What’s the best-case scenario for a threequel to a decades-old chick-flick franchise? Bridget Jones’s Baby? Does the Kristen Stewart Charlie’s Angels count? Whatever it is, Mindy Kaling knows it’s not And Just Like That …, the HBO Max follow-up to Sex and the City and its two movie installments. Kaling is writing Legally Blonde 3 at Reese Witherspoon’s personal behest, and she told Time that watching the Very 2022 Adventures of Miranda, Charlotte, and Carrie was not helping matters. Kaling said she had to tap out after two episodes because “I felt like I could commiserate with the producers and the writers of the show, trying to address all these issues from the past, and be funny and fabulous, but also sort of apologize for itself.â€
This discomfort informed the challenge of writing a present-day Elle Woods who stays true to the unabashedly girlie-girl character from 2001 without being too try-hard about the discourse. “Honestly, watching And Just Like That …, and how they took a character from 18 years ago, and how the character was now — we want to make sure that Elle Woods is not paying penance for existing in the year 2022,†Kaling said. We have faith that the character is in good hands with Kaling, but we all know what the true Legally Blonde threequel is: