Samantha is the best character on Sex and the City. There, I said it.
It took me awhile to admit this (I was firmly team Charlotte for years), but Samantha, as played by Kim Cattrall, is the funniest, has the best retorts, and she’s not Carrie, which is a major plus. But she’s nowhere to be seen in And Just Like That…, HBO Max’s 10-episode revival of Sex and the City that premiered on Thursday. The real-life reason is because Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker do not get along, but in the premiere episode of the new series, an in-universe explanation was provided as well.
In the first scene, Carrie, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) run into Bitsy von Muffling (Julie Halston), who asks for the whereabouts of the “fourth Musketeer.” Charlotte replies, “Oh, um, she’s no longer with us.” Miranda and Carrie clarify that she didn’t die, she’s in London. It turns out Samantha moved to the U.K. for work. Later in the episode, Carrie further explains Samantha’s absence. “I told her that because of, you know, what the book business is now, it just didn’t make sense for me to keep her on as a publicist,” she said. “She said fine, and then fired me as a friend.”
So there you go: Samantha isn’t dead — she’s in London, where she’s saving so much money by not going to brunch with her friends every dang day of the week.