Sentimental in the City: RIP And Just Like That

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0:37Caitlin McGarry: Well, hello everyone and welcome to the final episode of Sentimental in the City, a podcast miniseries we started about the city back in 2020 and co-stars our beautiful guest Dolly Alderton, who hasn't been on basically any podcast in a long time. So you're going to get Lots of updates about what she's been up to working on the Pride and Prejudice remake and living with her beautiful cat, Goldie. I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that this episode is probably going to be the most download episode of Sentimental Garbage this year. And by the way, I love that. I love that, like, people care so much about this thing that we started so long ago.

1:17Caitlin McGarry: I know that many Sentimental Garbage listeners are here for the wide breadth of topics that we cover. but I'm also totally and 100 % appreciative of the people who got involved for Sex and the City and really only come back for Sex and the City. We welcome you back to your hometown. We put the bunting out for you. It's a reunion and I love seeing you here. But if you're one of the many people who has probably listened to Sentimental in the City many times and sort of thought to yourself, God, I wish there was some way of giving back. And like Sentimental Garbage has never had a Patreon. we don't have a you know regular merch line or anything um so if if you would like to find some way to pay it forward for the amount of hours you've enjoyed sentimental in the city I would absolutely love it I know so would Dolly if you would donate to some of the GoFundMes I'm about to highlight of some of the people living in Gaza right now trying to survive this war and trying to get through this famine on a day-to-day subsistence level.

2:19Caitlin McGarry: Now I know lots of people are quite uncomfortable with the idea of donating to a GoFundMe rather than a charity and I totally get that and I have worked with charities throughout this war. I've worked with War Child and Choose Love and for the Ukraine war as well. This has always been an anti-war podcast, let me be clear. But as it gets harder and harder to get aid into Gaza and harder and harder for charities to access Gaza, for me it has made the most sense to try and support people on the ground trying to buy the food and feed their families that already exist in the country. It is not a fair or perfect system but right now it is the only real system we have within a deeply, deeply horrifying situation.

3:04Caitlin McGarry: So all these people I'm about to mention, they are people I've been speaking to for many months and who have sent me verifying videos, images and voice notes. And I can say with complete confidence, as much confidence I can give as a non-professional, non-charity worker, just a girl with an iPhone, are real people. Okay. So the first person I spoke to was Abood. Abood is 19 and I really have to credit him. He's such a young guy, but he is the person who sort of really made me realise just through the force of his own charisma that like, oh, you know, there's more I can do than feel bad for people.

3:42Caitlin McGarry: I first met Abood when his little brother Muhammad was struck by some shrapnel from a nearby exploding building and he was crowdfunding for his brother's surgery which we managed to help him do and we've been in contact ever since. The second person I'd like to talk about is Haitham. Haitham is in his mid-20s, he's married, he has a beautiful wife called Rowan, he had an amazing life before the war and he has a little girl called Karaz. Rowan is expecting another child and they're just so devastated that they're having to bring their children up in this horrifying, horrifying, terrifying landscape.

4:21Caitlin McGarry: Obviously as a pregnant woman it's really important that Rowan gets the nutrition that she needs and that's something I've been helping them out with. The third person I want to speak about is Nada. I really love Nada. She used to live in this beautiful apartment before the war that was bombed within the early weeks. She then was displaced to a camp with her two children and her husband. The camps were, she said, were absolutely terrible. I think we take it for granted that people in Gaza are just living in these 10 cities, like we think it's somehow become normal. But she's like, it's hell, it's hell on earth.

4:57Caitlin McGarry: We have to stand in line for showers every day. My children got all these skin infections because of the lack of sanitation in these places. It's complete hell. It was so bad that she actually went back to her old apartment, which is completely bombed out, and managed to find one room that she could raise her family in, cooking and sleeping and eating in the same space. Listen, I know this is the kind of thing that you don't come to a podcast like Sentimental Garbage for. I know that many of you are involved in charity work and outreach work in your own lives or you're simply just so exhausted from hearing about this on different news platforms and different social media platforms that you really want this to just be one carved out space where you don't have to think about global atrocity for a minute and I promise you you are about to get two hours of that content and you need that content and you deserve that content but before this was a sex in the city podcast before it was a fan podcast before it was a books podcast.

5:59Caitlin McGarry: It was a sincerity podcast. I don't do any episode of this podcast. I don't feel 100 % sincere about and I sincerely believe that we are not looking at a helpless situation here. We do not have to just tell ourselves that things in this country have always been bad and so therefore they always have to be bad. Anything that you donate today and I expect that at least 100 ,000 people are going to listen to this podcast. If you all donated a tenner, 20 quid, a fiver, two quid, whatever, you will make the most immeasurable difference instantly to someone's life. And I know it's not a perfect system, but it's the system we have.

6:38Caitlin McGarry: And I really hope you can find it in your heart to donate today. I'm going to leave all the details for these GoFundMes in the show notes. I'll also post them on my social media. I hope you can manage to do something. Thank you and enjoy the show.

6:57Caitlin McGarry: Hello and welcome to Sentimental in the City, the podcast where we're older, wiser and still slaves to the imaginings of Michael Patrick King. My name is Caroline and I cannot believe we got three seasons and no Trey McDougal cameo and she's assembling a designer cat tree for shoe. It's Dolly Alderton. Hello.

7:16Catherine Cohen: Hello. I actually really, really, really do want one of those cat trees. Do you not have something similar for Goldie? No. And I've been served on my Algo a company that does bespoke cat trees. And the one that I like is like a giant martini glass. You know, like Tita Von T's used to strip in.

7:35Caitlin McGarry: I want one of those for my cat. Yours is the only cat I think that would get away with a sort of like a stripper themed. She's just so sexy and glamorous. I know.

7:44Catherine Cohen: But also sort of mean and intolerant, like an ageing French film star.

7:48Caitlin McGarry: Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's very, Pamela Anderson's The Last Show Girl. She's extremely that.

7:55Catherine Cohen: I love these new mics, by the way. Things have changed since I was last on. Things have changed around here. We've got one of these mics that's like a teeny tiny pom-pom on a little square that makes me feel like a really hot Gen Z girl who's about to tell you where to get the best deep dish pizzas in East London.

8:12Caitlin McGarry: Exactly. You're about to walk down a New York street with a cold brew and extremely long nails and like you're gonna tap your phone being like so I just had this date it brings a really different vibe it does so I've been recording all the podcasts in this way recently and I think it has changed up the vibe yeah I think it's gonna get a bit roger over here actually I've decided that this podcast is not a side hustle anymore it is just a hobby it is a knitting circle I don't want it to be popular I don't want to have a celebrity guest ever I just

8:43Catherine Cohen: want to talk to basically the same six friends yeah on the loop forever every time you and i have done something like that it ends up being such a enjoyable i mean that's how sentimental in the city began yeah yeah oh my god because this is the last time we're gonna be ever be talking about sex in the city yeah i think we can finally talk about how we rejected our mbe

9:06Caitlin McGarry: can we talk about it you're gonna have to really dial people back on what rejecting my mbe okay

9:11Catherine Cohen: So basically, Caroline and I have this rule that if you reject an OBE, that's great and that's really chic and cool. But the minute you make it public or tell anyone about it, it makes it even worse than accepting the OBE.

9:27Caitlin McGarry: You're making it sound like the story you're about to tell is that Kate Middleton loved Sentimental in the City so much, she offered us both OBEs.

9:34Catherine Cohen: No, when Sentimental in the City came out, which was truly just a hobby, like a totally mad... Well, it was actually just like a way to keep us sane during lockdown.

9:43Caitlin McGarry: Five years ago now. I know.

9:45Catherine Cohen: And we got so many offers from mass media. We were asked to be put on the front of magazine covers. It was so bizarre. It was so bizarre. And we just decided, we were like, no. Because the minute that we made it about that, then it wouldn't be, some of the magic would go. It wouldn't be just this fun thing.

10:06Caitlin McGarry: Yeah, yeah. So this has always been my life.

10:08Catherine Cohen: And I wanted to talk about it on the podcast. And you said, no, that's like saying we rejected an OBE. And anyway, I've now just told everyone. About the OBEs we rejected.

10:17Caitlin McGarry: Yeah, what were you going to say? Well, this has always been my belief about podcasting in general, is that it's like one of the few art forms in which there are no metrics really available to the public. Like if you want to see how famous a podcast is, the only real metric you have is how many reviews people have left maybe on Apple Podcasts. And even then, that's generally only a metric of how pissed off people are, rather than the amount. And so I think what makes it such an intimate art form is first of all, I think you're like a silent person in a three-way conversation. Yeah. But second of all, that like, you don't know how many other people are listening.

10:50Caitlin McGarry: So it's like, it adds to the intimacy if you don't know how big or how small the podcast is. And if it was on the cover of like Stylist, it would make it less special because it was about you and me and the freaks.

11:02Catherine Cohen: Yeah, you're so right. Yeah, you really don't know its impact in the world. actually, when you're listening to a podcast. It is one of the magical things. I can't believe how obsessed I used to be and how wound up I used to get by the iTunes reviews when I was making the high low, because occasionally I'll just, out of interest, like the old podcaster of me will be interested, I'll be, like, listening to a podcast I listen to a lot and I'll just look at the most recent reviews. Yeah. I saw one recently for The Rest is Entertainment and someone had given it one star because they loved the podcast, but Richard Osman uses the phrase, by and large, too much.

11:45Catherine Cohen: That is so funny. Imagine, it's such an innocuous phrase. Imagine being so upset about it that it makes you switch off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. By and large. By and large. He does say it a lot. Now that I've listened to it, he does say it a lot.

12:02Caitlin McGarry: But we all have one of those. God, I'm so glad that nobody has come to me in a nasty way about that. I mean, people do come for me. Post 9-11 world. Post 9-11 world, which I do think I have given a rest on now. You haven't said it in ages.

12:16Catherine Cohen: Do you know what I'm going to absolutely go to town on today? What? Late stage capitalism. Well, that's what this show is all about, I think. But whenever I talk about late stage capitalism, I feel a bit like, Do you remember that clip of Gemma Collins when COVID happened? She was like, we've got to keep the economy boosted, everyone. That's how I feel when I talk about late-stage capitalism. She was just telling everyone to go shopping.

12:47Caitlin McGarry: Where has she been lately? I don't know. Let's have, like, because, like, you haven't been doing a lot of podcasts in general lately.

12:55Catherine Cohen: No, absolutely retired now.

12:57Caitlin McGarry: big honor to have you here thank you sit next to the dog um what's up like I know what's up but for the benefit of like the thousands of people who are only keeping up with your life via one one column a month in Sunday Times yeah and uh pap shots from Pride and Prejudice yeah what is up

13:16Catherine Cohen: um so I'm making Pride and Prejudice yeah we're a couple of weeks in shooting and um yeah it's it's actually interesting thinking about i've been working on it for a year and a half and it's actually interesting thinking about that show in relation to this show that we're talking about in terms of how people feel about that intellectual property because i would say the protectiveness and the fierceness and the passion and how formative it is particularly for women there's definitely a connection to be drawn between the Sex and the City franchise yes and

13:57Caitlin McGarry: the Jane Austen franchise I never drew that correlation before but you're absolutely right in that like if you were to like take apart the two shows in terms of what they're about they couldn't be more different but in terms of that Venn diagram of like formative pieces of culture touchstones people go back to sort of instructions for womanhood instructions for marriage sort of like wish fulfillment in terms of how you as a woman would like to operate in the world those two things are just the same fucking venn diagram it's a full circle like yeah they're invoked so frequently they're also invoked so much that it's almost that it's almost a cliche and so the people that love the material like the people that love pride and prejudice and that like what we call on this podcast mr darcy american cat lady like or people who have like you know they love you know they love Carrie Bradshaw so much they're sort of slightly embarrassed about it and whatever like that kind of um self-flagellating fan behavior of somebody who knows the kind of cultural context their love sits within and is always trying to fight with it and then that will often kind of bubble up sort of quite negative fan behavior completely that's such a good observation when what it's actually about is self-hate yeah it's about inner turmoil about yeah what this

15:12Catherine Cohen: means to them and yeah anger that it means so much and yes and how it looks to the outer world and how much it means to them yeah completely I mean the thing is is it's obviously been adapted so many times before particularly this particular book so I've spent the last year and a half as well as like you know reading and writing and redrafting and researching I've spent a lot of time reading interviews with the people who have adapted this book before and they all had identical experiences which which has really helped me in terms of you know it's kind of gone public in the world in the last couple of months and the reaction has been just completely insane but I knew that it would be that you know I remember there was a great interview with Alison Stedman where she said she'd been announced to play Mrs Bennett in the 95 Pride and Prejudice and she was sitting in a local pub at the beginning of filming and this woman was staring at her across the pub and then walked up to her and just said, I hope you know the world will be watching you with baited breath.

16:22Catherine Cohen: Which is firstly a mixed metaphor, but it was like -

16:25Caitlin McGarry: The world will be watching you with baited breath. That didn't even occur to me. That makes no fucking sense.

16:31Catherine Cohen: And then I spoke to another person who's adapted Austin who I won't say who it is. So it's Emma Thompson.

16:41Catherine Cohen: It's someone else. And they gave me a piece of advice where they were like you know because I'm very I really love Jay Knight and Jay Knight's have really helped me in terms of my research like they have these amazing resources online and they've put together these incredible books and you're looking at me do you know what's jay knight jay knight's uh like jane austen fans jane right i thought you were telling me someone's name no no no sorry like jay knight no it's not jay knight although she does sound like an academic oh yeah jay knight um so you know i do think about the jay knights quite a lot but i can't make something for the jay knights just you know you can't you can't make anything for one particular group of people who you worried are going to be cross at you about something that's like everyone learns that when they're making art that that's the that's like the worst thing you can do um but this person who had worked on jane austen before was

17:41Caitlin McGarry: just like you know they do have the books exactly and those books can never be altered and they

17:48Catherine Cohen: will always be precious and they will always be sanctified and they'll always be safe so kind of just you know let them have the books yeah well that's something that nick hornby has

17:57Caitlin McGarry: always said as well is that when he's asked about like are you worried that your um the film adaptations will ruin the books and he's like well you can't ruin the books they're up there on my shelf I can see them yeah I do think that like something that has made the end just like I have loved the end just like that sort of moment in culture in general I've loved it's like some one of the smartest things you've ever said on this podcast when we were reviewing the first season was that it is our snooker tournament it is it's not our world cup it is our snooker tournament in that like it's you need to have so much prior information to care at all but the people who care are just so in there with the details and so in there with the specific physics of how things are hitting one another yeah um and like the joy of like just making that kind of small talk with the woman has genuinely made me understand sport and men far better like it Do you feel that way?

