This is obviously just a personal opinion, but it’s the type of personal opinion that is also an indisputable fact: Miranda was basically the only good character on the original run on Sex and the City. Oh, stop making that face; you know it’s true.

Carrie was charming, but toxically flaky and so self-absorbed, you’d end up trying to murder her with a stale popover if you had to have brunch with her. Charlotte was sweet, but also spent 90% of her waking hours immersed in an absurd fantasy world that had nothing to do with her actual life. Samantha — a book of sex puns brought to life by a witch’s curse — was extremely fun, but obviously she wasn’t the kind of friend that you could call at 3 a.m. because you were feeling sad (she’d probably be like “Depression? The best cure for that is pressin’...on some dick!”).

Calm, smart, funny Miranda was the show’s sole anchor to reality, the only character ever able to dispense reasonable advice or see situations for what they truly were.

In fact, it’s her monologue near the beginning of the show’s first episode that basically gave the series its mission statement: “By the time you reach your mid-thirties, you think: why should I settle?” No matter which character you related to at 21, time reveals that everyone basically grows up into a Miranda.