Mamamia Out Loud: BONUS: And Just Like That…Carrie Won’t Talk About Her Vagina

You're listening to a Mamma Mia podcast.

Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded

on.

Hey Out Louders, it's Mia in your ears.

I'm a bit excited because our favourites from Sex and the City are back with the brand

new season and just like that.

We have been having so much fun recapping the new season for Mamma Mia Out Loud subscribers.

We've been dropping episodes every Friday, but we've heard you, we know that you don't

want to miss out and we have decided to give you a little free taste of our and just like

that recap series with our premiere episode.

This is the podcast where we recap episodes one and two, enjoy.

Grab your strap on, pop it in your pigeon purse, remind yourself who Tony Danza is and decide

who you're taking to the Met Ball because and just like that is back baby and the sex

is very much back in the city.

Welcome to Mamma Mia Out Loud's first recap episode of and just like that, also known

as a podcast about rich people problems.

Two episodes dropped this week and on today's show we are going to be recapping both of

them and then from next week we'll be dropping our recap show every Friday morning early

so you can listen as soon as you've watched the show which drops on a Thursday night.

Now let's introduce you to your recappers for this week.

I'm Mia Friedman and I am a Sex in the City superfan, but I have complex feelings about

and just like that.

And I'm Laura Bronnick.

I'm host of the Spill podcast and head of entertainment here at Mamma Mia and literally

moved to a big city to be a single writer girl in my own apartment wearing my inappropriate

shoes.

So that's how much of a fangirl I am.

And I am Elfie Scott, executive editor here at Mamma Mia and I absolutely love Sex in

the City.

I'm a massive fan, but I do not accept that and just like that is part of the canon at

Northern Universe.

Controversial.

Wow.

Before we kick off, I'm going to ask Laura to set the scene because she knows everything.

Laura, where did we leave our characters in season one?

Well we left Charlotte finally having her big moment for the season, having her bat mitzvah

and being Jewish after that being such a big storyline for her through the original season.

We saw Miranda make a decision to not pursue higher education, which is kind of odd for

her and go off to LA with Che.

And most importantly, Carrie having this kind of letting go moment of scattering big ashes

through Paris and getting obviously that big text from Samantha, which was kind of resetting

this season.

So everyone kind of washing away the past season and seeing themselves up for this new storyline.

One of the biggest criticisms of the last season was that there wasn't enough sex and

there was too much crying.

Yes.

The death of Big at the end of the first episode really set the tone.

So it didn't feel quite the same as Sex in the City.

Is that sort of the problem that you had with the first season, Elphie?

Look, I understand why they had to kill Big because Chris Knoth had those allegations

leveled against him and regardless of what he says about it, they really couldn't pursue

him as a character for that season.

But it's not just that.

It's not just Big.

It's not the sex.

It's like the overall tone of the show just does not hit for me at all.

I watched the first couple of episodes of season one.

I did not make it through the entire season.

Really?

Yeah.

You missed some of the good stuff.

Okay.

Look, maybe I should try again.

Not a fan of Che Diaz?

First start.

Che Diaz's comedy stand up is one of the most painful things.

What were the other big talking points culturally around season one?

I think very much, yes, as you're saying, the lack of sex, the idea of grief, but also

correcting the biggest criticism of the original Sex in the City, which was the lack of diversity

and the lack of political correctness and bringing in these new characters of Lisa and

Nia and Seema.

And I think this season, they're trying to make them part of that core group, which I

think is also the reason why people are thinking this doesn't feel like Sex in the City, even

though I think it does.

Look, how did you feel about those characters, Elphie, in season one?

When they first appeared on screen, I was like, wow, they are doing their best to shoehorn

some people of colour into this.

But I did appreciate how they are developing those storylines in season two so far.

It seems like they are becoming more characters onto themselves.

Yeah.

When I watched the first couple of episodes of season one, I was like, this is embarrassing.

I do not like it.

Everyone gets one token friend of colour in the first episode.

I feel like they're working hard to course correct that this season.

I was listening to an interview with Michael Patrick King, or maybe it was with Sarah Jessica

Parker.

I can't remember.

But they were saying that the two biggest issues at the time that they were writing

and just like that were race and gender.

And so they really wanted to incorporate those two things into that season, which as we've

discussed and we'll discuss about season two, they did with mixed success.

