How Did Charlotte Become the Breakout Character? – Rolling Stone

I have never been a huge fan of Charlotte York Goldenblatt, the Upper East Side princess played by Kristin Davis in Sex and the City. As a New York Jew, I didn’t relate to her WASP-y country club optimism, nor was I particularly charmed by her wide-eyed pearl-clutching at her friends’ sexual exploits. (Dude, you copped to rimming your first husband over eggs Benedict. We didn’t forget!) I found her grating and prissy and the most unforgivably callous of the four; in the final season, when she exploded at poor Harry by reminding her how much better-looking she was than him, I remember reacting as if I’d just watched her kick a three-legged dog in slow motion.

Charlotte always struck me as not only the weakest link of the quartet acting-wise (both she and Kim Cattrall never won Emmys for their time on the show, but I think Cattrall’s omission is more unforgivable), but also in terms of relatability. The other characters feel both fully lived-in and aspirational in a way that Charlotte did not; even if you self-identified as a Miranda, you probably saw pieces of yourself in Carrie’s neuroses, or admired Samantha’s ballsiness. Not Charlotte. I always felt Charlotte was a cartoon — a weird, prissy amalgam of Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island and Ashley A. from Recess all grown up. And while that changed somewhat over the course of the final seasons and the last two movies, after Charlotte gave up on trying to conform to her expectations of what her life would look like and eased into her own version of marriage and motherhood, she still never felt as fully rendered as the other three.

Which is why I was surprised to find, while watching the second season of And Just Like That…, Max’s reboot of the beloved franchise, that I enjoyed and related to Charlotte the most out of all of the remaining SATC girlies. Part of this comes down to the fact that neither Parker nor Nixon seem like they’re having a lot of fun: as the grieving Carrie, SJP is stuck in a feedback loop of mourning her caddish husband, while Cynthia Nixon appears visibly burdened with the struggle of trying to make her relationship with the most hated character on TV steamy and lighthearted.

Kristin Davis, however, is clearly having a blast. As Charlotte, she’s been tasked with the majority of the broader comedy scenes in And Just Like That…, from getting a flash period in a white jumpsuit in the first season to reacting to Harry dry-ejaculating on her breasts in last week’s episode, gamely willing to play the fool in each one. (Though not everyone was a fan of the line “Casper the friendly cum,” pretty much any Michael Patrick King pun is superior to “Lawrence of my labia.”) Charlotte gets the best comic plotlines, from her and Lisa Todd Wexley (Nicole Ari Parker) defending the author of a private school “MILF List” because they’re both ranked on top, to her breathless enthusiasm at launching Rock’s Ralph Lauren modeling career. (The AJLT writers seem to have selective amnesia regarding previously established SATC canon, but thank God they remembered that Charlotte was a teen model for Ralph Lauren at a mall in New Haven.)

Of the three women, Kristin Davis not only seems to be having the most fun, but her Charlotte has also arguably gone through the most emotional development. While Carrie is playing Manic Pixie Dream Psycho and stalking a hot tech bro cyclist (Peter Hermann) she accidentally maimed in last week’s episode, and while Miranda is reenacting the Carrie/Big Season One dynamic by chasing Che around the West Coast, Charlotte actually seems to be growing and learning from her past mistakes. In Season One, she overcomes her initial skepticism toward her child coming out as non-binary, and the moment of revelation and acceptance she has while watching Che’s stand-up set is deeply moving. (Why does she experience this moment of catharsis during Che’s stand-up set, of all places? Best not to ask such questions.) This is not the rigid and judgmental Charlotte we saw in Season Four of Sex and the City, declaring of Samantha’s same-sex relationship, “She’s not a lesbian, she just ran out of men”; or the Charlotte desperately trying to make her sexless marriage to Trey work in order to maintain the image of material success. This is a new Charlotte — a smarter and more understanding Charlotte. It’s a Charlotte who seems like she has actually done the work to learn and grow.

This is, at least in theory, what And Just Like That… is supposed to be about. In the lead-up to the release of the series, much of the promo for the show centered around the fact that it was in dialogue with the critics who had argued for decades that it reflected a white, highly privileged perspective and failed to take into account the stories of, say, queer people, or people of color. AJLT was very much framed as an opportunity for the show to address those shortcomings by forcing its central figures — all privileged, highly self-centered, middle-aged white women — to navigate a diverse, rapidly-changing world.

When the first season of AJLT actually aired, it became clear that this was not going to happen. Though the show did introduce a queer character, they were widely derided as cringey; though it did introduce a number of women of color, they were viewed as one-dimensional token figures haphazardly inserted into the show’s ecosystem to silence critics. There was truth to both of these critiques, but at the heart of the issue was that even though the world had changed since Sex and the City premiered in 1998, Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda didn’t really seem to have changed with it at all. They were just as selfish, just as tone-deaf, just as insistent on prioritizing their own experiences and perspectives over others. If we are to believe that at the heart of progressivism is the willingness to listen, learn, and change, the first few episodes of the show made it clear the women were still falling short.

I don’t think that an Upper East Side housewife should be hailed as a bastion of progressivism. But I would argue that of the three women at the heart of the show, Charlotte is the one who has undergone the most growth. As a wife, she’s gone from being a shallow and hen-pecking partner to being a genuinely supportive and loving spouse, to the degree that her relationship with Harry has long been the most healthy in the entire franchise. As a mother, she’s gone from being rigid and image-obsessed to being more open and accepting of her children and meeting them where they are. And there are signs Charlotte will continue to grow in the professional arena as the show progresses, thanks to a chance encounter with a Larry Gagosian-inspired art dealer played by Victor Garber at an LTW dinner party. (Why would Larry Gagosian-as-played-by-Victor-Garber offer a woman who’s been out of the workforce for nearly two decades a plum job at his gallery? Again, best not to ask such questions.)

A lot of people view And Just Like That… as a pure nostalgia play for SATC fans and a cash grab for Max, and to some extent it irrefutably is. But I also think that being a fan of a long-running franchise like Sex and the City is a lot like being in a long-term relationship: you fall in love with the person when you first meet them, but you also continue to fall in love with the person they grow into over time. And for me, it has been a pleasant surprise to truly fall in love, for the first time, with Charlotte York Goldenblatt.

I have never been a huge fan of Charlotte York Goldenblatt, the Upper East Side princess played by Kristin Davis in Sex and the City. As a New York Jew, I didn’t relate to her WASP-y country club optimism, nor was I particularly charmed by her wide-eyed pearl-clutching at her friends’ sexual exploits. (Dude, you copped to rimming your first husband over eggs Benedict. We didn’t forget!) I found her grating and prissy and the most unforgivably callous of the four; in the final season, when she exploded at poor Harry by reminding her how much better-looking she was than him, I remember reacting as if I’d just watched her kick a three-legged dog in slow motion.

Charlotte always struck me as not only the weakest link of the quartet acting-wise (both she and Kim Cattrall never won Emmys for their time on the show, but I think Cattrall’s omission is more unforgivable), but also in terms of relatability. The other characters feel both fully lived-in and aspirational in a way that Charlotte did not; even if you self-identified as a Miranda, you probably saw pieces of yourself in Carrie’s neuroses, or admired Samantha’s ballsiness. Not Charlotte. I always felt Charlotte was a cartoon — a weird, prissy amalgam of Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island and Ashley A. from Recess all grown up. And while that changed somewhat over the course of the final seasons and the last two movies, after Charlotte gave up on trying to conform to her expectations of what her life would look like and eased into her own version of marriage and motherhood, she still never felt as fully rendered as the other three.

Which is why I was surprised to find, while watching the second season of And Just Like That…, Max’s reboot of the beloved franchise, that I enjoyed and related to Charlotte the most out of all of the remaining SATC girlies. Part of this comes down to the fact that neither Parker nor Nixon seem like they’re having a lot of fun: as the grieving Carrie, SJP is stuck in a feedback loop of mourning her caddish husband, while Cynthia Nixon appears visibly burdened with the struggle of trying to make her relationship with the most hated character on TV steamy and lighthearted.

