And Just Like That (TV Program)

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      ‘And Just Like That …’ Recap, Episodes 1 and 2: Big Love

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      Samantha’s gone. The girls are back. And Carrie seems to have finally gotten it all. Can her happiness with Mr. Big last?Season 1, Episodes 1 and 2: ‘Hello It’s Me’ and ‘Little Black Dress’Ding dong, Big is dead. That is sad, but not for the obvious reason.Make no mistake, a wide swath of longtime “Sex and the City” fans have longed for the day that John James Preston, a.k.a. Mr. Big (Chris Noth) would be out of the picture. After many seasons of bad guy behavior, the fact that he and Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) ended up together at the end of the original series left a significant portion of fans dismayed. That Carrie took him back after he left her at the altar in the first movie sequel, and that she compromised herself to fit his marital ideal in the second, did little to assuage disappointment.Then “And Just Like That …,” the 10-part HBO Max follow-up series to “Sex and the City,” was announced, and rumors quickly swirled that Big was going to be killed off. By the end of the premiere episode, which dropped Thursday with Episode 2, the deed was already done.As much as I wanted him gone, I wasn’t rooting for that. I had hoped that after years of heartache and accommodation forced upon her by this man she simultaneously won over and settled for, Carrie would instead finally realize she had always deserved better, and she would walk her sky-high stilettos out the door. She didn’t, and that’s the sad part.Indeed, the premiere episode of “And Just Like That …” leads us to believe (at least for now) that Big had been tamed at long last — that he and Carrie were sincerely happy and had found their soft landing in love. And maybe they had. He and Carrie share a dreamy-eyed slow dance in the kitchen while searing salmon (Carrie cooks now?), and it looks like the picture-perfect marriage a 30-something Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) might have painted. They’re comfortable and committed, but they still have that spark. Who could hope for more?And so, the series chose to have it both ways. Allowing that development to stand, however briefly, allows us to witness Carrie’s apparent success — all hail the conquering hero! But allowing it to stand much longer might have served as a perpetual reminder of what made their relationship so controversial: Carrie’s constant self-debasement through the better part of six seasons and two movies, as she convinced herself that if she only worked hard enough, waited long enough and acquiesced enough, she could change Big. It was that persistent delusion that frustrated so many fans for so long. And centering that narrative today might have sent a toxic and somewhat unconvincing message.So in a tear-jerking scene in which Carrie inexplicably doesn’t call 911 upon finding her husband nearly dead on their bathroom floor, the two share frantic kisses and hugs before Big finally leaves her for good.The ‘Sex and the City’ UniverseThe sprawling franchise revolutionized how women were portrayed on the screen. And the show isn’t over yet. A New Series: Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte return for another strut down the premium cable runway in “And Just Like That,” streaming on HBO. Off Broadway: Candace Bushnell, whose writing gave birth to the “Sex and the City” universe, stars in her one-woman show based on her life. In Carrie’s Footsteps: “Sex and the City” painted a seductive vision of Manhattan, inspiring many young women to move to the city. The Origins: For the show’s 20th anniversary in 2018, Bushnell shared how a collection of essays turned into a pathbreaking series.But more on that later.When Episode 1 opens, we find a trio of familiar faces — Carrie, Charlotte York Goldenblatt and Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) — living in a vaguely idealized, maskless, carefree-ish post-pandemic New York.Of course there’s a glaring absence: Samantha Jones, played in previous installments by Kim Cattrall, who left the franchise amid a very public feud with Parker. The series gets right to addressing the missing “fourth musketeer,” in a way that may vaguely allude to the apparent real-life drama. A rift between Carrie and Samantha has emerged. In Carrie’s words, she fired Samantha as her publicist, and then Samantha fired Carrie, along with Charlotte and Miranda, as friends.At first pass, this seems like a grave overreaction on Samantha’s part. She crossed an ocean and won’t answer texts just because her pride was bruised? Maybe. Or maybe she was just sick of third-wheeling with her boring married friends and needed to move on, and the overseas job thing is just a pretext. We’ll never know.What we do know, however, is that in some respect, the story mirrors reality. Much of what has been reported about the relationships among the series’s core four actors is