Speaker 1: We're Tomy Lorenzo, and this is the Pop Style Opinion best. Hellokot,
welcome back to another edition of the Pso. I am
the Tea and your t LO Tom Fitzgerald, and I'm
here with the low and your t lo, Lorenzo, my cousin,
my lovely husband. Hellye, how are your lovely husband wonderful?
Speaker 2: When Tab is here saying hi to everyone?
Speaker 1: Tab Hunter a big twenty pounds baby boy, Pat Hmmm, well, yes,
as you know, as I'm sure you know, we're all
in on the finale too. And just like that, which
was terrible in ways that I could not have predicted, No,
but horrific. But before we before we get in to
that drama, Lorenzo, why don't you take us through the
latest took advertising culture war brew haha, And this time
I'm one hundred percent with the outrage.
Speaker 2: Right well, the TikTok and pretty much everyone is talking
about it. The Elf company, the beauty line of cosmetics. Cosmetics. Yes,
so they have a new ad. Of course, everyone has
a new ad. So he has a new They have
a new ad with the comedian Matt Rife. It's it's
sort of like a spoof on what those you know,
lawyers commercials. So it's him and hiding in closet.
Speaker 1: Todi in clouset is a ru Paul's drag race exactly
a dragon queen.
Speaker 2: So uh, and she's a wonderful I love Heidi. Anyway,
So they're doing this commercial and it's sort of this
silly about you know, legal commercial that you know.
Speaker 1: About cable access lawyers.
Speaker 2: Actually, I like defending the rights to beauty and that
kind of bullshit. It's a lame ad, but anyway, that's
not necessarily the point. The point is that they everyone
is appalled that they hire comedian met Rife given his
history of a lot of horrible things. I don't want
to get into these specificity toos because they're so horrible
and gross.
Speaker 1: Well, I do think it's important that can I let
me just say that, because if we're going to talk
about it, we have to talk about what's at the
heart of it. And in a twenty twenty three comedy special,
he made a joke about domestic violence. It was a
very tactless sort of joke. It wasn't a violent joke,
but it was you know, it was making fun of
someone of a woman who was clearly a victim of
domestic violence, and there was a lot of outcry at
the time. I mean, his comedy was sort of that
sort of shocking, sort of douche bro kind of comedy.
There was a lot of outcry at the time. And
then he did this thing where he he posted a
quote apology on his socials, but it led to a
link to a product for special need, a helmet for
people with special needs. So he followed up his domestic
violence joke by making a joke about developmentally disabled people.
Speaker 2: And he made all the jokes about women, about body
parts that I don't want to talk about anyway. He's gross,
he's terrific, He's horrible, horrific. I mean, he's horrible. Uh,
and I don't I'm actually surprised that they decided to
go with this guy. Now. The only thing I can
think of is because he started his career and on
social media and a lot of women followed him in
the beginning, So maybe the company was like, well, he
has a lot of women following him there. Yeah, and
it's a beauty you know, it's cotsmatics, so maybe you
know we have something here.
Speaker 1: Yes, that was what alf Cosmetics said in response to
the outcry was that they had booked him because of
his high social media He has a massive social media
following and it's something like seventy percent women. He is
a good looking guy, not my type, and that was
partially how he gained such a high female social media following.
Then when he got bigger, he got a ton of
plastic surgery and cosmetic work done on his face, and
I don't know, I don't think that's something. I think
he ruined his face to be perfectly blunt, but he
didn't lose his female followers. So that is ostensibly their
defense is that we booked him because he has so
many women followers. I think that's both true and a
little bit of an ass covering. At the same time,
when I read that statement, I was like, well, that's
a statement that was built into this campaign. They knew
he was a controversial figure, they knew there was going
to be backlash, so they had this ready to go. Well,
you ladies are the one that followed him. I just
want to tie this into some recent things, like we
did a podcast two weeks ago about Sidney Sweeney's American
Eagle ads, and boy do I not want to rehash that,
but I also want to remind people of the backlash
to the Dylan mulvaney Budweiser ads, and what we're seeing
right now is an industry, the advertising industry, trying to
figure out how to ride the culture war in a
way that benefits them. The Dylan mulvaney ad was an
enormous disaster for Anheuser Busch. They lost sales because of it.
So I'm bringing this up because now there is this
discussion about quote outrage marketing and that advertising is now
deliberately trying to outrage people. And I think I don't
think that's completely outside I mean, I think that's something
worth discussing. But advertising wants to drive sales. They're not
here to outrage people. I think sometimes people mistake what
the goals of advertising are versus what the goals of
say social media influencing is are. Outrage drives clicks, and
that's great in an attention economy, that's great on social media,
that's great for blogging, whatever influencers. Advertising has to drive sales,
and outrage doesn't drive sales, it drives clicks. And maybe
the industry is going through a period right now where
it is misunderstanding that and confusing clicks with sales. But honestly,
that would mean that everybody at the top level of
advertising has completely lost the understanding of what the industry
is supposed to do. So let me just say this.
I don't think they are booking people like Sidney Sweeney
or Matt Rife because they want to piss off people,
because that is not the goal of advertising. Advertising is
to drive sales. What they have done is misread the
Trump win the election, and they have misread it, as
a lot of businesses have done. In the last eight
or nine months, We've seen so many institutions just bow
down to and mistakenly so bow down to him. And
what we're seeing as an industry that thinks, well, we've
got to write out the culture wars and things are
anti woke now, so we need to book these people
that aren't woke, or that we need to book these
people that conservatives like so Sidney Sweeney, Matt Wright. I
do not think that Elf Cosmetics was espousing a pro
domestic violence line by booking him any more than I
think American Eagle was promoting eugenics by booking her. It's
all about needling people with culture war signifiers without actually
saying the offensive stuff. So when and when the public
reacts badly to it, they'll say things like, well, we
you know.
Speaker 2: But I do think this is far worse than Sydney's.
Oh I do too, because there's I mean, there's nothing
wrong with comment. I mean, citizen is just an actor.
There's nothing wrong with her. I mean, yeah, yeah, she's
any public and I get it anyway, But anyway, there's
nothing horrific. She hasn't done anything. Common is a fucking asshole, Okay.
Misogyny is Misogyny is horrible. He has said horrible thing
he's been He he went to talk shows and said
horrible things about women, made horrible jokes, and he doesn't
give us shit. He doesn't know. And the thing is
that this is very true of social media and people
with a lot of followers. They don't give a ship
because they have a lot of followers. And the problem
is the followers, because if you were followed, then you
should stop following these people in general. But my point
is they're not gonna they don't care. They're still making money.
They think it's you know, they'll apologic cosmetics, they'll apologize.
He in there and and then they move on. The
problem with ALF is that I don't know much about
the company. I don't buy their products. But my understanding
is that they have recently or have supported women in sports,
like they're all about women and all that.
Speaker 1: That's why I don't think this and then and.
Speaker 2: You fuck up like this. I mean, it's just it's it.
I mean, do your fucking homework. The same thing with
Hidi in closet. I love her and I know things
are tough for drag queens right now, but I would
have said, no, I do not want to be associated
with his men. Uh. But now you know, people just
I don't get that. I don't get that. Uh. And
the long run is not worth it people. Yeah, yeah,
it's just it's just I just feel like this is
what we're facing now with It's just oh, every now
and then there's a campaign and oh my god, and
then we talk about it and you know, I don't know,
let's see if they sell makeup.
Speaker 1: I know they've already seen such a backline. This is
what I mean. I don't think these brands have thought
these things through, and I don't think they are deliberately
trying to piss people off, because when you piss consumers off,
they don't buy your product. That is a mainstay of capitalism,
of marketing, of advertising. So no, I don't think American
Eagle or Elf Cosmetics was like, let's piss off liberals,
because that is not an advertising plan.
Speaker 2: And I changed, I changed what I said about that
type of thing. In general.
Speaker 1: We need to talk about it. We need to talk
about it.
Speaker 2: I got we need to stop buying their product because
that's the only thing they believe in. It's money. Yeah,
if you stop buying their products, if you start supporting
them financially, then you made a point. So yes, let's
talk about it. But if you talk about it, if
you think it's horrific, but you still follow you still
buy the product, you still do this and that, then
then there's no point because they're not going to change.
They are only going to change when the effect they're wallet,
when they stop making money, when they lose followers. That's
the only way these people will and companies, celebrities, everybody.
So yeah, this is growth. As many people said online,
couldn't you find another comedian you know, to to work
with Heidi? I mean, come on, this guy is gross.
He is horrible. Oh god, yeah, anyway, Lorenzo's angry. It's
just that for a long time, people crucify this guy
and his show on Netflix, you know, because it was
horrible what he said. He starts to show with a
horrible joke about domestic violence and think it's funny and
then doesn't apologize, and then he moves on. There are
other things he said out there that I don't want
to repeat here, horrible about women, and you know, and
here we are again, Sally makeup. Really anyway, shame on all.
Speaker 1: Of you, Yes, shame on all of you. And on
that note, let's take a break and we'll come right
back and yell at carry Bradshaw. Actually I'm gonna yell
at Michael Patrick can. Yes, we'll be right back. We're back,
And just like that aired its final episode last night
and we're all just reeling from it. We have been
trashing this show from day one, not necessarily from day one.
I think we definitely did not go into it with
the idea that we were let's just put our bona
fides out there. We were the original Sex and the
City Gaze gen x Gaze watched it from episode one.
Speaker 2: I remember dating when watching the episode.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and as I put on blue Sky last night
before the episode aired. It's kind of sad because when
the finale of Sex and the City aired, we probably
had like now, granted it aired on a weeknight, I
mean on a weekend, and we were all much younger
back then, but we must have had like ten to
fifteen people at our apartment to watch it. It was
a big deal. We made Cosmopolitans and it was And
like I remember all the hooting and hollering as Big
went to Paris to find you know, Carrie and paper
her away from Petrowski. It all meant something. It all
had an emotional component. It felt like a finale. It
felt like saying goodbye to friends. It felt like a
cultural moment. None of that was evident in last night's show.
And all you have done is Sully your own reputations,
Like we had that great goodbye and now we have
literally literally a bowl full of shit. And that brings
me to my next point, which is absolutely, in no
way was this a planned finale. There is no way
in hell. Sarah Jessica Parker said, yes, for our goodbye
to Carrie Bradshaw, Let's have her dealing with a literal
bowl full of turns in her final moment. Absolutely not,
absolutely not. Nobody agreed to that because this would have
been a season, but it had all the markings of
a season finale, not a series finalen.
Speaker 2: No, absolutely not. And back to what you said, we
were huge fans. I'm still am of Sex and the
City the show, not the movies. The show.
Speaker 1: I didn't mind the first movie.
