"Nobody's dead," was what Michael Patrick King, the creator of Sex And the City said prior to the And Just Like That... premiere. And while Samantha may not be dead six-feet-under style (just kidding, you know she'd be cremated and sent in an envelope to each one of her sexual conquests), she's dead to the series. Even if she's still viable in London. (Warning: Spoilers for And Just Like That... to come.)
What would happened to Samantha Jones in the Sex And the City reboot was probably the biggest question everyone had when the HBO Max series was announced. We knew Kim Cattrall wasn't going to return to the series in her original role because of, well, everything, so it was just a matter of how the show explained her absence. And they really wasted no time doing just that considering within the first two minutes of the reboot we got our answer.
In Episode 1 of And Just Like That..., we learn that Samantha is living in London, where I'm sure she's adopted a British accent a la Madonna and is repping some fabulous West End star — maybe that star is even Smith Jerrod. (I swear that is the last fan fic rewrite of "What Samantha Jones Should Be Doing Now.") She's no longer in the women's lives after hitting a bit of a rough patch with Carrie. The way Charlotte responds to OG series character Bitsy von Muffling's inquiries about her ("She's no longer with us") feels like a wink, nudge, and full body shove to those who lived for the drama of how they were going to handle her absence.
In the episode, Carrie explains that she ended up letting Samantha go as a publicist due to what the book business had become, which resulted in Samantha firing Carrie as a friend. She didn't return Carrie's calls, took a job in London, and never the women never heard from her again.
While it's not a dramatic fall from grace, or even a SpaceX blowjob accident gone awry (OK, that was the last rewrite), it's satisfying enough because it is real, even if its selfish of the character herself. By killing Samantha off, or having her exit be something that felt unrealistic for the friend group (these are women in their mid-to-late 50s, remember), the focus would have been on that. Instead, we're able to focus on the characters we do have on the series and where they're going from here. Samantha, while a fond memory, will become more and more distant as the series goes on. Just like many of the fashions from the original episodes.
Images: HBO Max