hearsay and speculation. But we know that there was friction between Cattrall and her castmates and that Cattrall, like Samantha, removed herself.Regardless of the reasons for Samantha’s departure, it is relatable. As decades pass, some friendships wither, and this plot point is a reminder that, like romantic relationships, sometimes friendships aren’t happily ever after.With that out of the way, the episode moves at a rapid pace, making little room for subtlety or nuance when it comes to situating the characters in this new stage of life. Everyone is older. (In case the passing of time wasn’t obvious, you’ll be made aware of it by the many self-deprecating “old” jokes woven into the dialogue.) The women have gray hair, in various degrees and shades of dye. They’re not entirely comfortable with podcasts. They struggle with pronouns. They weren’t who they once were, and they’re not trying to be. Sort of. (As Charlotte, still a full brunette, argues: “Ruth Bader Ginsburg died her hair.”)Carrie is still in the media game, but she has parlayed her success from print columns and books into a steady podcast gig and healthy Instagram following. It’s all a bit uncomfy to her, though, especially when her younger, “queer, nonbinary, Mexican-Irish diva” boss, Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez), tells her she needs to be more explicit on the show.Charlotte is mostly still Charlotte, living a lovely life in a Park Avenue palace with her adoring husband and girls. While her oldest, Lily (Cathy Ang), who stuns the crowd at her piano recital with a virtuosic performance, seems to take after her mother in the pursuit of perfection, her youngest daughter, Rose (Alexa Swinton), is a punky skateboarder who won’t wear the floral Oscar de la Renta number her mom bought for her without an ironic T-shirt over top.Finally, Miranda has ditched corporate law to pursue a master’s in human rights — an endeavor she proclaims she doesn’t need to be a “spicy redhead” for. If Miranda’s gray hair and fine lines aren’t enough to alienate her from her Gen Z classmates, the racially insensitive rambling she spills onto her Black professor, Nya Wallace (Karen Pittman), certainly solidifies it. Watching Miranda struggle to walk back comments about her professor’s braids is almost as uncomfortable as watching Big masturbate.It has been well publicized that the franchise has made an effort to reckon with its original blinding whiteness, namely with the addition of new cast members of color. Reasonable people will disagree on whether or not the series is doing that successfully and sensitively. Still, Miranda’s word vomit scene suggests they’re at least being thoughtful about that process. Considering the original series is riddled with dated, problematic references, and that the second movie was slammed as, at worst, offensive, and at best, insensitive, the still largely white cast couldn’t burst into this series completely enlightened. Their learning curve is on display, particularly in Miranda’s cringey white savior moments with her incredibly patient professor, and that at least feels honest.In all other regards, the first episode is largely lighthearted until the very end, when Big suddenly drops his phone, has a heart attack and dies. That flows into the mostly melancholy Episode 2.Much as they did when Big no-showed his wedding to Carrie in the first movie, Carrie’s fiercely loyal friends, Miranda and Charlotte, are right by her side in this time of need, literally, sleeping next to her in shifts as she navigates her new role as a widow. Even Samantha makes a spectral appearance, sending a billowing coffin spray to the funeral.The funeral itself is as austere as the man was, by Carrie’s design. Knowing Big would have hated a stodgy old funeral home, she throws a modern if somewhat unfeeling affair to commemorate Big’s passing — an event through which she does almost no crying. “But is that good?” Miranda wonders aloud.Speaking of wondering aloud, let us all raise a glass to the cameo friend Susan Sharon (Molly Price) for taking a pause mid-memorial to ask the essential question: “Am I the only one that remembers what a [expletive] he was to her?” Amen.The steeliness of it all is broken by Charlotte, who does the bulk of the crying, in part out of sadness for Carrie’s loss, and in part out of guilt. Charlotte reasons that had she not forced Carrie to go to Lily’s recital instead of heading out to the Hamptons with Big, Carrie would have been with Big when he had his heart attack, and he might have lived (assuming Carrie had remembered to call for an ambulance). Late in the episode, as Charlotte pushes this theory once again, Carrie relieves her of her pain, saying she isn’t mad at Charlotte but at herself for not switching off the people-pleaser inside her and leaving with Big, as she wanted to.It would have been a great time for Susan Sharon to show up again and point out that Big still refused to go to events with Carrie and her friends, and that maybe, if he would have been a little