18:54Catherine Cohen: Do I feel that way? I mean, yeah, I think I do know what you mean because I think it makes me understand what, like, mass intimacy is. Yes. Like, through a cultural moment. Like, that feeling that I get when you know that it's just dropped on a Friday.

19:17Caitlin McGarry: Yeah.

19:17Catherine Cohen: I mean, I haven't had that in quite a long time, but I did have that with Series 1. and I do have it now that we're getting to the end of series three yeah and that feeling of knowing that you will be you don't have to have like a clever opinion but you will have some sort of thought or feeling which by proxy will involve you in this incredibly rich and enormous conversation

19:39Caitlin McGarry: totally and like which is like sports which is like sports yeah and it's like I I feel like I total new lens for understanding sport now because like gav is a spurs fan spurs often lose that's their thing and they're they're always like you know wrenching defeat from the jaws of victory like that's their that's their whole thing and like watching him with this pain watching him watch the footy with like this pained expression of like come on come on it's my team just like don't make me ashamed of you yeah it's exactly how i feel watching this show it's like you're my team you will be my team until I'm dead there's nothing I can do to change it like don't make me be ashamed

20:18Catherine Cohen: of you that is such a good analogy and also weirdly even though you and I will sit around analyzing and just like that and talking about every way it's completely bizarre or we'll sit on our whatsapp group Monica's ass and dissect every single choice if I ever hear a man slacking off and just like that yeah yeah i don't know what you're talking about mate i lose my lid yeah yeah yeah in the same way that men do when we talk about their team yeah yeah that kind of

20:52Caitlin McGarry: thing of like when girls are just like i don't see why you're also yeah obsessed with kicking

20:55Catherine Cohen: a ball around or whatever yeah i i would i get so angry about it when i hear men slacking it off

21:04Caitlin McGarry: yeah I'm I even like fellow fans who slag it off in the wrong way I get annoyed by like I will basically only allow criticism for people who are also like PhD students in this subject so this is

21:17Catherine Cohen: interesting because there's obviously like been so many every opinion piece that could have been written about this show has already been written now that we know that it's ending what is the opinion piece that what are the opinion pieces that you're going to miss the least oh my god great question go on I know you have a list well just like relating it back to the show I'm working on at the moment something that I found I'm now like off social media again because I've barely been on it last year I dipped my toe back in when the show was announced and it made me instantly insane so I had to come off again but an interest an intriguing response that I got which I just noted with interest was there were a lot of women who were replying under a picture of the announcement saying i'm scared i'm scared i'm scared and i was like something i understand what it is for a piece of culture to completely form the bones of your humor and your you know political ideals and who you are i totally get that but it's like that feeling that those op-eds on just like that yeah whereas like women who were deeply personally traumatized yeah by the idea of miranda cheating or something yeah and like what that said about the fact that they at once affiliated themselves with miranda or indeed that whole show i just found that like even me who's deranged about culture i found that so weird before we move on from this point can i

22:54Caitlin McGarry: tell you my favorite thing about the pride and prejudice commenters yeah my favorite instagram commenters on on posts about pride because my algorithm is like showing me a lot of like not even your page or whatever just like people commenting on the you know cast photos or whatever yeah and prejudice is people with kind of very like tight-lipped sort of society responses saying things and like their whole thing is that they want to remain measured but they're they're clearly frightened but yeah they're crucially frightened and the message the comment would be something like have enjoyed alderton's work in the past and certainly was among the many to have read everything i know about love i enjoyed emma coran as diana so i have good faith for this adaptation though I'll hold my judgment until I see the first episode.

23:49It's like, who are you?

23:53Caitlin McGarry: They love to do that. They love that. There's kind of like, they are shitting themselves over how frightened they are that you're going to mess this up. Why would anyone be frightened?

24:06Catherine Cohen: Why would anyone be frightened about a six part series

24:12Caitlin McGarry: of a book written in 18?

24:15Catherine Cohen: It's so funny.

24:17Caitlin McGarry: I love it.

24:19Catherine Cohen: Anyway, so that is the commentary that I won't miss on and just like that. That kind of just like weirdly involved. I just found that really weird. And I also obviously won't miss like, you know, the Telegraph being obsessed with having a non-binary character.

24:40Caitlin McGarry: Yes, yes. Wokipedia. Wokipedia again? I think it was The Sun. The Sun. They have a running tally of sort of woke nonsense that they observe in culture that they call their woke-opedia. A compendium of PC poppycock. I think all that... I think that's actually very funny.

25:00Catherine Cohen: I think all that... There was actually more... Like, that happened every series, basically. I couldn't believe that happened every series, so I won't miss that at all. I also won't miss, like... I won't miss people again it's just people being so involved, people getting like so upset about the decisions Carrie is making as a single woman in her 50s I won't miss that

25:27Caitlin McGarry: something that like I was talking to Taffy Burneth for Ackner about it and she was saying how she loved it and she always comes to the show's defence because she believes that it's a perfect documentary about how women behave on the Upper West Side really interesting she was just like if you looked at any if you were to eavesdrop on any like cafe conversation between a group of three or four women in their 50s in new york one of them's a lesbian one of them has vertigo yeah and one of them has some like a kid on adderall a kid on adderall exactly yeah i mean it's like it she says like this is like whether people like it or not this is the reality of what it is for extremely privileged white women in their 50s in new york this is what they talk about this is what they they're on about yeah um and i think what was interesting is is like the truth of that those being the issues of people like that's lives versus like wanting to have a perfect linear journey between the people they were in the 90s and early noughties versus who they have become now and like i don't want to sound like we're defending the show to the hilt because like it is a bizarre fucked up little show totally that i i would have watched if it had gone 10 seasons i would have watched all of them do you know what yeah um and like my experience of having friends for like 15 years or whatever that i see all the time is that like yeah sometimes you don't see someone for a while and then you see them again you're like oh wow you've gotten even weirder yeah crazy you've gotten a bit weirder like

26:59Catherine Cohen: the idea that like especially from 35 onwards yeah yeah yeah so imagine at 55 people's quirks

27:07Caitlin McGarry: get deeper completely their little neuroses their little their preferences become absolute must-haves do you know what I mean people get weird and like that is kind of the funny thing about human life it's like they don't people don't stay on the kind of cultural vanguard like the idea that Miranda was supposed to stay this kind of like hard-headed business-minded lawyer who's like you know whatever people just get fucking weird they go in strange directions life shapes them and I didn't always agree with this thing that like oh it's like they've been in a time capsule for 20 years or whatever i think that's something that like people said a lot was like oh it's like they haven't you know what i mean they've been in like yeah they haven't changed i think they've changed a lot in quite realistic ways actually yeah i think one of and like some of those ways really bummed me out like one of the things that bummed me out the most about this show was carrie because it was like actually very believable that somebody who was like a single gal really used to living alone like really used to sort of having her idiosyncrasies being praised would turn into this kind of fussy millionaires who's so grumpy and so grumpy so intolerant so grumpy and intolerant yeah and just really materialistic kind of thing like it makes sense that if you sort of allowed somebody to be that idiosyncratic and made them a famous over it and like whatever and just never challenged them and never questioned them and they were allowed to do whatever the fuck they wanted for 30 years they would eventually become kind of a spoiled loser you know totally

28:42Catherine Cohen: and I had to really watch my ageism with the Carrie grumpiness actually because I think that she was always sort of short tempered and a bit unreasonable with her friends yeah I don't know she'd get these like bees in her bonnets about things with her friends but I think when she was younger it was just seen as her being like a bit spicy yeah yeah yeah and actually i had to watch myself because she was like always getting pissed off with miranda yeah because miranda's just gotten so chaotic in a way that i really enjoy yeah and she was always like oh whether miranda's naked in her flat she's like all jumpy about that or whether miranda gets fingered in her kitchen or miranda lately takes the piss of like whether she's

29:22Caitlin McGarry: flirting or not with her neighbor and she absolutely miranda has a fucking coca-cola yeah

29:27Catherine Cohen: a mexican coat but it's like actually i wonder if so you just feel because of like stereotypes of middle-aged like grumpy post-menopausal middle-aged women whether i was just being my gaze was much harder on her about that because she wasn't running around in heels with like as the kind of 35 year old just being cute and sort of snappy yeah yeah like i thought one of the most interesting things that had happened in all of an just like that i really

29:57Caitlin McGarry: loved this plot point was um it was so a time of recording episode the penultimate episode has just come out yeah um we haven't seen the last one yet but um the episode before last where she's telling seema about her connection with duncan how she says that like no man has ever seen her as anything other than cute and sexy and you have be with a man who sees her as an intellectual equal there's something and the kind of the conclusion is which is like it feels like the first time anyone's had a conversation in the whole show that felt anything like a sex and city conversation of like point counterpoint riposte whatever analysis analysis exactly is like is you know people saying are we more is it more than friends it's like would more than friends actually be more you know because actually I would lose this like connective relationship with a man I've never had before and that was something when you and I were doing sentimental city we were like she doesn't like men she sort of likes she likes being admired by them and she likes being flirty and petted and likes being a little girl or whatever but doesn't actually like being around them and it's like oh we've met someone who she can finally actually be herself with totally and that's what i thought

31:05Catherine Cohen: was actually really smart about cutting it in between the aiden dynamic because she'd go and have her sort of margaret thatcher dinners with pipe smoking duncan yeah can you imagine if we told ourselves that that was going to be a plot point when we were finishing Centre. Like, not in our wildest dreams. Margaret Thatcher dinners. But when she was doing that, and they were, like, having real discussions, like, adult people, and then she'd see Aidan and be like, hey, Mr. Big Guy, how do you think he? You're not going to have those clothes. It's out of bounds. Permission to enter. They don't have any conversations.

31:41Catherine Cohen: Never have. At all.

31:42Caitlin McGarry: Never chat in a day in their lives.

31:43Catherine Cohen: You look like a pinup girl. It's like they can talk like in, in like play talk for whole scenes. Yeah. And they were like that when they were in their mid thirties. And they're like that when they're, he's in his sixties and they're still at it.

31:58Caitlin McGarry: Yeah. Which was so interesting when we had it in Virginia, when like real stuff started getting real. And he would talk to her like a person and she'd be like, oh, I don't like that at all. I know.

32:11Caitlin McGarry: When he'd be like, when she was like. Could we go back to the oopie poopie? do you want to please daddy

32:17Catherine Cohen: do we do the oogie poogie again

32:23Caitlin McGarry: let me do the oogie poogie that bit when she was like I didn't know that Cathy didn't want something about the Adderall or whatever I didn't know that you didn't want Wyatt to be an Adderall or whatever and he goes Carrie not now and she's like what do you poogie

32:37Catherine Cohen: oh my god I loved that episode

32:39Caitlin McGarry: I loved that shit man it was very the family stone or something

32:43Catherine Cohen: it was so good I just think it's so it's so interesting that the women that I know well not all the women I know but so many women I know who had like the most perfect and controlled life in their 30s yeah um you know where it was like they were really type a they were really tenacious they had very ambitious they worked really hard on their careers and then they bought their perfect flat they rented their perfect home in their perfect city and they like created this complete xanadu of like everything that they dreamed of in womanhood it i have found and and they've been single for like a long time yeah it's so often that you find it's those women who then fall in love with someone who just has a complete mess going on in their life and not in a bad way but They have, like, kids or a nutty ex-wife or, you know, they're working abroad or they've got...

33:43Catherine Cohen: There's just, like, these huge... It just always happens to those type of women. It's always their lives that are blown up with the baggage of falling in love in their mid-late 30s. So I just found that really interesting. And I feel like there were so many learnings for her in that experience with Aidan that I really enjoyed. like even something I found quite interesting was how much more reasonable she was when she was

34:09Caitlin McGarry: arguing with Aiden yeah and that was the I remember seeing someone point out online that like she had a bigger go at Miranda for eating a banana than she did with Aiden when he slept with his ex-wife yeah which I also found like again if it were a more beautifully crafted show if there weren't strange DOP decisions like strange editing choices odd music like really weird lighting that is the number one note that I have I have a whole section on lighting in this document so we I need to get back to that but like I think something I've seen it see a lot is like when people are like the writers the writers the writers and like for sure the writers are part of a thing you have to blame when a show is is not to your taste or whatever but like Like, I think there's a lot in this show that would have sat better and felt better if the production had been better.

35:03Caitlin McGarry: You know what I mean? There's so many things that, like, happened in Classic Sex and City that you could definitely describe verbatim in a kind of, like, yeah. And then she, you know, kicks Samantha out of the bath so that she can have big up. And it's like, whatever, like, oh, that kind of vibe. Yeah. Like that if it were, again, less artfully made in the way that like on a cinematography level, everything in And Just Like That feels like a Lifetime movie or feels like a Netflix rom-com or something. Just feels like a bunch of people contracted in for a show no one cares that much about or something.

