It's only gonna get worse after what Cattrall did
As the premiere date for Season 2 of And Just Like That draws ever closer, a weary nation has spent the last few months girding its loins for the return of one of the most ridiculous television shows in recent memory. Then on Wednesday, just three weeks out from D-Day (June 22, when the first episode will go up online), came the arrival of some Earth-shattering, Manolo-splintering news: Per Variety, Kim Cattrall will reprise her role as Samantha Jones in the show’s new season.
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Despite playing one of the four principal characters in AJLT’s precursor, Sex and the City, Cattrall did not appear in Season 1 of the show, due in part to a nasty, yearslong feud between her and some of the main creative forces behind the show, including star Sarah Jessica Parker. Instead, she’s kept herself busy joking about going to space and joining a couple of other high-profile if little-discussed reboots, playing a mom on the Queer as Folk and a late-middle-age version of Hilary Duff on How I Met Your Father. AJLT arguably was worse in her absence, though it’s unclear if that should be blamed on the lack of Cattrall or inspired choices like the one to give each of the remaining main characters an “emotional support woman of color,” as the podcaster B.A. Parker once put it on Twitter. But the show didn’t kill the character of Samantha off or anything; she was merely revealed to be estranged from Parker’s character, her onetime best friend, Carrie—but it was written in that she sent flowers at a crucial point in the plot and eventually a few texts, so she also wasn’t totally forgotten.
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How did Cattrall and Parker et. al. manage to put aside their differences in order to let the great Samantha Jones ride again? That’s the other incredible thing about this news: By all appearances, they didn’t. A close read of the Variety article lays bare that, rather than the expected ceasefire, Cattrall’s participation in Season 2 might actually represent an ingenious new act of hostility—she’s ceded nothing, and in fact seems to have found a way to enlist the show itself in her campaign of spite. All that while landing what must be a sizeable paycheck. Even if you consider yourself a neutral party in this battle, you can’t not be a little impressed by the chutzpah on display.
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Cattrall will only appear in one episode in the new season, set to air in August, and what’s more, it’ll be just one scene of said episode. She shot it “without seeing or speaking with the stars of the series, including Sarah Jessica Parker, or with And Just Like That showrunner Michael Patrick King,” Variety reported—the plan is apparently for Samantha to be on the phone with Carrie in her scene. Though it’s a bit of a copout for her to appear on screen without anyone else, that doesn’t fully diminish how thrilling it will be to see her at all, and we’ll take what we can get.
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Still, it’s rather remarkable that neither Parker nor King initiated this, and it’s unclear whether they wanted it at all, or even consented to it. As the Variety article goes on to point out, Parker and King didn’t invite Cattrall to be on the show when it started and have gone on the record saying they didn’t see a way forward with the actress, meaning it sure sounds like it took someone swooping in and going over their heads to make the cameo happen. Variety exposed the identity of that meddler to be none other than HBO and Max chairman and CEO Casey Bloys, who reportedly approached Cattrall on his own. I’m sure Parker and King and everyone else involved with the show just loved that Bloys decided to get involved!
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But Bloys isn’t the only other person here who’s on Cattrall’s side. Also in her corner is someone most people would love to have in their gold lamé–draped corner: Patricia Field, the cult-famous costume designer from the original run of Sex and the City. Field wasn’t part of And Just Like That, but she apparently made an exception for Cattrall, dropping in to dress the actress for her one scene in the new show—another power move on Cattrall’s part.
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That she managed to pull this off is a coup. So far, the only commentary Cattrall has offered about the cameo came via her Instagram account, where she posted the Variety headline along with the caption, “Happy Pride.” Happy Pride indeed. Meanwhile, Parker and King may not have asked for this, but I’m sure I’m not alone in being eager to see the resulting scene, making this, begrudgingly perhaps, potentially win-win. Assuming all goes well, what are the chances they can film an entire season this way, never having to interact? Give the people what they want.
Source: Slate
