Of all the people to have shut down the meme scene that arose in the wake of the first “major” promotional still to materialize from the shooting of …And Just Like That (a.k.a. the Sex and the City reboot that no one wanted or needed), nobody could have anticipated that Andrew McCarthy would be the champion. Yes, too little remembered “Brat Pack” Andrew McCarthy, who has recently reclaimed his place in pop culture history with the release of an autobiography called Brat: An 80s Story.
In any case, wanting to join in on the random insertions of different people (missing from the array was Bernie Sanders in a chair) among the noticeably bereft-without-Samantha trio, McCarthy lightly poked fun at Kim Cattrall’s absence (as well as being theoretically called upon to dress the remaining three) by putting his character from Mannequin, Jonathan Switcher, into the frame. Carrying, of course, the mannequin, “Emmy,” that Cattrall portrays when it comes to life (only if no one else is watching, naturally). Captioning it with, “I thought they’d never call,” McCarthy brings up an unwittingly valid point: that even a mannequin version of Samantha would probably make this narrative more palatable.
While the entire “purpose” of this latest installment to the show is to spotlight what it’s like to be in one’s fifties and still living in New York (that is to say, either a total loser still clinging to the past and the supposed “glory” associated with it or someone who is fortunate—or unfortunate, depending on how you look at it—enough to have had the wealth to stick around), no matter how “evolved” society becomes, there will always be preferential treatment toward the youth. At least in terms of audiences preferring to see that lifestyle splashed across the screen as opposed to anything resembling a geriatric one (see: the Gossip Girl reboot—or actually, don’t). No matter how “glamorous” and couture-laden. With this in mind, the primary writer for the ten-episode series, Michael Patrick King, feels it’s entirely plausible that because of how people change, therefore grow apart, as time goes on, Samantha “missing” is not questionable at all.
This is why Casey Bloys, HBO’s “chief content officer,” gave the excuse for Samantha’s absence as follows: “Friendships fade, and new friendships start. So I think it is all very indicative of the real stages, the actual stages of life… They’re trying to tell an honest story about being a woman in her fifties in New York. So it should all feel somewhat organic, and the friends that you have when you’re thirty, you may not have when you’re fifty.”
Or maybe it’s just that Samantha/Emmy found a new man’s muse to be, jumping on the back of a motorcycle (like Emmy did in a particularly iconic scene from the movie) and hightailing it the fuck out of Same York before the same fate that befell Lexi Featherston could befall her (for we all know she was going down that path, as so many “good time” people in the city do who refuse to take the Miranda/Charlotte/Carrie route by becoming the very Establishment that youths come to NYC to theoretically rebel against in the first place).
So yes, “I thought they’d never call”—but maybe they called Switcher too late. Because so far, the clothes have yet to be deemed “salvageable” without Patricia Field, preferring to funnel her time and effort into something, if you can believe it, even schlockier: Emily in Paris. Then again, …And Just Like That might outdo Darren Starr’s latest project on that front. In any event, it’s clear that even this Mannequin meme can’t save the day… but perhaps it’s not too late for “Mannequin” by Britney Spears to be played in the show as a Kim Cattrall-inspired mannequin dances to it.
