and she didn’t let him break through a wall. Again, literally. Meaning that it was not for Big (alone) that she discarded Aidan.

It’s a fact that Big didn’t immediately come back into Carrie’s life after Aidan was dumped, but one can imagine his reaction when he read that they got married. Carrie and Big were indeed perfect for each other, the fault lies with those who want to rewrite them.

Aidan is also Carrie’s Steve. We talk so much about Steve’s manipulative victimization in Miranda’s life, especially now in And Just Like That. Steve has determined that Miranda is his great love, and she is, however deviously. Anyone who confuses love with pain and many of us do, falls into this trap. Aidan moved on with his life, married, and had three children, but all it took was a single email to go back in time and embark head on a relationship with Carrie. We don’t know how many have passed along the way, it’s not that reunions are bad or impossible, but by questioning Big, no, by stating that Big was a big mistake, Carrie once again disclaims responsibility and disrespects a guy who changed for her, who died in her arms and what she called the love of her life for a quarter of a century. No, Carrie, no…

Having said all that, of course, there’s room for Carrie to reinvent herself, and revise her aversion to family and country life, the two things that repelled her from Aidan more than 20 years ago. Today she is a millionaire, has lived everything in New York, and can appreciate a ‘slower’ life. Of course, I identify with that! She turned this desire into a marital crisis with Big himself when he askes to stay home and watch TV, but I swear, with more than 30 years in Manhattan, it makes sense that she would want to be with someone who knows her well and live in another scenario.

Carrie, the fault is not with you or Big or Aidan. Everyone makes mistakes, it’s part of evolution. And Just Like That‘s mistake seems to be wanting to please and respond to everyone. Yes, we wanted to cancel Big and we think that everything Carrie experienced on Sex and The City is unacceptable, but it’s because we’ve seen her go through it that we can come to that conclusion and change.

Carrie has nothing to apologize for, she was part of a time and within that context, she was as pioneering as it gets. By fueling Aidan’s conviction that he was right and she was wrong, she is as manipulative as she ever was with him. She’s conveniently telling him what he needs to hear to throw all the chips at her again. She would have been nicer if she had been more mature and respectful. 25 years ago Carrie would never have been happy with Aidan. Sorry, but she is once again a woman apologizing to the patriarchy. Aidan doesn’t need excuses, he wanted a Carrie who didn’t smoke, who didn’t want to enjoy New York… did he really want her, or did he want to tame the impossible woman? She didn’t bend, why is she apologizing?

Carrie and Aidan’s reunion is beautiful, it’s nostalgic and it brought And Just Like That closer to what fans wanted. Stop apologizing, worrying about algorithms, or winning over millennials. Carrie is important to another generation that is evolving and no, we don’t want to change it at all. Just see her happy.

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