35:41Caitlin McGarry: Whereas like you compare that to the sort of finale episodes in Paris that are just like, to me, that is cinema. It is. some beautiful images and like even any old random scene of Carrie hanging out in her apartment in any scene in Sex and the City has just got such a balance and a visual gorgeousness to it that like just doesn't work in this show and I feel like if all of those parts were working the whole thing of like Carrie is so trying to keep it together with the aid and stuff trying to be respectful of his family trying to sort of like thread every needle she possibly can with that relationship that the kind of frustration is bubbling over and then pouring onto Miranda because Miranda at this point is she's not just her friend she's her sister do you mean it's like that thing that frustration you can take out on somebody who you know will actually love you forever as opposed to the conditional love of a man in Virginia who won't come into your flat so you sell it and go to Gramercy Park and he agrees to stay over sometimes that woman's obsession with

36:44Catherine Cohen: Flats Buying and selling flats It's like fucking A place in the sun over here It's like a daytime property show She's been in three flats Four flats in three series Hang on The classic flat? The classic flat that she's like Psychotically obsessed with Yes That she has to let go She has to find peace She has to find peace With moving out I think she sort of did No not in the last episode With the set and oh do you think that's what that was i think she's gonna buy it back she can't stand that fake wall

37:18Caitlin McGarry: i know i think she's gonna buy it back no don't buy it no please michael don't make her buy it back they're obsessed with that they're obsessed with that flat yes she was in that that and then

37:28Catherine Cohen: she was in the really modern one oh for it like where she was cooking her salmon yeah and then she went into chase flat because aid oh then she went back into the flat she's like sexually obsessed with

37:40Caitlin McGarry: yeah and the flats she shared with Big as well oh yeah there was that flat as well yeah

37:47Catherine Cohen: that was a whole thing selling that flat and then she went into but then they had to go to like oh yes the they had to go to Che's flat because Aidan wouldn't sleep in the I totally forgot about that and then she got the Gramercy Park flat she thinks too much about flats it's crazy she's got to stop moving get a problem we all know what it's like we all have the fucking fantasy right move listing that we go on even when we've bought a flat we all do it but she has to find more meaning in life she's so obsessed for flats

38:17Caitlin McGarry: she's best friends with her estate agent

38:20Catherine Cohen: that's how obsessed for flats she is that really tells you everything you need to know and Seema is sort of only carted in into the main group when there's a property crisis

38:33Caitlin McGarry: it's so funny I would love if the last episode was this kind of reveal that like Like Seema's just been hustling Carrie this whole time because so many conversations she's like, so you're going to buy that flat downstairs now? I could just like Seema earning a commission every moment of the day.

38:47Catherine Cohen: Well, this actually leads us on to, I think one of the smartest things you've ever said in your entire life. Oh God, well, there's so many. Which is, can I just say, I've got a tiny little sleeping dog next to me. This is so nice. Silvia's being lovely right now. And a glass of champagne next to me. And I'm hungover from dinner with you last night. So this could not be a more perfect situation. um what you said was uh brilliant is you said every everything in this story that everything in the just like that stories that matter are all told through the acquisition or the loss of an item yeah it's so depressing and it's like everything is refracted through items whether it's like a coffee table a flat a dress that lily doesn't want to wear whatever dress that um she's

39:34Caitlin McGarry: going to wear to go with Duncan to the party? Is she going to wear the grey suit? Is she going to wear the Cinderella Vivian Westwood dress? It's like... It's a Birkin bag. Everything is communicated through stuff.

39:45Catherine Cohen: Yeah, everything. Every emotion is refracted through items that you can buy. Yeah, and it's really upsetting. And that's when late stage capitalism babes comes in. Don't ask me to explain why.

39:58Caitlin McGarry: The thing that keeps coming up, you've said this a couple of times, Jen said it a couple of times, is like and you've both said it with the exact same intensity which is that I truly believe and just like that will be the show that like we study after the fall of civilization and we're back to sort of feudal times and there's like a projector that we put on the shed once a week to learn about the other times like the Hunger Games like the dark days yeah um we will watch on just like that and study it as like oh this what was happening at the end of the world this is the Red and circuses. This is the Roman Coliseum.

40:30Caitlin McGarry: This is a fiddling while Rome burns.

40:33Catherine Cohen: The one that got me the most, I'd love to know the item that finally sent you over the edge. I'll tell you what, it was a table. The table was for me. The table. Did you see how much that table was on First Dibs? What was it? I may be wrong. I think it was$6 ,000. It was mangy. It was a bad table.

40:49Caitlin McGarry: It looked like patio furniture that you could buy on B &Q. Do you know what I mean? It looked like. Definitely. The upscale patio furniture.

40:56Catherine Cohen: It looks like the kind of furniture everyone sits around taking coke around in the dead of February in 2010, telling stories about their childhood trauma. Someone's telling on themselves there, I'd say.

41:12Caitlin McGarry: It's a very specific vibe, but that is what that table is. It was the one time I sympathised with Aidan in the whole show where she was like, you know, the table, it's a little bit of you, it's a little bit of me, it's a little bit of sleek, it's a little bit of romantic or whatever. And he just sent me the thumbs up. I was like okay like every there is no storyline just like that that cannot be related back to items and acquisition and buying and selling because I was thinking about I was thinking

41:40Catherine Cohen: about like older episodes of Sex and the City and that that occasionally was a thing like I think there was a Seema Birkin story there was a Samantha Jones Birkin story but actually it would be more about like it would be like abstract doubts it would be like yeah like carrie farted at biggs yeah yeah or the cookie that said i love you yes this was specifically about buying or or selling yeah everything was about buying or selling something and it is again we'll all be watching

42:13Caitlin McGarry: in the barn after civilization has crashed but like and the the guest lecturer will deliver in the barn to everybody who's finished their day of hoeing i really don't want to be in this barn you're gonna have to be we're headed that way we won't be alive surely i can't be in that barn but would you rather die than be in the barn would you rather be like i don't want to be in

42:34Catherine Cohen: the barn learning about late we're gonna be in a subterranean barn where we after we grow crops

42:39Caitlin McGarry: in hessian clothing yeah because the sun has boiled the earth and it's scorched and we're underground farming vertical towers.

42:51Caitlin McGarry: And I will deliver guest lectures on how we got here through the lens of I'm just like that. And I will have a high speaking fee.

43:02Catherine Cohen: In a post-capitalist world.

43:03Caitlin McGarry: In a post-capitalist world.

43:08Caitlin McGarry: Yeah. It's so true.

43:09Catherine Cohen: When you said that, I was like, it really, it really ruined something for me about the whole thing.

43:14Caitlin McGarry: It has come to this thing of like, if it's teaching us anything about like where we are right now, is that like, it does sometimes feel like every person has been reduced down to sort of data points about what they will and won't buy. Yeah. That is like, we spend so much of our time on our phones with just tracking about things that we're going to buy or not buy. And then like, we buy, you know, a fucking plug for the TV off Amazon, get advertising for six more plugs. And then we get a sky ad based on that plug. And you know what I mean? It's like endless, endless thing. And like, I think it's happened in such a drip, drip way that we've forgotten that it's not normal.

43:48Catherine Cohen: Yeah, but it's so normalised now.

43:50Caitlin McGarry: Yeah. That, like, we are just, like, data points and buying things.

43:54Catherine Cohen: And interestingly, the big change, the big shift culturally between the last series of Sex and the City and Just Like That, I would say, is social media.

44:05Caitlin McGarry: Yes. Which says a lot about consumerism.

44:10Catherine Cohen: Yeah. And about the normalisation of like daily acquisition and daily purchasing.

44:16Caitlin McGarry: Like, I don't know if you've ever dabbled that much on TikTok. I mean, you're very beloved over there.

44:21Catherine Cohen: I can't get into that. I would love to, but it would just swallow my whole life. I can't.

44:25Caitlin McGarry: They love you over there, mate. Stuff gets put on my feet the whole time.

44:28Catherine Cohen: Sometimes you send me stuff and it's so cute. It's really nice. Yeah.

44:31Caitlin McGarry: But. Do you still like it? I like it enough. I sort of like, I generally download it for like one day a month and then like have a good three hour go. Fun. Yeah. And it like, Lena Dunham actually explained this really well. She was like, it is a bit like the closest thing that you'll get to having that coming home after school and flicking through all the channels. Like flicking through 600 channels kind of thing. On a good day, it's what it feels like. On a bad day, it's every single channel is QVC. It is just people selling you useless bollocks all the time. And that's all the show has become.

45:04Caitlin McGarry: It's just sort of like It's QVC The top tier QVC And this is my other thing That I hated Is The houses At one point I was looking At a Lisa Todd Wexley Family scene Of which there were Far too many And I noticed that Like her Kitchen is this Like QVC kitchen Where Every In the background Of one scene Like she has this Kind of like Trio of Sort of bread bins That kind of like You know Sort of a sugar And you know Those kind of Tin things and they were all each individually lit with a spotlight. That is crazy. Who lives that way?

45:42Catherine Cohen: I love that Gavin's just walked in in the background and that's what he walked in on, our analysis of how a bread bin is lit in this show. I was trying to be quiet, okay?

45:54Caitlin McGarry: I thought QPC, it checks out. I'm into it. It's a good analogy. Thanks, Gavin. I know what the bread bin means,

45:59Catherine Cohen: but it's probably right.

46:01Caitlin McGarry: Thanks, babe. Love you. You're supporting women. Thanks for supporting women, babes.

46:09Catherine Cohen: No, I know. Do you know what made me my spotlight on the bin moment?

46:13Caitlin McGarry: Spotlight on the bin was a real, like, Hessian sack moment for me. Subterranean civilization, Hessian sack. I'm going to have a laser pointer on the lit bins.

46:23Catherine Cohen: There'll be a whole slide on the lit bins. The lit bread bin for me that just made me feel so disgusting about being a sentient being in the Western world was when Lisa Todd Wexley rang Charlotte to tell her about her dead dad, who, you know, people then became obsessed with the fact that the dad had apparently already died. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I think is cab and funny. But we pay so little respect to, like, the loss of human life over the loss of, say, a dress that Lily wore, an Oscar de Laurentiis dress that Lily wore, that they just totally forgot. They would never, ever repeat a storyline about Lily having two Oscar de la Renta dresses, but they so easily forgot that one of the principal characters had lost a parent a mere two series ago.

47:18Catherine Cohen: But it was when she rang Charlotte and they were both...

47:22Caitlin McGarry: I'm sorry, that's so funny. It's so camp.

47:27Catherine Cohen: She rang Charlotte and they were both, she was like in floods of tears about her dad dying her fake dad dying and um and they were both in these like identikit walk-in wardrobes yeah it was such a weird place to have this

47:44Caitlin McGarry: profound moment in a person's life your dad dying yeah your dad dying the man who created you dying

47:52Catherine Cohen: this man who she's really close with this lauded theatre director who has formed who she is the ambition she has as a young woman who was so proud of her that that moment should fall on a sort of cream carpeted where like yeah there was spot lit louis vuitton like 10 louis vuitton bags that's the appropriate place for these two women to be crying about a dead dad in their separate walk-in wardrobes that are identical i found it so sad i found it hard i love how everyone has the bread bin moment. There was just something about them both just faffing around

48:31Caitlin McGarry: in these stupid wardrobes. I think they made a real mistake over thinking that Lisa Todd Wexley's desk in her wardrobe was aspirational. I found it very sad. I found that sad. Why doesn't she have an office? I know. Have an office!

48:46Catherine Cohen: Did you like Lisa Todd Wexley? I actually really did. You hate the husband. I hate the husband. I hate her, bitch. I hate Herbert If you had had a gun to my head right now

49:02Caitlin McGarry: I wouldn't have been able to tell you what his name is So while I've been having to Get my fix and talking about it just like that on the record So I've been doing a couple of episodes over at The Cinema Mile Which is a really really fun podcast and if people Need more information after this Please go there. I saw a clip of it, it looked really fun It was really fun And so I've been sort of really keeping up on Character names through that

49:23Catherine Cohen: Oh yeah so I should probably say so like I was in with series one I was in with series two and then this series I just I declared myself out at episode two which I found bankruptcy I just couldn't believe that the day at the moment finally I think in my head I was just like do you know what I think I will find a moment to watch this at some point with a hangover like many years away but I had no compulsion to watch it at all which I've never had before with the show and so I kind of just said I sort of gave you the battle and I was just a bit like you go on without me. And then like you and Monica would occasionally talk about it on the group and I just would not even engage, just wasn't even interested in what was going on.

50:02Catherine Cohen: And then it was announced that it was the last one and then I obviously became obsessed with it again. Of course, of course. How did you feel when it was announced?

50:11Caitlin McGarry: I felt like it was coming because I felt like it was like, having watched the series, season three, episode to episode, it felt like they were wrapping things up. like it felt like they were settling the characters you know it felt like the um seema and adam felt kind of for keeps miranda and dolly wells feel kind of for keeps i hope so dolly wells is so good in this i love her so much i love her so much you should hire her

50:38Catherine Cohen: i'd love to work with her i think she's so clever and she makes such interesting choices as an actor

50:43Caitlin McGarry: yeah yeah yeah she's so charming in it and like they they make sense to me like i think the fans haven't been crazy about it because it's sort of like it's so funny it's like people hated Che Diaz because of like the amount of like just freaky little things they would come out with and like just how kind of brusque and unlikable and whatever and obviously people were upset about the Steve thing but like people have been like very mewly and mealy-mouthed about like yeah I guess she's fine. Have they? I think she's gorgeous in this. I think they have such a lovely chemistry They really do. They feel like just two women who really just are into each other in an intellectual way, into them physically.

51:27Caitlin McGarry: That is an intellectual equal.

51:29Catherine Cohen: I don't feel that old Margaret Thatcher pipe smoker and Carrie really are intellectually. I don't think that they...

51:36Caitlin McGarry: It's not an intellectual thing as such. It's more that the scene I was impressed by and got really, really excited was actually her being like standing her ground as an author with like an important male author. I loved that bit

51:50Catherine Cohen: when he was like I have five best-selling books and she was like I have seven

51:54Caitlin McGarry: and then he's like mine are 500 page historical biographies and her and she's like and the plots were already made up for you I loved that bit that sent a shiver down my spine don't we all have the dream of saying that we all right

52:06Catherine Cohen: to one of the male editors of the LRB it's interesting that you think that they were wrapping up because my theory is I don't think they thought this was the last series really well let's wait and see how the final episode so this whole thing of like

52:17Caitlin McGarry: what I thought was really interesting in the episode this week which was like how does it end how does it end for the woman how does it end for Carrie this thing of like Carrie and her in the like oh that big flat and like you're all alone in the big flat and whatever it like it it really has the air of the epilogue for me maybe you're right everything about it is what's gonna happen to Carrie it's weird they would

52:41Catherine Cohen: announce it halfway through the series I thought normally they announce it as the series goes out

52:48Caitlin McGarry: yeah I guess

52:49Catherine Cohen: I felt like it was a decision off the back of I think the commentary's been particularly horrendous of this series and they are hemorrhaging viewers apparently really? well actually they're not I think there was a big dip between series 1 and 2 and there's actually only been a fractional dip between 2 and 3

53:10Caitlin McGarry: how do you have this information?

