The men were always beside the point on Sex and the City. Despite dissecting them down to their semen over brunch, the truest love was between the core four, and, as Carrie narrated in the final moments of the original series finale, “the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself.” The sequel And Just Like That, however, is taking the idea of extraneous men to an extreme, all but reducing the guys to pharmaceutical pamphlets on ageing. In the scant scenes in which they appear, Steve (David Eigenberg) can’t hear Miranda, or his son’s enthusiastic thrusting, through his faulty hearing aid; Harry (Evan Handler) is due for a colonoscopy; and Big is dead. Not to emphatically ride for middle-aged cis white males, but in a series that aims to tackle the complexities of women getting older, the men are getting short shrift.
Once upon a time, John “Mr Big” Preston, Steve Brady, and Harry Goldenblatt were the real ones who captured our flawed heroines’ hearts (pour one out for Samantha’s Absolut Hunk Smith Jarrod, played by Jason Lewis, who would surely be influencing by day and navigating consensual non-monogramy by night in 2022). Each of these characters were, in some ways, foils: Steve served as a grounding force to Miranda’s Big Law Partner Energy, showing her tenderness and giving her (even if accidentally, through his sole remaining testicle) a son. Harry was the brash, big-hearted mensch Charlotte didn’t know she needed after the WASP nightmare of Trey. Love or hate him, Big (may he RIP) represented the white whale of the Manhattan dating scene, an emotionally mysterious, stoic complement to Carrie’s never-ending analyses.
All were supporting characters, but we knew these fictional men and cared about at least some of them, far more than the fleeting Funky Spunk or Mr Pussy. We knew Steve dreamed of opening his own bar (but with Aidan, really?), and that Harry felt strongly about marrying within the Jewish faith. We were aware Big had a heart problem, via his candy striper Carrie, long before Peloton was a glimmer in the collective bougie eye. They held up mirrors to the women, too, revealing what they did and didn’t want, and humbling them when they needed it (and they all needed it).
In And Just Like That, the surviving male partners feel forgotten. Big is the only actual dead one, but all of the guys seem like ghosts of themselves. Whatever happened to Steve as a bar owner – especially after the devastating blow dealt by the pandemic? Might he be as lost as Miranda in middle-age? Even when they were breaking up, Steve and Miranda were always, fundamentally, great friends, making it hard to believe these two wouldn’t be in couples therapy. (That’s a dynamic I’d love to see on-screen, not to mention a plum guest-starring casting opportunity.) Steve primarily just loafs – in bed or on the couch – leaving us to wonder if Miranda even attempts to sex him on their Netflix and chill nights, only to be rebuffed, or is it the other way around. What does it look like, exactly, to not have sex for years? For a show fond of double entendres there must be a parallel to be drawn between Steve literally and figuratively not hearing her. (It’s not that Steve losing his hearing doesn’t have a place in this story, by the way, just that it shouldn’t be his central personal trait.)
Sadly, Harry feels similarly shallow: a jolly “yes man” who skateboards down Park Avenue with Rock and goes to the dinner parties Charlotte tells him to, citing the Zadie Smith books she tells him to cite, but who seems to have no other motivations, flaws, or plot twists of his own. Where is the fire that made him the most venerated divorce lawyer in the city? Has he no sexual kinks? I presume this couple, like all couples, must disagree on at least some things. If AJLT is a mature continuation of the original, it’s missing an opportunity to engage in what marriage – and sex – look like 20 years in, when the zsa zsa zsu is put to the test of time. This show, of all shows, can’t be shy about 55-year-olds hooking up (an allusion to fellatio in the Goldenblatt apartment suggests it’s on the horizon, though long overdue).
To be fair, husbands are often afterthoughts when girlfriends get together – both in real life and on TV. But the fictional drama tends to hit harder when the men aren’t mere sidepieces. The recent series finale of HBO’s Insecure, in which Issa Rae’s main character, Issa Dee, and her longtime on-and-off boyfriend, Lawrence (Jay Ellis) finally end up together, felt deeply satisfying because Lawrence was more than just a boyfriend. He was a multi-dimensional character in his own right, who started the series unemployed and adrift on the couple’s couch and experienced seasons of growth and setbacks. I rooted for Issa’s alternate man-friend, Kendrick Sampson’s Nathan, even if I didn’t think they belonged together, because he, too, was real to me – a proud Texan barber and a person living with bipolar disorder trying, like everyone, to be his best self.
The men of the Sex and the City universe will never be the stars, no matter the incarnation of the show. Nor will they ever, apparently, be invited to brunch – and I’m okay with that. Still, And Just Like That could give Steve and Harry (and Eigenberg and Handler) more substance. After two decades and two movies, Steve deserves to be more than the sum of his hearing aids, and Harry is surely deeper than a middle-aged skater boi. Not to mention: LTW’s husband, Herbert, is played by the stunningly talented Hamilton star Christopher Jackson, a man whose gravitas demands more screen time. Double date, anyone?