more considerate, he might have come to the recital and not died alone.In any case, that’s the worst of it for Charlotte, at least in these first two episodes. Her only other pressing concern is whether she can turn the cool documentarian and fellow P.T.O. mom Lisa Todd Wexley (Nicole Ari Parker) — her allotted friend or colleague of color for the series — into her new BFF.Other characters are facing deeper issues. These early episodes hint at a possible drinking problem for Miranda, who sneaks wine into Lily’s recital, orders a midmorning Chablis at a dive bar and slams bourbon at the funeral before her speech.Meanwhile, marriage is not so blissful for Anthony Marentino (Mario Cantone) and Stanford Blatch (Willie Garson) who bicker at every turn, even on a “good night,” only to be reminded by Big’s passing that they’re lucky to have each other. Given that Garson died in September as the new series was still filming, it remains to be seen how long that will remain true.But of course it is Carrie whose world has been rocked the hardest. She is on her own again, asking herself, “What do I do now?”Will she gallivant through Manhattan sipping cosmos and serial dating? I hope not. Most of us aren’t here for Carrie ‘n’ friends to relive their glory days. They’re in a more mature, wisened up place, and that feels right.Still, despite her grief, it’s impossible not to feel a ripple of excitement that our single girl is back. More

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      ‘And Just Like That’: The Shoe Must Go On

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      In the ’90s, “Sex and the City” celebrated single women. Can a new, more nuanced version make a comedy of middle-aged ones?When we last left the ladies of “Sex and the City,” the pathbreaking, cupcake-inspiring HBO series and film franchise, Miranda had joined a new law firm, Samantha had achieved orgasm atop a Mercedes G-Class SUV, Charlotte was hosting a child’s birthday party, and Carrie and Big were snuggling on the sofa as a black-and-white movie played, a happily ever after for everyone.This was the peaceable close of “Sex and the City 2,” the strained 2010 movie that sent its characters into the Middle East and critics into ecstasies of disdain. (Here is A.O. Scott’s comparatively mild pan in The Times: “Your watch will tell you that a shade less than two and a half hours have elapsed, but you may be shocked at just how much older you feel when the whole thing is over.”) Still, another movie was planned, only to fall apart, largely on Twitter, in 2017. Like a Fendi baguette, the series seemed to have gone out of style.But the ’90s are extremely on trend right now, and the women of “Sex and the City” (well, most of them) have returned for another strut down the premium cable runway. “And Just Like That,” a 10-episode limited series, premieres on HBO Max on Dec. 9. Don’t call it a reboot! The characters so rarely wore boots!Like the original, this new version follows the author Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), the lawyer Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and the former gallerista and current homemaker Charlotte (Kristin Davis). But in the place of Kim Cattrall’s libertine Samantha are four new actors: Sarita Choudhury, Nicole Ari Parker, Karen Pittman and Sara Ramírez. Their presence remedies the original’s blinding whiteness, though if the promotional materials are any indication, not its appetitive glamour and unacknowledged privilege.So here’s a question for Carrie: Can a show adapt to changed characters and changing times while still supplying what fans loved about the original?On break from a shoot at Brooklyn’s Steiner Studios, Michael Patrick King, a “Sex and the City” executive producer and the showrunner of “And Just Like That,” had an enthusiastic answer. “It’s dangerous. It’s exciting. It’s a challenge,” he said, bent forward on the sofa in his office. “It’s not a cash cow. It’s not a cash in.” Besides how else could he get a show about middle-aged women greenlighted?“I don’t think that anybody would take on new women characters at 55 without proof that people will watch,” he said. Which means that ladies might have some new paths to break, if they can walk them in heels.The original “Sex and the City” was always two shows. One was a fidgety, philosophical comedy about single, successful women who didn’t need a man to complete them. Or maybe they did? And really, what is completion anyway? The other was the show as fans received it — and the show that it arguably became — a high-gloss romantic comedy and a fashion romp. What, you think it was the existential crises that motivated the bus tours?New stars like Nicole Ari Parker (center, with Davis and Pat Bowie) keep “And Just Like That” from being as overwhelmingly white as the original.Craig Blankenhorn/HBOThat latter show had long ago reached its conclusion. Because in a romantic comedy, once the girl gets the guy — or as in Samantha’s case, the many guys — where can the story really