Samantha Jones is back! Almost. In the fifth episode of And Just Like That… season three, the fan-favorite character played by Kim Cattrall makes a c
Samantha Jones is back! Almost. In the fifth episode of And Just Like That… season three, the fan-favorite character played by Kim Cattrall makes a comeback via text message. Cattrall herself did not appear onscreen. Still, even a voiceless cameo from Manhattan’s most renowned hedonist is enough to trigger a wave of enthusiasm among fans.
In the episode in question, titled “Under the Table,” Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie must battle a downstairs neighbor who is a little too sensitive to the sound of stiletto heels. The neighbor also happens to be a renowned British biographer. Given his background, Carrie sends a message to Samantha—who is now based in London—asking if she knows the notorious Duncan Reeves (Jonathan Cake). The reply is as brief as it is piquant: “They say he’s a lot of fun. Why?” When Carrie explains that he’s “living under me,” Samantha retorts, “I wish he was living under me.”
This isn’t the first time Samantha has reappeared on the show. Her actual return came in the season two finale, in the form of a surprise phone call to Carrie. During that much-anticipated sequence—for which Cattrall was reportedly paid $1 million for just under two minutes of screen time—Samantha announced that she would not be able to attend Carrie’s apartment farewell party due to a delayed plane. In the car on her way back from the airport, she thanked her friend—and Carrie’s renowned apartment—for everything, displaying her usual frankness and a nod to her British alter ego, Annabelle Bronstein. Cattrall filmed her cameo separately from Sarah Jessica Parker, due to the well-known tensions between the two actors.
This latest cameo by text message is in keeping with the creators’ desire to keep Samantha alive, without pushing Cattrall to take on the role in full. Michael Patrick King, the showrunner of the series, explained to Cosmopolitan, “In our minds, Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte are always texting Samantha, even though the herculean task of actually getting Samantha to appear can only happen every now and then. This was born out of story. We had a man from London move in underneath Carrie. How can you not draw a direct line from ‘man from London’ to Samantha, who’s in London? She will know him. And so that’s what Carrie would naturally do.” To underline the nostalgic nod, the show discreetly slipped a few notes from the original Sex and the City theme song into that scene’s background music.
Why would a elementary text message cause such a stir with Sex and the City diehards? Because Samantha Jones embodies an era, a freedom, a tone that the sequel series is struggling to recapture. She is a formidable businesswoman, an unfailing friend, and an ahead-of-her-time feminist, representing a salutary counterweight to Carrie’s romantic neuroses and Charlotte’s propriety. She didn’t need a man to exist, she wasn’t afraid of desire, and she embraced female sexuality with equal parts pride and self-mockery.
Her disappearance has left a void in And Just Like That… from its very first season. Though the show has tentatively tried to keep the character alive, via text exchanges, implicit apologies, and a bouquet sent to Big’s funeral, it has all seemed a little too polite, too tepid. Without Samantha, the series lacks salt. We’ll need more than a text cameo to get it back.
Original story in VF France.
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