I think it would have been better if the show had started with Miranda being an established lecturer/professor, seeing her speak about corporate law to her students and then having her make friends with her female collegue, and having a storyline with that rather than Che. Weather they had an affair or just a flirty friendship that awakened her to the problems with her and Steve etc…
Then the Che character could have just stayed in the background, and kept it to the podcast scenes.
As for Samantha, like everyone else has said she would never have treated Carrie like an ATM. I think they could have said she struggled with living alone in new York during lockdown and has gone traveling, or she was expanding her company in to Europe. The day before bigs funeral, she tests positive and can’t travel and miranda reads Sams eulogy for her and it’s throw back to the wedding toast she did.