The press cycle for the first season of HBO’s And Just Like That… was dominated by two legends: Che Diaz, who proved that ironic appreciation knows no bounds, and Kim Cattrall, whose ability to maintain a boundary is legendary. Or it was, until someone at HBO decided that Cattrall just needed to overcome her integrity and return to the series that made her so publicly unhappy that no less than 400 articles have been written about it.
Per Variety, Cattrall is reprising her role as Samantha Jones in season 2 of And Just Like That…, but before you cue up her iconic scatting video to celebrate, you should know there are a few extremely hilarious caveats: Cattrall will only appear in the season finale of the Sex and the City revival via a brief cameo, which she reportedly filmed alone without interacting with any of her former castmates or with showrunner Michael Patrick King. In the first season, “Samantha” played a very small role, occasionally communicating with Carrie via text “from London” in an awkward attempt to shoehorn Cattrall’s character into the plot. For season 2, Carrie and Samantha’s relationship has reportedly progressed to one (1) actual phone call, which, again, Cattrall filmed without speaking to Sarah Jessica Parker—the primary focus of her beef with the franchise.
While I’m sure Cattrall was paid supremely well for this ridiculous cameo, it’s just so unnecessary. And Just Like That… isn’t good. It’s not even a decent Sex and the City revival. The best thing about it is talking shit in the group text the morning after a new episode drops—commiserating over how dirty they did Steve, laughing about Carrie’s new career as a professional podcaster, sending screenshots of Miranda being harassed by a small child in a Chucky costume, screenshots of Miranda’s face when Che fingers her in the kitchen, screenshots of Miranda’s elaborate nightly ice cream boards.
After the horrors of the Sex and the City movie and its sequel—which are not and will never be considered canon—no one could resent Kim Cattrall for refusing to reunite with the people who made her shout “Lawrence of my labia!” in the desert of Abu Dhabi. And let’s not forget how Samantha’s “friends” obnoxiously fat-shamed her in the first movie, or the way they slut-shamed her throughout the entire television series. When Cattrall (repeatedly) made her feelings about Parker and a Sex and the City reunion clear, it wasn’t like we needed much convincing. Good for her.
Speaking with Variety in 2022, Cattrall said, “It’s a great wisdom to know when enough is enough. I also didn’t want to compromise what the show was to me. The way forward seemed clear.” She also touched on her decision not to return for a third Sex and the City movie, which would’ve included a sub-plot in which Brady—Miranda and Steve’s son—sends nudes to Samantha, a development Cattrall called “heartbreaking.” When asked how she felt after the second movie, Cattrall pretty definitively said, “Everything in me went, ‘I’m done.'”
But And Just Like That… refused to let Cattrall have the last word. In the season 1 finale, Carrie and Samantha agree to meet up sometime soon, almost as if the series was willing a Cattrall cameo into existence. At the end of her 2022 interview with Variety, Cattrall was asked if, in light of the season 1 finale, she might consider returning in some capacity. “That’s a no,” Cattrall said. “It’s powerful to say no.”
It’s also powerful to force a corporation to pay you a presumably absurdly large sum to return to a job you hated, for one day, under the condition that you don’t have to actually interact with your former coworkers. Look, Kim Cattrall really didn’t need to come back for And Just Like That… but I do sort of respect the hustle.
(featured image: Warner Bros.)