Okay.

So season two, let's talk about where we find our characters at the beginning of this season.

So apparently it's only three weeks that have elapsed between the end of season one and

the beginning of season two.

The whole show starts with this very sexy montage of all of the women initiating sex,

interestingly, all our main characters initiating sex, all wearing sort of silk nighties, basically,

or sexy clothes, except for Nia, who is still wearing sexy clothes, but she's separated

from her husband.

And so she's watching TV.

The message is clearly the sex is back, baby.

Lord, do you want to just recap where we find our individual characters in their lives?

Yes.

So we see Carrie having her coming out of grief sex, which is a great way to put it with

Franklin, her podcast producer, who if you don't know who that is, it's fine.

He was quite kind of a faceless background guy for the first season.

You see Seema having sex with a hot guy that she met at the season before him.

I don't think he needs a name.

And also Miranda and Shay having some hot pool sex, because they're obviously living

their big LA life.

And Harry and Charlotte kind of just where they've always been having their cute kind

of married sex in their beautiful apartment.

So we're kind of seeing where every relationship is from the last season.

Shay, of course, moved to LA to do their show, Shay Pasa.

The character's name is Che.

The show is called Che Pasa.

It's it's me.

Kay Pasa means what's happening, but it's Shay Pasa because it's Shay Diaz.

Oh, a stretch.

OK. It is a stretch.

And as you said, I want to just dive straight in to one of my biggest problems

with this show and this season.

None of the women have jobs.

So Miranda left her job and her career.

She was always the career one to go and be a Klingon to Shay.

A trailing spouse is the term, I suppose, in LA.

Carrie doesn't seem to do anything, although she's recording an audio book

for her book that she wrote last season.

Charlotte hasn't worked since before she, I don't know,

early in the first 20 years in the city.

At least 20 years.

And so I just feel really upset about that.

That's my first thing.

Thoughts, feelings I'm going to throw to you first, Laura.

Yeah, the work thing, I think, definitely was a bit of a red flag in the first episode.

But I think from what we know, what's coming later is that that's going to be

more of Charlotte's storyline, which definitely shows that my country has one.

Well, yeah, she needs something outside of her family

and outside of or at least something to give her that gravitas that she had

in the first couple of like seasons of Sex and the City.

Because I think that's the hardest thing is that Kristin Davis is an amazing actress.

Like some of the things she did with Charlotte,

especially in the last season of Sex and the City, made her less

that kind of desperate to be married, ditzy kind of friend that she could have gone into.

Like the scenes around her miscarriage and being with Harry and stuff like that

was so beautifully done.

But I think there's two things happening here is that Kristin Davis hasn't acted

in a very long time, except for that weird safari movie with Rob Lowe.

Don't watch that, guys, it's bad.

It's bad. Yeah, you don't have to watch it.

And then has kind of just been a stay at home mum with her kids

and doing charity in the last 10 years.

Yes. And so I feel like acting is a skill that you need to exercise.

And out of everyone, she's the only one you can tell that has kind of lost it.

But don't you think they just give her nothing to do?

They give her nothing to do outside of just being this kind of worried mum,

which is kind of hard because maybe an upper east side rich mother of two

is a stay at home mum.

It doesn't feel out of the realm of possibility that her whole life would be

about the little minuscule things for her children and the big things.

But apparently this season, she is going back into the workforce,

which I feel shows that Michael Patrick King is like living on those reddit

threads about the criticism.

And with Carrie, we see her having her coming out of grief sex,

but not even that, just really regressing back into her 30 year old self single

girl. There's lots of puns in there from the first season and jokes.

I find that so tedious.

Oh, you don't like that?

No, I want to jump in and just say my big criticism or my big disappointment

and maybe I'll ease into it is these don't ring true as characters to me,

not in 2023, women in their fifties, of which I am one.

So this idea of Carrie just going back to the silly puns and the I can't cook.

And the, you know, for all the criticism about it being a bit exhausting

in the grief and we wanted fun, Carrie, sexy, Carrie, and we didn't have that

in the first season, as you say, she's gone back to her 30 year old self.

And I don't know any women in their fifties who are like that, particularly

with what she's experienced.

And again, it's early days.

