Season 2

I don't even know why I'm watching this. SATC was nice when it first aired, okay-ish during a recent rewatch, the movies were bad (like real bad) and AJLT's season 1 wasn't good either (perhaps "promising" if you'd want to say anything nice about season 1). I guess, I keep watching just to be able to say that I watched the whole collection of the franchise.

I still don't understand why there's this plethora of people and stories in this show (four main characters like in SATC was enough). I feel that only Seema and perhaps Lisa are valuable additions to the cast. I also wonder, what the show is really supposed to be about? Grief, relationships, parenting, coming-of-age, aging, rich people's problems? SATC had a much more comprehensible overarching topic (although most epiosdes were totally isolated). Only sometimes this show is funny (credit to Anthony, Lily and Harry) or witty. Most of the time we watch bored privileged people showing their status symbols (well, that's in line with SATC - at least they are not all white). Sometimes (only sometimes) SATC taught about actual relationships issues and the female perspective on relationships, the patriarchy and sex (although the sex in the original show was too laughable and in hindsight too prude, their bubble too white and too New-Amterdam-ish, and they often failed to pass the Bechdel test). AJLT is just dull and non-educative. All the bits and pieces of well balanced diversity introduced feel forced and ultimately often amount to pure dog-whistling. I mean, I would have loved to learn about female homosexuality in today's New York. I would have loved to learn something about racism against black or Indian women especially when it comes to relationships. I'd have loved to get a female perspective on aging. Just like I loved to learn the tiny insights (admittedly very tiny) into dating and family in NYC's Jewish community in the original series. I'd have loved to watch more serious and mature stories and I was prepared to accept that this show isn't as funny as SATC was. Even the nostalgia falls flat. Yes, some (like Charlotte and sometimes Carrie) are still "in character" but wtf happened to Miranda? She used to be a powerful, Harvard educated, straight-shooting top-lawyer firmly rooted in real life. Often she was the only person that some of us could actually relate to. And now this ... her loving a woman (which is an oversimplified label for this entirely made-up character) isn't the problem ... the problem is that this person isn't anything like old Miranda and that Che doesn't feel like a real person. There's no chemistry between them either.

Let's end on something positive: after some disastrous first few episodes, later episodes in this season improve considerably. Still not great but some of the later episodes are acceptable.

The big mistake of this season is how long it took (5 episodes) to create a real relationship between all the characters. It is a season that improved as it progressed, brought old stories and coupled them to the reality of the characters, and gave old characters new stories that were much more entertaining than the previous season (Miranda, Tony, Nya and Charlotte) and others that in my opinion did not find a defined space (Lisa, Che and Lisette).
Of the "new women" I consider Seema's story to be the one that best fits the character dynamics we already know from SATC and the one that shares a similar past to the SATC girls.
Samantha's appearance (already known) was the most anticipated of the season and in my opinion the appearance was meh, it's nice to see her on screen, but her appearance was not a closure for the character nor was it a notice of return, she was left in limbo, which is good because it raises expectations for the next season.

It took them a whole season and 5 more episodes to build an articulate and believable story, season 3 needs to maintain the standard of the second half of this season.