53:11Catherine Cohen: because I looked it up when I saw it was cancelled because I was so surprised yeah yeah yeah i thought that they would match the sex in the city life run really yeah because we're already halfway through yeah we're halfway through what sex in the city was but i thought they'll just get to six from a production point of view it's unbelievably expensive like yeah but only because the way they fucking shoot yeah yeah which i think it doesn't have to be shot like that

53:37Caitlin McGarry: No. I also, I think the problem with a lot of this as well is that like, they completely misunderstood why people loved Carrie Bradshaw and why people love the show or whatever. And like, I remember listening to the Writer's Room podcast, which I remain obsessed with. And like, then just saying. Are you still listening to that? Absolutely, I'm still listening to it. It's my favourite podcast. I have so many theories on the interpersonal connection. so busy I can't believe you listened to that fucking podcast that little dog it's a 90 minute walk every day I gotta listen to something do you look forward to listening yeah I look forward to it I really look forward to it because I do think that man is kind of running a cult in really because it's really fascinating because it's like generally on that podcast you get like um Lisa Zeritsky and Michelle Rottenberg who like started on the show when they were in their 20s and are still writing partners.

54:32Caitlin McGarry: And they're just sort of like, you can tell that they're like, yeah, Michael's a bit kooky, but like we all have kids in private school. That is the vibe. And then there's Samantha Irby.

54:43Catherine Cohen: Who I'm obsessed with.

54:44Caitlin McGarry: Obsessed with. Because also in many ways, she is like the closest thing to a real Carrie Bradshaw in terms of like somebody who has like written these memoiric books that have like really zeitgeisty. She has this point of view everyone's obsessed with. Yeah. Like she really does emulate that And when she writes from Carrie's point of view, I think it's always really, really works.

55:04Catherine Cohen: I always know, and it's the Samantha Irby episode.

55:06Caitlin McGarry: Yeah, she's the best at it. She really is. They should have made her showrunner. They should have made Michael Patrick King a consulting producer, and they should have just let Samantha Irby do her thing with this.

55:16Catherine Cohen: Michael Patrick King to this franchise is like Carrie to that flat.

55:22Caitlin McGarry: You're going to have to go elaborate for me on that one.

55:24Catherine Cohen: He cannot let go.

55:26Caitlin McGarry: He cannot let go. but yeah I think if she had been the showrunner because so another thing about it is that like she will often argue with them and she will be sort of like in the context of that sort of four pronged head writers room and sometimes other writers come in and out as well she's almost like the Samantha. Samantha Irby is the Samantha. She's the one who's pushing it further. She was like I wanted Lisa Howexley to have an affair. I pushed for her having an affair. Did she? And the other's like no our Lisa wouldn't do that. It's like she so should have had an affair they're playing with like these precious precious dollies they won't take out of their box and she's just like let's put the dollies in the mud and like if you would let her put the dollies in the mud

56:07Catherine Cohen: you'd let her get the barbies and scissor each other we would have all had so much more fun

56:12Caitlin McGarry: I think if she yeah I think that would have been the best she would still have made choices that would have pissed people off but it would have pissed people off in an artistically satisfying way

56:22Catherine Cohen: can I tell you the main thing that I would have done differently I think the thing that this show really really missed that was the part of the magic of Sex and the City structurally because I still think a lot of this problem with structure is having a voiceover and having a theme of the week yeah yeah yeah I think it really missed it and I think what you what it needed was Carrie either doing a podcast or a column or a memoir or book of essays and every week it was like you know a theme on letting go of something or a theme on you know how much sex is a normal sex life in a couple yes you know just like they used to though with

57:09Caitlin McGarry: the show it would just be like relevant to people at that stage of life and also internally relevant

57:13Catherine Cohen: and yeah i suppose they would have felt like maybe they didn't have enough that could span all the characters lives because it was so much easier when it was four single women having sex

57:21Caitlin McGarry: And on those episodes, we just don't see those people. Yeah. That would be fine. Like, it's fine to have a show with a big cast. It's like, White Lotus does it or whatever, but like, there can just be some episodes where we don't see them and that's fine. We don't need like a random comedic plot about like a dog getting cancelled online. Yeah. That stuff bummed me out so much.

57:38Catherine Cohen: I hated the dog getting cancelled. Yeah. It made me turn against that bulldog in a way that I found disturbing in myself.

57:49Catherine Cohen: I just didn't like seeing that bulldog after that. I didn't like him either. I just found it annoying. And actually, I would say, interestingly, we have a list that we'll get to of the things that worked and didn't work for us. Richard Burton didn't work for me, I think because you're right, because he was there to serve a gag. Yeah. Whereas Shu was shown a degree of respect. And there was like a whimsy about Shu. and I could have had a whole episode, a silent episode of just Shue padding around that Gramercy park flat.

58:21Caitlin McGarry: Do you not feel there were a lot of like, so I have a whole section in this document just called Abandoned Storylines. Oh yeah, a lot. Stuff they introduced as if it was going to be a big thing and then we never heard about it again. I feel like there were all the, and I think actually somebody said this on TikTok, on QVC, and I was like, there was all these episodes where it was sort of teased that the Shue was going to be in mortal danger. That never happened. Like it was like, Shoe got out. Or like, Shoe near a window. Oh, I was so waiting for Shoe to escape.

58:50Catherine Cohen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love Shoe so much. Shoe is very cute. She should always have had a cat. When you see her just like clip clopping around her flat in her heels and then she just scoops up this like fluffy little thing. Do you know what actually makes me really happy about Shoe? Is that for years and years I wanted a cat and I didn't get a cat.

59:09Caitlin McGarry: Yeah.

59:10Catherine Cohen: Because I thought it meant something about being a single woman who lived alone who had a cat.

59:15Caitlin McGarry: Yeah.

59:15Catherine Cohen: Because cats have such bad PR. They do. And then it was actually an ex-boyfriend, and I will always thank him for this, who said to me in my early 30s, if you want a cat, just fucking get a cat. If you've always wanted one, who the fuck cares? Like, it doesn't matter what people think. Just get this thing that's going to bring you joy into your life every day. You're grateful to that man for saying, get a cat? I would never have got a cat if he hadn't told me to get a cat. You think you need someone to say, you'll still be, I'll still fuck you even if you have a cat? 100 % But then I got Then I got a cat And I was like This is the most perfect Attractive Single woman's accessory They are famously clean They never smell They are soft and plush Like a luxury slipper They can leave them alone for the weekend Leave them alone for the weekend They don't demand much of your attention They're like They're so I don't understand why they're seen as this repellent for a single woman.

1:00:15Catherine Cohen: And that's why I'm really grateful to Shu. Because actually I think that she has shown just like what a perfect accompaniment to a woman's life a cat can be.

1:00:26Caitlin McGarry: I don't think it's actually the cats themselves that are often the problem. It's the way people talk about their cats that people get icked about, I think. In what way? There's something about someone talking about their cat's preferences that feels weird you know and I don't know why that is because I feel like if I you know I'm not gonna natter on to a stranger at a party about my walk schedule with my dog but there's something that feels outdoorsy communal like outgoing about like having a dog and being in the world yeah yeah but like being at home fussing over your cat feels do you know what I mean it just has a like socially and conversationally it has a different ring to it or something I know what you mean

1:01:09Catherine Cohen: and here's the reason why we so like sylve is currently curled up next to me like his tiny sleeping piglet she's so sweet and demonstrative with her affection you get a moment like that with a cat maybe once a day normally when they're just conked out and asleep not really when they're conscious do they want to be so i think what happens is you have to like find these moments of connection you have to analyze the cat and give the cat a character and kind of give all this theory the cat a character

1:01:39Caitlin McGarry: and you have to give

1:01:39Catherine Cohen: all these theories on why the cat does all the weird shit cats do which is basically they're just not that interested in their owners and they don't think about their owners that much I think so I think that's why cat people are annoying because we're desperately trying to prove that we have the same connection that you have with your dog that is such a good theory god well done on that I am one of those annoying people at a party I'm the bad PR you're the bad PR it's the owners it's the female owners we're the bad PRs we need to get fired

1:02:08Caitlin McGarry: I'm so glad we finally solved cats on this final and just like that episode that we're doing.

1:02:16Caitlin McGarry: Hi, I'm Jack Ravici, Kramer, host of The Best One Yet.

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1:03:29Caitlin McGarry: Okay, so we have different categories. We have what worked, what did not work, abandoned storylines and what we will miss. Shall we go what worked first? Let's be positive first. Let's be positive first. OK. Seema worked. Loved Seema. Loved Seema. Loved Adam as well. I really love Adam the Gardener. Who's Adam?

1:03:55Catherine Cohen: Oh, the Gardener. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know what it is with this show. when I was looking back today to refresh my memory of all the episodes particularly of series two which I would watch a lot when I was just like doing my emails and admin I would see these names of men and I just couldn't These days like the mealy mouth teacher Who is Franklin? Franklin? Carrie had a massive relationship with someone called Franklin

1:04:19Caitlin McGarry: Was he the podcast producer? Maybe Who they had no chemistry with? I think it was that Right, right, right, right

1:04:27Catherine Cohen: Seema And I do love Adam I love Adam the gardener and I also love that he like is sort of gross and disgusting and lips her armpit and I love that you know that he loves period sex yeah for sure and she's just the perfect person to be given a man like that when a woman like that is given a man like that it's

1:04:46Caitlin McGarry: just like manna from heaven I loved her whole thing of like she's so gorgeous she's so funny she's so likable but she's really brittle and like has had so many bad experiences that she's like can guard herself off them it was sort of like samantha against the power of itself kind of thing it's like it's sort of like semo was like what if samantha were a real person totally what of the experiences samantha had actually affected her at all as opposed to things that were just these things she's breezed through because like there are many humane things about samantha in terms of like as the series went on and like how she related to her friends how she went to her job her illness all these different things but how she related to romance for the vast bulk of the show was not what how a human being is so unrelated somebody was actually like that they would like they would be in some kind of facility yeah you're totally right and it was like there was this

1:05:42Catherine Cohen: just soft underbelly to sema that was just so lovable and she was such a good friend and she is just the most beautiful creature to look at as well. I just find her so compelling as an actor to watch.

1:05:56Caitlin McGarry: She's also one of the only friends in the show who isn't scared of Carrie.

1:06:00Catherine Cohen: Yeah, true.

1:06:01Caitlin McGarry: Because Carrie kind of runs that group like a head girl kind of thing and she's like, if Carrie's like, you know, being sort of brittle and moody, everyone will be like, okay, okay, bye, okay, okay. Whereas like Seema is like, in the most recent episode about the um buying the flat that Duncan went buying more flats um the latest episode of Grand Designs where um Carrie has this really prickly reaction that's basically like why is everyone saying that like I need to sort of get rid of my big empty home or whatever yeah and Seema just looks her very dead in the eye being like I'm not talking about that Carrie I'm talking about of business yeah it's a good moment that it's good and it's like i like how she can't really be pushed and can't be cowed so i think there's something very real about that in that like her and carrie and charlotte and miranda do feel like three siblings to me more now yeah which i think makes sense for three women who've known each other for 30 years and they are not close to their family of origin and in that family carrie's eldest daughter and miranda's middle daughter and charlotte's youngest and it's like everything carrie does and carrie's a bit famous and da da da and like every so she can kind of terrorize them a bit yeah in a way i would have loved to have seen explored like how does like the kind of baked in dynamics of 30 years of friendship actually become sort of toxic in some ways it's fascinating totally yeah it's like seema is a genuine just a new friend like this is something that me and jen say to each other a lot is you're my friend not my family kind of thing because we kind of something we talked about a lot is how we sort of this idea that we need to transcend our friends into this family space because we're like live in the city we're not living near our families of origin can sometimes be this way we speak about our friends that's not actually healthy where it's like you don't yes it's good to like take someone's birthday very seriously and make sure you show up for them but the other side of treating someone like your family is that you can be very callous with their feelings and you bitch about them all the time all the time and stuff and it's like oh well i love

1:08:10Catherine Cohen: them so much exactly exactly so right and like i remember like yeah that's like a weird mantra

1:08:15Caitlin McGarry: that me and jen have we're like you're right you're one of my best friends you are not my family you're like i will always treat you with the respect of a friend of like a separate person to me you are not this entity that's also me that i get to scratch out when i'm bored completely

1:08:29Catherine Cohen: and it's interesting as well because when you think about i think that i think her being a bit famous is such an interesting power dynamic within that group that's not really explored yeah but she definitely will be one of those friends that you and I sometimes talk about this dynamic where it's like they make you feel like you're the best friend in a rom-com yes yeah yes yes where it's like their whole aim of the entire friendship is that one day you're going to leave your job to get in a car and like race through traffic lights so they can

1:09:05Caitlin McGarry: chase a guy at an airport totally I remember you and I had this conversation before because obviously as we famously we both used to be journalists even though that's fairly you know on the line or like so I know you and I have had the experience before where we will have had to interview a famous person or somebody who's a public profile far outstrips our own or whatever yeah and we'll get on with them and then they'll be like oh this has been lovely like we should definitely hang out again and those relationships except in the smallest numbers of cases fizzle out so quickly always because if you meet somebody in the context of like you're the very famous person and i'm the person they sent to interview you yeah even if you had the best chemistry on planet earth it will always be them talking to you like a famous person and you taking notes and you being expected the next time that you meet to like remember everything they said whereas like they don't know my husband's name or my dog's name do you know what I mean like it's like that totally that is such a genre when you live when you work in the media in London that is a genre of friend of being like you are someone who I think is fabulous to go to a party with and like I get to be your little hanger-on at the party sometimes but we're not actually friends

1:10:15Catherine Cohen: in the way that I think of my friends and actually I think those power dynamics that are so delineated and that are so established from the immediate get-go when you meet someone

1:10:27Caitlin McGarry: i think they never change imagine if i was just having just having this chat and they're realizing i love having this chat so much and uh imagine if they gave samantha irby the reins and you and i were in the writer's room oh my god i would love it so much wouldn't that be the best ride of our

1:10:43Catherine Cohen: lives it would be so great the perfect art we would have made with samantha irby the problem is is that there's just too many execs on that show every single actor is an exec is an exec i think that would have been difficult how how sort of exclusive and media you have been this

1:11:00Caitlin McGarry: entire conversation what does that mean to the lay person so if you're an executive producer

1:11:04Catherine Cohen: that means that you you are one of the final voices with every creative decision that's made so that means you have a voice and power when it comes to casting when it comes to hiring heads of department like directors or heads of costume or you don't like oversee budget or anything you wouldn't be involved in those conversations but basically anything other than the financial technicalities and the and the tiny minutiae of production technicalities you get to have a substantial say in and that was like I think every writer was an exec as well yeah yeah that's

1:11:39Caitlin McGarry: crazy yeah it's really quite mad which which makes sense why you would end up with this kind of mishmash of tone and theme. Completely.

