The Go Get Our Girl-ing of Samantha Jones
When the world needed her most, she reappeared.
“Big’s dead. Miranda’s dating a non-binary, weed-smoking comedian after a brief stint with alcoholism. Steve… gone, disappeared. Charlotte’s still Charlotte. Stanford moved to Japan to support a 17-year-old social media star. [Carrie throws her hands in the air.] Anthony, he bakes bread now. Oh, and I have a podcast. I think that’s everything you missed.”
Like a warning shot that Pride Month was imminent, on Wednesday afternoon news first broke that Kim Cattrall would make her highly-anticipated re-entry into the Sex and the City cinematic universe with a cameo appearance on the upcoming second season of And Just Like That.
Per Variety, Cattrall shot her dialogue on March 22 in New York City and did not see or speak to Sarah Jessica Parker, the other stars of the series or showrunner Michael Patrick King. The only other info offered up is that it will be a phone conversation between Samantha and Carrie and that SATC costume designer Patricia Field, who has not been working on the follow-up series, dressed Samantha for the scene.
Presumably this phone call is a further extension of the olive branch moment witnessed in the AJLT Season 1 finale in which Carrie and Samantha agreed (via text) to meet up while Carrie was in Paris spreading the ashes of her deceased husband. Does this open the door to further Cattrall appearances should there be a Season 3? It would seem so. After a May 2022 headline, “And Just Like That, Kim Cattrall Found Power in Saying No,” it seems that for the right price (and the right provisions), no can become yes.
From that story:
Sarah Jessica has said that if you decided to play Samantha again, she wouldn’t be OK with that. Did that hurt your feelings?
I don’t think I read it.
She said there was too much that had happened publicly between the two of you.
Well, it would never happen anyway. So nobody has to worry about that.
Never say never! So what do we make of all of this? Keeping it 100: I’ve known about this since it was filmed back in March. I was on a flight to LA when I got a message from a friend on set. I obviously thought they were lying. “Send me a pic,” I demanded. They obliged but I only had free SMS so the image was blank. I promptly purchased WiFi to view the image. Lo and behold, it was Kim in a red top and a silver jacket, clutch in her left hand resting on her lap and holding a phone to her right cheek in the backseat of a car. “Shit motherfucker fuck shit,” I nearly exclaimed to my seatmate. It was such a shocking sight. Moreso, it was a difficult secret to hold onto. It felt… capacious, ludicrously so.
I wondered if they’d be able to hold onto this the way they had successfully held onto Big’s death. With the trailer (smartly) leaning all the way into Aidan’s imminent return, I felt certain they’d be able to divert attention away. Alas. Headline: “Kim Cattrall Will Return As Samantha for the Finale of ‘And Just Like That…,' Thank God.”
That this info leaked is not necessarily a bad thing — though I can’t imagine Max is thrilled that they weren’t able to get ahead of this. As a friend of mine put it in our voice memo exchange on the subject: “For coastal elite media bubble heads, this is a tragedy because of the loss of the surprise factor. But thinking in a less tapped in/less chronically online mentality, if you see this headline, if it gets to you and you don’t see anything else, that is a win for HBO in terms of putting butts in seats. It is a win from a marketing perspective to hopefully put extra oomph and muscle into the greater SATC/AJLT universe machine and hopefully generate goodwill.”
The absence of Samantha was always going to be a specter on the show. Samantha is (argue at the wall) the most well-liked character in the show’s universe, yes, but more importantly, it made no sense dramaturgically to have her no longer in the friend group. And thus her lack of presence was forced to become a plot point from the first moments of AJLT Season 1 to the last. That plot device — stray texts every few episodes — was a conceit at best, so it’s something of a relief that what escalated to an off-camera meet-up in the interim between seasons will net out in some actual screen time for our girl.
Will a few minutes of phone acting (at most) be a sufficient quick fix? Honestly, yes. It shows a willingness to bend on what seemed like a pretty staunch “we will never work together again, ever” stance from both actors. They may not share screen time, sure, but they both were professional enough to recognize the value of fan service.
It’s funny. I just earlier today recorded Michael Patrick King’s episode of Shut Up Evan: The Podcast (dropping 6/20, two days before the premiere) and will meet him again tomorrow for lunch for a profile I’m doing of him for British Vogue. I obviously plan to bring this up and integrate it into that story. But more than his response, I will be paying attention to his body language, mannerisms and gaze while I broach the subject. I have to imagine King is directing the season (series?) finale, and so him not being present to film Kim’s scene feels… pointed. It’s also news that he had likely not been prepared to speak about until August, when the show was nearing its finale. It all feels so juicy. It feels somewhat lurid despite it all being above board. Again, Parker and King agreed to have Cattrall back and Cattrall, in turn, agreed to come back, and yet…
I’m keeping my expectations in check. I’m not expecting the Camp David Accords. I’m recognizing that we’ve been given a symbolic gesture; an inch and we needn’t expect a mile. Yet, I can’t help but feel a certain electricity pulsing through my veins at the mere thought that in just a few months, Samantha Jones will be alive and on my screen. “If there’s any reason why people are still watching Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte it’s because they still feel they’re real somewhere,” King told me during his upcoming appearance on Shut Up Evan. I’m so glad that, even if only for a moment, we can add Samantha’s name back to the mix — right where she belongs.
THIS is why I love reading your pieces, Evan. It's like you're inside my head!! And the subtle Succession refrences are taking me out. It absolutely DID NOT make sense, dramaturgically, to cast the #1 guy in this group to the wayside.
Evan I don't think SJP or MPK had to "agree" to have Kim back. At the end of the Variety article which seems many people didn't read it states the CEO of HBO Max personally asked Kim to come back seemingly conceding to every demand she rightfully made.
He knows how the fans still want her back, how many people hate watch the show to rip it to shreds, how many people are team Kim Catrall, how Samantha absence is so impactful and that SJP nice girl mask have been ripped off.