And then Charlotte seems to just have this perpetually, oh, my gosh,

like she's just so shocked and surprised and she's just got these big eyes.

Oh, Charlotte Gordon Blatt.

This is Franklin Sylveus.

He's just leaving.

Franklin, this is Charlotte.

She's just arriving and I'm Carrie Bradshaw.

I'll be your host and MC for about the next 30 seconds.

Who is my podcast producer?

She's some throwback to the fifties and that she doesn't ring true as a real person.

And then Miranda's just become this wet sock.

I feel like they did her so dirty.

You're absolutely right.

Like I hate that Miranda doesn't have a job now.

Like that was one of the defining characteristics of her personality is

that she was super ambitious, super intelligent and super independent.

And they've kind of just like leaked all of that out of her character.

I think kind of what's happened is that this was just a set up episode,

which is a bold choice to go for the premiere episode of a new season

where you want to bring the audience in.

I think they're really heavily relying on the enduring fan base to just stick with it.

Because the first season was just the movie script, the original movie

they never made stretched out over a couple of episodes.

So it had a very clear start and end of what was going to happen.

It's like when writers, you know, do a best selling book

and then the publisher will say like, well, can you write a sequel?

And they're thinking, well, I only plan this book and it had an ending.

And now I've got to figure out where to move all the characters around.

So I think they're just in set up mode for this one.

And I think also they're trying to take it away from it being

and just like that, a Sex and the City story and just slowly bring it back

to just being Sex and the City, I think.

So they're like regressing back into the TV show, but it's like a muddy path.

I wonder if it's possible.

The difference, though, is that remember the Sex and the City episodes

were very formulaic, so there'd be a theme, maybe it would be, I don't know,

that one with religion, where you had Samantha with the having

when you want to have sex with a hot priest.

Hey, welcome. Come in. Come in.

He is a hot.

He is a priest. He is a hot priest.

Look at his robe.

It's so robin and his merry man.

It's the end. Gracias.

Oh, you tell him, fry or fuck.

Carrie wax lyrical about the thing and ended up writing a column.

So it sort of explored a theme in each episode.

They've thrown that to the wind in and just like that, which is fine.

Also, because there's seven characters now, we have to check in with all of them.

It feels incredibly unsatisfying because it's just like everyone sort of gets

like three sentences and then we move on to the next one.

Totally. I don't understand why they didn't just keep doing that formula

for and just like that.

Like, why wouldn't you want to explore themes that come up in people's cities?

Like, that would have been so much more interesting.

Metapause or surgery or.

Yeah, and they have the set up instead of having the column,

the podcast, Sex and the City.

They could just have that be the beginning and end voice over to kind of

bookend it. But then we saw the podcast got cancelled.

So it's like, I guess the audio book is going to be the bookend.

But yeah, you do need something to kind of bring it back together.

Can we talk about the podcast, Laura Bodnick?

Now, look, we have skin in this game, but the way they still,

even with all the time they've had since season one to season two,

the fact that they still don't understand what a podcast is.

Is definitely a red flag.

Is a red flag.

So that's to the right.

We see Carrie in there taking talk back calls.

This is Chase.

Hi, Carrie.

I'm seeing this guy and we're having great sex, but it's casual so far.

How do I know if he'd be open to taking it to more of a relationship, please?

OK, bye. It's like, no, it's not radio.

A podcast is different.

I think that's a good course correction for this season,

though, because the last podcast with Jackie and Che and the button

and the way they were talking, it sounds like a radio show, like little radio bites.

Whereas I think Carrie having her own advice podcast is a much better set up.

And obviously we won't go into the sound and set up and stuff.

Like you can't put a microphone just on a desk, Carrie.

It's like they've got the idea, but they haven't utilised it.

And they've just got her taking these voice messages.

But I think it's so she can make eyes at Franklin through the sound booth,

because that was her and she was giving the advice into the mic.

It's like she was starting the break up with him.

So like the story plotting is there.

It's just not coming across as much as it could.

What about, Elphie, the whole storyline about Carrie not being

comfortable with talking about the vaginal wellness product?

This is for all my listeners with a vagina.

Ever feel not quite right down there?

OK, I'm feeling not quite right up here.

What is this?

It's an ad for a vaginal wellness product.

No, I got that part right away.