1:11:48Catherine Cohen: Anyway, so we liked Seema. What else is on the list?

1:11:52Caitlin McGarry: We're number one on the list. Okay, Anthony.

1:11:54Catherine Cohen: I liked Anthony. You didn't like Anthony.

1:11:56Caitlin McGarry: Did not like Anthony. Tell me why. Okay, first of all, I feel like the amount of Anthony that we got in The Original Sex and the City was the perfect amount of Anthony in that he was the same. Yeah, it was not that much. Yeah, he was a sort of like delicious, strange, sour surprise. Do you know what I mean? And he was the perfect foil for Charlotte because you could, and you could see it you know what I mean that like he was this kind of brash upwardly mobile Sicilian lifetime New Yorker who would like somehow through just like elbow grease and attitude alone had become one of the top wedding planners in New York it would make oh my god that was his job that was his job that's why they know him now he's a fucking commercial baker why is he running hot fellas with a shit flat why is he running hot fellas I hate first of all the reason I hated this storyline I hate hot fellas I hate hot fellas I hate it I find it condescending and weird.

1:12:46Catherine Cohen: Name a faker brand than Hot Fellas.

1:12:49Caitlin McGarry: It's the fakest thing.

1:12:50Catherine Cohen: Even the bakery looked fake. It didn't even look, I couldn't believe that was a real street.

1:12:54Caitlin McGarry: The way the writers room talk about that bakery. They're like, we had people who thought it was a real bakery who were tapping on the window, asking when we were opening. And I was like, I don't believe you. I can't believe you listen to that podcast still. You're going to as well. I know you are. You're one wild and precious life. Sorry I should be watching Nine unedited hours of the Beatles

1:13:17Catherine Cohen: Listening to Michael Patrick Like I'm a retired man Listening to Michael Patrick King Praise himself on his own fake bakery Yeah I thought Hot Fenners was bad I actually don't like Giuseppe

1:13:30Caitlin McGarry: The thing about Giuseppe is Is that I agree with Pantalea Pone Like he's clearly working out some issues About his own parenting he's 28 years old he should not be with a guy who's pushing 60 I don't understand why they're in a relationship I don't understand what Giuseppe's attracted to about Anthony because he's still so broad and comedic a character yeah

1:13:53Catherine Cohen: like you don't really see any sincerity at all

1:13:56Caitlin McGarry: yeah exactly and I just I think he was good as a bitsy Von Muffling do you know what I mean I just don't believe

1:14:04Catherine Cohen: okay now you're saying all that I do agree with you there should have been

1:14:07Caitlin McGarry: less of him why were they always eating dinner in charlotte's house yeah there should have been

1:14:14Catherine Cohen: less of him i think i love that he was so undomesticated i think all his storylines had nothing to do with buying houses family stories find you know finding someone to marry it was like he was a real taste of old sex in the city i think told i loved some bits of it like i

1:14:31Caitlin McGarry: loved the puppeteer storyline i thought that was so funny i loved the puppeteer i really liked it But like I just Every time I see Giuseppe I'm just like Mildly worried for him I'm like Why are you hanging out With all these old people You're 28 Stop hanging out with old people

1:14:44Catherine Cohen: Have I talked about The mustard theory No So when I worked on Made in Chelsea Years and years ago I worked under this Brilliant writer Called Darren Little Who's this like Veteran in the business He wrote on soap Still writes on He's like the head writer For EastEnders now I think he was on Corrie For years and years and he knows a lot about story structure and he used to say this thing to me about certain characters in a piece that are really sort of eccentric or grotesque or funny or esoteric and he said the only way you enjoy them is they have to be the mustard so they're this tiny relish

1:15:26Caitlin McGarry: little eyedropper and they're mustard yeah and they're on the side of the main dish that help

1:15:32Catherine Cohen: the main dish sing. Yeah. And it's a very good piece of advice. And I think... Very good. I think Anthony should have been the relish and not the main dish. Yes. Okay, what else did we like? Lily. You didn't like Lily. I did not like Lily, but you liked Lily.

1:15:51Caitlin McGarry: Why did you like Lily? She worked for me.

1:15:52Catherine Cohen: I think she is realistic of people that I know with teenage daughters are dealing with exactly the shit that the Lily storylines gave.

1:16:01Caitlin McGarry: Like a pansexual ballerina dancer.

1:16:03Catherine Cohen: Like romantic obsession and shifting identity. And I just think that that's like realistic drama that Charlotte would have to deal with with a teenage girl. And I think that was good to bring in some realism from that.

1:16:16Caitlin McGarry: Yeah, I liked her. I liked the actress a lot. Do you know what, actually, let me rewind it back. Because my main issue with Charlotte and Lisa Todd Wexley and their approach to parenting, I found it dystopian. Why? I hated this whole kind of Park Avenue parenting thing. I hated the whole thing of like, Lisa Todd Wickley, I'm going to commit the biggest sin of motherhood and put my phone on silent. It's like, your eldest is like 10. Like, you're fine. He's probably in school. It's during the day. You can put your phone on silent. Little did she know her second dad died. it's a big day in a woman's life when she loses her second dad but like i feel like that the lisa and charlotte scenes they held up this version of motherhood that is completely thankless and boring and depressing and kind of joyless and joyless and also creates shit kids like the way that like charlotte's kids would just kind of mean to her and stuff and like be so snappy and dismissive and just like that's just how it is kind of thing it's like I don't like I I'm not a roast into glasses person but that's not how I felt about my parents when I was that age do you know I mean I still liked talking about books with my mom when I was 16 you know I mean we did have snappy fights but like in general I was pretty aware of her humanity and I just felt like I don't know I feel like I had a lot of moments with my parents in those ages that were interesting and that I don't like teenage storylines and I guess because I write YA as well I do feel extremely protective of teenagers I have teenagers in my life like I have um my nephew and my niece who are both in their teens and they are like some of the most fascinating people I know I can never predict what take they're gonna have on things yeah and like I would love to have seen teenagers are among my favorite demographic of people and I just thought it was reduced to sort of like beats like a she-in delivery or you know whatever you know they never really had a conversation you're right yeah and like i just felt like that whole side of the show held up this like completely untenable version of motherhood where even if you try your best it's still horrible and it just sort of bummed me out it didn't look fun at all not at all I thought the thoroughly modern Millie stuff was really fun I loved

1:18:48Catherine Cohen: I loved that I was in tears

1:18:50Caitlin McGarry: With everything I just said I still love that I know

1:18:52Catherine Cohen: With the whole gang watching

1:18:54Caitlin McGarry: Yeah Rock And there's an interesting bookend there as well In that like episode one of that And just like that Opens with Lily's piano recital or whatever I know I saw that yeah And then we have And I just thought I was very moved by Charlotte like struggling with how gleeful she felt that Rock was presenting female. Yeah, it was a really, really good story, I think. Really good story. I'm interested to see where that will pay off in the next episode. Yeah, it's weird to have that pay off now. Like, I think the biggest problem of the whole show in general is pacing, right? It's like introducing what feel like big stories at really, like, towards the end times.

1:19:33Caitlin McGarry: Like, fucking, Brady is having a baby, you know? Like, the baby's having a baby.

1:19:39Catherine Cohen: I wish that would go away, that story. Really? The way I feel about that story is, you've used this metaphor on me before, is when you're trying to get some mushed carrot into a toddler's mouth. That's what Michael Patrick King is doing to me with that storyline. I'm just pursing my lips and wincing away from the spoon. I don't want it. I don't want that story.

1:20:01Caitlin McGarry: See, I really like Brady.

1:20:03Catherine Cohen: Why?

1:20:07Caitlin McGarry: Because. He's so stroppy. I really I don't know I mean he was very strappy in the most previous episode the most recent episode which I kind of get because it's like you've contacted the mother of my unborn child without talking to me about it first that should be the thing not the fact that she's you know what I mean he's a major but like I think he just seems like very grounded I love the way he is with Joy and her dogs I love the way he was like getting into cooking and stuff I love the way he's like I just think that that Miranda's whole style of parenting is like a lot more hands off and a lot more real and a lot more down to earth yeah and I feel like it's created a very real down to earth person and

1:20:50Catherine Cohen: like I feel like it's very charming no for some reason I was just not invested in those kids which is weird because I watched all those women have those kids so I can't believe I just don't

1:21:01Caitlin McGarry: really care by the way this is our list of things that worked okay I'm just I'm scanning down go on the things we've already talked about um something that really worked for me carrie's editor i love carrie's editor she is one of the most perfectly observed publishing professionals i've ever seen

1:21:19Catherine Cohen: in anything they always do good publishing characters they do yeah and it's like she

1:21:24Caitlin McGarry: always is the right amount of like absolutely rimming carrie's arsehole because that's what you do with your author is to get them all g-dub yeah and then will immediately deliver like a massive like so here's this fundamental thing about your manuscript you have to change that also invalidates your whole life yeah it's so it's just very true and the way she's always

1:21:41Catherine Cohen: slightly squeezing Carrie dry for another thing yeah yeah yeah I just think is so good she's great

1:21:47Caitlin McGarry: I love her yeah she's a really good character um I guess that could bring us we could talk more about the book's plots in general I mean every every joke that you could make about the woman

1:21:56Catherine Cohen: has already been made why do I like the novel you are the only person who likes the woman I think it's great why because the first moment when she ended with a vo and i realized it was a historical novel i felt so excited for her but then i am a writer who's gone from memoir to novels so i think it's very specific to me i can see why most people just wouldn't find that that intriguing or exciting

1:22:22Caitlin McGarry: i think most people's problem with it is not that it's a novel but that the not the prose is so strange. The prose is weird. And that it's supposed to be this page-turning historical epic and that it's always just these like I think the thing is.

1:22:36Catherine Cohen: Although I would say the page-turning historical epics that have been like huge, particularly when I think about the ones in the 90s they often are written a bit like that.

1:22:44Caitlin McGarry: What, with no named main character? Although the reason they didn't give a named character. Yeah, I know, I understand.

1:22:48Catherine Cohen: Because it would have been so comedic for her to end every episode being like Agnes you know oldie worldie name i didn't think the prose was so bad did you think no i think the

1:23:02Caitlin McGarry: actual i mean the main obviously it was camp and strange and like that's whatever but like the thing about the column was it was often camp and strange you know like that's sort of the the wink and the nudge of the column i think the main actual problem with the woman apart from how funny and weird it is is like um the function of the voiceover and the column in the show was about knitting themes together and forming connections where possibly no connection could have been seen before yeah which is what made it so genius which is amazing so i was thinking the other day about like um the cock doodle do episode right yeah which is like it's there's roosters on the roof so good that are keeping her awake there's chickens on the roof that are keeping her awake there's samantha's plot with the very problematic awful plot with the trans sex workers in her building and like this kind of theme of gentrification and and new york and the meat packing district and what the meat packing district is so you've got your carry on the roof you've got the meat packing district and all that you're getting this flavor of new york yeah even if it's like a problematic flavor and then you're also getting that moment where miranda and carry are fighting in the vintage clothes shop about like you know big about big and whatever and you can't go back there and then the last scene in that thing is like in the story I think is like because you and me sweet friend are like that red wall and she's sitting on the edge of his bed and they both realize that like we've had this affair we've hurt people deeply we've ruined our lives we need to wake up from the dream and so it's like the voiceover acts as this beautiful threading of the needle from the high to low from camp to serious yeah of like this is an episode about wake up calls and we mean that literally with chickens we mean it literally with trans sex workers we mean it literally from the the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and that is what the voiceover was doing that's what the column was doing as opposed to the woman which is just narrating what's already happening and that we can already see through an oldie oldie voice totally take it back you're completely right

1:25:01Catherine Cohen: and actually what you've just hit on there is the magic we lost yeah exactly it is those thematic voiceovers and the metaphor and that it that was the thing that just made it so good it just yeah

1:25:13Caitlin McGarry: it's magical together and so difficult and so satisfying between you know 20 to 30 episodes per season for years and this is actually the main problem with the whole show i mean we keep saying this is the main problem there are many main problems which is that like sex in the city was a show that was written by you know a group of women who were picked up on a bus every single this is my most romantic thing about the show yeah picked up on a bus every day like all in their early 30s or whatever all single all single taken on a bus to silver cup studios like out in queens doing a writer's room for what however long american writer room gone for i guess 13 14 weeks sometimes and then them to getting those scripts taking those scripts working around the clock with actresses who were giving everything with creators doing everything with a show that was on the ground in New York every day it was so much work it was people who could not have lives outside of it to the point where when people said do you guys see each other much outside of work they went no obviously not because we have to see the other people we could ever see because this is so all-encompassing yeah and it was like the full-time profession and calling out of 300 people probably yeah whereas and just like that feels like the part-time job of a bunch of retired millionaires that's why they pay the big bucks they don't pay me that big bucks

1:26:43Catherine Cohen: that's why you get non one-star reviews that say that you say by and large too much you're completely right you're completely right and it's all the off-screen stuff it's the machinations of how something is made and why something is made and the lives of the people who were making it yeah and the dynamics of the people as a group who are making it

1:27:07Caitlin McGarry: it that's the dna no one on just like that is hungry for anything no like and that sadly i think hunger is the kernel where good art comes from you are desperate to prove something someone desperate to make the point you want to make desperate to show the life you can't you want to live or have to live and that is where all the most beautiful things have come out of creation and the creative spirit I've come from. And no one is hungry or desperate for anything because everyone's rich and famous. And that sucks. But like, I'm glad they tried, you know? I'm really glad they tried. Yeah. Sorry, I'm a bit pissed now.

