With the return of her Sex and the City heroine she originated nearly three decades ago, Sarah Jessica Parker might not have been prepared for the meme-ification of Carrie Bradshaw and friends.
As the 6x Golden Globe winner’s apparent final performance as Carrie comes to an end with last week’s And Just Like That… finale on HBO Max, she recently addressed the show’s “hate watchers,” who have been vocal on social media.
“I don’t think I have the constitution to have spent a lot of time thinking about that,” Parker to The New York Times. “We always worked incredibly hard to tell stories that were interesting or real. I guess I don’t really care. And the reason I don’t care is because it has been so enormously successful, and the connections it has made with audiences have been very meaningful.”
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With Big’s (Chris Noth) death by Peloton, Sara Ramirez’s divisive nonbinary comedian character Che Diaz and the finale’s un-flushed turd, it’s not difficult to see where fans found fodder for a very pop culture-driven social media.
Previously, showrunner Michael Patrick King shared his perspective on the hate-watching phenomenon. “Beyond everything that people have printed, there are people who have been watching it for many years,” he told Deadline.
“So there’s this great back and forth between all the noise of how they would do it differently or what they like or don’t like,” King continued. “And then there’s just appreciation for the fact that they’re seeing characters who went from 35 to 59. Trust me, you don’t write for nothing, for no reaction. I mean, if you did that, you’d be a poet. I want a reaction to the work we all do. It’s a double-edged sword. Yes, they’re watching. And guess what? Yes, they’re watching.”
Last month, King notified cast before announcing the two-part series finale of the three-season revival that launched in 2021.
“And just like that… the ongoing storytelling of the Sex and the City universe is coming to an end,” said King. “While I was writing the last episode of And Just Like That… Season 3, it became clear to me that this might be a wonderful place to stop.”
Parker, who has played the fashionable sex columnist since the original HBO show’s 1998-2004 run and two subsequent movies, offered “the most sentimental and profound gratitude and lifetime of debt” to fans as she bid farewell to the character.