Speaker 2: No, I hated all the movies, but anyway, I loved
the show. Never liked anything after that. But I was
hopeful because it was a show again, not a movie,
and I was like, all right, maybe they're they're bringing
these wonderful ladies back and maybe we'll have some fun here.
But no, it was first so much pressure to include
so many things, so many elements that maybe could be
there but not necessarily part of the show, because they
couldn't do I think about it. I was like, what
if we had had a show with just the main
ladies and those were friends but not main characters.
Speaker 1: Isn't not the show that we got?
Speaker 2: No, we have. Well, they intended to bring Sema and
everybody else.
Speaker 1: They treated them like background characters.
Speaker 2: But yeah, but I wish it was more about the four,
the no four because we don't have four or three.
Maybe that's why. But anyway, it was a disaster from
the beginning, and as many people said, I read on
read it and everywhere that people were saying, we were
trashing the show because we were hoping that the show
would get better. And it's true. It's not that they
wanted the show to go away most people, because everyone
is a fan and I've read so many pieces already,
and they all talk about how how much they love
Sex and the City and how much they love these characters,
and that's why they were so passionate about it and
and trashing it so much because it felt like a betrayal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I won't go that far. It didn't feel like
a betrayal. It just felt like a massive failure, and
it felt like some rather serious shortsightedness on the part
of some of the actresses because they are executive producers,
the three main actresses. But a lot of it comes
down to Michael Patrick King, the showrunner and the head writer,
and the just the the brains behind this franchise. Going
back to like the third season of Sex and the
City when he took over, I you're all he's seventy
years old, and I want to say that, of course,
you can be seventy and still be viable, working creative,
have much to say about the world. But he's very
clearly not that guy. And that has always been my
problem with this show is that it has such a
bitter and fearful view of the world, and it is
not the view of these late fifty something women who
are married and widowed and have children. No, it is
the view of a bitter seventy year old gay man
being forced on these characters. And this was always a mismatch.
The joke going back to twenty years ago was that
all four women were basically gay men.
Speaker 2: Right, and that was it worked when they were young.
Speaker 1: It worked when they were young and they didn't have
children and husbands, and you could do that, you could
make that comparison. But a seventy year old man writing
women who are ten fifteen years younger than him and
have the lives of women, and that to me was
It's so evident in these final few episodes where his
voice was so loud and I was like, this sounds
like an old gay man, this does I'm not hearing
women's voices in this show.
Speaker 2: And well, that's the thing when you're old, when you
eyed white and you gay, you really have to work hard.
Speaker 3: And I say, oh, listen, you really have to work
hard to get out of that cage. Absolutely, you know,
get off to see him, you know, start idolizing this
Hollywood version of women and create something current.
Speaker 2: And he didn't. He kind of did back then because
he all was younger. He was younger, and he had
the help of a lot of women.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there were women writers.
Speaker 2: There were women writers, and I remember watching interviews with
them talking about their experiences and that most of those
situations created for the show were their experience or their
friends experience, you.
Speaker 1: Know, like it was kind of real. You just didn't
get that from them.
Speaker 2: No, no, because they didn't know how to write for
an older woman.
Speaker 1: I returned to this so many times. I have said
this so many times. But when you look at Carrie,
that is not some that she doesn't act like a widow.
And I don't mean she should be wearing black and weeping.
I mean, you had twenty five years with one person
like that. I don't care who you are. That changes you,
That drastically changes you in a lot of ways. It
changes your outlook. It changes so much. And someone who
spent twenty five years with someone who was supposedly the
love of their life, even though the show has backed
away from that, I don't think she would be looking
at this stage in her life like, oh, I don't
have someone. You don't have someone because your husband died
and that's something you should be working through. Not am
I still pretty? Which is what that sort of focus
tends to come down on. It's more like, well, oh,
it's so is it tragic that I'm alone? And actually
the answer to that is yes, Carrie, because your husband died,
not because you're old or not pretty enough or anything.
That's the problem with the framing of this story is
they never had her deal with her widowhood in an
effective way. They dealt with it in the first like
four or five episodes of the first season, but again,
you were with someone for twenty five years, they die,
you just don't get Yes, maybe she's dating within a year.
I'm not saying she wouldn't be, but I he wrote
her as if she were thirty eight and looking for
a husband instead of fifty eight and just buried one.
Speaker 2: That was always my problem and listen. I have no
problem whether you were a man or a woman. If
you want to have someone you if you're upset because
you don't have someone, all that is real and valid. Yes,
is the fact that you spent three seasons make these
women look pathetic. Pathetic because they didn't have a man,
or they couldn't find a man, or because they're having
trouble with men. That's not how you write a character.
Speaker 1: And it was well, they didn't all have man troubles
or relationship troubles. I think it made them look pathetic
because it takes such a dim view of aging womanhood
like that is the problem, although it didn't take much
of a much better view of the men. There's way
too much peeing on this. Someone brought up yesterday there
were two scenes last night of men peeing on camera,
and I was like, well, that's a lot. And then
Harry wet his pants. And then someone else mentioned on
social media last night the scene with Carrie having to
pee into a bottle after her hip surgery, and I
was like, you know, this is what happens when you
hand over the writing of a show to a seven
year old man because he's obsessed with peeing, because if
you're a seven let me trust tell you, if you're
a seven year old man, that is constantly in the
back of your mind, like when it's the next time
I going to pee, and.
Speaker 2: Obsessed with it hard on and.
Speaker 1: And trashing young queer kids. Oh my god, let's put
that aside for a second.
Speaker 2: Now. Let's we'll talk about the episode in a minute.
