It is true that over thirty states have passed laws that prohibit the government from contracting with those who engage in a boycott of Israel (read this terrific breakdown by Jack Elbaum). Boycott isolates three very different cases where plaintiffs objected to a provision often included which means that those taking on any sort of government contract have to preemptively agree not to be part of BDS. Each has its merits, and it’s important to note the reasons behind each case to understand the broad application of this law.

Bahia Amawi is a Palestinian-American speech therapist in Texas who won’t consider signing the pledge. Mikkel Jordahl is a Jewish lawyer in Arizona who was deeply moved by a trip to Israel to advocate for Palestinian rights. The one that truly stands out is Alan Leveritt, a newspaper publisher in Arkansas who doesn’t have any opinion on what’s happening in the Middle East but does not want to have his right to boycott stifled just so that he can take ad money from a state-funded university.

Boycott opens with a Republican state senator in Arkansas alleging his fierce love of the Jewish people and how he was compelled to introduce anti-BDS legislation as a show of that affection. A Democratic colleague of his is interviewed later in the film and mentions that he voted in favor of the bill without understanding that his constituents might object to it, and that he might have voted differently after finding that out. Rabbi Barry Block, who leads one of Arkansas’ nine synagogues, explains his take, which is the most level-headed and relatable perspective in the entire film: he fully supports Israel and is just as much against the idea of prohibiting people from engaging in boycotts.

Footage of speeches at AIPAC, CPAC, Christians United for Israel, and other conferences is included to highlight the extensive work by the “pro-Israel lobby” to elicit support for the campaign against BDS. The nuance that is missing in most of this documentary is that there could be a legitimate reason to not be happy about BDS, and that fighting it may not always be the same as suppressing it. In one clip, there is mention of how anti-Semitism can be embedded within the BDS movement, which singles out Israel as the target of boycott efforts without holding other offenders to account, but it’s glossed over as just another scare tactic that should be summarily dismissed.

There are comparisons made to segregation-era rulings that Black-led boycotts of white businesses were illegal, and the right to boycott is emphasized by highlighting its significance in the end of South African apartheid. A closing note explains that anti-BDS bills have been copied almost verbatim to pass similar legislation in Texas that prohibits boycotts against fossil fuels and firearms. The concept, therefore, is that banning any type of boycott is dangerous because it could be used for other nefarious purposes.

But this documentary does devote a large chunk of time to defending the case for BDS as a cause on its own, which doesn’t feel critical to its point that free speech should be permitted in all forms, regardless of its proven validity. Additionally, the emphasis on how the evangelical community’s support for Israel is often more formidable and vocal than the Jewish community’s is made but not underscored in the way that other documentaries like ’Til Kingdom Come have done, clarifying that Christian support for Israel is often aligned with a belief that Jews will need to accept Jesus or face eternal damnation.

The other question that isn’t quite answered is one that is brought up in a clip of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who made a video declaring that if someone boycotts the State of Israel, “Israel will boycott you.” The right of an institution or government to respond to a boycott is worth discussing, though admittedly requiring people to sign a pledge not to engage in anything is likely to inspire more people to protest it simply for the sake that it is mandated. This film makes its point that boycotts should not be outlawed, but fails to fully investigate certain pieces of its arguments while overemphasizing others.

The post SXSW Documentary Review: ‘Boycott’ appeared first on Jewcy.

Anticipating the latest film from Palestinian writer-director Hany Abu-Assad is best done through the context of his two most well-known previous films, both of which earned Oscar nominations for Best Foreign Film. Paradise Now followed two suicide bombers contemplating carrying out their mission, and Omar centered on a Palestinian prisoner who is positioned as an undercover asset for an Israeli handler. The lead actor in Huda’s Salon is Ali Suliman, who headlined 200 Meters, about a Palestinian man trying to get to the other side of the separation wall in Israel, and Amira, about a Palestinian prisoner trying to smuggle his sperm out of an Israeli jail, which was Jordan’s official Oscar submission last year until it was ultimately rescinded due to its controversial portrayal of Palestinians.

Huda’s Salon begins with Reem (Maisa Abd Elhadi) walking into the title salon in Bethlehem, only to pass out after drinking some tea. She awakens to find herself naked in bed with Huda (Manal Awad) showing her a photo she has taken of her with another man. Reem now has no choice but to take a card, one that will enable her to give tips to an Israeli agent. Reem is terrified but equally angry, since, to her and others within her society, there is nothing worse than being a collaborator. That is a theme that runs throughout the film, as Huda is apprehended by Palestinian authorities intent on finding and punishing everyone Huda has corrupted for the ultimate irredeemable crime.

