How Panned Sex and the City 2 Informed Stanford’s Fate on And Just Like That

Nearly two years after the death of actor Willie Garson, his iconic Sex and the City character has been given an official send-off — one inspired, believe it or not, by the franchise’s poorly received big-screen sequel.

Thursday’s episode of And Just Like That… revealed that Stanford, who recently flew to Japan on business, has decided to relocate permanently and start a new life as a Shinto monk.

Speaking on the Aug. 17 episode of And Just Like That… The Writers Room podcast, showrunner Michael Patrick King admitted that sending Stanford to Japan was a “fast fix,” but he believes it ultimately worked. “It was like thin ice,” he says. “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.”

So, how did 2010’s Sex and the City 2, which currently has a score of 15 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, inspire Stanford’s unexpected path to enlightenment? It turns out the idea came to King when reflecting on a publicity trip he took with Sarah Jessica Parker.

“I went to Kyoto with Sarah Jessica after the second movie, which … was not received well,” King recalls. “The critics were not nice to that movie. And we were in Japan, and we opened it. 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.”

Turning Stanford into a monk “tapped into that feeling” for King, who says that he “wanted to somehow pay tribute to Willie and put Stanford someplace where it was golden and filled with light, because I hope Willie’s someplace that’s golden and filled with light. It was poetic and it’s very emotional.”

What did you think of AJLT turning Stanford into a monk? And have you changed your opinion about the second SATC movie after all these years, or are you still not a fan? Drop a comment with all of your thoughts below.