Samantha Jones was one of the best parts of Sex and the City – and with the surprising twist that she’s making a (brief) appearance on And Just Like That, we all can’t help but wonder: what if Samantha had been the star of the original show? Samantha Jones is the group’s most memorable character, who most embodies what the show was supposed to be about. She owns a PR firm, is always quick with a pun or double entendre, has a LOT of sex, and – despite a culture that often judges her – truly feels no shame about that. Sex and the City actually centers around Carrie Bradshaw, a magazine columnist and remote working pioneer who can mysteriously afford endless Manolo Blahniks. But while Carrie calls herself: her views on dating are in fact pretty vanilla, so the show uses Samantha to provide almost all of its edginess and exploration.
Fast forward to the 2020s’s And Just Like That, and it’s not just the passage of time but even more so Samantha’s absence that makes the revival a totally different show – one that appropriately had its title changed, because without Samantha it’s not about sex at all. But in an alternate universe where Samantha was the main character, Sex and the City could have been less about why emotionally unavailable men keep leaving us voicemails, and more about seeking emotional growth and self-actualization while being glamorous and managing relationships on your terms. Here’s our take on why – thanks to her wit, endlessly interesting storylines, and genuine growth and change – Samantha as a heroine could have pushed Sex and the City – And Just Like That – to more provocative creative heights.
1. Samantha V Carrie: Samantha Brings the Sex
In Sex and the City, Samantha is the one bringing the lion’s share of the sex. Samantha was so good at embracing experimentation in her time that to be called a “Samantha” was definitely the most provocative and brazen of the labels any fan could adopt. The show as a whole was known for pushing the envelope, even though it was mostly thanks to her. On the one hand, it’s easy to see why Carrie seems like the more “relatable” – and safer – heroine for a show like this. In the time especially, more women were likely to see themselves as Carries – open to some adventure, but ultimately looking for romance. Because Samantha was pushing against what was considered mainstream in her era, many wrote her off for her promiscuity, saw her as less worthy of respect, or (on some level) feared what she represented.
Samantha even had to contend with her best friend Carrie not fully respecting her choices.
But ultimately the creatives making this Carrie’s show meant that it only went so far beyond pretty conventional fare. Carrie writes about her cyclical and emotionally abusive relationships over and over. And a lot of Carrie’s attitudes toward the then-taboo topics on Sex and the City feel dated – while it’s Samantha’s plots that prefigured dating practices that now look mainstream. Samantha was correct in predicting the explosion of pansexuality in recent years – whereas her friends mock her for considering a threesome with gay men or dating a woman.
There’s also dramatically a lot more going on in Samantha’s life. While being a writer may sound glamorous, Samantha’s high-powered PR agency is more comedically rife with interesting plot points. She’s always on the VIP list of the hottest new clubs, and creates smashing parties for New York’s richest clientele. She’s even a bit of a superhero: at her PR agency, there’s nothing she can’t do. She can turn a waiter into an Absolut Vodka billboard star. She can manage the PR for a top hotelier AND date him. And she takes her friends to the most stuntworthy clubs, from a place called “Bed” to a new restaurant serving only raw food, before that was the norm in places like Los Angeles. In the actual show a lot of this is taken for granted as background and not that fleshed-out, sometimes played as cartoonish one-dimensional storylines; but if you spent time digging in, there’s a lot more to watch than Carrie pontificating in her apartment about the same guy.
CHAPTER 2: Samantha Has Healthier Relationships
Soon after we first meet Carrie, she meets Mr. Big, the man who will alter her life and annoy all of her friends endlessly, just by bumping into him on the New York City sidewalk. She’s excited to fall in love, while Samantha claims to just want to hook up with as many people as possible. Yet Samantha ends up in a much more meaningful relationship in the long run. So how did that happen?
Throughout the series, Carrie’s Mr. Big is emotionally unavailable, always seeming to chase her down whenever it seems like she might be happy with another person. He gets married to someone else. And when it seems like Carrie has forgotten him for good and moved on with the carpenter Aiden, she goes right back and cheats on Aiden. Samantha, on the other hand, has three major relationships that challenge her in an important way. One is with Maria, an artist who actually gets Samantha to be monogamous. The second is with Richard, the aforementioned hotelier, whose inability to commit makes her realize that she wants a partnership with someone. And the final with Smith, a waiter she rebrands into an incredibly successful actor, who pushes her to be truly vulnerable as he helps her through her battle with breast cancer.
Still, in the movie, after moving across the country for Smith, Samantha decides that she doesn’t like who she’s had to become to keep the relationship going. But instead of it being a drama-filled breakdown like we might see from Carrie, Samantha just tells him the truth: This trajectory actually mirrors the relationships of many people today, who are more focused on appreciating a relationship for what it is and how it helps you grow, even if it doesn’t last forever. Instead of keeping herself trapped in an unhappy relationship, Samantha moves on – which is a lot more inspiring than… the “win” of finally ending up with the guy that made you miserable for years after he’s seemingly run out of other options.
