Saving Sex and the City 3

Saving Sex and the City 3 is built on one stubborn idea: if the third film will not get made, Lara Marie Schoenhals will write it herself, out loud, with help. Several episodes open on the same mock-solemn recap. Production on the movie was shut down in 2017, a reboot announced in 2020 turned out not to be a third movie, and so the intro vows to attempt 'what many believe to be the undoable.' She has called the podcast her 'passion project' and her 'raison d'etre.' Each episode pairs her with a guest, and together they rough out a version of the film scene by scene. The results go wildly different places. With Lily Sullivan, a badly hungover Samantha wakes up, the blinds open onto nothing but ocean, and she finds herself on a cruise ship with Xander, no phone signal and a lot of questions. That session ends with a finished title, The Emancipation of Carrie Bradshaw, and a promise that it is coming to a theater near you. With Tommy Do, a newcomer named Lena steps off the subway in sneakers with her flats in a bag, and shoves back when someone bumps her. The person who bumped her might be Samantha, busy on the phone. That brainstorm winds up on a poster idea: Miranda beside a green sprout. Jen Winston's episode has Charlotte representing Miranda as an artist, with a gallery opening for kitschy, sloppy-looking ceramics. Sydney Sweeney drifts through more than one of these imagined films. In the Joe Castle Baker session she wavers over a role tied to Carrie Bradshaw before taking it, and Samantha gets a Google alert about herself. In the Pat Regan session an assistant snoops through Carrie's folders, and Carrie comes out of the bathroom to find Sydney Sweeney talking with Big. Rob Aquino's Halloween special tilts the franchise toward horror and slapstick. Then it turns. A humiliating mishap becomes a Cynthia Nixon ugly cry, a bickering fight, some shame and finally a touching moment about marriage and partnership. One line from that brainstorm, 'the best horror is when you truly care about these people so much,' says a lot about the affection behind the jokes. The rhythm is quick and encouraging. 'Love it,' 'yes, perfect' and 'I love that' turn up across episodes, and ideas get stacked higher rather than vetoed. The vocabulary comes from filmmaking: cut-tos, zoom-outs, logline work and, at one point, a 'baton pass wink filmmaker thing.' Each conversation plays like a pitch meeting nobody wants to end. Guests bring their own credits. Lily Sullivan is introduced with her podcast Going Deep, and Pat Regan is introduced as an actor, writer, comedian and co-host of Seek Treatment, a billing he promptly waves off. Expect some strong language and adult jokes. The show is not an analysis of the series. It offers a steady supply of new, affectionately ridiculous plots for four very familiar women.