Is Miranda Steve’s Big? 

*There are spoilers for And Just Like That in this piece.*

Fans have been lamenting the Miranda/Steve storyline for a few weeks now. Initially, their gripe was with how old and senile Steve was being portrayed. They dumbed him down, made him partially deaf, and have painted him as more of a well-meaning companion than a hot-blooded lover. 

Hollywood may have made some progress in their representation of 50-year-old women since The Golden Girls aired – whose characters we just learned were approximately the *same age* as the SATC ladies are now – but that does not seem to have extended to male protagonists of the same generation. 

The fact that the sex in the city characters are the same age as the golden girls characters blows my mind a little bit

— V (@prosaicsadness) January 18, 2022

However, despite writers’ assurances that they weren’t out to create “virtuous” characters, Steve’s storyline does seem to be an attempt to kind of justify Miranda’s affair with Che Diaz. Che thinks Steve knows all about her and Rambo’s arrangement. Miranda never said she was in an open marriage, but she never said she wasn’t either, so Che just assumed that what they were doing was ok. 

Miranda eventually tells her otherwise and Che ends things between them because she’s “not a homewrecker”.  That’s short-lived though, and Che cutting ties ultimately pushes Miranda to tell Steve that she wants a divorce… and just like that one of our favourite TV couples is no more. I’m paraphrasing what many others have already said on Twitter, but are you really telling me that I binge-watched SATC, fell in love with Miranda and Steve, then started AJLT only to have it all end in heartbreak?! 

Like most other viewers, I feel the need to interject “Justice for Steve!” here. If Miranda isn’t happy, then yes, of course, it’s her prerogative to tell her husband and ask for a divorce if that’s really what she wants. But, she should have done that before she did anything with Che – before she let Che blow smoke in her mouth, before the two drank tequila and shared a moment in Carrie’s kitchen, and definitely before Miranda DM’d them and started sleeping with them on the regular.

Miranda is Steve’s Mr. Big.

— Rachel Shukert (@RachelShukert) January 16, 2022

To quote a certain other Sex and the City columnist, I can’t help but draw comparisons between Carrie and Big and Miranda and Steve. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that Miranda is Steve’s Big. Both on-again-off-again relations. Both troubled by infidelity. Both with one partner who’s a little more invested. Carrie and Big were never right for each other. The relationship was toxic and their happily ever after was a little too forced for my liking. Miranda and Steve’s partnership was definitely less poisonous, and so while it was probably likely that they would eventually part ways… I always envisioned it would happen more amicably. 

Steve has already been the subject of a rather unfair story arc already, lest we forget the first Sex and the City movie when his character inexplicably cheated on Miranda. No true Steve stan really bought the idea that he would do such a thing – Aidan is oft considered to be the golden retrievers of boyfriends, but Steve is a close second. Loyal (minus that one movie blip), reliable, lovely. 

I will choose to remember them like this, and this way only #andjustlikethat #justiceforsteve pic.twitter.com/dpNQUyiR2m

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— ESF (@esf603) January 21, 2022

Two wrongs don’t make a right and having Miranda cheat on Steve feels like a very tit for tat move, in my opinion. It’s never been smooth sailing for them though, has it? “It’s always this way,” Steve pointed out when Miranda finally confronted him in last night’s episode. “You don’t think I’m enough, then you think I’m kind of enough, and then you don’t think I’m enough. And I’m always there, hanging in there for us.

“Then finally in the last couple of years we come to a place where it’s not so god damn, f*cking up and down every day where it’s kind of the same… that’s married life, Miranda, that’s life. I’m too old to rally for us again. I don’t want to.” Sobbing.  

Once again, the writers have defended the exchange with both Elisa Zuritsky and Julie Rottenberg explaining that they wanted to show a different side of things with their relationship breakdown. “Miranda’s journey is representing another reality out there, which a lot of people go through – the reevaluations and transitions in life,” Rottenberg told Vanity Fair.

“Grown couples grow apart, and people come to epiphanies about what their spouse is or isn’t fulfilling for them. Miranda’s story was very representative of a certain path that a lot of women find themselves on.” Zuritsky echoed that, adding, “Even moral, generally wonderful people make choices that aren’t necessarily admirable.”

Both Big and Miranda put their sexual explorations ahead of their marriages; in Big’s case, it was to Natasha, in Miranda’s it’s to Steve. They both did so without any kind of shame or remorse for the damage they’ve inflicted on someone they supposedly love. Big essentially told Carrie that his marriage wasn’t working but did nothing to relay that to Natasha. Here Miranda tells Che she’s falling in love with them, all unbeknownst to Steve.

Seeing the two grow apart isn’t the problem, it’s the way that it’s been handled that is. Steve is this helpless character whose only defining trait is that he’s hard of hearing. When Miranda first met him, he was reading Tolstoy in a bar… a couple of episodes later and he’s eating cereal in his underwear. He’s been reduced from intelligent adult to overgrown toddler in just a matter of years. 

Then there’s Miranda who has always been considered somewhat of a queer icon, even before her current entanglement with Che. Most fans probably would have celebrated her exploring that side of her sexuality, but having her do so at the expense of a character we’ve all grown to love is a little cheap. Steve and Miranda breaking up was never going to please everyone, but if you’re going to cause chaos then at least commit to doing it well… instead Miranda just comes off as incredibly selfish and Steve deserves better.