While Huda’s Salon is fiercely critical of Israel as an idea, it doesn’t actually contain any Israelis, or even a mention of Israel at all, instead referring to Huda’s contacts as the “occupiers.” It also has plenty to say about the problems within Palestinian society. Suliman’s interrogator Hasan has no sympathy for Huda, and describes the work he does as akin to chemotherapy, which kills even good cells, since innocent people are harmed though they have done nothing wrong. Huda retorts that it is easier to occupy a society that’s already repressing herself, and expresses that she chooses women with abusive husbands because she knows that they are already suffering and this might provide a way out in some form. That the men will be just as likely as the authorities to kill their wives if they find out what they have done is indicated multiple times, because the men’s honor is more important than the women’s very lives.

The tactics Hasan employs are purposely deceptive and entirely cruel. He orders his men to trick people into confessing by offering clemency in exchange for cooperation, which will be withdrawn upon receipt of the desired information. He also sets a man on fire even after he begs for his life and invokes the family that will be left behind without him. Huda knows that her fate has been sealed, and watching how she stands up to Hasan even while facing certain death is among the most compelling elements of the film. She may not believe that what she does to these women is right, but she can say that there is plenty to be fixed within her own community.

Drawing an inherent conclusion about the message of Huda’s Salon, which is well-made and at times quite poignant, is challenging. A director’s statement from Abu-Assad repeatedly mentions the contradictory nature of the story elements and the characters. Huda is a villain for what she does to Reem, but then she is the only one who can protect Reem and the other women she has forced to work for her contacts from a far worse and entirely unforgiving fate. In that sense, the unseen occupier is almost irrelevant to the narrative, since it is focused on the cracks within a society that has its own issues.

But it’s impossible to separate this film from that overall context. The argument can surely be made that Huda is only in the position in which she has found herself because of the occupying forces, and that life in the West Bank is as it is because of that same structure. While some audiences may object to that perspective, which is prevalent and immutable throughout the film, it is crucial to its universe and its viewpoint. It is not a pleasant portrait, but a passionate and thought-provoking one that shows the ways in which communities both evolve as a result of their circumstances and attribute deficiencies and serious problems to external sources, which may or may not always be the case.

Huda’s Salon opens in theaters and on demand on Friday, March 4^th from IFC Films.

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Under this narrative umbrella, Miranda dates a modelizer (“a step behind womanizers, who will sleep with just about anything in a skirt”), Carrie runs into Mr. Big with a model on his arm (“I felt like I was wearing patchouli in a room full of Chanel”), and Samantha sleeps with a confirmed modelizer (“Samantha demanded nothing less than the same consideration given every other model in town”).

Juxtaposing the glitz and glamor of model-life against the flaws-and-all realness of “mortal” life, the show makes a surprisingly compelling case in favor of the latter. I say “surprising” only because the show is so deeply associated in the public consciousness with glitz and glam. 

This, however, is not at all the world we see in Models and Mortals. These are real New Yorkers. They sit on the floor and eat takeout. They buy cereal at the bodega. They eat too many sweet potato canapes after a fashion show. 

The “model” is deployed in this episode as a symbol of acquisition. For the men who date them, they are a trophy to be won (and perhaps to be captured on film). For the models themselves, modeling is framed as a path to a life of excitement and material gain. As supermodel Xandrella coos to the camera in a cutaway “interview” scene, “you can get anything, I’ve been offered trips to Aspen, weekends in Paris, Christmas in St Barts, a Bulgari necklace, a breast job…”

The “mortal,” on the other hand, is portrayed as having both less and more. Lacking in money and flawless good looks, they are possessed of a joy and good humor that comes from being real—from eschewing the fantasies of endless acquisition for the pleasures of the here and now. As it says in Pirkei Avot: “Who is rich? He who rejoices in his lot.”

This “rejoicing in one’s lot”  is highlighted by a memorable scene between Carrie and Derek, aka “the Bone,” who we are told is “the world’s biggest underwear model and Stanford’s most important client.” Lounging next to Carrie as they share a cigarette, he asks her: “what do you want to be when you grow up?” 

Carrie responds: “Well, I think this might be it.”

Watching the show as a teenager and a young adult, I didn’t bat an eye at this response. I assumed that’s how life worked. You got a charming apartment, you had good friends, you figured out how to make a living, and then, well, you enjoyed those things.