1:27:44Caitlin McGarry: I feel like I really wound up and I'm like grandstanding you. No, that was really good.

1:27:50Catherine Cohen: You did two really good little speeches there.

1:27:54Caitlin McGarry: That's why when I'm doing this, the lecture series and the underground punch, in the Hessian sack. My speaking fee will be high.

1:28:05Catherine Cohen: I'm going to have a wee and top off our glasses and then we will find something that worked for us about this show. Okay, okay.

1:28:11Caitlin McGarry: I'm going to pause it. I really liked this week's episode, the whole thing with the pies. Loved it. Absolutely loved it. I thought it was so fun. So fun and so New York

1:28:21Catherine Cohen: and so old sex in the city. Did you think of me during the plague? This woman bought four pies, didn't even pick them up. Also, it was just so true to Carrie's character, I think. Yeah, yeah. Like, a bit too much, generous, ultimately quite lazy. I just thought it was so, it just tracked so well.

1:28:39Caitlin McGarry: It's one of those ways where you and Carrie really overlap. Totally. So generous and so thoughtful, but ultimately, like, I'm not going to...

1:28:47Catherine Cohen: There's a number of times where I've just been like, oh, I'm hungover and I'm going to a baby shower, but I guess I'll just, like, go buy a£100 hummingbird cage.

1:28:58Caitlin McGarry: I actually do you know what can I say something very sentimental that worked for me this season go on because like for the last year I'd say you and I have been friends for six years right and this last year I think I've seen we've seen each other the least as we than we ever have and that is just down to like busyness life stuff both of us been traveling a lot all that and like it's one of one of my favorite things about our friendship is that neither one of us ever hold the other person to account

1:29:26Catherine Cohen: or act like it's the other person's problem we never we have never and we will never never we will never you are one of my very few people in my life that there will never be anarchy message saying did you see the above just never it's nice because it's true love

1:29:46Caitlin McGarry: for me that it's true love and like the thing of it's not that you and I are like any busier than the average person or whatever it's just that I think there's a shared thing of like we do get very engrossed in stuff exactly when we're committed to a project we're a hundred percent we're obsessives neither love we love texting when we're in the mood to text and we're on an obsessive sort of like internal private joke or we're having a manic high about something that we're both watching or whatever in general both of us find like the daily texting how are you how's life been

1:30:23Catherine Cohen: oppressive can't bear it we i think we both think of it as like an assault it's awful i now think that sending someone a message saying happy birthday is the worst way you it's like the most horrible thing you can do to someone in the beginning of their next year of their life happy birthday would love to catch up because you're giving them admin are you giving that you

1:30:44Caitlin McGarry: so are we're not listen we're not 21 anymore we don't need the facebook post on the wall do you mean we just I'm like I not I know not everybody feels this way because I wrote an article about or a sub stack about this about like how I hate texting and I really thought some people rallied with me but lots of people were like this has made me understand that like not all my friends hate me yeah because they were so bamboozled by it but sorry that that was a long way around of saying both of us have been extremely busy over the last 12 months I've seen you the least I ever have seen you and I while I'm not interested in like picking apart like whose fault that is or whatever like why haven't we made more time for lunch yeah uh not interested in that because I know I'm going to be friends with you forever and like these things come and go however there have been days where I've been like oh I would love to see Dolly today but as I can see from my find my iPhone she's in Barbados we're we're on each other's find my iPhone that's very cozy.

1:31:41Catherine Cohen: It's the coziest thing ever.

1:31:43Caitlin McGarry: It's so nice. I loved like tracking you on your way down here. It was so nice. I know. But something about Carrie's Gramercy Park home. I'm not saying you live in a townhouse mansion. Please make that clear. Please make that clear.

1:31:58Catherine Cohen: They've all finally got off my fucking back.

1:32:02Caitlin McGarry: You live in a lovely ground floor flat. You have two bedrooms in North London. It is luxurious, but it is not, you know. Unattainable. It is not unattainable. But something about how she styled her flat and like how it looks on the inside and how your flat looks. I don't know what it is. And something about the cat stuff or whatever. It made me sort of feel like I was in your house. I love you so much. Is that weird? No. Do you know what I mean though, stylistically?

1:32:37Catherine Cohen: No, I think what it is, is like Caroline just said something really cute about her flat that we're sitting in right now he said that sometimes you can pretend that this flat is a studio flat yeah yeah because of the way the layout the layout of it the way the bedroom

1:32:53Caitlin McGarry: connects the kitchen and the living room at the same time it feels like half the flat is a studio flat yeah and you said that you like that because you never had that yeah I never lived alone as a

1:33:03Catherine Cohen: single girl no and there's like there was something very interesting at the moment where you and I became really close which was the end of your 20s and the beginning of my 30s where I was so so desperate for what you had all I wanted was a committed partner and share a home with a man which I hadn't done at that point and all you not wanted at all but all you kind of longed for in terms of just like an alternate life that you could never live alongside the life that you live and love yeah was that dream of being a single girl clopping around a little flat yeah yeah and i was like in the peak of that when you met me

1:33:44Caitlin McGarry: and i did it for a long time yeah yeah yeah god do you know what i just so i can see why you conflate i remember when we first started getting close and i think we were getting on everyone's nervous about it because we were so up each other's arsehole. There was about 18 months to two years where we would not stop talking about the other person. It was very me showing off that I had a new boyfriend, that you were the boyfriend. I remember when we first, the first like couple of months of that, when we first started hanging out and I was like over in your flat a lot and somebody commented like, you're certainly hanging out with Dolly Alden a lot.

1:34:18Caitlin McGarry: What's that about? Or whatever. And I was like, we're fucking. I was like, well, first of all, we're fucking. And second of all do you know it was like it feels really good to have a fair weather friend

1:34:28Catherine Cohen: it was so fair weather yeah do you know i never i some part of me thought i was like i have the

1:34:34Caitlin McGarry: best fun with this girl i feel like we're gonna have like an intense summer and then we'll just sort of not see each other again or whatever yeah it was so fun and we were having such a

1:34:42Catherine Cohen: crack together it was so fun every hang was until three in the morning yeah and it was so

1:34:48Caitlin McGarry: so fun and I was like this is like I haven't met somebody who has this capacity for fun in a long long time and like yeah it's one of the great joys of my life that it's like somehow the grooves of the shoe have been worn in and now it's like oh this is one of my lifers you know it's just I

1:35:05Catherine Cohen: remember when you and I tipped over from doing like every hang would end up being like sitting by the window smoking out with the orange lights of the street camden street lights you know or it would just always there would always be like some sort of an adventure even if we were just in a flat it would still be like some flight of fancy it would feel like that the night would take i remember the first time that we had a hang where we just like i came to yours or your you came to mine and we just like got a domino's or just we got a ramen and i left it or you left at like 11 o 'clock and i remember there was this like amazing feeling of like not even grief but acceptance of like, oh, I guess we're just best friends now.

1:35:49Catherine Cohen: I guess we're just friends now that are just going to have these low-key hang. Like not every hang is going to be this like spectacular hang. Oh my God. Some of it will just be ambient company. I suppose that's like leaving a honeymoon phase, but I suppose that also means we're getting into the best phase.

1:36:07Caitlin McGarry: You don't have sex with your boyfriend when he stays over. Yeah, exactly. Oh, this is so indulgent. but guys it's been years since we've been on the mics it's been years let us have this we've got to talk about this I can't think of anything else we've got to talk about wait we're going to there are other things we liked we have the Gloria Steinem cameo written down oh my god that was amazing so my favourite thing about season 2 was the grief memoir Loved and Lost and my great annoyance with the show is that we never found out how Loved and Lost went no like did it sell well like whatever i would love for her to have become like the matt haig

1:36:47Catherine Cohen: of grief yes and to suddenly just had like so like the burden of so many not not saying that i'm sure matt haig doesn't find it a burden but you know when someone ends up becoming a spokesperson for something incredibly serious yeah i always think like wow that looks quite heavy that like she would have had like a bajillion widows get in touch with her exactly and we

1:37:08Caitlin McGarry: never saw that and like it was really like I remember you had a great pitch for this of being like she does her grief memoir then she becomes a kind of like a Brene Brown type always oh yeah Ted Talk yeah Ted Talks about grief and whatever she becomes a sort of figure for this thing and Samantha gets back in touch and is like this isn't who you are you are fabulous you're not that would have been really good it would have been so good like I would love yeah I would just love career stuff that felt like it had more stakes attached to it yeah but they're so rich there isn't there's exactly there's too rich but the thing is the one time that the grief memoir had stakes attached to it was when she was trying to get Candice Bergen to endorse her book on her newsletter it was so good that episode it was so perfect they've done yeah yeah because it was it then it was like um Candice Bergen who's called Enid Frick is that the name yeah I love that character I love her always happy to see her and she's hosting some kind of magazine launch thing and she wants carrie to be a donor and gloria steinham's at it and like there's this whole thing with a dick pic that keeps going around and like it's just fabulous because it's this perfect mix of like ludicrous and also quite real but also real in a hyper specific media culture kind of way and like You need to get Candice Bergen to shout out your memoir on her newsletter.

1:38:33Caitlin McGarry: On a sub stack.

1:38:33Catherine Cohen: Yeah, it's so... Via a Gloria Steinem talking circle.

1:38:38Caitlin McGarry: Is this where we can finally talk about the Gloria Steinem talking circle? Have I ever talked to you about it? No, because we actually... So, around the time that the Gloria Steinem piece came up in season two, which I'm sure most of you have already forgotten. Yeah. you were invited to a salon of a similar kind with Gloria Steinem. At her house. Yes. Can't believe we've never talked about it. Again, we never talked about it. And then we were about to talk about it last night at dinner and you were like, you know what? Let's wait until we're on the podcast.

1:39:11Catherine Cohen: So basically I was doing, I've been like flogging my books in America for years and they've never like quite, they never quite took off. And then they had a bit of a moment, everything about love had this moment because of this girl on TikTok who did me a fucking solid. Whoever that girl is, I need to track her down and I want to take her for lunch and I want to take her to Selfridges and buy her a designer bag because she changed my life. And she made a TikTok of the audio book of Everything I Know About Love, like a 10 second, maybe even less TikTok audio. Put that on a clip and then that just went crazy viral.

1:39:47Catherine Cohen: Wow, and you still don't know her name? Don't know her name. I don't know how to use TikTok. You should know her name! I don't even know how I would go on to that audio thing. It's so sad. I know. And then I was in the New York Times Persella list for a year. Crazy. Having tanked, absolutely tanked that first book. On release, yeah. Yeah. I love that so much. I know. It's really made me realise why we should just never be proud of ourselves for being Luddites or sceptical of technology.

1:40:14Caitlin McGarry: Yeah.

1:40:15Catherine Cohen: We should always embrace it because it's like, or just be open to it or interested. Yeah. because it has the power to just change career. I just think it's amazing. But you won't find that on him. Equally, I won't download TikTok and find out. Someone tell me who she is. I want to buy her a three martini lunch. Anyway. So then there was like more interest in my first novel and I had an American tour for the first time and I was asked to go. My book was picked by Jenna Bush who runs this huge book club on the Today Show and I was asked to go on and go on TV. At the same time, Gloria Steinem's people got in touch because they heard I was going to be in New York promoting the book.

1:40:55Catherine Cohen: And they were like, would you like to come to one of Gloria's infamous talking circles that have been going since the 70s? Which I guess must have been the inspiration for the episode. Definitely. Because it's a real New York institution. It's like, so you go to her house and it's a group of women. Sometimes she used to invite men. I don't think she invites men anymore. And you sit in a circle in her house and you just like,

1:41:18Caitlin McGarry: talk yeah i mean it's the consciousness raising sessions of the 70s right yeah exactly um so i

1:41:25Catherine Cohen: was like fuck yeah i love glorious sign i'm like my mum brought me up on glorious sign him it would just be such an honor to meet her and um the way it was scheduled was the talking circle was like two hours after my my segment on the today show and you will know about me that i have a chronic fear of TV. I won't do anything that's on TV.

1:41:51Caitlin McGarry: You were asked to do a not come down with me. What were you asked to do again? The dancing show? Strictly dancing? No, I was not asked to do that. Dancing ballroom. What's it called?

1:42:01Catherine Cohen: Strictly come dancing. Daisy Buchanan told me she heard about this. This is one of the many fucking insane things I hear about myself. I was never asked to do that. Were you asked to be in the jungle? I was asked to be in the jungle. Pandora and I I will ask every year to be on the jungle. It's so funny. Anyway. I think Pandora would be good in the jungle, actually. She'd be great. She's amazing on camera.

1:42:23Caitlin McGarry: Because she looks amazing with no makeup on, and I think she'd eat bugs.

1:42:27Catherine Cohen: She would eat bugs. She's really gung-ho. She would. People would really fall in love with her. I totally agree.

1:42:31Caitlin McGarry: Yeah.

