And Just Like That hits back at criticism with Che Diaz storyline
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And Just Like That spoilers follow.
There were several elements of the first season of the Sex and the City spin-off And Just Like That that long time Carrie-heads took issue with, from the absence of Kim Cattrall's Samantha to the plethora of forgettable storylines and characters we had no real investment in hogging all the screen time.
Yet at the eye of the firestorm was one new addition to the New York universe: Che Diaz, played by Sara Ramirez. We can't emphasis this enough: people hated Che.
The genuine outcry among fans of the show could be separated into that which was justified and that which was not. Che's initial function as a sledgehammer to Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Steve's (David Eigenberg) marriage falls into the latter.
Miranda's midlife upheaval touched on the carefree abandon women can find later in life, which shows like the menopause-focused The Change have championed. In Miranda's case, it's a period of discovery and sexual awakening, which ushers in the Age of Che.
The fan fixation on Che as an embodiment of everything wrong with the spin-off largely came from their absurd characterisation, rather than their involvement in the demise of Miranda and Steve. Quotes like "Hey! It's Che Diaz" and "Miranda, I've done a tonne of weed" were unavoidable online.
They did stand-up comedy sets that had all the comedic value of the last rites but were still met with riotous laughter from the thronged crowds on screen. And Just Like That viewers were indeed left wondering if they too had done "a tonne of weed" when their comedic tour de force was turned into a Netflix special.
Che was often ridiculous, yet every character around them acted like they were the most charming hoot to ever walk the streets of Manhattan. When Miranda uttered the words "I was studying at the library and was craving me some Che", we genuinely questioned whether she had been brainwashed.
Che could have been someone audiences could identify as a genuine human being, but all the aspects of their character were dialled up to a 10. By the time we had to endure the third or fourth use of the "Woke Moment" button at their podcast studio, we knew the threshold of believability had vanished.
The issue with Che's unrealistic characterisation in the first season was that they then became an easy hate figure, which was disappointing in a show that was trying to rectify the lack of diversity in its initial incarnation. Commentators asked straight-faced questions like, "Why is Che Diaz TV’s most hated character?", when people like Ross Gellar, Marnie Michaels and Ted Mosby exist.
Yet those behind the scenes on And Just Like That season two are trying to get to grips with the response. Showrunner Michael Patrick King has said as much, telling Entertainment Weekly: "A lot of season two is an address to the reaction to season one in my thought process."
He then clarified: "I didn't see one tweet and go, 'Oh my God, I've got to change everything'. It's a zeitgeist feeling."
Even if Patrick King wasn't doom-scrolling the AJLT hashtag on Twitter, Che is finally starting to make more sense as a character. The first inkling the show might have heard descriptions of Che as a caricature of a non-binary person comes during a fitting for their new sitcom in an early episode this season.
Che stands in front of a mirror in a loud suit they clearly don't like and in a clownish voice, doing a Ronald McDonald jig, says: "Hey America, I'm non-binary!" It's not far from the impression fans had of season one's Che.
Yet with their sitcom storyline, the artifice of Che Diaz has started to collapse – it hasn't come a moment too soon. The latest fifth episode of the Max Original sees Che's sitcom face the rigours of a TV test screening, inviting a random bunch off the street to opine on the show.
While the debrief sees the cohort enamoured with Che's sitcom dad Tony Danza and his lush head of hair, nobody has anything nice to say about the character of Che, played by Che Diaz. Is this ringing any bells?
Che is likened to "a walking boomer joke". In summary, they say of Che that they're "just some phoney, sanitised, performative, cheesy, dad joke bulls**t version of what the non-binary experience is." Watching on behind an interrogation room one-way mirror, the Cheshire cat bravado finally seeps out of Che's face.
Miranda then goes on a rant which feels equal parts like a furious clap-back at the criticism of And Just Like That, and also a shot across the bows to television executives.
"Everybody thinks of TV today as a place where artistic people get to be creative, but the truth is, they just care about selling soap," Miranda yells. "TV is just a corporate conglomerate and those corporate assholes can eat shit. They will never get it."
Yet in this instance, Che says it was a genderqueer person from Brooklyn who "tanked" their sitcom. "That call came from inside the house," says Che, obligatory enormous spliff in hand.
Miranda's attempts to placate a distraught Che only provide the pressure for further cracks to appear. Tears brimming, Che responds: "This is my life! This is my career! This is my identity! It took me 46 years to figure out who I am and then a focus group one hour to f**king destroy me."
It's the most sensitive we've seen Che and leaves their relationship with Miranda on rocky ground. But more than that, it is a scene that finally feels like it's populated by two human beings. Che shows emotional depth we've not yet seen from a character who at times has felt like they might be a non-binary sock puppet powered by sex and weed alone.
Looking at the maths of the show, Che has as much screen time as any of our main trio and has one of the chief plotlines of this season in their fledgling sitcom pilot. Whether the show should be so clearly conscious of what is being said about it is a valid question, but Che is clearly a character they are invested in and what to explore.
Attempts to rectify character issues are welcome, particularly when they are gender nonconforming, so should not feel like they are just here for the sake of it and as if no real thought has gone into who they are behind the flat jokes about LA traffic.
And Just Like That is still far from the heights of Sex and the City and so it might be easy to point to new characters, like Che, as a contributing factor to the sheer pain of reconciling this with the original.
But the show's willingness to add new shade to Che, instead of just jettisoning them off screen, can only be a good thing if it gets us closer to feeling like this is a worthwhile spin-off of the original.
And Just Like That, the sequel to Sex and the City, airs on Max in the US and Sky Comedy and NOW in the UK.
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