Let's just yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a whole other thing. But the bitter
old white gayness of this final episode was so overwhelming
to me that I was just like.
Speaker 2: And they're all like that. I mean, we're we're henning
entertainment to these old.
Speaker 1: Wide miserable Listen. I think seventy year old showrunners are fine.
Speaker 2: I do, but I know, but come on, we have
we have Ryan Murphy, we have the Murphy is our
age whatever, the white Lotos guy. They're as also our age.
I mean, come on, move on, move on. Uh it
doesn't have to don't get me wrong. Ryan Murphy is
what my is going to turn into Michael Patrick King
in a few years. He's already there.
Speaker 1: Uh ru. Paul is another one. I mentioned this before
we flipped on our mics, that part of the reason
this bothered me so much, and we've pulled Ryan Murphy
and Rue Paul in for the same thing is older
or elderly gay men who are in charge of a
part of the culture and are not engaging with the
actual culture that they're in. They're bemoaning the loss of
a culture. So so much of RuPaul's drag Race is
about RuPaul's obsessions, RuPaul's favorite songs, favorite TV shows, and
RuPaul is sixty or sixty plus and all of these
queens are in their twenties and they're trying to catch
up to his references. And I see the same thing
with Ryan Murphy, his obsession with pre stonewall gay life,
with divas and all of yeah, yeah, and that has
served him well, but at a certain point, it's like,
it's twenty twenty five. Get up to date with the times.
And the reason this is an obsession of mine is
because I am an aging gay man who needs to
stay up with the times in order to have a
viable blog, website product point of view. And it is
not easy to do that. You have got to do
the work to make sure that all of your priors
and all of your biases are that you're addressing them
as you move forward.
Speaker 2: It's just to be open to other things. Listen, nobody
likes to see him more than I do. Trust me.
I love old Hollywood, these old divas. I love all
of that. But at the same time, I am obsessed
with Olivia Rodrigo or with your other chaperone and so
many people, because these people are doing interesting things now current,
and you know, you have to be open to other things.
You can't just have this idea as a creator, as
someone creating a show or whatever, to just this old diva,
you know, old fashioned, stereotypical idea of women and glamour.
It's just like, come on, move on, I move on.
Speaker 1: As I said, I didn't feel like I was getting
any insight into the inner lives or minds of women
of that age group. I've made this joke before, but
it's actually true. The Golden Girls gave you more insight
into what it was like to be a woman of
that age. Not only that, it was more real and
it was respectful. It did not make fund of those
women as being just out of touch and oh I've
got vertigo when I'm falling over, and oh my husband's
being is pay like the view and look, can I
just say none of them are elderly, they're not even
senior cities question, but they're all acting like they're seventy
five years old.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: I think SJP is sixty and that would make her
older than all of them, and that's it, Like she's
sixty and they write these women like they're seventy five sometimes.
Speaker 2: I mean that scene in the restaurant, Are you kidding me?
Are you telling me that today Carrie doesn't know how
to read a menu or listen?
Speaker 1: Actually, oh my god, let's have to read an electronic
menu in the Korean restaurant and she's so flustered. What
the what happened in your work?
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me? Oh? I don't know what to Jews?
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: This is another thing about Carrie that the show really
missed out on is what the hell does she do?
How does she do with her day?
Speaker 2: Literally?
Speaker 1: What does Carrie do all friggin day? Nothing? She like
hangs out in her guard And honestly, I don't actually
feel like that's believable. I don't believe that the Carrie
that we knew in the nineties and the early aughts
would just be this leisurely like, no, she why isn't
she an editor at vote? Why didn't they give her
an interesting life? They didn't do that. And they could
and like, fine, I don't mind that she writes books,
but what the fuck? Okay, fine, she's a best seller.
She has something like seven best selling books. At this point,
she told, well, then why isn't she constantly on talking tours,
because that's what it's someone in her position. Why isn't
she on the Today Show or on her level? And
where are these books? Where are these books? Why are
you not doing the things that an author? A best
selling author? And she sits in her garden and taps
away lightly on the laptop.
Speaker 2: It is the.
Speaker 1: Dimmest view of writing. And and you could have done
so much with that. There could have been so many
stories about Carrie restarting a career at whatever, you know,
any of that was open to you as a storyline
for her. But you ran straight to let's get her
back with Aiden for fuck's sake. Like it was so
narrow minded, it was so lacking an imagination. They never
gave Carrie anything. And the whole re to do, to say,
or to be The whole reason Carrie became an iconic
character was because so much about her was aspirational, her life,
what she was doing, what she wanted out of it.
Speaker 2: The thing with Aiden is that they just wanted to
This is my theory. They just wanted to bring the
actor back, and they had to create a story for
that because you could have just easily move.
Speaker 1: On, and you know, and and they misread it. They
thought the fans really wanted to see the two of
them back together again. That wasn't even a thing back
in the original run. Yeah, they didn't want her with him.
Now I wanted tomn It back, and they, for some
bizarre reason, they kept writing, like making a point of
having her say that her marriage was a mistake and
that he was the true love of her life and
that they quote have been together twenty two years. I now,
why why did you force this on a viewership who
knows we know their history and same thing, we should
move on from Carrie. It's the same thing with Miranda.
Whenever there's a scene with Steve, it's heartbreaking to me.
Not because I feel that those characters needed to stay together,
but they handled that breakup so badly that I'm still
bitter about it again. With Miranda, it was like, well,
let's let's have her explore her sexual again. That's not
a bad thing. I never thought that was a bad thing.
