Michael Patrick King ruins pride month.
Despite being met with a less-than-warm welcome in Season 1, the character of Che Diaz will not only return, but return bigger than ever, when HBO Max’s And Just Like That… serves up Season 2.
Grey’s Anatomy alum Sara Ramírez’s non-binary podcaster/stand-up comic character chopped it up with Carrie and eventually wooed Miranda during the Sex and the City follow-up’s freshman run, which premiered last December. At the close of Season 1, Che decamped to Los Angeles to shoot a TV pilot — with love interest Miranda in tow.
But if you had speculated that the nascent LGBTQ romance might sink as Che’s career soared, and the comic would not be seen again, think again.
“One of my burning passions about Season 2 is Che,” showrunner Michael Patrick King told our sister site Variety, as part of a Pride Month cover story. “I want to show the dimension of Che that people didn’t see, for whatever reason — because they were blinded, out of fear or terror. I want to show more of Che rather than less of Che. Like, really.”
King said he still marvels at how polarizing Che proved to be (see the TVLine poll below), noting that amid a vast TV landscape peppered with truly loathsome characters, “what everybody’s concerned about is a nonbinary stand-up comic in the present day.”
Ramírez also is familiar with, though purposely avoids immersing themself in, the backlash. Ramirez told the New York Times in February that they have been tuning out the “hate that exists online” regarding Che, adding, “I have to protect my own mental health and my own artistry. And that’s way more important to me because I’m a real human being. I’m really proud of the representation that we’ve created. We have built a character who is a human being, who is imperfect, who’s complex, who is not here to be liked, who’s not here for anybody’s approval. They’re here to be themselves.”
And in the new Variety piece, Ramírez says, “Other people’s opinions of a character — that’s not something I can allow into my process.”
“That’s the beauty of being grown — I don’t have to receive everything!” they note. “And this is Michael’s baby. He created this role. He wrote it. Those are his and his writing team’s jokes.”
Variety‘s cover story notes that the yet-to-be-scheduled second season of AJLT will pick up three weeks later, meaning Miranda and Che’s “great adventure” is still fresh and new. And thus not necessarily tested.
“It could be the biggest mistake [Miranda] ever made,” And Just Like That scribe Elisa Zuritsky previously told TVLine. “It could be a horrible betrayal of her role as a mother and a New Yorker. This is Miranda following her heart and not her head for the first time in her life.” But as such, it could also turn out to be “the greatest adventure she ever took.