And Just Like That is officially saying goodbye to Stanford Blatch, the beloved character portrayed by the late Willie Garson.
In the Thursday, August 17, episode of the Max series, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) shares a Stanford update with his estranged husband, Anthony Marentino (Mario Cantone).
“Stanford asked me to speak to you,” Carrie said, holding up a handwritten note that she received from her longtime pal. “He’s back in Japan, in Kyoto. He went to see the geishas and he’s staying.”
Stanford — who previously moved to Japan to be the talent manager for a young TikTok star following Garson’s death — sent Carrie a message and photo to explain what he was up to. “He’s a Shinto monk. … No bit, he had a big, ugly fight with his TikTok client. She fired him and ran off to Berlin, he wandered around Kyoto for days crying,” Carrie explained. “[He] eventually found his way into a temple where, I guess, he stopped crying and he wrote, ‘Carrie, for the first time in my life, I felt peace, real peace.’”
Anthony, who married Stanford in the Sex and the City 2 feature film, was taken aback by Carrie’s revelation. “Why didn’t he tell me this himself?” he asked, putting down the cosmopolitan drink that Carrie had offered him in Stanford’s honor.
Carrie explained, per the note, that Stanford was afraid to tell Anthony out of fear that he would mock his newfound bliss.
“He also wrote that, ‘My lawyers have enclosed all the legal work needed. The apartment and all of my belongings are now his,’” Carrie said to a now-surprised Anthony. “I want no attachments. I have let go of all things that no serve me and I let it all go with love.”
Anthony remarked that he was “stunned” that Stanford could let everything go as he’s been the complete opposite. “Good for him, good for him,” he tearfully said before Carrie proposed a toast to “Stanny.”
When asked who would get to “keep the photo” of Stanford, Carrie proclaimed that she was “very attached” to the image of Garson’s character donning a traditional Japanese robe.
Anthony and Stanford had separated during And Just Like That season 1 when Stanford moved to Asia. Anthony, for his part, has since tried to move on. Season 2 even introduced a new love interest in Italian poet Giuseppe (Sebastiano Pigazzi), who proclaimed in Thursday’s episode that he was in love with the Hotfellas breadmaker.
Thursday’s episode comes nearly two years after Garson died at the age of 57 in September 2021. Garson, who is survived by son Nathen, had privately battled pancreatic cancer prior to his passing.
“It was a real shock,” Cantone, 63, said during a December 2021 appearance on SiriusXM’s Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Show. “None of us knew, and it was just, it was terrible. It was very sad. … Every time we did a benefit together, or like we did a couple of readings on Zoom, during COVID we were zooming. We were always, like, texting each other talking s–t. But I miss him, he made me laugh so hard and he was a great TV husband. Oh God, he was loved.”
New episodes of And Just Like That drop Thursdays on Max.