But in order to do that, they had to completely
ignore literally everything about that character up until that point.
Speaker 2: Well that's the thing. If we don't know, maybe things
were very bad between them that she didn't want to
ever see him or talked about him again. But we
didn't get to see that, So all we assume is that, Okay,
she moved on, she's a lesbian now, and then let's
never ever talk about her husband ever or show him.
Speaker 1: Even though they live, you know, not that far. He's
in Brooklyn, she's in Manhattan. But even so, I mean,
they have a kid together. No, let's just forget that character.
And I have heard you know, dating Rose O'Donnell, and
it was also poorly, poorly, poorly handled. There was no
confusion on Marine. I mean, there was some confusion back
during the Chay Diez thing, but I think there should
have been more for a woman in her fifties with
a child and a husband of twenty years or whatever,
who has never had feelings for anyone of the same gender.
That's there should be some trauma in there, and I
know they gave her. They basically layered alcoholism on her
in order to address that. Like, okay, this is the
hard part. But again everything that it was all dealt
with in such a shallow way. Right Suddenly she was
having too many drinks in front of people. They were
a little concerned, a couple arguments, she went to a meeting,
and then it was over.
Speaker 2: Now we got a Miranda that would never confront Carrie
like it was always tiptoeing around.
Speaker 1: Everybody tiptoe around carry it's.
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean remember the Miranda and her mug, you
know with a maid that she had a favorite mug
and oh yeah, had a meltdown because that's the Miranda
we know, a very you know, someone who knows what she.
Speaker 1: Wants, knows what she wants. She's very forthright, she's very
she can be very stubborn. She does not like to
be overly demonstrative emotionally. That was Miranda over and over
and over again. But this Miranda gets excited about carryout
machines and pink balloons and doesn't want to take apartments
because her girlfriend might not come over. And it was
such a It was such a what's the word I
want to use. I want to say reverse, but betrayal.
It was a betrayal of that character. Like I think
the rest of the characters, they didn't do great things
with them, but they really betrayed Miranda. Yes, Miranda was
the one who stood in for the cynics and who
stood in for the ones who were closed off and
didn't find it easy to embrace love and were suspicious
of all of the tropes of romance. And you know,
you need a character like that in a show about romance,
and they lost all of that in her, and she
was blowing up her life left and remember she ran
off with Shay, she ran off to Los Angeles, Like
what the hell was what?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: And then they finally figured out in this season. No, actually,
Miranda would have a job as a lawyer and an
apartment at this point, So let's get that all figured
out immediately. This is why I don't it's so obvious
they were planning on another season. Oh yeah, I mean,
we'll never know what happens with Miranda's grandchild. Are they
ever going to meet that grandchild? Who knows? Because the
mother is a complete asshole. They wrote her to be
such an asshole. You know what, let's take a break,
because once we start in on the gen Z portrayal,
I'm gonna go off. So we'll take a sure break
and we'll be right back. We are back, and we
decided during the break that we're not going to go
all in on the whole gen Z thing just yet.
Let's let's just walk our way through all of the
regulars on the show. So we've addressed Miranda. I don't
I don't think I have anything else to say. I mean,
I'm happy she's got Joy. That seems to be a
decent relationship. The stuff with the dogs and the vet
and everything was cute, it was sweet. Didn't have a problem,
what's fine, none of that problem with none of that.
I actually don't have a problem with the storyline they
have introduced with Brady. But this was clearly a storyline
that was meant to be to go on for another season,
So ending it this way is just awful. It's an
awful way to end things for this character. When I
think of Miranda in the final episode of Sex and
the City, she was giving her to Mensha riddled mother
in law a bath and accepting her life. And I
guess maybe I don't know, is hers cleaning shit up
in the bathroom? Well, I don't know. Maybe that's supposed
to be some parallel now, but I think felt tawdry
and unfinished.
Speaker 2: I think that's Michael Patrick King's just dumping on all
of us.
Speaker 1: We'll get into that. So Miranda whatever, I don't have
a problem with where her life wound up. I hated
the way it was handled, and I clearly we're never
going to find out what's going to happen next with her. Charlotte. Again,
they've they struggled so much to find something to do
with Charlotte, and they had some decent storylines her and
Harry dealing with Rock should have been developed more, But
again we had a bitter seventy year old gay man
who who has clearly no sympathy whatsoever for young queer people,
let alone trans people. He didn't want to develop this
storyline at all, so it was pretty much thrown on
the wayside. But this would this actually was a perfect
storyline for those two. She who was the girliest girl
of all time, the most traditional out of all of
the women, dealing with a child who is relinquishing her femininity.
Speaker 2: No, but everything is tied up with a bullshit bowl,
like the whole thing about oh, let me do the pictures. Yes,
I'm gonna have I'm going to be various people very yeah. Whatever,
It's like, okay, then we're done here. I guess that's it.
Speaker 1: That's the thing. They backed away from Rock being non binary.
And then I really found that last line. I found
that offensive. Yeah, in light of everything that went on
with those kids in Miranda's apartment, I found that offensive.
Rock wants to look at the pictures of her from
when she was in I'm sorry, wants to look at
the pictures of them from when they were in a
thoroughly modern millie. And again, this could have been an
interesting thing. Charlotte says, I deleted them because I wasn't
sure if you wanted me to keep those, and Rock
says something like, Mom, I'm going to be different people
in my life. And it was a Eventually, I don't
care what anyone says, it was essentially Michael Patrick King saying, yeah,
this non binary stuff was just the phase. It was
just the face she's going to get over it, which
I'm really offensive. And then the second Charlotte storyline, Well,
there were three actually storylines. I could have gone somewhere.
