[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers through the Season 2 finale of And Just Like That…, “The Last Supper Part Two: Entrée.”]
Well, it finally happened: In the Season 2 finale of And Just Like That, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) had a conversation — something that seemed legitimately impossible to imagine up until a few months ago, when the surprise announcement came that Cattrall, after years of passive-aggressive comments from both sides, had agreed to shoot a cameo for the Sex and the City sequel series.
That scene came quite early into “The Last Supper Part Two: Entrée,” as Carrie prepared for a fancy dinner party to celebrate her giving up her long-held apartment, perhaps one of New York’s most iconic pieces of fictional real estate. (In a later scene, two characters walk into the closet and I immediately recognized that they were doing so because they were going to the bathroom’s second entrance — being a decades-long fan of this franchise means I know the layout of Carrie’s apartment as well as I know my own.)
Samantha, having known Carrie longer than anyone, is calling to apologize for being unable to make it to the dinner party that night, having planned to surprise her friend and pay her own respects to Carrie’s Upper East Side studio. (You might think this is excessive, but the iconic-ness of this apartment really cannot be overstated.) It’s a short scene, and while it was impossible to forget that Cattrall shot it without having any contact whatsoever with either Parker or showrunner Michael Patrick King, in the moment it was nice, a kind note from an ex out of nowhere.
However, as the rest of the episode preceded, I couldn’t help but think — sorry, couldn’t resist — how off it felt in comparison to the rest of the finale, which did a reasonable job of wrapping up multiple storylines in a mature if somewhat rushed manner. The rushing is entirely because And Just Like That, at the end of its second season, has become a far more expansive show than the adventures of four gals on the town, with at least eight major characters occupying their own little subplots: Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker) mourning a miscarriage, Seema (Sarita Choudhury) doing her best to trust her new partner, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) asserting herself more, Anthony (Mario Cantone) literally opening himself up to new experiences, and Nya (Karen Pittman), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), and even Che (Sara Ramirez) all on the verge of embracing new loves.
In short, it’s a busy 45 minutes of television, with Samantha’s presence barely a blip in the end. However, now that we’ve gotten it, it turns out that maybe it was unnecessary — and even maybe a jarring choice, one which in some ways felt like a step back for the series.
Honestly, I don’t know how they’d fit her at this table anyway (And Just Like That, courtesy of Max)