How Sex and the City 2's negative reviews inspired that Stanford tribute on And Just Like That

Warning: This article contains spoilers from And Just Like That season 2, episode 10.

Believe it or not, the fate of Willie Garson's Stanford Blatch revealed in the second season of And Just Like That has a connection to the widely panned Sex and the City 2.

Showrunner Michael Patrick King, who also co-wrote and directed the 2010 movie sequel, discussed the story behind that touching Stanford moment in episode 10, "The Last Supper, Part 1: Appetizer," this week.

"I went to Kyoto with Sarah Jessica [Parker] after the second movie, which… was not received well," King said on the official And Just Like That companion podcast. "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."

His anecdote echoes Stanford's plotline on And Just Like That. In the season 2 scene addressing his whereabouts, Anthony Marentino (Mario Cantone) arrives at the apartment of Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), who relays a message from his ex-husband: Stanford has gone to Kyoto after his TikTok star client fired him over an argument they had. He was depressed but found peace wandering the temples there — and then decided to become a Shinto monk.

Garson died in 2021 at the age of 57 after battling pancreatic cancer. He had filmed a few scenes for the first season of And Just Like That before his death, but Stanford was ultimately written off the show, with the character splitting up with Anthony and running off to Japan.

Even though King called the monk plot point a "fast fix," he thinks it worked. "It was like thin ice," he said on the 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."

Listen to the full podcast episode below.

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