She went back to work after twenty plus years of
not working. Was there any tension, was there any drama? No,
her young gen Z coworkers adored her and because one
of them was plus size, it made her feel better
about being old, which is fucking terrible. And there was
no We never looked back in on that part of
her life, which was always the most fascinating part of
her life, is that she was brilliant at art history
and art curation. So they dropped that and never went
anywhere with that. And then Harry gets prostaate cancer. Again,
decent storyline, could have done something with it, but no,
it's I can't get an direction, I peed my pants
and that's my balls are huge old. Yeah, and that
is the total sum of Charlotte storylines on this entire show. Yeah,
that is disgraceful.
Speaker 2: The idea that if you go back and think about
all the episodes, how many times an entire cass an
entire group had one line and then they moved on
to something else, right, right? So many times it was
like a scene in the in the kitchen, know whatever,
you know what, everybody said, one more and then they
moved on to something else. It's like a waste, a
waste of all these kinds.
Speaker 1: And the thing is the show never wants to give
any of them real problems. I mean, yes, his cancer
was a real problem, but it was so wrapped up
so quickly that it literally wasn't a problem. I think
one of the things they could have done with Charlotte
is what if they lost their money, right or something
something like that. What did they have to sell that penthouse?
What would Charlotte and Harry do if they had to
start over it. There's an interesting storyline, and it wouldn't
have even been all that depressing because the two of
them have good jobs. It's not like they would wind
up on the street, they'd have to downsize, they'd have
to look at their children's college life or whatever. But no,
they didn't. He didn't want to do anything like that
with these characters. And that is the other thing I
want to talk about in a general sense before we
get into this, is that he never wanted to explore,
truly explore what their lives must be like, like, for instance,
the thought that Carrie only has that house on Grammarcy Park.
That's silly, like she and Big had sa If this
was true, she and Big would have had several houses,
and one of them would have been in Europe. I mean,
he was supposedly a billionaire. They would have had a
house in the Hampton's and she wouldn't have been so
weird about real estate at this point in their life,
having been married for twenty five years to someone like that.
But they don't want that. They don't want to show
that these people are incredibly wealthy, so they never travel,
they never travel anywhere, and they all only have one house.
But when it's clear that several of them would have
more than one house, I mean, I had to burst
out laughing. When Lisa Todd Wexley's husbands thanked her for
all the cooking she did on Thanks getting laughing, I'm like,
I'm sorry people with those kitchens. Those kitchens are for
caterers to show up with meals. Those kitchens are not
for people to cook in. But they don't want to
show that style even though they live in that place.
That's the and when they went to that that bridle,
that scene went on way too long that runway show.
But I was like I really they should have been
showing more of this. This is their life. This is
what women in this in this milieu they doing all
the time.
Speaker 2: That's what they that's what they do, clubs and things.
Speaker 1: Like restaurants, our galleries. The Old Show was like that,
and the New Show was like, well, they're old now,
so they don't do anything like that. And I'm sorry.
I I went to gallery openings, I went to fashion
shows in New York, and there are old people there.
It's not all twenty something.
Speaker 2: No, people with money.
Speaker 1: People with money, That's exactly it. And they all have money,
so Manhattan would be open to them. They would not
all be hanging around in their apart listen eating Anthony's
fucking bread.
Speaker 2: I've met many men, many people in New York with money,
and they they I mean, I'm sorry to say this,
but they have interesting lives. They do things.
Speaker 1: Well, that's what money gets to you, you.
Speaker 2: Know, exactly, yeah, exactly. You have free time.
Speaker 1: You have opportunity. This is what I mean about, Carrie.
What are you doing with yourself all day? Every day?
Do you walk around that apartment, that house in your heels?
So Lisa Todd Wexley again, no, storyline there no no, again,
very clear that this was meant to go somewhere, that
her marital problems was were meant to go somewhere, and
this thing with her her editor or whatever was meant
to go. I will say the scene with the two
of them. Every once in a while the show will
do something Carrie and Aiden's breakup scene and this Lisa's
scene with her editor where it's like, well, at least
they both sound like grown ups right where they're both like, yeah,
I'm married, you're married, We need to be It felt
like a grown up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he came out of nowhere because there's there
rushing and end. Yeah. There was no scene of them
at taking it too far, Yeah, take it too far.
So to me it felt like if I was him,
I was like, WHOA, where you coming from? Yeah? You
know what I mean? Because he never he's never done anything.
He was sending a lot of segmal guys, but nothing
like you know, they weren't. They weren't in bed or
kissing or anything anything to prove that it was going
a little more than you know, just just cool work.
Speaker 1: Again, I think he doesn't. He didn't have the nerve
to do things with these characters to give them interesting storylines.
And back in the day, Carrie cheated and it made
her look terrible, and I can remember how much the
viewership hated it for doing it back then, but it
was one of the best storylines on the show. And
we all hate it up with a spoon. I don't
know if I needed Lisa Todd Wesley to cheat on
her husband, But if you're going to introduce this storyline,
as my grandmother used to say, shit or get off
the pot, Like it's just this an entire season of
just nothing ending with this big declaration that you love
your husband's the big nothing storyline. And like I said,
I burst out laughing when he thanked her for cooking
Thanksgiving dinner. I was like, nobody in the kitchen cooks.
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: Same thing with Anthony and his boy too.
