If you haven’t seen the 90s rom-com series, you’re missing out. Sex and the city focuses on the dating and sex lives of four adult women living in the big apple. And boy do each of them have some stories to tell. I’d heard about the show for years, and like the main character Carrie, my friend used to joke that I should move to NYC and start a sex column. When I finally got access to hbo max, the show was at the top of my list. 6 seasons and one movie later, I’ve fallen in love with the series and developed my own personal opinions and attachments to the characters.
- Carrie
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The show’s storyline mainly centers around Carrie, a successful writer with a sex column and a designer shoe obsession. We follow Carrie through her numerous love interests, from Big to Aidan to Big to Aleksandr and back to Big, with others in between. I immediately felt a connection to Carrie because I’m a journalist too, and of course because we share a shopping addiction. Her romance with Big was always heartfelt and full of drama, but the whirlwind romance keeps viewers like myself always anticipating they’ll find their way back to each other. As a hopeless romantic myself, I found myself shedding a few tears every time her and Big broke up. It’s clear they were meant to be! Although she doesn’t always seem to make the smartest decisions when it comes to romance, following Carrie on her endless dates as she searches for love in her 30s definitely hits home for a lot of single women.
- Samantha
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What’s not to love about samantha? She’s successful, bold, and oh so sexually fluid. Samantha rarely found a man she couldn’t (and wouldn’t) have and a gig she couldn’t get. She was powerful and straightforward, not only in her job in PR but with the men she “dated”, and I use the term date very loosely. I laughed out loud at her sexual openness, (she had a tendency to talk dick at the breakfast table) and cried at her low points like discovering she had cancer. Nevertheless, Samantha was definitely my favorite character. I related to her a lot with her decisions to never settle down or settle for less. She was a woman who knew what she wanted and truly a force to be reckoned with. Although she was sassy and her opinion wasn’t always warranted, she still was able to cut tension like a knife and always kept a laugh going.
- Charlotte
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Charlotte is somewhat the mother of the group. She’s pristine, high maintenance, and some might even say prude. She doesn’t indulge in the sexscapades of Samantha or have heart-wrenching relationships like Carrie, but she definitely has her fair share of sex in the city. Throughout the series, Charlotte is searching for a husband, which leads to her numerous breakups and breakdowns. Even after she finds what she deems to be the “perfect” husband, her quick separation and eventually divorce is a reality check that love isn’t always what it seems, and what appears to be perfect may not be what you need. Eventually, she finds love in her divorce lawyer, a jewish “shmuck” that is pretty much everything Charlotte looked for the opposite of, but with their relationship, she finally experiences happiness and love. Although I didn’t find myself relating to Charlotte often, I admired her constant desire to protect her friends and her hopeless romantic attitude that kept her always searching for love.
- Miranda
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When I first started the series, Miranda was my least favorite character. Even after the end of the show and first movie, I can’t lie, that still held true. However, there were moments when she showed true character improvement. Miranda is a successful lawyer who balks in the face of love. She’s so busy that she doesn’t feel like she has the time to fall in love with anyone. She has her share of flitting romances, but it isn’t until Steve comes and sweeps her off her feet that she truly is able to let herself be loved and open herself to loving someone else. Miranda is fiercely defensive of her best friend Carrie, something that is commendable but also gets tiring. Like Samantha, she’s bold and straightforward and is usually the one hurting others’ feelings. However, she is much more likable once she enters a relationship and motherhood.
Sex and the city has definitely become one of my series favorites, and I’m sure I will be re-watching sometime in the future. It’s filled with love, laughs, tears, and of course, a lot of sex. If you want to see what the hype is about, the show and movies are available to watch on HBO Max.