1:42:32Catherine Cohen: Anyway, so I said I can't go on the Today Show. I just can't do it. There's no way that I can do it. I have a panic attack. I look like Jim Broadbent in a wig on camera. I just can't do it. Please don't make me. and then everyone on my publishing team were just like this is such an amazing opportunity you would be so you have to take this so I just like did everything I could to get myself in a headspace where I could do this like two minute segment but it was one of the scariest you know it's like a real phobia it was a very scary moment for me doing it I came off camera my agent was waiting for me and she went let's go have a martini so I had three martinis and I was like vibrating with anxiety.

1:43:15Catherine Cohen: And then I had to get in a cab and go, it's glorious. And then what happened? I sobered up. The fear of it all, the adrenaline just sobered me up as I walked in. And then we sat in a circle and it was like this amazing group of women, not that many of us, like six of us. And we just sit with Gloria Steinem for two hours and we just chuck in discussion topics.

1:43:39Caitlin McGarry: What were the discussions?

1:43:41Catherine Cohen: like all womeny stuff it's not like oh womeny stuff where are we all buying good bed sheets these days it's not that it's like it's a bit like this it's it's literally like this record it's like what are feminist issues that are on our mind at the moment right what were yours it's a bit of a bit of a haze no mine mine were she was interested that i'd written a novel from the perspective of a man right so we were talking about that and we're talking about creating likable female characters but she would do stuff like she she has this kind of draw and she would say like i would say something like i'd say you know i'm so interested in um women who write male characters in a first person voice of how the difference is, how their reviews are different.

1:44:36Catherine Cohen: Like, do they judge female narrators more than they judge male narrators, which I found from writing good material. I think Gloria would just sort of look over her shoulder and just sort of shout into the ether to someone being like, can we get that? Can we get that written down? Can we find that out? Can we find out how many female authors have written books? What, to look at an unseen PA who's not in there. Yeah, but she was amazing. She was just like... Can we get that written down? can we get that up can we get that printed out and she would just yeah she's like 90 she's amazing

1:45:07Caitlin McGarry: fucking unreal so yeah

1:45:09Catherine Cohen: I loved the glorious time thing it felt so New Yorky

1:45:13Caitlin McGarry: okay we have mentioned Harry and Harry's cancer which is on our things that I really liked it yeah yeah yeah did you like it um I think I would have liked to have seen more of Harry and Charlotte I thought the best they ever were was in season one when they went to go see Rock's principal because they found out that Rock had come out at school but not at home I thought was really beautifully done but okay this is something I want us to find a grown-up and non-judgmental way to talk about oh god what which is I feel like one of the reasons they gave Charlotte very light material to work with was because her abilities have diminished in terms of as an actor like it is crazy to watch charlotte york in in 2002 her heart breaking over her infertility or doing heavy stuff doing heavy dramatic work alongside being this light gorgeous sort of pollyanna woman versus this kind of person that we have now that feels so unrelatable and so not like a human being to me and I do think a large part of that is the work that Kirsten Davis has chosen to get done and I don't want to judge her for that or why she felt like she needed to do it and I understand how particularly as she hasn't worked a ton in the last decade that like she might feel this anxiety of going back on screen and being perceived and that might have contributed to that decision and like again I understand it it's the world we're living in I might not like it but it's what it is how do I talk about that how do we discuss that when the main instrument of acting is the face and Kirsten Davis used to have a Stradivarius violin and she's broken it into a kazoo you know it's like a global problem yeah it's like so enormous that problem I think but like it's it's sort of it's this crazy thing and i've spoken about this with um an agent i know who represents some like brilliant older character actors in the 50s and he was like i feel like i spent all day on the phone to these women convincing them not to have work done but it's this endless sort of like infinity loop of like they they're not being cast because aesthetically they're not ascribing to this impossible standard um but also when they are cast they're not able to do their jobs properly because the work impedes their ability to do their jobs or they're like bullied by the press and online because you know think about all those jokes i couldn't believe how much content there was about like sarah jessica parker's face looking older or miranda's face looking older or miranda having gray hair so it's like these are choices public humiliation

1:48:16Catherine Cohen: yeah or not being able to do your job or you avoid that and then you can't do your job properly and

1:48:21Caitlin McGarry: then you get even worse press yeah so it's like this complete catch-22 of being an older female performer that it pisses me off so much on a societal level and then on a scene-to-scene story level it's just not working and like i feel like they give her thinner and thinner material do you mean to like facilitate what is a thinner instrument i do think that that work has really calmed down i noticed it in this series but it's like the only thing that she can move is her eyes and so it's this kind of like why can i see so much of the whites of her eyes in the and like it feels like shrill and panicked even when she's delivering a low key line and again I don't feel good saying this I don't want that I think she's a great person you know all that and I feel really protective of Kirsten Davis, I feel protective of Charlotte and she's a phenomenal actor

1:49:26Catherine Cohen: yeah, yeah, yeah no I know what you mean, it's so uncomfortable to talk about it and I hate talking about it but Hi, I'm Nick, co-host of The Best One Yet. You optimize your workouts, your portfolios, and that rando startup idea that hit you in the middle of the shower. But if you're not hydrated, you're already playing catch-up. So we keep a stash of Liquid IV in our studio. One stick mixed into 16 ounces of water is clinically demonstrated to hydrate faster than water alone with three times the electrolytes of the leading sports drink, plus eight vitamins and nutrients. Whether you're traveling, exercising, or podcasting, the best business news ever, liquid IV makes it easy to stay hydrated wherever life takes you.

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1:50:42Catherine Cohen: when it is the instrument yeah of your entire profession craft okay i think we should just do a quick fire now okay what worked for me what worked for you okay okay because every time we

1:50:55Caitlin McGarry: get waylaid for 20 minutes I know because you're just too sincere and over and little about

1:50:59Catherine Cohen: everything um Margaret Thatcher it worked for me it worked for you yeah it worked for me I thought it was funny it was just so specific I think I just enjoyed like when she was reading aloud that sentence about Margaret Thatcher's childhood in the 50s like this is so weird him and his pipe

1:51:20Caitlin McGarry: and like he wants to feel like he's in her cabinet. I was like, this works for me.

1:51:24Catherine Cohen: Duncan worked for me.

1:51:25Caitlin McGarry: Duncan worked for me. Love Duncan.

1:51:30Catherine Cohen: The sex life of the Todd Wexleys worked for me. Yeah. I just thought, I believe they were horny for each other.

1:51:38Caitlin McGarry: Yes. Were you let down by the Marion, the editor scene? The editor thing of like, the affair that she was obviously never going to have.

1:51:46Catherine Cohen: Nah.

1:51:47Caitlin McGarry: Didn't care.

1:51:47Catherine Cohen: Fucking every woman I know is doing that at the moment. that's not true but that's why all fours was such an important book i just think it's so like a woman who just ends up being swallowed by taking care of children and a huge career i just think it's so believable that you'd have a little flirt with someone at work but is it story i i

1:52:09Caitlin McGarry: enjoyed it i liked it go anywhere like it's like okay fine but go on carry on what worked for some

1:52:15Catherine Cohen: reason that worked for me um seema and carrie when they had the argument about the um house they were going to rent what was that oh my god it was the best scene of the whole thing basically carrie and seema had this single girl plan they were going to rent a house in the hamptons for the whole summer you and i had a big chat about it at the time because we found it so powerful and then carrie got a boyfriend carrie got back together with aiden and then seema was like i'm really sorry and we're not going to the hamptons together we had a thing going on and i don't want to be a third wheel to aidan and there's no hard feelings but i'm like not doing that i

1:52:53Caitlin McGarry: just i really you love that i completely forgot about that yes it was so poignant about what it is to feel like you're the last single woman yeah in a demographic or a group of friends and to have

1:53:04Catherine Cohen: one other person who's there with you and then who's gone yeah and then the friend still pretending

1:53:11Caitlin McGarry: like you're in the same group oh yeah and carrie was like he'd only come down on the weekend

1:53:15Catherine Cohen: sometimes and seems like no yeah there's it's interesting this will probably be too offensive to keep in so please feel free to cut it out but me and my um friend sabrina who's getting married who was single for a very very long time with me we often talk about like the rachel dollar gel effect it's nothing that was going to come out of your mouth of long-term singledom that if you've been single for a really long time when you do get into a relationship there is a part of you

1:53:43Caitlin McGarry: that still wants to claim single identity right and it's so offensive to people who are actually

1:53:49Catherine Cohen: living the single life fascinating and you can't be rachel dole gel to single women if you're not

1:53:54Caitlin McGarry: single anymore remember you had someone write into your column ages ago who was like i feel like my my coupled up friends are colonizing are culturally appropriating my single life by going on holidays by themselves.

1:54:06Catherine Cohen: I was so on her side.

1:54:08Caitlin McGarry: Of course you were.

1:54:11Catherine Cohen: Anyway, that argument, it worked for me.

1:54:17Catherine Cohen: Oh, LTW's dad's funeral. Loved that.

1:54:21Caitlin McGarry: Loved how batty it was.

1:54:24Catherine Cohen: Yeah. The woman coming out with that big theatre production, I found it so funny. Yeah, yeah. That's quite old. Pippin. The Pippin funeral. Basically, the more grotesques that they populate the show with, The more eccentric, overblown comedic characters for one episode, I think the more it feels like sex in the city.

1:54:40Caitlin McGarry: I just hate all the reasonableness.

1:54:41Catherine Cohen: Same. That is just a bummer. Like trying to make them all so human and empathetic. Shut up. When it's just these one episode, which is why the puppet was so great.

1:54:51Caitlin McGarry: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right. You're right. The more grotesque, the better. Oh, the drama in Virginia.

1:54:58Catherine Cohen: Love that wide breaking the window. That whole row around the table was so compelling. And the Adderall and the board game and all this.

1:55:06Caitlin McGarry: And so good. Charlotte getting a job. Charlotte getting a job. I got really wound up about that Tracy Emin thing. Oh, I hated that. You're right. I hated that.

1:55:19Catherine Cohen: It was really boring, that.

1:55:21Caitlin McGarry: Yeah, yeah.

1:55:22Catherine Cohen: And cynical.

1:55:23Caitlin McGarry: Totally cynical. Yeah. I liked her being back in the art world. Yeah. Again, it was another one of those things with the Gen Z sort of colleagues.

1:55:32Catherine Cohen: Yeah, they can't write Gen Z.

1:55:33Caitlin McGarry: yeah yeah and also they have this thing of like because every character you know how in the first season every character had like a person a person of color who was assigned as their mentor or

1:55:42Catherine Cohen: whatever that's so true oh that was so rough that first series so rough those poor actors

1:55:53Caitlin McGarry: i remember you saying last night you were like i think the first season of unjust like that will date far worse than the first season of sex in the city yeah because it was a moment in time where

1:56:02Catherine Cohen: like a lot of white women were realizing the atrocities of racial inequality for the first time yeah and we all decided to be helpful in the most self-centered way in the most self-centered

1:56:17Caitlin McGarry: and completely unhelpful way god and that was like a lot of that was in and just like that i think

1:56:25Catherine Cohen: yes yeah and it was like again that will be good intentions but it was like just like what it what how is this helpful for anyone?

1:56:34Caitlin McGarry: It's not just the kind, because you're right, because I just think that had come out just off the back of Black Lives Matter and George Floyd and this huge moment or whatever. But it's also this thing of like a certain kind of like white online middle class, upper middle class person or whatever. Liberal. Liberal who cannot see any social movement that is not through the lens of self-improvement. Exactly that. Do you know what I mean? Exactly that. it's like they read about an issue and then because they're reading about it on their instagram their tiktok which is a distillation of their lives they're like okay well here's this thing i'm reading about in this country or whatever how can i make it about yeah me in my life and by the

1:57:15Catherine Cohen: way i'm including myself in that oh i'm including myself like when i look back on that period of time i think like there were just some thought like some decisions that i made or some stuff that i was sharing or like that was just like what was i thinking that i thought that that was it was just so i thought that it wasn't self i thought i was being the opposite but actually yeah it's just this it was a very online moment and it's very people in the in media in the arts

1:57:42Caitlin McGarry: as well who are kind of like governing with the idea that like they work for and with sort of like intrinsically racist institutions or whatever being like well how can i be the change i wish to see in the world maybe it's by retweeting these accounts kind of thing whatever it's like and and And what we all have to deal with in different ways is that like, you will not be able to showcase your political identity or the change you want to see in the world by the things, once again, to return to the early points that you're buying or not buying. Yeah. Or posting about and not posting about. You have to find more legitimate ways in order to insert yourself in these or simply do nothing at all.

1:58:17Caitlin McGarry: Yeah. But you have to be okay with that. You can't half do it and want praise. You want praise.

1:58:24Catherine Cohen: Exactly. Yeah. it was like yeah that was what I'd forgotten that thing about the mentor

1:58:31Caitlin McGarry: yeah it's so true bloody old Naya Wallace haven't seen the height nor hair of her poor old

1:58:35Catherine Cohen: Naya Wallace where did

1:58:37Caitlin McGarry: she go wasn't there a bit where Andre Rashad and her separated and then she was like I'm going to this thing and then Miranda was like good it was good to know you I can't even remember I could have made up that totally um Kathy and Bob love Kathy and Bob worked for us they were my favourite characters in the whole show is Bob who's Kathy is Aidan's ex-wife Bob is Kathy's boyfriend and the way that Bob was like to Carrie listen at least this family is a fucking nightmare yeah it was really good it was so real

1:59:13Catherine Cohen: it was so not a Sex and the City scene that whole section but I really enjoyed being in it for a moment

1:59:18Caitlin McGarry: it really reminded me of those episodes of girls that would just focus on Hannah's parents and the drama they would have with their friends at the university. And they were always so rewarding. And like, it was so weird because like, often with And Just Like That, it's like, why am I getting the perspective of that Jackie or whatever? Yeah, that Jackie. That Jackie.

1:59:38Catherine Cohen: I think he lived on into series two, didn't he? Did he? He had a girlfriend called Smoke.

1:59:42Caitlin McGarry: Oh yes, Smoke did her dress for the Met Gala.

1:59:47Catherine Cohen: Aidan, did he work for you?

