The highly-anticipated spinoff, based on the original HBO series from 1998 to 2004, debuted its first two episodes on the streaming service Thursday (many die-hard fans tuned in right at midnight).
“And Just Like That. ” picks up where the cast members left off from the 2010 film, “Sex and the City 2,” following Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) and her group of girlfriends as they navigate New York City in their 50s.
The first time we see Carrie and her girlfriends, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (Kristin Davis), the group is waiting to be seated at a restaurant. Notably absent from the mix is Samantha (Kim Cattrall).
While fans have long known about Cattrall’s absence on the reboot (and her feud with Parker), the reason for the character’s absence was unclear until the first episode of the reboot.
Within the first few moments, aging socialite Bitsy Von Muffling (Julie Halston) sees Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte and asks, “And where’s the fourth musketeer? Where’s Samantha?”
“Well, what is there to say?” Carrie responds, elaborating on how the two had a falling out. “I told her that because of you know, what the book business is now, it just doesn’t make sense for me to keep her on as a publicist. She said fine and then fired me as a friend. she stopped returning my calls.”
After a group of patrons brush her aside at a restaurant, Carrie promptly asks the original cast members: “Remember when we had to legally stand six feet apart?”
Bitsy also references the pandemic when she asked about Samantha’s whereabouts, expressing relief after Charlotte said she was gone and Miranda clarified that she wasn’t dead.
“After the horror show we’ve been through, I just assume anyone I haven’t seen in a while has passed on,” Bitsy says. “Or. gave up and moved to Palm Beach.”
During the girls’ outing at the restaurant, a man – clad in an “I Love Nueva York” shirt and a hat that Carrie says “looks like a light fixture” – struts casually by the group’s table
When Miranda asks the fashionista about the Instagram, Carrie responds: “When I first started doing it, it was really just for me, you know, just for fun, posting strangers who have interesting style, but now. that I’m on that podcast, it’s kind of growing into a thing.”
For a show that originally followed four single women in New York City and their relationships and flings, the reboot is largely devoid of the sex from the “Sex and the City.”
Early in the season’s premiere, Miranda reveals she stepped on her son’s condom filled with his semen, much to her horror.
And later in the episode, during the piano recital of Charlotte’s daughter Lily, Brady can be seen passionately making out with his girlfriend while sitting behind Miranda and her husband, Steve.
“Tell your son to stop. They’re making out,” Miranda says to Steve. “It’s your turn, I can’t always be the bad guy.”
The only person seemingly having sex is Miranda’s horny teenage son, Brady
The final moments of 
the episode intercut scenes between Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda listening to Lily’s piano recital. Meanwhile, Big (Chris Noth), Carrie’s husband, is working out on his Peloton bike.
After he sends a brief text to Carrie, Big, visibly distraught, falls to the ground and clutches his chest, appearing to suffer from a heart attack.
As she cradles his motionless body in her arms, the episode ends with Carrie’s iconic voiceover: “And just like that. Big died.”