To quote Sex and the City’s Samantha Jones: “Hello, my name is fabulous.” According to Variety, Kim Cattrall, who played the show’s most iconic character for years before vowing she’d never reprise the part, will make a surprise return in the show’s fairly divisive reboot And Just Like That.
A not-altogether successful attempt to revive the spirit of Sex and the City, And Just Like That hasn’t been the same without Samantha; she’s been conspicuously absent from the brunch table from the very beginning. With Kim Cattrall adamant that she would never reprise the role again, amid wider speculation around a potential feud between the actor and her former cast-mate Sarah Jessica Parker, the show instead attempted to keep her influence alive through a series of quite irritating and tenuous iMessages.
There’s not a single line of text out there with the power to embody all of Samantha’s iconic moments to date; not to mention that text exchanges in both film and telly can often feel quite clunky and cringe. There’s little dramatic tension that can be wrung out of a flickering ellipsis suggestively dancing about at the bottom of Carrie Bradshaw’s phone screen, but by god do the writers put in a Herculean shift trying to dredge out every last drop anyway.
Personally, I was hoping that Carrie might chuck her phone into the Seine along with Big’s ashes to put me out of my misery once and for all – but instead, her nostalgic trip to Paris ends on a note of vague hope. Firing up the dreaded iMessage app once more, Carrie suggests an imminent reunion with her estranged best mate (who has apparently stropped off to London after being fired as Carrie’s publicist) and wedges a Manolo Blahnik into the door ready for a potential return. "I’m in Paris. Want to meet for a cocktail?" she texts. “How’s tomorrow?” replies Samantha.
Will Samantha really return, then? Apparently, Cattrall has been enlisted for a surprise cameo in season two’s finale, and shot her scene earlier this year. According to sources with knowledge of the behind-the-scenes workings of the show, Cattrall filmed her dialogue separately in New York on March 22, without reuniting with the other stars of the series.
The scene is said to feature a phone call between Samantha and Sarah Jessica Parker’s character Carrie. It doesn’t exactly sound like the full-blown return Cattrall’s iconic character deserves, so allow us to chaotically speculate instead. Setting aside all practicalities for a moment, here are our wildest, most far-flung dreams for that cameo.
An intervention for Miranda
Seriously, is Miranda ok? Back in the original Sex and the City, she was a headstrong and fiercely-ambitious career woman who only a fool would dream of messing with – but in the reboot she’s somehow been reduced to a flustered husk of her former self. Her dalliances with podcasting comedian Che Diaz – who has a habit of loudly appearing in the middle of scenes by announcing their own name – are just about forgivable, along with one especially excruciating scene where they “take marijuana drugs” together.
It’s not a crime to indulge in a rebound with somebody who happens to be profoundly annoying, after all. But within this, the Miranda that we all knew and loved appears to be as absent as the void left by Samantha Jones. It’s clear as day: what this woman needs is an intervention, and who better than the show’s self-proclaimed “try-sexual” Samantha to break the tragic news that Che is unlikely to be the one and will probably dump her for a fellow podcaster within about six months anyway.
A shiny new PR job
Back on the market after being unceremoniously fired by Carrie, who could blame Samantha for becoming disillusioned with the world of celebrity after her infamous run-in with Lucy Liu and the stolen Birkin? In this economy, perhaps she’s out to diversify her portfolio: and landing a top job running the membership show at Soho House could be on the cards. Samantha has history with the cushy members club – in season six, she’s caught posing as British member Annabelle Bronstein in order to use the New York house’s swimming pool – and luring Carrie back to Soho house for one last meeting only to bar her for life could end up being the ultimate petty revenge move.
An intervention for Carrie
Poor old Carrie has had a lot on her plate since Mr Big was killed by a Peloton, and if there’s a potential reunion that could properly tip her over into the abyss, it’s resuscitating her previous relationship with cabin-loving carpenter Aidan Shaw. John Corbett, the actor who played Carrie’s former love interest, is definitely returning for the new season, and after their ill-advised snog during the best-forgotten Sex and the City 2 film, there’s every danger that they could decide to pick up where they left off.
Between Carrie cheating on Aidan in spectular fashion the first time around, and Aidan throwing constant strops every time she picks up the ciggies again, this is not going to end well, though what does it matter when the rose-tinted glasses are on? What she really needs is Samantha to pop along and deliver a couple of home truths instead. To quote a previous nugget of wisdom; "If he seems too good to be true, he probably is.”
A new best friend
Since moving to London, Samantha will have inevitably made some new pals to replace Miranda, Charlotte, and Carrie – but who? Though they admittedly got off to a rocky start after Samantha decided to have sex with waiter Smith Jerrod at her party, our Sam and handbag enthusiast Victoria (played to perfection by Jennifer Coolidge) could potentially have a whale of a time out on the town together. Samantha might be a positive influence on Victoria following the brutal dumping that led her to begin designing a range of eccentric handbags in the first place; and Samantha’s PR expertise could even help to find the unusual collection a wider audience on the fashion circuit.
It also goes without saying that Carrie Bradshaw would not handle this development with much grace, given her jealous tendencies.
A sad final plot twist
All of these scenarios so far are completely hypothetical and also wildly unlikely, but let’s get real now: what are the actual predictions? It seems fairly obvious that Samantha Jones’ upcoming cameo will probably be a one-off, and so it’s a scene with an awful lot of loose ends to tie up. How on earth do you go about bidding a final farewell to a character that iconic and ubiquitous, over the course of a single phone call, while expecting And Just Like That to then continue rumbling on for season after season?
Though it pains me to say it, one of the more genuinely affecting solutions to this script-writing quandary would be to kill her off. Samantha, as we know, was diagnosed with breast cancer in the final season of the original show, navigating through gruelling chemotherapy with a parade of fabulous wigs, and finding the best sidekick possible in Smith Jerrod. Though I’d truly hate to see it unfold, having Samantha break the news that her cancer has returned would probably be one of the neatest ways to wrap up the never-ending speculation around her ongoing role in the reboot, once and for all.