But down there.

Why is it underlined?

Just to make it more awkward and obvious mission accomplished.

You know, we do sponsored reads all the time, all three of us.

And sometimes you're talking about things you might not be familiar with.

You're given a script and you read the script, right?

The fact that a woman in her fifties can't say vagina, is that believable to you?

Like, did you find that interesting?

Or is that quite true to Carrie's character that she is a bit prudish?

I guess so.

But I also just like didn't really totally understand what that conflict was at all.

Like, if you don't like part of a script, you just change the script.

And they made it into like one of the dominant

storylines of that episode, which is so boring.

And then on top of that, there was this weird thing at the end of episode two.

She comes into the office with Franklin and they're all packing up as though

the company has dissolved within three hours.

And that was part of the thing that she wouldn't read.

And the producer said, stop being a diva in your next job.

Hello, diva. I am not a diva.

I did the therapy. I did the eyelashes.

I held up that vegan purse on Instagram.

My other purses still won't speak to me.

I don't know if like a vagina pill is going to bring down a company necessarily.

I'm sure it was bigger than that.

I actually thought that rang the most true for Carrie's character because that's

always the interesting thing about the original season is that she's a sex

columnist who's very prudish, who the idea of freesomes and, you know,

a politician wing on her when they're having sex and bisexual.

All these things, she's constantly shocked.

And I think that comes from Sarah Jessica Parker because she didn't want to do

the show and she didn't want to play a sex writer.

And so she made it more of a sex anthropologist and she was always the one

who had the no nudity clause.

So I think that's the Sarah Jessica Parker part of Carrie Bradshaw that they're

reviving. So when she's like, I wouldn't say that I wouldn't say vagina.

I wouldn't say there's something like there she is still having the same issues

that she had in her thirties to her fifties, a prudish sex writer.

And that's why we like it.

And it's incredible after decades of having the same job.

She's still coming across the same fundamental issue that she doesn't

like saying the word vagina.

There hasn't been a lot of character growth.

I feel like I'm being really down.

Now, Lori, top line feelings, thoughts.

I really liked it.

But I feel like that is something to do with the momentum of what this universe

has built for me. And with those characters, there is a sense of coming home.

A lot of people just say like, oh, you just love the original Sex and City.

But that's a hard thing to kind of keep that momentum going for women in their

fifties. And I think the idea of how much they know the little Easter eggs,

the quotes that are linked to the first season, the outfits, all those little things.

I think that that does kind of show the care that's taking place

in this world of these characters.

And I think it's setting itself up to be a really interesting season.

I just think it's the shock factor of seeing these women in a completely different spot.

It's like when the Gilmore Girls reboot came back and people were like,

I can't deal with this. I can't watch it.

But that's because many of us had watched the original series over and over and over again.

And every moment's burnt into our brain.

So seeing the characters in a new environment freaks you out.

But I've watched in just like that about 10 times.

So it is burnt into my brain.

So it doesn't feel out of place now because it's like it's canon to me now.

Oh, interesting.

Just got to watch it 10 times.

OK, sure. That's all you need to do.

Spend a week watching it.

Yeah, I can't agree.

I wish I could, Laura, like maybe I will get there if I just try the first season again.

But like overwhelmingly, the feeling that I get is that they just haven't nailed

the tone of this show.

Like I just feel as though we've kind of traped sideways into like an Emily

in Paris type universe where it's all just too much fantasy.

Like the thing that struck me the most when I was watching that first episode,

they're talking about going to the Met Gala.

I'm like, A, why are you getting invited to the Met Gala?

Like what cultural importance do you know you can buy a table?

You can actually just buy a table.

Yes, because it's a fundraiser.

At least at least aboard a table.

That's the only reason they're all going.

Oh, my God. OK.

Well, that sparks the second question,

which is where the fuck is all this money coming from?

Like so many of the characters in this show live like Russian oligarchs

in New York at the moment.

I don't understand who is funding them.

And it just carries generational wealth.

Hang on, Charlotte's got Tray's money, although that must have run out.

No, well, I think Harry is quite wealthy.

Isn't he a partner in that law firm?

Maybe he owns it.

And I guess the property that they live in has added up.

But, you know, buying Chanel dresses for your daughter,

like they live a very busy life on one income.

Yeah. Well, I also feel like the way that Harry was talking about his family

in the past, that he comes from quite a wealthy family.

I'm thinking of there's a lot of generational wealth going on here.

And I feel like that's also with Lisa's family.

Asima seems like a self-made woman,

but at least you see her working your hustling.

And that's what I like about her.

I feel like she's brought that career side in where that's very much part of it.

Our three new characters do all work.

We've got the college professor in Naya and then also LTW.

She's doing her documentary.

I have to send this email, get the children to school,

head downtown and dazzle the Walker Foundation

and get this other 25 grand to finish my doc.

But again, her husband is the person who holds all of the wealth

in the relationship.

And we have seen from his mother and their account

in her art buying that that's where their money is coming from.

OK, so it's generational wealth again.

Yes. But then again, Miranda's not working anymore.

Miranda at the end of Sex in the City owned that house in Brooklyn.

Like she was probably going to be made partner of the law firm.

But how has she been just living without a job now for however many years?

I just think Sex in the City has always removed itself from financial reality.

Like you've got to remember that Carrie lived in a new apartment

and bought Chanel off one column a week for 10 years.

And none of us said a thing.

So guys, we can't get into that now.

She still had to ask for the deposit from Charlotte for the apartment,

which is getting kicked out.

But until then, there was no one column a week and she lived.

So that's a very good comparison about it's like an Emily in Paris.

Universe, because it there's just so little that rings true for 2023.

And maybe that's the point.

Maybe it's meant to be this little bubble because even when Carrie's like

clip clopping around in high heels, like people don't dress like that anymore.

No one wears sort of menolos to trip around the city.

But again, I think that's just ringing true to this kind of almost eccentric

character that she's created because back in the day,

also, no one was wearing a full tulle skirt down the road for coffee.

And she did that in the original.

So I feel like if anyone's wearing heels, it's still her.

But I understand that's not the fashion now.

But I feel like this should be that one person you walk down the street

who you're like, oh, wow, people still dress like that.

But that's her character.

I think it'd be stranger if like Miranda was still walking around in heels.

Let's talk about the fashion.

One of the things I realized that's so weird in this show,

they never talk about each other's clothes.

Like it's obviously a real decision that they've made.

It's never like, what are you wearing?

Where's that? Like when Carrie just rocks up

and she's got a purse shaped like a pigeon, which she's iconic.

No one even comments on it.

Yeah, it's a fair point.

Do you like the clothes?

Are we loving the clothes?

I think the clothes actually work very well.

I think that they work well as a continuation of that kind of fantasy

that was built in the Sex and the City series.

Like, I really think that it was never grounded in reality how they dressed.

Like, if you go back and see some of that, she wore a belt as a top at one point.

Like, there have just been so many outrageous outfits

and I think that it does work as a continuation of that idea for people in their fifties.

Who's best dressed, Elbe?

It's got to be Carrie, right?

I think in those opening everything.

I think it's LTWs taking the crown.

Oh, I mean, she looks good.

But I feel like her clothes are amazing.

And I loved her mother-in-law's crack that she was in The Lion King

and she just went with it.

Gabrielle, you look perfect.

I see you just returned from your matinee performance

in The Lion King.

Yes.

And it was a very good show today.

For me, Carrie's clothes tell more of a story

and a more part of her character.

And maybe that's coming for LTW.

And I think her Met Girl look was definitely the best.

And those shots of her walking through the city,

I think were amazing, kind of really setting up her character.

But I just think for Carrie, like, that is the biggest part of her storytelling.

So even in the places where the writing doesn't pick up

and you like that doesn't ring true for Carrie,

the clothes kind of swoop in and pick it up.

What did you think about the fact that she ended up wearing the wedding dress

to the Met, not the Met Girl look,

because apparently they're a copyright issue that has to do with the Met Ball?

Is that what they do?

Yeah, I love it.

It is not every day.

Someone makes you their plus one to the Met Ball.

Jackie, this isn't a fish concert, OK?

It's the Met Ball.

Hi, is it too early?

I just got my sketch of my Met Ball dress.

I'm so excited.

The Met Ball.

God, I love balls.

I thought it was a very touching moment.

I thought the moment when she opened the box and there was the little bird

and the music played.

I thought that was really lovely.

I loved that.

Yeah, I thought the bird was a nice touch

because they got so roasted for that in the movie.

And Sarah Jessica Parker hadn't told Michael Patrick King or anyone else

that she was going to wear the bird.

She just rocked up it.

She and the costume designer just found it.

We're like, let's do it as a surprise.

And they got there and Michael Patrick King was like, absolutely not.

Take that off your head.

And she had to prove to him that it was part of the character.

And then she got roasted for it.

And I think as soon as she opened the box and saw the bird,

I felt like that was like a sign to the audience

who knew that she was staying with her decision.

And I loved her bringing back the dress

because that was such a big part of the movie.

And again, it was then wrapped up in all these awful memories, as she said.

And just like that, I repurposed my paint.

I thought that was really, really clever.

I want to ask about the script.

This is where I felt really let down.

I felt that maybe they spent all the money

on the cameo for Kim Cattrall that they had to pay her.

They decided we can't afford any writers.

We'll just get AI to write it.

The script felt clunky.

You know, it didn't feel modern.

It didn't feel like the way people talk.

Yeah, I have to agree with you on that one as much as I'm trying to keep

like going back to the soldier.

And I loved it in the clothes and the characters.

The script did feel very badly written,

which is strange because they have some amazing writers in that writer's room

and the script on the original Sex and the City,

which a lot of those writers have come back with the new people to kind of

give it better tone.

So much of the scripting felt so natural and so iconic

and kind of created its own language.

And this does feel like it's like a caricature of those characters.

It's like when the cast of like love actually get back together

and do like a red nose special and they're just doing like a two second clip

and everyone's like pretending to be this imitation of their characters.

That's what it's like.

And I think it's because they're too caught up in the commentary of the audience.

I honestly think that's it.

I actually think it's not that.

I think it's Michael Patrick King.

So the showrunner, head writer and director is Michael Patrick King

has been since about halfway through Sex and the City.

And he literally writes, he's the big daddy boss.

You know, a lot of podcasters call him Big Daddy MPK.

And he is now a man in his mid seventies.

He's a gay man in his mid seventies.

And I just think that really shows there are two other, you know,

executive producers and head writers who are women in their fifties,

or sixties who've been through Sex and the City as well and the movies with him.

But he's very much Baz Lerman, like the control of the whole thing.

Right. And I think that really shows to the detriment of the show.

It is coming from him because not only is he writing for characters

that he doesn't have that experience, but I think he is trying to please all people

like he feels like he's been in the comment threads.

He's been on the Reddit threads.

And the thing is like, you don't do a 10 episode podcast on your own show

like he did with the Writers Room podcast for the first season,

where he explained every single decision he made in such intense detail.

And I was like, yeah, exactly.

I'm like, you don't trust yourself for your work to speak.

You feel like you then have to go on and give the backstory

to every different line of dialogue and why you made every character decision.

And I think that shows in this one, I don't think he trusts himself.

And that's why he's doing all these throwaway lines for these characters

that he should be able to write for.

I think he trusts himself too much that he's out of touch.

You know, women have changed.

Women really have changed.

And I think he's stuck 30 years ago.

As much as Sex and the City was really progressive and interesting

and had a lot to it, one of the biggest criticisms that had always stuck

with that program was that he kind of treated them like dolls.

Like there wasn't a huge amount of depth to their characters.

And that's just not possible in 2023.

And I think that he's still trying to do that with people whose lives

become immensely more complicated as they get older, who have to deal with more

things, who have to deal with grief and families, and he can't really give them that.

There's no emotional depth to their stories.

I do appreciate that there are like fun quips that are coming back into it,

which I feel is like quite sex in the city.

But name one.

How do I tell my don't want to go out on Tuesday

without seeming like a see you next Tuesday?

I did see a good tweet today that was like, is Anthony OK?

Like his health must be flailing after like carrying the entire

couple of episodes. Oh yeah, he's just throwing out a zinger.

Yeah, he's just the zinger little character.

That's exactly what he's there for.

It's only what he's there for.

I'm really enjoying listening to your podcast, Rich People's Problems.

You know, you're lucky I'm loaded with pens and can't move

because you don't want me to come over.

Lisa, where's your hot designer, Pierre Paolo?

I want to selfie with him.

