Have you heard? There's a TV show featuring 50-somethings streaming on HBO Max. "And Just Like That," the reboot of "Sex and the City," has resurrected the old gang (Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte — minus Samantha) in present-day New York City, 17 years after the last episode aired. Yes, it turns out that people — even women-people — can actually keep existing beyond the age of 38. Incredible!
Or at least that appears to be the perspective of "AJLT," which depicts a world of middle-aged characters suspended in perpetual astonishment and discomfort about everything they encounter, from commonplace political and social phenomena to their own bodies. (Warning: spoilers ahead.)
"It's as if its characters must have been asleep for 20 years and awakened utterly gobsmacked to find themselves encountering such things as Black professors, nonbinary children and queer longings," said Joy Castro, 54, a writer and professor of English and ethnic studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
The characters do seem Rip Van Winkle-like, as they stumble upon and blink in amazement at very unsurprising things. "Wow! Instagram? Podcasts?" marvels Miranda at some of Carrie's latest endeavors, as if these were edgy new enterprises.
Some of the "Van Winkle-est" moments involve Miranda's foot-in-mouth disease when interacting with Nya Wallace, the Black professor in her new human rights law graduate program. Charlotte, too, evinces a weird awkwardness as she cultivates a new friendship with the glamorous Lisa Todd Wexley, a wealthy, stylish Black woman she meets through her daughters' private school.
"The show now is trying to be woke without succeeding," said Cheryl Packwood, 60, an attorney and retired diplomat. "I never liked the show to begin with; it was just so white and shallow. It's not at 55 that you suddenly try so hard to have a Black friend."
But beyond the external factors of race and politics, the protagonists seem most ill at ease with their own bodies and ages, which they refer to frequently, unnaturally and, often, loudly.
Examples abound: