Maybe it’s not a coincidence that the word “fabulous” was bandied about so freely on Sex and the City. Maybe it was all light foreshadowing for Samantha Jones’ eventual transference to London town. Banished there by her puppeteering writers because Kim Cattrall knew when to say no. Unlike her co-stars, two of which provide the following vapid exchange in the series premiere of And Just Like That…: “Hey Carrie! My hair?” Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) assures Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), in regard to her sudden insecurity about sporting a full gray top, “Fabulous.” Again with that keyword. But clearly, it (being Miranda’s hair)—nor anything else happening in New York Shitty, 2021-22—could be as fabulous as Samantha, the true star of any show (regardless of where it’s set), out on her own in LDN. At last broken free from the chains of three deadweight, hyper-judgmental friends who were probably just secretly jealous of how much dick (and pussy, for that matter) she got.
And yes, the writers of And Just Like That… actually did themselves a disservice in mentioning Samantha at all (and so frequently) though the machinations of texts and incongruous backstories about why she doesn’t fuck with them anymore (@Zola-style). For what viewers are really thinking about throughout most of the series is how much more scintillating a spinoff show (though not any of the sort that feels the need to include Emily Cooper) of Sam and her London life would be than this hollow attempt at “addressing hard issues” of middle-age. None of said issues seeming to address anything about sex at this juncture in one’s life, so much as a lack of it.
Enter that dreamed-of Samantha spinoff show to remedy the situation. One that would probably look a lot like Edina Monsoon (Jennifer Saunders) meets Patsy Stone’s (Joanna Lumley, incidentally ten years Cattrall’s senior) existence as a publicist and “fashion director,” respectively, in the British camp classic, Absolutely Fabulous. While Samantha might be more focused on sex-related escapades rather than alcoholic beverage-related ones, there’s no denying an especial correlation between the two different shades of blondes. For one, both Patsy and Samantha seem to orbit a “best friend circle” that she pretends to be in the same age bracket as until finally admitting, under duress, something like, “I’m a little…older than you.” Obsession with appearance is, of course, only “natural” in the PR and fashion business, with Samantha, Edina and Patsy having no qualms about their Botox (and other assorted) treatments. But it is in profession that Samantha has more in common with “Eddie,” who runs her very own PR firm (even if quite lackadaisically).
Of course, where Samantha truly sets herself apart from Edina is in giving far more of a shit about her work. Actually showing up from day-to-day as opposed to being a lady who lunches and shops with the likes of Patsy as an elaborate yet pleasure-laden means to avoid something resembling work. Instead, Samantha would make London her bitch via her strong work ethic (selling Dilly Bars at Dairy Queen at such a young age, after all) and fixation on being the best at what she does (including giving head). One can easily envision her throwing herself into the fray whole-heartedly (pussyedly?) while enjoying all that the London night has to offer as a means to mitigate the various tensions of the day. And, as Carrie once described during a season of SATC when a cameo from Donald Trump was still “socially acceptable,” she “had a strong belief in the idea of a smart cocktail at the end of a workday.” Emphasis on smart and end of a workday. Unlike Patsy and Edina knocking them back at all hours in the kind of reckless manner that leads to hijinks that are anything but “smart.” In this regard, Sam could effortlessly outperform Edina not just in her profession, but also in her ability to play as hard as both Eddie and Patsy combined. Such is the superpower of Samantha: she’s the equivalent of two women in one. And yes, she’s probably also had two women with their tongues inside her one vag at the same time. Being a “try-sexual” and all.
As far as her personality and aesthetic vibing more with Patsy’s brand of comedic absurdity, there’s also a similarity between the two in bearing ill will toward children, even those of their best friend(s) (with Samantha famously calling Miranda’s spawn an asshole and Patsy despising Eddie’s daughter). Samantha’s run-ins with children have also ranged from saying, “That’s their choice” when Charlotte (Kristin Davis) tells her not to use the word “cock” because the couple at the table next to them has a child to getting in a full-on tussle with a quintessential NYC brat that throws pasta in her face when she attempts telling his mother to take him somewhere more appropriate. The point being, Samantha’s tastes (including contempt for the kid set) and temperament often provide overt “Patsy glimmers” that could so obviously shine forth even more on UK soil. Carrie undercuttingly seems to think so as well when she replies, “FABULOUS” to a text from Samantha agreeing to, finally, interface by meeting her for a cocktail. But we all know the version of Samantha painted by And Just Like That… would not fuck with the Eurostar just to meet Carrie and placate her grief solely because London is a stone’s throw from Paris.
In 2018, Saunders remarked of another possible installment to the AbFab story, “I am thinking at the moment of writing a little something. It has to be age-appropriate otherwise we’d have to be in wheelchairs basically. I think Julia [who plays her daughter, Saffron] is old enough to be my mother now.” One imagines, knowing Saunders’ slow process, that And Just Like That… could (unfortunately) get a few more seasons in the can (complete with their own wheelchair-featuring episodes) before AbFab ever deigns to come around again. And this is where Cattrall differs from Lumley and Saunders in a way that Jones doesn’t so much from Stone and Monsoon: the former would never concede to playing her most iconic role ever again—least of all in such a geriatric phase.
