‘And Just Like That’ sweetly honors Willie Garson in Season 2 premiere

WARNING: This article contains spoilers for the Season 2 premiere of “And Just Like That…”

The long-awaited Season 2 of “And Just Like That…” premiered Thursday on Max, and the show gave one of its beloved stars a special reference in his absence.

When Willie Garson died unexpectedly in September 2021 following a quiet battle with pancreatic cancer, the “Sex and the City” spinoff reworked the fourth episode to reveal that his character, Stanford Blatch, made an unexpected career move, going oversees to Tokyo to manage a TikTok star.

In the new season’s premiere, Stanford and his life in Tokyo were referenced — keeping the character alive in everyone’s hearts.

As Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) got her dress altered for the Met Gala, she was complimented on her silk kimono.

“Oh, thank you — my friend, Stanford, sent it to me from Japan,” she replied.

Garson’s final on-screen appearance in the show was in Season 1 Episode 3. In Episode 4 of the first season, he had an off-screen “appearance” with a written letter to his BFF Carrie, telling her of his departure amid the death of her husband, Mr. Big, following a tragic Peloton ride.

“Dearest Carrie, By the time you read this I’ll be in Tokyo,” the note read. “I couldn’t tell you — not without crying. And you have had enough crying,” referring to Carrie’s emotions over the death of John “Big” Preston (Chris Noth).

Showrunner Michael Patrick King previously shared that he didn’t want to write Garson’s death into the show, so he figured out a way to work around it.

“I thought, ‘I’m not gonna really lean into this [death as a storyline].’ It’s too sad,” he told Vanity Fair in 2021. “And it’s too tragic. It’s not a fictional death. It’s a real death.”

“I just sort of made it as light and as silly as possible and we went forward.”

New episodes of “And Just Like That…” stream Thursdays on Max.