And Just Like That recently revealed the fate of the late Willie Garson’s character, Stanford Blatch — and his whereabouts have a surprising connection to Sex and the City 2.
“I went to Kyoto with Sarah Jessica [Parker] after the second movie, which was not received well,” AJLT showrunner Michael Patrick King, who also co-wrote and directed the 2010 movie sequel, revealed on the most recent episode of the “And Just Like That” companion podcast. “The critics were not nice to that movie. And we were in Japan [for the premiere there]. We went to Kyoto, and I was in some sort of an emotional shockwave, and I was going from temple to temple with Sarah Jessica. I was sitting there trying to release these complicated feelings, and I felt kind of at peace.”
While Sex and the City, which aired from 1998 to 2004, instantly cemented a spot in the TV cultural zeitgeist, the franchise hit a snag after the release of the 2010 follow-up film. In addition to poor critical reception and low box office numbers, many felt the movie was tone-deaf in its portrayal of the Middle East. It also garnered criticism for its depiction of frivolous ultra-wealth amid a financial crisis.
Parker herself later spoke out about the pushback on the film during an interview at Vulture Festival in 2017. “I understand, I actually get it,” she said at the time. “I can see where we fell short on that movie, and I’m perfectly happy to say that publicly.”
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King, who also wrote and directed several episodes of the original show later found a way to use the negative reception in his SATC spinoff. During the latest season 2 episode of the HBO Max series, which aired earlier this month, Carrie Bradshaw (Parker) shared a Stanford update with his estranged husband, Anthony Marentino (Mario Cantone), revealing that the character was “back in Japan, in Kyoto. He went to see the geishas and he’s staying.”
Stanford — who previously relocated to Japan to be a talent manager for a young TIkTok star — sent Carrie a message and photo to explain what he was up to. “He’s a Shinto monk. … No bit, he had a big, ugly fight with his TikTok client. She fired him and ran off to Berlin, he wandered around Kyoto for days crying,” Carrie explained. “[He] eventually found his way into a temple where, I guess, he stopped crying and he wrote, ‘Carrie, for the first time in my life, I felt peace, real peace.’”
Anthony and Stanford separated during And Just Like That season 1 — they got married in the second SATC movie – when Stanford moved to Asia. While Garson had filmed a few scenes for AJLT’s first season before his death, he was ultimately written out of the show after passing away in 2021 at the age of 57 following a battle with pancreatic cancer.
“It was a real shock,” Cantone, 63, said during a December 2021 appearance on SiriusXM’s Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Show. “None of us knew, and it was just, it was terrible. It was very sad. … I miss him, he made me laugh so hard and he was a great TV husband.” (Cantone’s character has since tried to move on in Season 2.)
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While King called the monk plot point a “fast fix,” he believes it made sense for the character’s journey.
“It was like thin ice,” King said on the “AJLT” podcast. “We skated over it ’cause we had to, ’cause he wasn’t in the show suddenly and we didn’t want Stanford to die. We wanted Willie to be alive as Stanford somewhere in the world.”
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