There are plenty of criticisms being lobbed at And Just Like That… But one of the show’s missing elements is no one’s fault but f**king cancer.
We are of course lamenting the sudden passing of Willie Garson, who died last September to pancreatic cancer while the Sex and the City revival was still being filmed.
Willie played the beloved Stanford Blatch, longtime GBF and adviser to Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker). In the show, his absence was explained in Episode 4 as he leaves a note for Carrie explaining he’s traveling to Japan — apparently to manage a TikTok star. He even divorced hubby Anthony via note — a real Berger move, tbh. It was an exit showrunner Michael Patrick King admitted at the time was “as light and as silly as possible” because no one wanted to “lean into” Willie’s death — a tragedy all too real to the cast who loved him.
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But what was his story supposed to be?
In a new interview with Variety, King finally revealed what was meant to happen to Stanford. First off, he was intended to be in the whole season, all ten episodes. He had a pretty sizable arc planned. King said:
“Stanford was going to have a midlife crisis. Stanford’s character always had a borderline career as a manager, and we were like going to explore the fact that it wasn’t a real career. It was going to be Carrie and him, feeling the shifts.”
He then explained le divorce did NOT come out of nowhere either!
“Anthony and him were probably going to have split anyway. Then we would keep both of them in, and everybody would be relieved that they were divorced because it was not pleasant for anybody.”
That’s inneresting. We guess they were never meant to be together after all (as many fans complained all along!). King added that what he missed most without Willie was the scenes with his real OTP — Carrie:
“But there was a series of really fun, flirty, hilarious confidante scenes with Carrie that I loved. That old, old, very specific chemistry that Carrie and Stanford have, which is based totally on the uniqueness of Willie and Sarah Jessica’s history.”
Awww! We really DO miss that! Between losing those scenes and the one-on-one Carrie/Samantha convos, it’s a big loss for what makes the show special.
In the interview, King reiterated that he never entertained killing off Stanford on the show:
“Life and death is one thing in fiction: When it’s real, it’s not funny or cute. I didn’t want to even flirt narratively with cute business about where he is. I knew the audience would never invest in it, because they knew he was never coming back. It’s the most threadbare writing I’ve ever done just to move him along without much maneuvering, because it was just so sad. There was no way I could write myself out of that in any charming, cute way.”
Aw. He sounds so heartbroken still! And we are, too…
[Image via HBO Max.]
