‘Sex and the City’ Unpopular Opinion: Charlotte York Was At Fault for Her First Divorce
When And Just Like That…, the Sex and the City reboot, premiered on HBO Max, fans were thrilled to see Charlotte York and Harry Goldenblatt still happily married. Harry might have been her perfect match, but he wasn’t Charlotte’s only husband. In season 3 of Sex and the City, Charlotte married Trey MacDougal. The marriage was ill-fated. While it’s easy to blame the finicky doctor for the breakdown of the marriage, Charlotte was the one most at fault, if you think about it.
Charlotte manipulated Trey MacDougal into marrying her in season 3 of ‘Sex and the City’
When Charlotte met Trey after she fell in front of his cab, she convinced herself it was destiny. At that point, Charlotte would have convinced herself any man she met was her soulmate if he had a warm enough smile and a high enough net worth. She was determined to get married before the year was up and Trey was just too easy to exploit.
Charlotte was to blame for the demise of her first marriage because she manipulated Trey into the union in the first place. The moment she figured out a simple pat on the wrist could get Trey to do anything she said, she utilized it to get a proposal out of him.
Later, when Trey admitted he never really wanted to get married in the first place, she absorbed the information and still pushed to move back into the apartment. Trey should have been more assertive and should have communicated better. That much is obvious. Still, Charlotte was manipulative. Luckily for Sex and the City fans and Charlotte, the marriage eventually led her to Harry.
Charlotte never stopped to ask Trey how he felt
Trey was an accomplished doctor. He excelled in his field of study, but he wasn’t exactly a strong personality. Instead of checking in with her emotionally closed-off husband, Charlotte used his more subdued nature against him at almost every turn.
In fact, once they got back together, Charlotte just assumed Trey was on board with everything she wanted and never bothered to run things by him. Charlotte decided to explore adoption when fertility treatments weren’t working out for them. Her thought process was sound, but the fact that she mentioned it to Trey as an afterthought was pretty brutal.
When you really think about it, Trey wasn’t a bad guy. He did want Charlotte to be happy. He tried to make it happen. Trey was even a gentleman during their divorce. Simply put, Trey and Charlotte were incompatible. While they are both to blame for not realizing it, if she hadn’t pushed him into the marriage so quickly, they likely would have figured that out before ever making it down the aisle.
‘And Just Like That…’ viewers were hoping Trey would appear
Trey MacDougal wasn’t the longest-lasting supporting character in Sex and the City. Between meeting, marrying, separating, and ultimately divorcing Charlotte, Trey appeared in just over 20 episodes, according to IMDb. Still, he was an important love interest. Because he was so important to Charlotte’s origin story, fans were hopeful that Trey might make a cameo in And Just Like That…, but it never happened.
Kyle MacLachlan, the actor who portrayed Trey, hasn’t really opened up about the potential of returning. He does have an opinion on Charlotte’s love life, though. MacLachlan discussed the reboot and his time on the show with Today. He said that Harry Goldenblatt was the right guy for Charlotte. According to Yahoo!, he even quipped that she never has to share her shampoo.
While MacLachlan didn’t appear in season 1, there is no telling if he’ll show up somewhere in a hypothetical second season. While HBO Max has yet to announce a second season, chief content officer, Casey Bloys, seems confident it will happen. Perhaps McLachlan should dust off Trey’s kilt, just in case.