Kristin Davis, however, is clearly having a blast. As Charlotte, she’s been tasked with the majority of the broader comedy scenes in And Just Like That…, from getting a flash period in a white jumpsuit in the first season to reacting to Harry dry-ejaculating on her breasts in last week’s episode, gamely willing to play the fool in each one. (Though not everyone was a fan of the line “Casper the friendly cum,” pretty much any Michael Patrick King pun is superior to “Lawrence of my labia.”) Charlotte gets the best comic plotlines, from her and Lisa Todd Wexley (Nicole Ari Parker) defending the author of a private school “MILF List” because they’re both ranked on top, to her breathless enthusiasm at launching Rock’s Ralph Lauren modeling career. (The AJLT writers seem to have selective amnesia regarding previously established SATC canon, but thank God they remembered that Charlotte was a teen model for Ralph Lauren at a mall in New Haven.)

Of the three women, Kristin Davis not only seems to be having the most fun, but her Charlotte has also arguably gone through the most emotional development. While Carrie is playing Manic Pixie Dream Psycho and stalking a hot tech bro cyclist (Peter Hermann) she accidentally maimed in last week’s episode, and while Miranda is reenacting the Carrie/Big Season One dynamic by chasing Che around the West Coast, Charlotte actually seems to be growing and learning from her past mistakes. In Season One, she overcomes her initial skepticism toward her child coming out as non-binary, and the moment of revelation and acceptance she has while watching Che’s stand-up set is deeply moving. (Why does she experience this moment of catharsis during Che’s stand-up set, of all places? Best not to ask such questions.) This is not the rigid and judgmental Charlotte we saw in Season Four of Sex and the City, declaring of Samantha’s same-sex relationship, “She’s not a lesbian, she just ran out of men”; or the Charlotte desperately trying to make her sexless marriage to Trey work in order to maintain the image of material success. This is a new Charlotte — a smarter and more understanding Charlotte. It’s a Charlotte who seems like she has actually done the work to learn and grow.

This is, at least in theory, what And Just Like That… is supposed to be about. In the lead-up to the release of the series, much of the promo for the show centered around the fact that it was in dialogue with the critics who had argued for decades that it reflected a white, highly privileged perspective and failed to take into account the stories of, say, queer people, or people of color. AJLT was very much framed as an opportunity for the show to address those shortcomings by forcing its central figures — all privileged, highly self-centered, middle-aged white women — to navigate a diverse, rapidly-changing world.

When the first season of AJLT actually aired, it became clear that this was not going to happen. Though the show did introduce a queer character, they were widely derided as cringey; though it did introduce a number of women of color, they were viewed as one-dimensional token figures haphazardly inserted into the show’s ecosystem to silence critics. There was truth to both of these critiques, but at the heart of the issue was that even though the world had changed since Sex and the City premiered in 1998, Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda didn’t really seem to have changed with it at all. They were just as selfish, just as tone-deaf, just as insistent on prioritizing their own experiences and perspectives over others. If we are to believe that at the heart of progressivism is the willingness to listen, learn, and change, the first few episodes of the show made it clear the women were still falling short.

I don’t think that an Upper East Side housewife should be hailed as a bastion of progressivism. But I would argue that of the three women at the heart of the show, Charlotte is the one who has undergone the most growth. As a wife, she’s gone from being a shallow and hen-pecking partner to being a genuinely supportive and loving spouse, to the degree that her relationship with Harry has long been the most healthy in the entire franchise. As a mother, she’s gone from being rigid and image-obsessed to being more open and accepting of her children and meeting them where they are. And there are signs Charlotte will continue to grow in the professional arena as the show progresses, thanks to a chance encounter with a Larry Gagosian-inspired art dealer played by Victor Garber at an LTW dinner party. (Why would Larry Gagosian-as-played-by-Victor-Garber offer a woman who’s been out of the workforce for nearly two decades a plum job at his gallery? Again, best not to ask such questions.)

A lot of people view And Just Like That… as a pure nostalgia play for SATC fans and a cash grab for Max, and to some extent it irrefutably is. But I also think that being a fan of a long-running franchise like Sex and the City is a lot like being in a long-term relationship: you fall in love with the person when you first meet them, but you also continue to fall in love with the person they grow into over time. And for me, it has been a pleasant surprise to truly fall in love, for the first time, with Charlotte York Goldenblatt.