Kim Cattrall improvised this touching moment during her And Just Like That comeback cameo
Kim Cattrall as Samantha Jones in And Just Like That. (Max)
As Kim Cattrall made her long-awaited cameo in the season two finale of And Just Like That … , showrunner Michael Patrick King revealed an iconic ad-libbed moment.
Sex and the City (SATC) fans’ dreams came true in Thursday night’s (24 August) episode of the Max spin-off series And Just Like That ...
After years of refusing to reprise her role as PR expert Samantha Jones – against a backdrop of feud rumours between Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker – the 67-year-old actor surprised everyone by announcing her (brief) return.
The finale, titled “The Last Supper Part Two: Entrée”, follows Carrie Bradshaw (Parker) hosting a final meal to bid farewell to the Upper East Side apartment that saw the core four – Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha – through countless trials, tribulations and triumphs over the decades.
In the first five minutes of the episode Carrie receives a phone call from Samantha, who now works as a publicist in London. Samantha explains that her flight to New York was delayed by three hours and so her plan to surprise Carrie and her friends at the flat had fallen through.
She still gets pay her respects to the brownstone by shouting through the phone – in a slight British accent – “Thank you for everything, you f**king fabulous, fabulous flat.” The scene ends with Samantha kissing the phone – and King reveals the poignant gesture was entirely improvised by Cattrall.
“The phone call’s over and something amazing happens after they say goodbye,” King said on Max’s The Writers’ Room podcast. “Which is Samantha kissing the phone. Which was, by the way, not in the script,
“It’s just totally a moment of an actor playing the moment and it’s really nice.”
It’s not the only Easter egg from the exchange. When Carrie teases Samantha about her vaguely British accent, Samantha replies that she is “Annabelle Bronstein” from “Indja” in a nod to Samantha’s short-lived alter-ego from season six of Sex and the City.
Although Cattrall’s appearance is brief, King believes that Samantha continues to be central to the lives of the SATC characters. “In my multiverse of And Just Like That [and] Sex and the City, they were always talking. Always!” King explained. “Texting and talking – and not just Carrie, but Samantha and Miranda and Charlotte.”
Although the 71-second cameo has been hyped up since news first broke prior to season two airing, King had originally hoped to keep Cattrall’s appearance a secret from the audience.
“My goal, for us, was to have Carrie pick up her phone and look at it, see the word Samantha, and have the audience’s head blow off,” King admitted in the podcast.
As for whether this truly will be our final glimpse of Samantha remains to be seen. The show has been commissioned for a third season with series regulars Sarah Jessica Parker, Sara Ramirez, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon all set to return.
And Just Like That … seasons one and two are available to stream on Max.
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