Speaker 1: I mean they had that one stupid scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one stupid thing in that it's over.
Speaker 1: I don't even know are they getting mad? Are they
breaking up? I couldn't even tell no it and how pathetic,
Like you can't even write a gay character. It's time
to hang it up, MPK, you can't do it anymore. So, Yeah,
Anthony and shouzetpe I guess, yeah, whatever, that's the end
of them, Lisaea Sema.
Speaker 2: It was clearly it was going somewhere, but they had
to end the show.
Speaker 1: I hate the idea that her final scene was in
a pair of shitty geene saying that she loved gluten
free pine, because all you're telling me is that this
woman gave up everything to be to be.
Speaker 2: With this man.
Speaker 1: Yes, gave up everything there was stop to unpack there,
because he is a good man, and they clearly took
the time to show that he is great, like they
had Carie Metal. But that's typical character.
Speaker 2: But what we ended up with with him just being
himself and her changing everything, changing everything about her to
be with him.
Speaker 1: Seeing her in those shitty jeans, I was like, no, oh, no,
I would have accepted that scene that she was sitting
there in some thirty thousand dollars outfit, looking stunning, like
still true to herself, but meeting him halfway and eating
the gluten flat.
Speaker 2: So the guy's all that doesn't believe in marriage, blah
blah blah, and she's she's the one changing everything. Terrible
because it's it's you know, apparently they're doing well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just all right. So so the Thanksgiving the
Thanksgiving thing, Oh, I didn't even get into Can I
just be petty here? And the like, how stupid it was?
Pardon me? The opening scene with Carrie dashing through Manhattan
from one end to oh yeah with pies on Thanksgiving Day,
which is typically one of the worst days for traffic
in Manhattan, it was so silly to me. Well, first off,
that scene starts with her she walks out of the
pie place, and I could not believe I was seeing this.
She yells taxi, and a taxi screeches to a hole,
and that is the oldest cliche to the point that
everybody knows you cannot do that in Manhattan.
Speaker 2: Yes, poor Caddy Carrie, Yes she she was getting cabs.
Speaker 1: Not hiring a driver. No step out point.
Speaker 2: Living in that mansion would have a driver.
Speaker 1: Are you kidding that she would know be on a
first name basis with It's like.
Speaker 2: Listen an economy class, Are you kidding me? People?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's such a dumb way of this viewing this
life and God whistling for taxis and having them spreeched
to it. Like anybody who spent fifteen minutes in Manhattan
knows that that's not true, So what and part Sex
and the City. Back in the day, it was good
about well, like Carrie getting splashed by a bus in
the opening credits, it was good about not romanticizing Manhattan
in that way. And now the show it's like this
playground for carryers. She's in this ridiculous outfit in a
cab going from one end of Manhattan to the next
on Thanksgiving Day, Like, no cab driver would do that, no,
And she's like, oh, I've got a you know the
meter's running. No it's not.
Speaker 2: No, what is this nineteen forty something? So like, why
are you insulting your intelligence now? No? No, no, no, no.
You'd have a driver, a fabulous.
Speaker 1: Driver, and Lisa Todd Wesley would have a caterer. Yeah,
there is no Like, if you're going to do a
show about wealthy women in New York, then why be
shy about the lives that they're living?
Speaker 2: Right, it's this romantic I don't know, it's just romantic
idea of everything, what everything has to be, you know, like.
Speaker 1: Except gen z and non binary. Those people are the
worst people in the world. If you're Micharofession, who acts
like that.
Speaker 2: Nobody, nobody, you know, even if you're free and young
like that, you would not behave.
Speaker 1: You would not that way in someone else too home.
I mean, if they were teenagers, maybe maybe, but as
far as I could tell, they were all in their twenties.
It struck me as very strange that the two queer
kids were so obnoxious when they were in a queer
woman's apartment. Like I get the generational difference, like they
weren't going to bow down to Miranda, but they acted,
they treated her, or they acted towards her, like she
was just some suburban mom who first of.
Speaker 2: All, why did she invite them anyway? I mean, I mean,
why would you bring those friends?
Speaker 1: I guess Miranda said it was okay, the whole storyline
was terrible because it makes her. It makes Miranda look terrible.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: And at the end, Brady wound up living with his
dad and Miranda kind of shrugs about it. But I'm like, yeah, Miranda,
you really screwed up your relationship with your son and
this and the show is treating it like some funny thing. Now,
you were terrible.
Speaker 2: That guy dancing and acting like an idiot. I mean,
what is that?
Speaker 1: What is that? And then the oh, of course, you know,
the non binary one is named Epcot, like what what?
And they said Epcot about fifteen times.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, making fun of the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they you know, because gen Z are the rude
and self absorbed and they have weird names and they
don't know what gender they are, and they're just kind
of shit in your toilet, like that whole toilet seem
was because Epcot was lactose intolerant, and they kept making
a point of having him go to the bathroom. So
the end of the series was Miranda gen X, Miranda
literally dealing with gen Z queer shit. It's so offensive
to me, Why why are you even doing this?
Speaker 2: It's offensive. I mean, what's the point of even having
these characters.
