And Just Like That creator Michael Patrick King has revealed what Willie Garson’s storyline would have been.
The actor, who famously played Carrie Bradshaw’s best friend Stanford Blatch in the original Sex and the City series, died from pancreatic cancer in September last year.
Just weeks before his death, the 57-year-old filmed scenes for the reboot series, and his sudden absence was addressed in the fourth episode of the show.
In the episode, Carrie (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) returns to her old apartment to find a handwritten letter on Stanford’s stationary.
Stanford’s husband Anthony Marentino (played by Mario Cantone) tells Carrie that Stanford is representing a 17-year-old Long Island TikTok star who is “huge in Asia” and asked him to go on tour with her.
Anthony also says he received a note saying that Stanford wanted a divorce, adding: “I don’t get it, we were so happy.”
The show’s creator has since revealed his original plan was for Stanford to be in all 10 episodes of season 1 of the revival, but Willie couldn’t complete filming.
He told Variet: “Stanford was going to have a midlife crisis. Stanford’s character always had a borderline career as a manager, and we were like going to explore the fact that it wasn’t a real career.”
“It was going to be Carrie and him, feeling the shifts. Anthony and him were probably going to have split anyway. Then we would keep both of them in, and everybody would be relieved that they were divorced because it was not pleasant for anybody.”
“But there was a series of really fun, flirty, hilarious confidante scenes with Carrie that I loved. That old, old, very specific chemistry that Carrie and Stanford have, which is based totally on the uniqueness of Willie and Sarah Jessica’s history.”
Michael said he purposely made Stanford’s final storyline as straightforward as possible.
He explained: “Life and death is one thing in fiction: When it’s real, it’s not funny or cute. I didn’t want to even flirt narratively with cute business about where he is. I knew the audience would never invest in it, because they knew he was never coming back.”
“It’s the most threadbare writing I’ve ever done just to move him along without much maneuvering, because it was just so sad. There was no way I could write myself out of that in any charming, cute way.”
The final episode of season one of And Just Like That airs on Sky Comedy and NOW TV tomorrow.