go? This structural roadblock explains why the second movie spun its wheels. (Those wheels were camels, which King now somewhat regrets.) So it seemed destined to live on only in reruns, rewatches and Instagram accounts devoted to its outfits.But early into New York City’s pandemic lockdown, King and Parker began to chat about making a behind-the-scenes podcast. At some point, those chats turned more imaginative, speculating about what the lives of the characters might look like now. As Parker, speaking by telephone from the set of another sequel, “Hocus Pocus 2,” put it, they began to ask themselves, “Why are we not thinking about the thing that we’ve touched on many times, which is, are there more stories to tell?”Having already resolved the characters’ questions about marriage, partnership and children during the original series — King maintains these weren’t the relevant questions, but few plot lines centered on anything else — the new show claims to look elsewhere and largely inward, just as the first series did in its early seasons. Parker ran down a few of the current interrogations: “Who am I? What will change do to me? Can I change? How do I react to big change?”The show has undergone changes big and small — some thematic, some aesthetic, many structural. King recalled that during the first series, he felt as though he had to tie up each episode with a little bow, a concession to an audience that might not view them sequentially.“Streaming is like, untie the bow,” he said. “Untie it.”That doesn’t mean that “And Just Like That” encompasses much mess. During my visit to Steiner Studios, where I felt extremely underdressed, King took me around the various sets, each immaculate. Miranda’s Brooklyn brownstone and Charlotte’s Park Avenue palace have each received glow-ups. Carrie’s old apartment has lilac paint and statement wallpaper now. Her closet? Sublime.So Carrie still has two apartments, but “And Just Like That”no longer centers her experience. The show has mostly done away with her voice-over, making way for dialogue for its four new main characters: Choudhury’s high-end real estate agent, Parker’s documentarian, Pittman’s professor and Ramirez’s podcast host.Why didn’t the show have more characters of color before? “It was a show that was based on material that was very much of its time,” Sarah Jessica Parker said diplomatically, referring to Candace Bushnell’s New York Observer columns.Though Nixon has stuck with the franchise, she said she had been “horrified” by the lack of racial diversity during the show’s original run. Like Parker and Davis, she said that she insisted that the characters in this new version couldn’t function as trendy accessories for the original cast.“In order to get great actors to do these parts, they would have to be not supporting us,” Nixon said. That meant also insuring that the writers’ room was staffed with several women of color and that their story lines followed these new characters even when Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte headed offscreen.“Each of the episodes, at this point, they’re all around 43 minutes,” King said. “Because there’s seven fully realized people in it.”The new series doesn’t try to reform the characters, Parker said: “We don’t try to make a point of, ‘Look, they’re mature, they’re better, they’re smarter.’”Craig Blankenhorn/HBOOn the day I visited the set, I watched one of Nicole Ari Parker’s scenes. Dressed to the nines or maybe the tens, she performed a marital spat with her series husband, played by Christopher Jackson. A few days later on the phone, I asked her if she had seen the original series — she had — and if its overwhelming whiteness had bothered her.“A little bit,” she said. “But I wasn’t expecting ‘Sex and the City’ to be realistic.” She was talking to me while she shopped for shoes at Nordstrom, which seemed nicely on brand.“I mean, every now and then I felt sorry for them,” she said. “Like, if they had a Black girlfriend, they wouldn’t be having these problems.” But she appreciated how complex a character the show had created for her and that she wasn’t the only character of color.“They understand that one Black friend is not going to cut it,” she said.Still, this new series shouldn’t be seen as a repudiation of the old one or even as a corrective to its oversights — well, some its oversights. Sarah Jessica Parker knows that not everyone liked the original characters, Carrie in particular. This new show doesn’t aim to fix them.“We don’t try to make a point of: ‘Look, they’re mature, they’re better, they’re smarter. See, they’re sorry for the things you didn’t like,’” she said. “I don’t think that’s our best approach.”The occasional tutu aside, “And Just Like That” isn’t intended as fan service either. The series doesn’t pretend that the women haven’t moved on with their lives in the intervening years; it doesn’t deny that they have aged. When some first-look pictures and a teaser trailer emerged, social media briefly blew up with comments about the women’s looks and the cosmetic interventions they had or hadn’t undergone.“And Just Like That” has several scenes that discuss these issues directly. King mimed a bit involving Nixon’s Miranda and her neck. Generally, it aims for stories about women in their 50s as rich and bright and complicated, if not as raunchy, as the ones the original told about women in their 30s. (Same city. Less sex.) Which is to say that it’s trying for just a little more nuance than “The Golden Girls.”“I am a woman in my 50s, so I am well aware that your life does not end whether you find a guy or a girl or not, whether you have kids or not, right?” Davis said. “We can testify to the fact that it’s not over, and it’s not boring. So I was never in doubt that we could tell interesting stories.”What those stories were, no one would spoil. Eager fans have analyzed that 30-second teaser clip with the exegetical rigor typically reserved for ancient hieroglyphs. So here is what I did learn: Big (Chris Noth) is not dead. Samantha is not dead, though Cattrall’s absence means that she doesn’t appear onscreen.“Nobody’s dead,” King said. Nobody? “Nobody.”And yet, Willie Garson, who played Carrie’s gay best friend, Stanford Blatch, died during the filming of “And Just Like That,” a sad reminder of time’s passage and the grief it can bring. His death wasn’t written into the show.“Because it wasn’t charming,” King said. “And I knew that the audience would know.”“And Just Like That” wants to charm. It isn’t the first comedy about middle-aged women. Since “Sex and the City” ended, television has offered “Cougartown,” “Hot in Cleveland,” “Younger.” September brought Julie Delpy’s “On the Verge.” But a few statement necklaces aside, none of those shows had quite the glamour of “Sex and the City” and none were quite as revolutionary — in the frankness of the sex talk, in the insistence on female subjectivity, in the championing of single women, even if it did pair just about all of them off.Will “And Just Like That” exert the same cultural, fashion-forward influence, even in a culture obsessed with youth, even in a world glutted with content? King, predictably but not unreasonably, argues that it might.“If it was aspirational — aspirational apartments, aspirational clothing, aspirational people — it’s still aspirational,” he said. More

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      What Will Be the New Carrie Necklace?

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      Jewelry designers working with the “Sex and the City” reboot hope their creations have a chance.Hardly a day goes by now without some new promotional photo or online reference to the “Sex and the City” reboot so, as Carrie Bradshaw herself would say, “I couldn’t help but wonder: What will be the new Carrie necklace?”For those of you who don’t remember — or were too young for the original series that ran from 1998 to 2004 — Carrie, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, had a gold necklace displaying her name in flowing script.“It cost, like, nothing,” the character said in one episode when she thought she had lost the piece. But the nameplate necklace became one of the show’s enduring product links, like Manolo Blahnik stilettos — and even symbolized Carrie’s rediscovery of self when, in the series finale, she found it in her vintage Dior purse.It’s early days yet as the reboot — called “And Just Like That …” after another Carrie catchphrase — doesn’t premiere on HBO Max until later this year. But Molly Rogers and Danny Santiago, its costume designers, have selected jewelry ranging from a Bulgari Serpenti Tubogas watch (as much as $50,000 in some metals) to an elastic bracelet hand-sewn from an old tablecloth and pinned with vintage rhinestone brooches by the Berlin-based design duo Rianna + Nina (450 euros, or $530).The elastic bracelet with brooches designed by Rianna + NinaMost of the creations, even customized pieces, were lent for filming, but the series production did buy some.Neither Ms. Rogers nor Mr. Santiago are doing interviews yet, as an email from an HBO media relations manager said: “August is just too early since we don’t debut until later this year.” (Although the designers do have a “live from the set” Instagram page, @andjustlikethatcostumes, with more than 54,000 followers.)But some jewelry makers are talking about their creations selected for the series.One front-runner for the next Carrie necklace could be a $595 turquoise and malachite rope “because the necklace is really visible” around Ms. Parker’s neck in the official publicity still for the new series, said Allison Fry, the necklace’s maker, who founded the Fry Powers brand in 2018.