1:59:50Caitlin McGarry: Here's the thing. Did he work for me as someone I was supposed to root for? know did he work for me as like to go back to our earlier point the like calcifying of everyone's talk someone's toxic traits from when they were in their 30s have then again because they've been in the same way that carrie has been left unchecked with her neuroses and they've been pampered and spoiled and now she's a fussy materialistic cunty mean freak he it's like he was always this like i'm the king of the castle guy now he has his kingdom in virginia where he makes his boys paint houses on the farm or whatever. He's been able to...

2:00:25Caitlin McGarry: His neuroses have run unchecked. He has become a monster. He's a dark person. Yeah, he is. It's fascinating to me psychologically. Did I ever root for him? No.

2:00:35Catherine Cohen: I think it's like, I love the appearance of Aiden and I hated the persistence of Aiden.

2:00:42Caitlin McGarry: Yes! I think it's how we all felt. In some way or another.

2:00:49Catherine Cohen: LTW's wardrobe worked for me I loved how batty it was I just loved her clothes Loved her accessories Loved her stupid clothes Oh and above all More than anything That worked for me I think it was the best choice Across the entire three series Rosie O'Donnell is a nun So good Goes back to those comedy cameos One episode cameos That's what Sex and the City was It's the guy who's addicted to going down on you it's the guy who still who wants his who still lives with his parents it's the guy who wants his parents to walk in on him having sex totally it's shortcomings it's the guy who can't

2:01:29Caitlin McGarry: again that's the magic who comes before he even kisses her

2:01:31Catherine Cohen: it's just all these characters that defined sex in the city yeah they were too scared to lean into that all of it had to be so sincere yeah Rosie was great and they just let Rosie be funny then in Times Square

2:01:44Caitlin McGarry: after Wicked because I knew you. So, I loved Miranda and Carrie being like, taking the piss out of her for being so excited about various New York things. Fucking a tourist. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

2:01:58Catherine Cohen: That's what it was.

2:01:58Caitlin McGarry: Fucking a tourist? Why had I never come up in Texas? It's perfect.

2:02:01Catherine Cohen: It was so pretentious and it was so funny and it was so, I loved it so much. I loved like, another moment that I really loved that was just like, so specific was when Seema had to get rid of her driver and she's playing that really sad Diana Ross song and she looks genuinely bereft again that just felt so old school Sex and the City, it's like they're not pretending to be relatable in that moment but it's really self aware oddly yeah, loved it

2:02:30Caitlin McGarry: so that's what worked for us can we do a quick run through, I know you have to go I know you're already late for dinner of the abandoned storylines just like that, storylines we thought were going to go somewhere never went anywhere

2:02:46Caitlin McGarry: Carrie's Instagram episode one oh my god she's taking pictures of fashion people and she's like oh my Instagram oh yeah she's like oh yeah it's kind of a thing lately you know where did that go? That went nowhere this will be quick because the only response is that went nowhere yeah that went nowhere that Jackie went nowhere one of Carrie's best friends in season one disappeared

2:03:10Catherine Cohen: what did they talk about?

2:03:12Caitlin McGarry: That Jackie Miranda was getting a master's degree At some point What is her job? And her job, okay, she left corporate law in order to get like a master's degree in human rights law because she wanted to help immigrants, right? People who were being deported. Yes. That was a big wake up call moment for her. Yes, I remember that. Right. She went to NYU. She met Niall Wallace. She then was going to get an internship, but then she went to LA instead. Then she got an internship at Human Rights Watch. Then she got a job covering someone's mat leave.

2:03:52Catherine Cohen: And is that like a charity or a think tank? I don't know. Do you think she knows?

2:03:58Caitlin McGarry: They keep, but like the writers in the podcast, they keep saying Human Rights Watch. Like it's a, like we could Google it. I'm not going to. It's a real thing. Maybe it's a real thing. It's a real thing. okay okay yeah for sure i guess it's what what sounds like it's like a legal body that protects human rights let's say gotcha sure but like did she ever get the master's degree did she graduate from the wouldn't that be a moment who knows by the way this is this most of this is taken from a qbc ad i saw so somebody somebody did the come up with this list not me uh lillian

2:04:29Catherine Cohen: brady had sex or something oh yeah that was great that moment that could have been yeah Strung out a bit.

2:04:35Caitlin McGarry: Didn't go anywhere. Fine. There are two podcast storylines on this show. She did a whole second podcast. A second podcast. It was the season one finale. Her snapping on the headphones. Her dulcet tones. The first podcast wasn't her tone. The second podcast is going to be just Carrie's voice.

2:04:56Catherine Cohen: I'm Carrie Bradshaw and this is Sex and the City.

2:04:59Caitlin McGarry: Season two, episode one. We're shutting down the podcast. that's crazy that is crazy yeah nuts loved and lost we've already spoken about already they just totally abandoned it we never found out what happened with it that went away the fact that Carrie Bradshaw was married for 15 years okay that's insane crazy

2:05:19Catherine Cohen: she never talks about her husband she never talks about her married life there's no evidence she was ever married

2:05:27Caitlin McGarry: no picture of him in the flat do you think that's a Chris Noth thing? Every now and then on the Riley's Room podcast Michael Patrick King will invoke fond memories of Chris Noth Really? He's like, oh I remember me and Chris would da da da In a way that kind of implies he doesn't really care what happened to Chris Noth And also it's very insulting because it's like Why is Mr. Big, largely blameless Paying the price that Chris Noth is not paying in real life? So true He's having a whale of a time on Instagram

2:05:54Catherine Cohen: He's operating a roaring trade on Instagram It's every day he's posting I can't and I don't follow him but I'll go he's got a beautiful wife and a young son but I'm always interested I love I love seeing like cancelled celebrities who I follow is still engaging with the content uh

2:06:13Caitlin McGarry: Lily's pansexual boyfriend no idea

2:06:17Catherine Cohen: well he's just gone isn't he

2:06:18Caitlin McGarry: but he never came we never really met him no I think he came to dinner once I don't know

2:06:22Catherine Cohen: I was doing the Ocado oh

2:06:26Caitlin McGarry: big one for me Dolly Wells' miscellaneous psychological baggage She doesn't like kids Okay Every time we get any prolonged time With Dolly Wells' character Vis-a-vis Miranda's relationship with her It's always this kind of like She's so charming She's so kind of quirky But grounded and sexy and lovely But she'll always hint to You know, listen I've got my stuff I've got my stuff It's like, what's her stuff? Are we ever going to find out what her stuff is?

2:06:56Catherine Cohen: That she sort of, because there was that episode where she got a bit weird at Miranda's when all her friends were drunk. The friends came over. I love that episode. Love that episode. The way they portrayed.

2:07:06Caitlin McGarry: So Jules and Mimi, the whole episode.

2:07:08Catherine Cohen: I've just loved the whole transatlantic theme of this series. The way they portray English people is delightful to me. It's so funny. Smoking a pipe and writing 500 page biographies of Margaret Thatcher. Or they're like getting really drunk in your flat and just shrieking, which is, by the way, very accurate.

2:07:30Caitlin McGarry: Something I like about the Dolly Wells storyline is that once upon a time, Miranda thought she wanted Jules. Turns out she wanted Mimi.

2:07:39Catherine Cohen: Really good. Did you come out with that yourself? Just now, right now. That's really, really good. she actually sounds and looks quite a lot like Mimi

2:07:46Caitlin McGarry: yeah she does totally she runs a hat shop a hat shop

2:07:54Caitlin McGarry: from in Hampstead and he's from Brixton and he goes I don't know what that means she goes to his flat

2:08:03Catherine Cohen: it's actually really hard to do an impression of an American doing an English impression sometimes you do an impression of me back to me and it's really funny hearing you do

2:08:12Caitlin McGarry: I love when you do impressions of me to me

2:08:15Catherine Cohen: It's so Father Ted when I try and do it

2:08:19Caitlin McGarry: The final Abandoned storyline It got said once and it was never picked up Ever What if big was a big mistake It's crazy that she said that Miranda looked at her And then it was never Never brought up again That is the last time she ever mentioned her husband I think

2:08:38Catherine Cohen: It's got to be a Chris Noth thing It's got to be I don't think it was a big mistake. I remember you and I couldn't believe that. It felt so disrespectful to us, the fans. What Aidan made her think that.

2:08:54Caitlin McGarry: Because she went shopping for a pepper mill with Aidan.

2:08:57Catherine Cohen: Aidan in his barber jacket, thinking that she's having an affair with the pipe-smoking Margaret Thatcher biographer. All those stakes. Do you know what? It was time for it to end. When I say that sentence, it was... They'd done everything they could. I couldn't see what they... They had done all they could. They had done all they could. They had done all they could.

2:09:19Caitlin McGarry: Can't believe this is the last time we're going to talk on the record about this.

2:09:23Catherine Cohen: Well, unless they do a fucking movie in 10 years' time, which I think they probably will. Don't you think? Another movie. I think they will. They won't do another series. They'll do a wonderful Christmas special or something.

2:09:37Caitlin McGarry: Oh, maybe. I tell you what, the best, and just like that episode, was the video that Sarah Jessica Parker posted to her Instagram.

2:09:43Catherine Cohen: Oh! That was the best episode. Floods of tears.

2:09:46Caitlin McGarry: Yeah. She had crossed streets, done things. That little poem. It was so nice. So sincere. I love Sarah Jessica Parker. I know. She's so earnest.

2:09:58Catherine Cohen: I love Sarah Jessica Parker. I love Cynthia Nixon. I love Kristen Davis. Yeah. And it has to be said, the mantra we come back to that we said in the first episode of analysing it just like that, dodgy sex in the city is better than no sex in the city. So true. And I've loved seeing where these women are rather than just dreaming about it.

2:10:24Caitlin McGarry: I feel very teary now.

2:10:27Catherine Cohen: It is sad. You know, it is. You're right. It's interesting as well. I just knew there was so much hatred for this show online and it wasn't in like a jokey, where like really nasty, nasty hatred. You know, the number of times you would see a piece that was just like, this is the worst show on TV.

2:10:48Caitlin McGarry: Just when you thought they couldn't go any longer.

2:10:50Catherine Cohen: Why can I not stop watching it? And it's like, well, because you obviously are connecting to it in some way, whether you're connecting to a past version of it that it's not anymore. But like, why don't we shine a lens on that? Like, shine a lens. why don't we shine a light on that instead you know it's like I don't know I just knew that those people would be the people that are like oh I'm actually weirdly devastated that it's over yeah oh that they have been that and they have been that and I wonder if it will like I don't know teach us a bit about the sport of yeah be sportsman like about it yeah the sport of of what it is to consume culture and it was just so involved and it was so personal and it was so right I wish we were taking it in good fun a bit more it was just a bit of fun it was just a bit of bloody fun it's just a bit of piss it's just a bit of piss that's a great the thick of it reference if you don't know it but it was just a bit of fun and I just think yeah I don't know I wonder if there'll be like lessons to be drawn from it of how how we pile in with this like gleeful hatred on things yeah it'll be back mark my words it'll be back it won't be back as a series but there will be

2:12:10Caitlin McGarry: okay here's a question to end on we're just addicted to not ending this podcast I know what do you think if they were to make any spin-off of any of these new characters or new themes or whatever oh I had this thought what do you think the spin-off would be Lisette in the city

2:12:29Catherine Cohen: I hate Lisette Lisette reminds me of every woman That I've been dumped for So true It's Friday night I know I'm so late for the people I'm meeting up with You're all done up to go out I know but why can I sit and talk for another three hours about this

2:12:46Caitlin McGarry: You're going to come back For my new mini series though Which by the way is a secret

2:12:49Catherine Cohen: Oh you're not going to say what it is Yeah but it's going to be really good It's going to be so good You guys are going to lose your fucking lids about it It's the best idea I think you've ever had Thanks

2:13:00Caitlin McGarry: Let's hope we can stick the landing with this one

2:13:03Catherine Cohen: You're not going to have any one star reviews That say that you say bye and lodge too much

2:13:08Caitlin McGarry: Or Richard Osmond

2:13:10Catherine Cohen: It's really lodged in my head that Such a strange thing to be angry about

2:13:17Caitlin McGarry: Dolly we're reaching hour two And you are fully 30 minutes late for dinner that started 30 minutes ago and is across town. I love you so much and this was so fun. This has been the pride of my life talking about this show with you. It is transformed. Much in the way Carrie Bradshaw has transformed the life of Sessions of Parker, this show has transformed the life of me. Same. Remember when we started doing Sentimental in the City and like prior to this, I was quite a niche books podcast that like had like loyal followers, but was still small enough. and then this has transformed it entirely and it totally ballooned the listenership I remember after we were finished I was like I don't think people are going to want to stick around for me I remember saying to you I was like I think I'm gonna get loads of horrible reviews from people who were like bring Dolly back or whatever and like it's been five years or whatever I've like traveled the world with this podcast since I've done sellout theater tours and like it's all because of that moment during covid where people decided that like you know i don't know that the

2:14:17Catherine Cohen: insides were good enough to stick around for you know it's it's you you're the magic there's no one else who can talk as fluently and balance you know cynicism and passion and fairness and kindness and silliness when talking about culture like you and you represent so many people in terms of how you feel about culture and how it's changed you and how it's formed friendships and how it's strengthened and fortified relationships for you and how it's influenced your own work it's like a very very powerful thing that you do oh my god do you know what i think this feels like

2:15:04Caitlin McGarry: the poem that Sarah De Capaccio wrote for herself

2:15:07Catherine Cohen: no you know that Meghan Markle podcast that's gone viral

2:15:12Caitlin McGarry: no what is this thank you for the lovely

2:15:17Catherine Cohen: little bit of speech by the way that was nice but it's true what was the Meghan Markle thing it was nothing to do with sex in the city really and it was nothing to do with me it was you it was everything to do with you you told me access something I don't know

2:15:34Caitlin McGarry: I'm just grateful to you forever for being my friend and for being my collaborator and to quote us back to us I love being a recording artist with you I love being a recording artist with you

2:15:48Catherine Cohen: I guess that's it then bye guys bye how long was that

2:16:30Catherine Cohen: Thank you. strength, plus eight vitamins and nutrients.

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