At age thirty-three, I can appreciate how revolutionary Carrie’s response really was. Most of the people I know, whether in their twenties or sixties, would never say “this might be it.” Rather, we live as though life is something that will start as soon as… as soon as we have more money, as soon as we have more status, as soon as we get a promotion, as soon as we’re married, as soon as we have kids, as soon as we retire, and so on. 

The “mortals” of Models and Mortals offer us a different way of being in the world—one in which life is not about endlessly grasping for more. Uninterested in living life as a grab for prizes, they are equally uninterested in being a prize for someone else to grab. 

This, it turns out, is more alluring than the “perfection” that a model could bring to the table. As Mr. Big states to Carrie at the end of the episode, “There are so many goddamn gorgeous women out there in this city… [but] after a while you just wanna be with the one that makes you laugh.”

Unlike so many other shows on TV in the 90s and early 2000s, Sex and the City was never about “trying to have it all.” This was a show about having it all—about having everything that really matters. Little did we know as we watched it on dorm room beds and in our first apartments, that we already did. 

Inspired by the sages of old who paired the weekly Torah reading with a selection from the books of the prophets, I will be pairing my SATC commentary with a selection from the later works of the franchise (the two movies and “And Just Like That…”) with the hopes that this act of juxtaposition can help us make meaning: 

Pair SATC S01E02 with the Sex and the City movie’s opening scenes. In voiceover, Carrie states: “Year after year, 20-something women come to New York City in search of the two L’s: labels and love.” With this opening line, she sets up the movie as a story of upward mobility and acquisition. Let Models and Mortals be a tonic and a tikkun for this low point. 

The post Having It All appeared first on Jewcy.

Jewcy had the pleasure of chatting with Aaron about what it’s like to work on the show, the way Jewish content is incorporated, and her own Jewish background. Watch the interview below, and stream all four seasons of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Prime Video.

The post In Conversation with Mrs. Maisel’s Caroline Aaron appeared first on Jewcy.

It’s worth pointing out Anderson’s previous brushes with religion in his past projects. In There Will Be Blood, Paul Dano played a preacher who sparred with Daniel Day-Lewis’ oil magnate and sought to cure him of his wickedness through honest faith. The charismatic Lancaster Dodd, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, is the leader of a Scientology-like religion in The Master, which centers on the devotion of a disillusioned veteran, portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix. And coincidence and chance are the masters of fate in what may be Anderson’s best film, Magnolia, which includes many unexplained occurrences that must be linked in some way to a form of higher power.

In Licorice Pizza, Alana is Jewish, born to Israeli parents just like the real Alana. In fact, Alana’s older sisters, Este and Danielle, play her sisters, and her parents, Moti and Donna, also portray themselves. Alana’s Jewishness comes up at multiple points throughout the film, including in a memorable scene where Harriet Sansom Harris’ agent repeatedly makes mention of her Jewish nose. That’s not necessarily meant as a detractor, but instead just one of her features which is, at the very least, distinctive. Such stereotypes have not historically been considered positive, but Alana has accepted the nature of her face and the fact that it’s just part of her charm.

It’s important to note the impact of this scene in comparison to another moment that has attracted negative attention. Japanese restaurant owner Jerry Frick (John Michael Higgins), when meeting first with a newspaper representative and then young entrepreneur Gary, puts on a cringe-worthy Japanese accent to ask his wife a question. That he’s asking in English and that she answers in Japanese with no subtitles is just puzzling and obviously meant for comedy, and in the second scene it’s an entirely different actress playing a new wife, who fulfills the same purpose of being nothing more than a punchline. Asian-American groups have rightfully taken issue with these scenes, which, like a recent Holocaust joke on And Just Like That, play no greater role in the film and could have easily been left out.

It’s as hard to grapple with the presence of that clear racism as it is with the age difference between the two leads, who do explore a romantic relationship. When Alana first meets Gary, who instantly expresses interest in her, she notes that any union would be illegal because she is 25 and he is 15. Yet they spend almost all their time together, and a connection develops. There is a beauty to it, and this film doesn’t judge them for being at different points in their lives, instead highlighting how the discrepancies in their maturity levels and the way that they spend their time makes it difficult to imagine that they could really last.