(By mid-August the necklace had sold out at MatchesFashion, according to an email from the retailer.)Ms. Parker, center, as Carrie Bradshaw, wearing the Fry Powers turquoise and malachite rope necklace, with Cynthia Nixon, left, as Miranda, and Kristin Davis as Charlotte.via HBO MAXThe Fry Powers turquoise and malachite necklace that may be a front-runner in the Carrie necklace competition.Ms. Fry, 34, said she created the rope’s shimmering pattern by mixing and matching 72 beads, comparing the process to “when you are thinking about putting an outfit together and seeing what works.” She also made two other pieces for Carrie: a violet enamel ring accented with a baroque pearl and a violet enamel cuff.Another contender, seen in paparazzi photos: a gold necklace with a charm in the shape of New York State.Not that the rest of the central characters won’t have striking pieces of their own, like the two white diamond pavé hearts on a round link chain made by Jennifer Fisher and lent to the series for Charlotte York, played by Kristin Davis.Customized on the reverse with the initials of Charlotte’s two on-screen daughters (L for Lily Goldenblatt, played by Cathy Ang, and R for Rose Goldenblatt, played by Alexa Swinton), each of the hearts has 39 diamonds and took two weeks to make, Ms. Fisher said.“I don’t know if they’ll ever flip them over while they are shooting,” she said.The character Charlotte wears hearts by Jennifer Fisher adorned with the initials of her children.In the two “Sex and the City” feature films that debuted in 2008 and 2010, Ms. Fisher’s designs at one time or another were worn by all four lead characters, which included Samantha Jones, played by Kim Cattrall, and Miranda Hobbes, played by Cynthia Nixon. (Ms. Cattrall isn’t participating in the new series.)But, Ms. Fisher said, she believes jewelry can have more impact on television because “people tend to rewatch episodes of a television series.”Designers say that necklaces worn by new cast members also might be contenders for Carrie-level fame.There is the chunky red polyester chain necklace by the Danish brand Monies (pronounced MON-yus) worn by the Park Avenue mother and documentarian Lisa Todd Wexley, played by Nicole Ari Parker of “Empire.”The €630 necklace has garnered more than 1,200 likes on the Instagram fan page @justlikethatcloset and prompted Grazia magazine to declare that Lisa “is going to be the show’s new ambassador for power necklaces.”Ms. Parker with Chris Noth on the set of “And Just Like That …” in Chelsea in early August.James Devaney/GC Images, via Getty ImagesThe Rosa de la Cruz ebony bracelet.It may be a Carrie bracelet that replaces the Carrie necklace as, according to the London jewelry designer Rosa de la Cruz, 51, a piece becomes iconic depending on when it’s seen as well as who wears it.And her chunky ebony and 18-karat gold chain bracelet — listed at 2,595 British pounds, or $3,590 and purchased by the production company — was worn by Carrie in the series’s official publicity photograph as well as in the first scene between Carrie and her husband, Mr. Big, played by Chris Noth.“It’s the equivalent of being on the front cover of a magazine,” said Ms. de la Cruz, adding, “her fashion choices are the ones that get the most attention.”Cases in point: Carrie’s scene with Big posted by @andjustlikethathbo on Instagram on Aug. 3 received 14,440 views within 24 hours. And on TikTok there have been almost 37 million views of #andjustlikethat. Little wonder that user @letty0531 commented: “I feel like we’re gonna know the whole story by the time they finish filming.”Social media has been stalking news about the new series, such as the Instagram fan page @justlikethatcloset that Victoria Bazalinchuk, 23, a teacher in Odessa, Ukraine, created July 10. She now has more than 80,000 followers.“There were a few brands that contacted me, saying certain characters wore/will be wearing their pieces. For instance, Carrie’s new favorite brand Fry Powers, or Lisa’s Ana Srdic rings,” Ms. Bazalinchuk wrote in an email. “And of course sometimes followers find the items and send them to me.” (She said she became a “Sex and the City” fan after watching her mother’s DVD box set of the series, as “I was quite a kid when the original series aired.”)Her site is not the only one fueling fan anticipation. For example, on Instagram, @everyoutfitonsatc has 711,000 followers for its satirical take on the series. And when Ms. Parker posted on Instagram about the first script read-through, @system_bleu commented that she cannot wait for the new show. “Just finished the series — AGAIN … for the 13th time. This is huge,” she wrote. “The show spoke to so many of us and it’s a part of who we are today.”Some designers and fans say that Ms. Cattrall’s decision not to play Samantha again is a loss, but others are looking forward to the change. “Let’s not have all the same people,” said Ms. Srdic, 63, the Johannesburg jeweler whose $1,200 unpolished citrine ring was lent for Lisa’s wardrobe.Ms. de la Cruz agreed, adding, “Maybe this frees up the plot into a different dynamic.”While the series debut date hasn’t been announced, many fans already have plans.Ms. Fisher, for example, said she will be at home in New York City. “Maybe I’ll make myself a Cosmopolitan to celebrate while we watch,” she said, referring to Carrie’s favorite cocktail. “And have some girlfriends over. It’ll be fun.” More