‘Sex and the City’ Fans Say Carrie Should’ve Immediately Dialed 911—I Get Why She Didn’t

At the risk of getting Too Real for an article about a Sex and the City reboot, I think many of us will find ourselves, at some point in our lives, watching the light go out of the eyes of a person we love. I imagine that the writers of the show focused on this moment rather than on the logistics of calling 911 because they wanted us to see Carrie’s anguish, the trauma rewiring her consciousness, right before our eyes.

Isn’t that the main theme of the first episodes of And Just Like That…—the way aging comes with so much grief and loss? Samantha is lost to her friends. Carrie has lost her sense of the zeitgeist and her foothold in her career. Miranda is losing her mind because she can no longer center feminism around her own experience. Charlotte is losing her connection with the children she wanted so badly. Steve actually loses his hearing. And the many losses of COVID-19 color every scene. 

I’m not trying to “all responses are valid” a heart attack or other emergency—go call 911! Right away! But extreme stress causes people to freeze. To me it felt highly realistic that any person watching their partner dying would have the instinct to hold them. 

Now, on a lighter note, here are some times characters in the first episode absolutely should have called 911 immediately:

-When Samantha moves to the United Kingdom and her best friends are all like, “Oh well! She’s gone, I guess!” Get on a plane and beg for her forgiveness, you absolute freaks.

-When all the women on the show keep making sad, weird, diet-culture jokes about sharing a single order of fries. 

-When Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte can’t stop using the word passing to describe looking younger. 

-When Lily, who was adopted, jokingly compares her adoption to her dog’s adoption, and then Charlotte says, “For the record, you rescued me.” What a very uncool way to frame the complexities of adoption! 

-When Charlotte forces a dress on her child that obviously compromises that child’s gender identity and sense of safety. 

-When Miranda blunders around her law class monologuing about the difficulties of being a white woman. (I thought this was a funny, cutting impression of the way a lot of white liberals talk, but oh my God, someone in the class should have called an ambulance.)

Jenny Singer is a staff writer for Glamour. You can follow her on Twitter.