Sex and the City reboot wastes no time explaining what happened to Samantha Jones
Sex and the City stars Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker (Getty/Bill Davila/Dimitrios Kambouris/)
The new Sex and the City reboot, And Just Like That…, wastes no time in explaining what happened to Kim Cattrall’s Samantha Jones.
Warning – spoilers ahead.
The first episode of the new series confirms Samantha is no longer speaking to her friends after moving to London.
In fact, the show appears to have taken some inspiration from the real-life fallout between Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker (Carrie Bradshaw) as it’s revealed their characters lost touch due work-related issues.
Fans were previously left devastated when it was confirmed that man-eating vamp Samantha would not be returning for the HBO Max sequel series, with many fearing the character might have been killed off.
However, the first episode of the show instantly explains why Samantha is no longer swanning around New York City with Carrie, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) as the trio meet up with Bitsy von Muffling (Julie Halston) outside a restaurant.
Sex and the City stars Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Sarah Jessica Parker attend the seventh Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, 2001. (Liaison / Chris Weeks)
When Bitsy asks about Samantha, Charlotte states: “She’s no longer with us”.
Before viewers, like Bitsy, start to believe that Samantha is dead, Miranda then clarifies that she moved to London for work and adds: “Sexy sirens in their 60s are still viable over there.”
It turns out Samantha ended her friendship after Carrie decided to stop working with her as a publicist, due to the downturn in the book market.
In another scene that sees Carrie and Miranda walking through New York, the situation is explained in further detail as Miranda remarks: “It is kinda like she’s dead. We never talk about her.”
Carrie confirms that Samantha never returned her calls after their work split before Miranda pointedly says: “Her pride got damaged.”
“I thought I was more to her than an ATM,” Carrie replies.
Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall filming Sex and the City on March 15, 2001. (Tom Kingston/WireImage)
Miranda explains that neither she nor Charlotte have heard from Samantha, either, despite texting and calling her in an attempt to rebuild the friendship.
“I always thought the four of us would be friends forever,” Carrie adds, sadly.
Cattrall and Parker had reportedly been at loggerheads with one another during the show’s original run, with the feud ripping through the decades-long franchise.
Claims of on-set tensions and clashes over pay between the two were downplayed by the cast at the time. However, in 2017, Parker explained that a third film would not be made because Cattrall had declined to return.
Cattrall later said that she and Parker had “never been friends” – something Parker said she found “upsetting”.
Addressing her decision to exit the franchise, Cattrall told The Guardian: “I went past the finish line playing Samantha Jones because I loved Sex and the City. It was a blessing in so many ways but after the second movie I’d had enough.”
And Just Like That… will air on Thursday (9 December) at 9pm on the Sky Comedy channel.