Speaker 1: Or the loathing that he had for these characters from
the minute they entered the scene. It was just it
made me really, really uncomfortable. And again, you can do
a show about, you know, say, gen X people being
befuddled or annoyed by younger generations. That's the tale as
old as time, and you can do that and be
really funny about it. You can even do that and
make fun of the younger generation. But that was so
mean spirited and so awful that I was like, there's
nothing funny about this. You are just dragging what you
think are stereotypical gen Z people on screen and making
them look as bad as you can make them for
no reason. This is supposed to be the finale. I
don't know who any of these people are. Why are
we spending time with since? Yeah, well it's because he
hates young people. Yeah, that's the bottom line. And one
thing we said last week when we were talking about
this show is how defensive it's been. Oh yeah, and
that has always been one of its biggest problems is
that it was defensive about the fact that the original
show received a lot of righteous criticism about things like
it being too white and too shallow. And that's fine
if you want to address that, But as the show
went on, it was clear that the sh I was
very defensive about certain things, and in the end it
became very defensive about aging, where it the last few
minutes of this franchise, are just you attacking young people
for no reason. This was not what Sex and the
City was about. And up until this last couple episodes,
I didn't think it was necessarily what this show was.
Speaker 2: What shocks me is that they act like they're shocked
that people are criticizing the show, that the show and
go well, they all give interviews, and that's the vibe
that I get every single time. First of all, they're
very defensive, and then they had they make states in
bullshit sayment like oh, well, we intended it to be
that way. We wanted people to feel, you know, confused
and alienated. Your yeah, exactly, and then this whole idea
like he Michael Patrick King gave an interviews saying, oh,
we knew it, we knew we were done when we
finished the episode. No, no, you didn't.
Speaker 1: No, No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, No way, I'm hell.
You wanted the final scene of Carrie to be sadly,
sadly lip syncing in her apartment.
Speaker 2: Absolutely not.
Speaker 1: It was such a And that's the other thing. The
view of singlehood is so sad like this again, this
is what made me think, what does Carrie do? Like, Okay,
she doesn't have a man, Does that mean she just
has to get dressed on, walk around her home sadly alone,
go go out and do something travel, yeah, you know,
take on.
Speaker 2: A mentor for the last episode intended she'd be in
Paris at a cafe by herself, having the best time
of her life. There are ways to depend I'm on
my own. Yeah, that is just the saddest possible way
to pickt it.
Speaker 1: Like, right, are you sure, honey, because you look pretty
lonely to me right now, You're right. It should have
been her getting on a plane or going to Paris,
going on, speaking to anything, anything at all, to show
that being sixty and rich is actually pretty great. Oh
my god, it's sixty rich and insanely successful in your career.
Speaker 2: What a single with all that money.
Speaker 1: No, but she's gonna sadly sit in her apartment and
slip her tea.
Speaker 2: Seriously. Yeah, god, you could buy man left and right
in that I know.
Speaker 1: But oh no, Carrie, it has to be the princess
fantasy or whatever. I'm really sorry that things ended this way.
I will say that I'm not entirely convinced that this
is the last we've seen it. Oh no, because I
read she is going to work so hard to get
something else, and he's a movie or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's already. I read a couple of interviews and
he kind of said like, oh, we don't like to
say it's the end, it's whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're going to try and get like a screaming
movie to wrap this thing up. And in a way,
I wish they would because this is such a terrible ending.
Speaker 2: But it's horrible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wish it was someone other than him.
Speaker 2: I know. I mean my idea is to if you
love a show and you watch it and it's the
last episode ever, you know you want to just have
a great time. You want to enjoy it. You know,
you want to make I don't know, celebrate something you've
been watching for a long time. But no, I angry
the entire time less not watching it. I was so
annoyed with the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, just hor Patrell. You knew, Oh my god,
you knew the writing on the wall. She has been so.
Speaker 2: Proved right right, she was right. She didn't want to
do movies, she didn't want to do anything. The show
ended and that was it because she.
Speaker 1: Could tell Michael Patrick King had nothing left to say
about Are.
Speaker 2: There are other things? Dude? She was treated like shit
by a bunch of them. Yea, you know there's stories
out there. But at the same time, she wanted to
move on, she wanted to do something else, and.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think s JP really needs to consider
how much she wants to fight for this character, because
I look at Cynthia Nixon and I'm pretty sure she's
going to get nominated for an Emmy for the guilded Age.
I'm not one hundred percent sure, but she did really
good work. Yeah, I'm pretty sure next year she might
get nominated and her career is fine. And s JP,
you got to cut the ties with this character because
it's going to drag you down if you keep going
back to this well and ruining her over right over again.
So we'll see. I do think there's probably a movie
coming down the line, just to wrap all of the
stupid shit up, and yeah, we'll watch it. But as
I set a couple of weeks back, this was always
going to be my final season of this show. I
was not going to continue watching the show after this
if it if it continued.
Speaker 2: So yeah, they'll have a movie and it's going to
be Seema's wedding.
Speaker 1: And well, Seema's not getting married. He doesn't believe in WHOA,
but change his mind because he be Anthony's second wedding
oh god, yeah, yeah, anyway, anyway, goodbye to all that. Yeah, yes,
sorry time. As far as I'm concerned, the story of
all of these characters ended in City Hall when she
married Big, and that was the last time we saw
any of them at the end of the first movie.
Everything that has happened after that, I'm sorry, that's fan fiction.
It never happened to my birth.
Speaker 2: I like the first show, and that's it. That's that's
the first movie.
Speaker 1: I thought the first movie was fine because you know,
it had the whole culmination of her ship was big
and everything, and it finally paid off. So anyway, that's it.
That's all we have to say about that. We'll be
back next week with whatever crosses the rise acrosses our desks.
Until then, take care of yourselves, love you mean it.
Speaker 2: Bye bye by