Yeah, I mean, I just think that like even when we were talking

about these episodes in our meeting earlier and you were like,

what are the biggest takeaways that you had?

I was like, I literally don't think that there is a plot.

Like I just don't think that they have any overarching things.

Is it coming, Laura?

They were trying to like give some nuance to some of the characters

to kind of course correct from the first season.

Like I actually think J.D. is is coming across a lot better.

Yes. Without kind of being like this walking billboard that they were before

and which was such a bad use of Sarah Romero's, who is like such an amazing

like theater actor and TV actor.

They let them write their own that comedy stand up and stuff

and that didn't land.

And they just felt like this kind of like like a billboard

that's just spouting out this kind of woke stuff.

And in this season, I actually liked how they had the issue

with their TV show and their body because no one just walks around

being like, I'm amazing.

I'm a poster child for equality, inclusivity,

and that's all there is to me.

There's nothing else.

I'm on a diet.

What?

The costume department said that my belly hangs over my jeans.

And that's that's why I keep pushing your arms away.

I was afraid to tell you because I don't want you to think of me as this person.

Fuck God, after everything I've been through,

let this bullshit still get to me.

I agree with you.

I thought that was really quite refreshing after Miranda puts on the strap on

and you've got to laugh.

Clearly, Miranda and Charlotte don't have no nudity clauses in their contract.

You can see who does because all the new characters have no nudity clauses.

And of course, Sarah Jessica Parker does.

But Miranda is full frontal.

We see Kristen Davis's boobs as well in the first bit.

And that's one thing that I do like is the different bodies and the aging faces.

Although, you know, there's obviously work all over the place.

But that's an example of what I mean about we check in with these characters

and they say two things and then it moves on.

It's like, oh, my body and I'm on a diet because they said I didn't look good.

And then like, oh, OK, actually, fuck it.

Let's just have a piece of it again.

Yes, it's like the conflict is like 30 seconds long.

And there's, you know, we've watched ahead and we won't do any spoilers.

But there's a number of examples of that where they just touch.

It's like body image, tick, racism, tick, you know, all of those kinds of things.

Just that they sort of cycle through them in a way that doesn't feel real.

But look, before we wrap up, I just want to ask, do you think that we're

expecting too much that we want it to feel familiar?

But then when it does, we're critical and I'm talking to myself,

we're critical that it doesn't feel modern.

That's the issue.

We're wanting it to stay true to the original and also be this big,

groundbreaking new series.

And I think there's no way it can completely do both.

The setup has been like a little bit shaky, but I do think they're building

to something that's going to be worth the payoff.

That's all I'll say.

It's like a full time fangirl.

You're such an optimist.

I need to believe.

I'm even excited for Aiden to come back.

And I never thought I'd say that.

Oh, I can't stand Aiden, although he's got to be better than the podcast

producer, because there is no chemistry there.

At least there's some interesting kind of history between them that will be

interesting to see play out on screen.

And in real life, John Corbett's like a Mr.

Big around the set, like he was dating Candice Bushnell, dating everyone

while they were filming.

That's hard.

And I feel like him coming back will kind of give it a bit of a jolt of electricity,

hopefully.

Alfie, are you going to persevere?

Yes, for my job, I will persevere.

For the sake of doing the recaps, I love that you're optimistic.

I would love to see if Aiden actually brings any spark back because, yeah,

Carrie cannot continue to fuck a man called Franklin.

But other than that, look, I'll just stick with it.

I'll see how it goes.

And maybe I will trip back to season one to see if there is anything of value there.

Let us know what you think out louders.

Leave us a voice note at out loud at mamamia.com.au or jump on the out loudest

page in Facebook.

Thank you for listening to Australia's number one news and pop culture show.

This episode was produced by Emmeline Gazillus and Suzanne Macon.

Audio production by Leah Porges.

Thanks to my special guests, Alfie and Laura.

And just like that, we're going.

Bye.

And if you want to hear our thoughts on episode three of In Just Like That

and all the future episodes, I have to tell you,

I did a big turnaround between episodes one and two and episode three.

And we've taken a different approach from episode three.

We're talking character by character with Laura Brodnick, Claire Stevens

and me and, you know, highly recommend.

We will put a link to that in our show notes if you want to hear it right now.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.