Samantha’s independence and laser-sharp focus on herself ensured that she wasn’t just pining after men, and was more concerned with what she wanted. The core of Samantha’s character is her confidence – she has so much of it, it can come across as unseemly. Her favorite word to describe herself is fabulous. She does a naked photo shoot just for herself and hangs the results on her wall. She genuinely doesn’t care what other people think of her. But Samantha’s confidence is radical, especially for two key reasons: 1) it doesn’t depend on any expectation of validation through “settling down’ and 2) it doesn’t diminish even as she ages decades beyond when women have traditionally been told to stop thinking of themselves as sexual beings. Samantha keeps getting older, and she still has total faith that she’s just getting sexier. And this may be the best reason of all to center her in this show: because why shouldn’t any of us look to her as a role model for this, and feel the same no matter how old we get?
CHAPTER 3: Samantha Vs. Carrie: Samantha Would Have Fixed the Ending
Carrie’s narrative arc isn’t really what the show set out to be. When her friends are dealing with pregnancy, infertility, new babies, and even cancer, all throughout, she is incredibly solipsistic; she unfailingly redirects the conversation back on herself, and her love life. She’s constantly making bad choices, like moving to Paris with artist boyfriend Aleksandr Petrovsky, leaving her job, friends, and apartment behind, only to feel offended when he has to go to work. And when that love fails, she falls back to who else but Mr. Big.
Creator Darren Star criticized the series’ ending. He left the series by season four, and in an interview, stated that by having a perfect storybook conclusion, the show “ultimately betrayed what it was about, which was that women don’t ultimately find happiness from marriage. Not that they can’t. But the show initially was going off script from the romantic comedies that had come before it. That’s what had made women so attached.” At the end of the series, Samantha, on the other hand, learns through each of her relationships what she truly wants, and stays true to herself in the process. She hasn’t given up the parts of herself that we love, but by the end she’s more balanced. She even moves through breast cancer with style, donning new wigs, and giving incredibly raw motivational speeches. She transforms from a horny caricature to a woman you root for, no matter who she is or isn’t dating – because ultimately she stands for a tenacity, self-realization and courage that’s inspirational.
Conclusion
Every Sex and the City character has their faults, and Samantha can be cold and unfeeling, hiding her real self behind an invulnerable shell. Of course, Carrie has her charms, too. Sarah Jessica Parker’s acting is magnetic, and having a character with weaknesses makes them more human. Yet, even Candace Bushnell tweeted that Samanthas are underrated.
The first season of And Just Like That feels hollow because of the giant Samantha Jones-shaped shoes that not even the most charming new cast members can fill. Kim Cattrall, the actress who plays Samantha, was pitched to return to the role in a third Sex and the City movie, which didn’t happen but became material for plotlines of And Just Like That. In the pitch, Samantha was supposed to receive sexually suggestive photos from Miranda’s then 14-year old son, Brady. This bothered Cattrall so much that when she was asked about it, she gave her rep’s idea of where Samantha might go instead. “Why can’t Samantha, who owns her PR company — maybe she had to sell it because of financial woes? 2008 was tough. That’s a conflict. Instead of an underage boy’s…” Yikes.
Cattrall has meanwhile been busy in her own new show Glamorous, Hulu’s How I Met Your Father and she’s fueled rumors she could potentially team up with Darren Star for Emily in Paris. At the same time, about Samantha, she 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.” So even with her cameo in the upcoming season of And Just Like That being confirmed, it still seems that getting Samantha back for a full season is unlikely… but we can still hope! Yes, she was bawdy, impulsive, and shrewd, which caused her to butt heads with every member of the group but she pushed Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte to be the most interesting versions of themselves. Without the show’s id, we’re just left with a lot of ego.
Sources:
Beard, Lanford. “‘Sex and the City’ Creator Darren Star Says the Show’s Ending ‘Betrayed What It Was About’” People, 15 Jan 2016. https://people.com/tv/sex-and-the-city-creator-darren-star-finale-betrayed-the-series/.
Bergeson, Samantha. “Kim Cattrall Didn’t Want to ‘Compromise’ Samantha for ‘And Just Like That’: ‘I’m Done’” IndieWire, 4 May 2022. https://www.indiewire.com/2022/05/why-kim-cattrall-isnt-in-satc-reboot-1234722136/.
Callahan, Chrissy. “Will Kim Cattrall join ‘Emily in Paris’? Darren Star weighs in” Today, 15 Dec 2022. https://www.today.com/popculture/tv/kim-cattrall-emily-in-paris-darren-star-rcna61929.
Setoodeh, Ramin & Wagmeister, Elizabeth. “‘Sex and the City’ Shocker: Kim Cattrall to Return as Samantha Jones With ‘And Just Like That…’ Cameo (EXCLUSIVE)” Variety, 31 May 2023. https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/kim-cattrall-samantha-jones-and-just-like-that-season-2-1235629763/.