Before you know it, the Sex and the City reboot will be here in your living room, and you will be powerless to stop it. What we know about this reboot is now too much. Big will be there, when previously he said he would not. Aidan’s there, Sara Ramirez from Grey’s Anatomy is there, and a handful of as-yet unspecified “people of color” will also be in attendance. No one knows how this is going to look, but I’d like to offer a suggestion that will make the show watchable and not an unmitigated nightmare scenario as it seems to be working out.
Inarguably, the two best characters on this program were Harry Goldenblatt, the lawyer that Charlotte eventually marries after getting out of her loveless and weird marriage with Trey McDougall, and Brady Hobbes, the round-cheeked ginger baby that is the result of Miranda and Steve’s unholy alliance. Harry’s biggest flaw was that he had a hairy back (and also that he loved Charlotte). Brady’s flaws are nonexistent. He is a baby. By deductive reasoning, the reboot should focus on these tertiary characters.
Here’s what I’m picturing: A terrible tragedy has befallen the women of Darren Star’s New York City. The lone survivors of the women’s larger social network are Harry and Brady. Harry, being a good man and a kind father, is responsible for Brady’s care, via Hollywood logic that thrusts children into the arms of distant relatives or near strangers, in the hopes that comedic or dramatic gold will follow. After a few months of the man and baby getting to know each other, Harry will receive an email from a mysterious relative of Miranda’s in Montana. The relative would very much like Brady, and Harry, unfortunately, has to surrender the child. But, a road trip is the only way they can get there! Channeling a Travels With Charley vibe, Harry purchases a motorcycle with a sidecar; straps Brad, Elizabeth Taylor (the dog), and the urn containing Fatty the cat’s ashes into the thing; and they take off. Manhattan at sunset is in their rearview, and ahead, lies adventure.
Some things would happen on the way to Montana. For starters, the motorcycle and sidecar would break down in Rockland County, some miles away from Aidan’s cabin in Suffern. Harry, not knowing of the cabin, will walk there in search of gas, a phone, and some Saltines for the baby. Aidan, previously thought to be eliminated in the same tragedy that befell the rest of the cast, survived the catastrophe in his cabin. Harry never thought to check if Aidan survived, but he did.
Cue the flashback: after clocking that his mortal enemy, Mr. Big, was back to tussle over the black heart of Carrie Bradshaw, he challenged the finance man to a duel. Big lacked the energy to be like, “Man, I don’t know, this is stupid” and half-heartedly agreed, dusting off the antique dueling pistol he keeps in the china cabinet as decoration. Aidan, on the other hand, has a crisis of heart. At his core, he is a pacifist, and the duel was an idea that he had while micro-dosing mushrooms and filing his taxes (a mess). He has two choices: to follow through with the duel, though it is 2021 and this shit is outdated, or to leave. Little did he know that the tragedy that would befall the rest of the cast was to happen on the same day the duel was to take place. At dawn, Aidan rides not for Union Square, which is where he decided to do this stupid man activity, but for his cabin in Suffern, where he will live out the remainder of his days with Pete 2 (the dog he got to replace the original), baking bread, whittling walking sticks, and meditating in the crook of a big tree. His life is simple, pleasant even, until the arrival of two blasts from his past.
Will Aidan learn to love another man’s son? Will Harry find peace after doing one final good deed? Is Brady going to make it out of this alive? I’m not sure, since this is now deranged fan fiction, but what I’d like to think is that everyone left who has a shred of decency in their bones will survive this as they see fit.