How the And Just Like That... Premiere Tackled Samantha’s Absence
Heads up for those who haven’t tuned into the long-awaited premiere of And Just Like That… just yet: Twitter has become something of a spoiler minefield. We won’t get into the most major—involving a main character’s death—but it’s not much of a reveal to confirm that thanks to Kim Cattrall’s well-documented reluctance to join the reboot, there’s no Samantha in sight. As previously confirmed, the writers opted not to kill her off. What they chose instead has been rumored for weeks, but in case you didn’t see the many headlines, we suggest you stop reading here.
The topic of Samantha arises immediately, thanks to a surprise reunion with Bitsy Von Muffling. The former Sex and the City character quickly inquires about the whereabouts of “the fourth musketeer.” “She’s no longer with us,” Charlotte says, then realizes Muffling thinks the worse has come to pass. “I just meant she’s not with us. She’s in London [for work].” (“Sexy sirens in their sixties are still viable over there,” Miranda quips.) Muffling is clearly relieved. “After the horror show we've been through, I just assume anyone I haven’t seen in a while has passed on,” she says, making the third reference to the pandemic just a minute and a half in to the first episode. “Or gave up and moved to Palm Beach.”
Later, when she’s on her own with Carrie, Miranda returns to the topic. “You know, it is kinda like she’s dead… we never even talk about her,” she says, prompting Carrie to sigh. “Well, what is there to say? I told her that because of, you know, what the book business is now, it just didn’t make sense for me to keep her on as a publicist. She said ‘fine,’ and then fired me as a friend.” Miranda demurs. “Okay, she stopped returning my calls,” Carrie allows, then agrees with Miranda that she damaged Samantha’s pride: “Which is why I kept leaving her voicemails, asking her to please call me back, so we could talk about this and fix this.”
“Look, I understand that she was upset, but I thought I was more to her than an ATM,” Carrie continues. It turns out she isn’t the only one who hasn’t heard back from Samantha: Miranda and Charlotte haven’t had any luck with their numerous texts and voicemails either. “It’s so weird,” Miranda reflects. “I always thought the four of us would be friends forever,” Carrie says, shaking her head.
Episode 2 offers a glimpse at some of Carrie’s fruitless attempts when she pulls up the one-sided exchange on her BlackBerry. After rereading her last three messages—“Hey London lady. Thinking of you,” “Walked past La Perla today. I missed you,” and “Hi. Can we talk?”—she sends another saying thanks. As for why, well, that spoiler is too big to share.
