In HBO Max's Sex and the City revival, And Just Like That…, Samantha Jones' absence is immediately addressed for viewers.
In the opening minutes of the first episode, viewers see friends Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) run into an old acquaintance, Bitsy Von Muffling (Julie Halston), who asks the longtime friends about the "fourth musketeer." Turns out, Jones (Kim Cattrall) moved to London and the backstory behind her exit from the Big Apple is all too real. After decades of friendship, Carrie and Samatha had a falling out when the former let her go as her publicist. "I told her that because of what the book business is now, it just didn't make sense for me to keep her on as a publicist," Carrie said in one conversation with Miranda shortly after the run-in with Bitsy. "She said fine, and then fired me as a friend."
It’s a harsh reality of how decades of friendship can indeed lead to fractured relationships. Carrie insisted that she tried to reach out to Samantha after the incident, but she wasn’t successful. "Look, I understand that she was upset," she explained. “But I thought I was more to her than an ATM."
While Samantha’s name is mentioned a few more times throughout the first two episodes, which are currently available to stream, it seems as if Carrie has the same impression that we had when we met and watched the foursome throughout the original show’s six-season run. "I always thought the four of us would be friends forever,” she said with regret.
As you know, Cattrall decided not to reprise her role as Jones after the original SATC run, as well as its two follow-up films. In 2017, she told Piers Morgan that her relationship with her co-stars was "toxic" and claimed that they had "never been friends."