Forgiving those two questionable elements of Licorice Pizza may make it challenging to get through and to adore for some viewers. But there is truly something that feels magical about its storyline, which is at times larger-than-life and allows a fifteen-year-old actor to accomplish incredible things. Haim and Cooper are both extraordinary talents, and while they are better known for their music and famous parents, respectively, they should absolutely return to future roles since they are inherently skilled. Anderson also knows how to work with actors, something he has proven over and over again, leading his past performers to nine Oscar nominations (Haim and Cooper have received other accolades for their work this past year).

What should make Licorice Pizza particularly poignant for Jewish audiences, however, is a scene that has far more depth and isn’t meant to be merely for a quick laugh. When Alana brings Gary’s friend Lance, played by Jewish actor Skyler Gisondo, over to meet her family, they sit down to a Shabbat dinner. Alana’s father Moti asks Lance to lead the most basic of Jewish rituals, the motzi over the challah. Rather than feign ignorance or reveal that he isn’t Jewish – a typical plot point in situations like this – Lance raises a pointed objection, declaring that he is an atheist and has made a vow not to participate in any prayers. That show of principle is more offensive to Moti than anything else, underlining that tradition has a deep place in any family, something Lance’s refusal to honor deeply wounds. There is so much packed into the two hours and thirteen minutes that Licorice Pizza runs that everyone will be able to find something different. Cameos from Bradley Cooper, Sean Penn, and others enhance a story that is most about two people who share a deep connection, one whose physical nature may disgust some and whose ethical acceptance the film doesn’t dwell much on, just as it does nothing to excuse its Asian racism. There is a transporting nature to the way this film feels, and it’s even more rewarding for fans of Anderson’s who may have liked his previous work but have never experienced anything quite like this before.

The post A Jewish Bite of ‘Licorice Pizza’ appeared first on Jewcy.

This is undeniably a different show—with a different sensibility—than the series it would over the years grow and evolve to become. Carrie is a brunette. She’s saltier and less precious. She talks directly to the camera.

A self-proclaimed “sexual anthropologist,” she spends the episode investigating ideas about relationships: why are there so many great unmarried women, and no great unmarried men? Or: can women have sex without emotion—like men do? To get the answers, she interviews friends and acquaintances. Here we meet Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte, along with a roster of toxic bachelors who give us the male perspective as they pump iron at the gym.

As the years passed, however, the show drifted away from this early vision. Carrie stopped talking to the camera, they lightened her hair and ditched the light jazz, and the aesthetic became somehow pinker and shinier. It would seem, then, that the Sex and the City we have (along with its movies and reboot) is only one of many possible shows that could have emerged from this pilot.

So what is it that pushed SATC to choose the path they chose? And was that choice inevitable? The answer—it would seem—is Mr. Big, smiling from the back seat of his limo, offering Carrie a ride home from Manhattan’s hottest new club—Chaos. 

It’s Mr. Big who will pull Carrie out of her role as “sexual anthropologist” and make her the hero—not the observer—of the story. It is their great and tortured romance that will transform her character from smokey sex columnist to wide-eyed romantic. His story arc will end up becoming the arc of the show itself. 

This is made all the more fascinating by the fact that Sex and the City very nearly had no story arc at all. According to the ever-valuable SATC coffee table book, Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell, Darren Star originally conceived of the show as an anthology series—a kind of relationship procedural, with Carrie as the investigator focusing on a different “case” each week.

Having ditched the anthology idea, Sex and the City became something akin to a romcom adapted for the small screen and spread out across six seasons. To characterize it as such, however, requires the clarity of hindsight. Watching SATC in real time back in the 2000s, it was not at all obvious that this was a love story at all, let alone Mr. Big’s love story. It felt entirely plausible that Carrie would end up with someone else, or with no one at all. 

Perhaps, however, such speculation is fruitless. As the sages wrote of the book of Genesis in the Midrash (forgive me, I’m a rabbinical student), it is not appropriate for humans to inquire of what happened before creation. The Torah begins with the moment order emerged from chaos, and we will never know what came before—nor what alternative creations could have possibly emerged instead. 

Similarly, we cannot know what would have happened had Carrie not stumbled out of Chaos that night. We cannot know what would have happened had Big not been there to pick her up. All we have is what’s in front of us. 

That said, seeing Carrie and Big sit together in the back of Big’s limo, I can’t help but be impressed with a sense of rightness. 

Yes. This is how it had to be.

Inspired by the sages of old who paired the weekly Torah reading with a selection from the books of the prophets, I will be pairing my SATC commentary with a selection from the later works of the franchise (the two movies and “And Just Like That…”) with the hopes that this act of juxtaposition can help us make meaning: 

Pair SATC S01E01 with AJLT S01E10 (minute 35:44-37:00), in which Carrie scatters Big’s ashes off of “their bridge” in Paris. It would seem that this would end Big and Carrie’s multi-decade story arc. This arc emerged from Chaos, and to chaos it has returned. What comes next is anyone’s guess.

