Spoiler alert: this article discusses the plot of the finale of And Just Like That season two.
And Just Like That made us work hard to get to the good old days of Sex and the City. There were multiple Che Diaz standup sets. Sam Smith bought a painting. Stanford became a Shinto monk. When we were promised a big return in the finale, expectations were high and speculation frenzied. Then, at last, Carrie ordered a Cosmopolitan.
But seriously. They didn’t keep us waiting for Samantha Jones. She appeared practically straight away, although technically, and fittingly, she was third on Carrie’s list of priorities, appearing only after she had talked to Aidan and her kitten. Kim Cattrall’s oh-so-brief cameo, listed as a “special appearance” in the credits, was short, sweet and very much for the fans. Even a gag about her new English accent brought up a reference to a season six episode of Sex and the City, when Samantha tried to impersonate one Annabelle Bronstein, “from Ind-ja”, to get into Soho House.
We knew, from the trailer, that it was going to be a phone call. In recent years, Cattrall has been clear about her feelings towards her former castmates; the chances of them appearing on screen together seemed slim. But I had half expected a video call, à la Margot Robbie in the Neighbours finale. Instead, we got 71 seconds of Samantha in a car, having “just left Heathrow”. (I would like to know which company she used, as she was already at Embankment.)
She explained that she had been planning to surprise Carrie at the last supper and needed to pay her respects to the apartment that Carrie was finally vacating. Sadly, though, her flight was delayed. She was “fucking furious” about it – and that was that. “Ta and cheerio, and have a great night,” she finished, with regal poise.
Fans had been getting previews of Samantha’s return to the Sex and the City world for months. Michael Patrick King, the showrunner, told Forbes he was disappointed that Cattrall’s appearance had become public knowledge; he had wanted it to be as much of a surprise as Big’s death. But, after a series of furtive texts between Carrie and Samantha in season one, speculation about a possible comeback for the character had been building. It is the show’s 25th anniversary, after all. “All of a sudden, it manifested that Kim was like: ‘I’ll play Samantha for you for this little, sweet treat,’” he said.
For her part, Cattrall teed up the appearance in a TV interview at the end of June, which gave us a feel of what to expect. She told presenters of the Today programme – the US one, not the Radio 4 one – that the head of HBO had called her to ask what he could do to make the cameo happen. The hosts put to her the infamous statement she made in a Guardian interview: “I don’t want to be in a situation for even an hour where I’m not enjoying myself.” In response, Cattrall pretended to smoke a cigarette and said: “That’s right, darling.”
The cameo has big “that’s right, darling” energy. It is minimal effort for maximum impact. Samantha is sitting down in the back of a car, although she looks fabulous; one of Cattrall’s stipulations was that she would be styled by Sex and the City’s Patricia Field, who had not returned for And Just Like That, as she was working on Emily in Paris. The grand comeback took four hours, according to Cattrall: she shot from noon until 4pm, then went home and had a cocktail. “It felt like dipping my toe back in time and having a wonderful afternoon. And then a great martini,” she said in June.
She may not have been in the same country, then, but Samantha’s comeback gave the series a jolt. It has been unfurling at an ambient pace, occasionally being brought back to life by one of its more enjoyable turns, such as the saga of Anthony’s “ass virginity”, which takes up a fair amount of the finale. (Only this show could get away with a line such as: “This is not about your asshole. This is about your other hole,” while pointing to the heart.) The episode ties up most of its loose ends, gives us a sex montage, then signs off with a Cosmopolitan on the beach.
Putting Samantha’s return at the outset was a way of insisting that it was not the headline. Making us wait until the last moments of the episode would have made it seem like the star turn. There wasn’t a great deal to it, in the end. But even from London, even sitting down, even simply on the phone, Samantha brought spirit to the series. It was a big reminder that she is missed.