The post In the Beginning, There Was Carrie and There Was Big appeared first on Jewcy.

Sex and the City has touched on religion before. Charlotte had sex with a Chasidic folk artist and later converted to Judaism under the auspices of Rabbi Minsch. Miranda dated a lapsed Catholic who had to shower immediately after sex. Brady was—albeit reluctantly—baptized, and Samantha tried to fuck her neighborhood priest. 

In all such storylines, however, religion was merely a pretext for further exploration of the show’s main themes: sex and relationships. 

When Carrie cased Mr. Big’s church, for instance, she was decidedly uninterested in anything that might be deemed otherworldly.  “As I watched people leaving church,” she narrated, “I was amazed at how they looked. Valentino, Escada, Oscar de la Renta. What is it about God and fashion that go so well together?”

In this week’s episode of And Just Like That…, however, belief is put front and center—not as a pretext, but as a powerful theme in and of itself. 

First, there is the matter of Carrie’s reading lamp, which flickers on and off, prompting her to wonder if Big is trying to reach out to her from the hereafter. 

“Since when do you believe in the afterlife?” Miranda asks. “I thought we were on the same page about this.”

“Yes, we were,” Carrie answers, “but in light of recent events, I’ve changed my vote to undecided.” 

She knows that it sounds absurd to Miranda, and she plays it off as though she doesn’t believe too much in such things. Nonetheless, as the light above her bed continues to flicker, she struggles to deny a powerful intuition that Big is once again here with her. 

Belief is also a key element in the story of Rock’s They-Mitzvah. 

Despite lavish festivities and a fantastic trans rabbi, Rock refuses to go up to the bima at the very last minute, sending Charlotte and Harry into a panic. 

“I’m not doing it,” Rock says. “I don’t believe in it.”

As a future rabbi, I can’t help but take such a scene a bit too seriously, reflecting on all the ways in which Rock’s reaction is, while upsetting, perfectly understandable. After all, what are we (the Jewish world) really giving kids to believe in? If we think expensive parties, cash gifts, and cool, relatable rabbis are the answer—we are wrong. Thirteen-year-olds have strong convictions, and don’t like empty rituals. Harry’s attempt to bribe Rock into doing the ceremony with an Oculus shows just how deeply we misunderstand what would actually make a B-Mitzvah ceremony appealing to a principled, intelligent, and curious kid like Rock. 

When strong-arming and bribery fail, Charlotte takes the opportunity to read from the Torah herself, having the Bat Mitzvah ceremony she never had. In doing so, she proves that Judaism is more than something that parents foist on children. Jewish identity, after all, cannot simply be passed on to one’s children. It must be modeled. If it means nothing to the parents, it will mean nothing to the kids. When Charlotte shows her family just how much her Judaism means to her, Rock’s attitude softens, and they join their mother on the bima.

Meanwhile, Miranda is giving up a prestigious internship to follow Che to Los Angeles for the shooting of a pilot, prompting a B-Mitzvah bathroom showdown between Carrie and Miranda that completes the Carriefication of Miranda and the Mirandafication of Carrie. 

Their fight is a direct echo of the one they had years ago when Carrie was getting ready to follow Petrovsky to Paris. Now, however, the roles are reversed. 

“Miranda, I’ve known you for a hundred years,” Carrie says.

“And?” Miranda retorts. “Am I not allowed to change a little bit? Or a lot? Or change back again if I feel like it? Do I have to follow my own rigid rules until the day that I die?”

It’s here, in this scene, that the show’s many haters are revealed to be just that—haters. The constant sneering refrain that Miranda (and the other characters) had changed is revealed to be an utterly facile critique, one which confuses the show’s central theme for an accident of bad writing. Yes, Miranda has changed. Yes, she has become insufferable. Yes, we miss the old Miranda and yes, we hate Che. This, however, is how we are supposed to feel. In the show’s final episode, we see how very much the writers were in full control of this plotline. 

And they stick the landing. Like the entire series, the finale is somber, beautiful, profound. This is not to say that it didn’t have flaws. It did, but in a sea of lazy takes about “Woke Moments” and Che Diaz memes, I prefer to be an AJLT believer. 

Other Thoughts: 

• Kudos to the show for doing a powerful and emotionally satisfying Samantha arc through text messages alone. 
• This ending felt complete. I’ve clamored for a second season, but I no longer feel I need one. That said, I still want one. 
• Best rabbi representation ever. 
• Hot take: was the flickering light Stanford? I never bought that he was in Japan. Is he in the Upside Down? 
• I’m terribly afraid that the negative press and terrible reviews will stop them from making a second season. That said, negative press and terrible reviews have never stopped them before. 
• Rock may “not believe” in Judaism now, but in about ten years they’ll definitely be studying Gemara at Svara. 
• How about season two starts with Che getting really into Peloton…

The post Belief and the City appeared first on Jewcy.

There are other such memes out there, comparing the down-to-earth, Chinese food eating, TV binging Miranda of yesteryear with hopeless romantic, reckless, trying-to-have-it-all-and-more Miranda of today. The idea is that this new Miranda is not Miranda at all—that she has, in a sense, been body-snatched. 

Who is this imposter? Some have ventured to say that Miranda has been overtaken by the actress who plays her, Cynthia Nixon. Others think that the writers simply lost the thread, transforming Miranda into a new character. But perhaps this new Miranda is not new at all. 

Consider, for instance, the scene in this week’s episode when Miranda shows up to Che’s apartment unannounced with cookies. She thrums with giddiness and radiates a familiar nervous energy. Are you not reminded of early 2000s Carrie showing up in a beret at Mr. Big’s apartment with a bag of McDonald’s?

Consider also the words she used when she asked Steve for a divorce. “[I want] more… more everything… more connection, more energy, more sex, more me.” Is this not an echo of Carrie’s famous plea to Petrovsky for more? “I’m someone who is looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love.”

It seems that Miranda has become the friend she once judged, losing herself in pursuit of the intensity of the show’s unlikely new Mr. Big, Che Diaz. 

Carrie, meanwhile, has become Miranda. Gearing herself up to go on a second date with Peter, the teacher who puked on her, Carrie warns Charlotte not to get too excited. “It is not a date,” she demurs. “It is a do-over between two people who got sick on one another. Let’s take the romance out of it.” She has at last heeded Miranda’s words and stopped “living in a fantasy.” 

How are we to understand the Carriefication of Miranda and the Mirandification of Carrie? We might venture that this is who Miranda has always been — a “pick me girl” who defines herself in opposition to those around her, basing her self-worth on the extent to which she is not “like other girls.” When her best friend was a starry-eyed, boy-crazy romantic, she played the down-to-earth professional, and when Carrie slows to her speed, she responds by amping up.

We might also venture to say that Carrie and Miranda represent a sort of archetypical Yin and Yang, held eternally in balance by the difference of the other. When Carrie is brought down to earth by hard life circumstances, Miranda correspondingly lifts off the ground. 

This last theory, however, ignores the fact that Carrie and Miranda are not a dyad, but rather parts of a quadrangle, more akin to the four elements than the Yin-Yang. It is the four gals—Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha—whose essential prototypical energies hold the universe of Sex and the City together. 

And yet, Samantha isn’t here.

Perhaps that’s why the cosmic order has been disrupted. Perhaps that’s why the show has a chasm so deep that not even Seema, Nya, Nya’s boyfriend, LTW, LTW’s husband and kids, and “Lisette from downstairs” can fill it. 

Perhaps also this why up has become down, Carrie has become Miranda, and Miranda has become Carrie. 

Some other thoughts:

• The structure of this week’s episode, locking all the characters together in a women’s shelter in Brooklyn, worked very well—as close to a “bottle episode” as SATC has ever done. 
• This show has too many new characters. Seema is flawless and fits right in, but please, I don’t need more “Lisette from downstairs,” or LTW. Nya and her partner deserve their own show, but they don’t work on this one. 
• Lily’s tampon plotline got some genuine lols out of me, and I also feel like I learned a lot about tampons. 
• Charlotte once again proved to me why she is TV’s best Jewish mother. Unlike the typical overbearing Jewish mother trope, she is a fierce balabusta—the spiritual core of her Jewish home, ready to accept her non-binary child’s identity but unwilling to let them slouch on their Torah portion prep. 
• Anthony’s unequivocal rejection of his date’s holocaust denial was a real gift on Holocaust Remembrance Day. 
• One critique of the episode’s Jewish content: the Jewish world already came up with a word for a non-binary Bar/Bat Mitzvah and it’s “B-Mitzvah,” not “They Mitzvah.” Come on, now.

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