The 67-year-old actress briefly reprised her role as Samantha Jones in the season 2 finale of the 'Sex and the City' reboot.
After months of teases and anticipation, Kim Cattrall finally made her much-discussed return to the Sex and the City universe on Thursday's season 2 finale of And Just Like That. The 67-year-old actress, who previously said she was done playing Samantha Jones in the franchise, returned to make a quick phone call to Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) in a sweet exchange that took place in the show's first five minutes.
Samantha calls Carrie "f**king furious" because her flight is delayed and she had wanted to surprise her friend for her "Last Supper" meal to say goodbye to her old apartment. Instead, she has a smiling Carrie put the phone on speaker so she can declare, in a slight British accent, "Thank you for everything, you f**king fabulous, fabulous flat."
The exchange is brief, but lovely, and a real callback to everything Sex and the City fans loved about the original series. There's even a small reference to a season 6 episode for eagle-eyed viewers.
Showrunner Michael Patrick King previously told ET that he orchestrated the cameo in honor of the 25th anniversary of Sex and the City.
"Even to the point where Kim was finished playing her for a while I wanted to keep Samantha alive because she's a big part of the Sex and the City brand," he previously told ET. "So here it is the 25th anniversary, and I guess magic happened. Some showbiz emotional fan magic happened where all of a sudden Kim is like, 'All right, let's show up for this special treat.' And it was fun. I mean, it was always fun to write Samantha, and it was great to have the chance to take her from text to face."
Cattrall previously spoke about her requirements for the highly anticipated appearance during a June episode of The View.
"It's very interesting to get a call from the head of HBO saying, 'What can we do?' I went, 'Hmmm. Let me get creative,'" Cattrall recalled with a laugh, before revealing what she came up with.
"And one of those things was to get Pat Field back," she said of Patricia Field, the famed costume designer on Sex and the City. "I just thought, 'If I'm gonna come back, I've got to come back with that kind of Samantha style. I've got to push it.' And we did."
News broke in May that Cattrall had signed on to make a surprise cameo in a cliffhanger finale for the second season of the Max spinoff series. Weeks later, Field opened up about styling Cattrall's return as Samantha Jones.
"I wasn't shocked," Field told ET of the getting the call to outfit Cattrall for the role. "I was very happy. I'm very happy to work with Kim. She trusts me, she believes in me. It's just smooth and lovely all the time."
"We have a very good friendship," Field said of Cattrall. "... I love Kim! From Sex and the City we just hit it off, became friends, we see each other all the time."
In a separate interview with ET, Parker, with whom Cattrall is rumored to have had a long-running feud, spoke about the actress' return to the Sex and the City universe.
"I was really excited about the idea," Parker told ET of Cattrall's AJLT scene. "I thought it was a really good idea and I was thrilled that we could make it happen and that it worked for her and it's just really nice to see. It's really nice. I was really pleased."
In Cattrall's absence from the first season of AJLT, which also stars Cynthia Nixon as Miranda Hobbes and Kristin Davis as Charlotte York Goldenblatt, the show has kept Samantha alive via text messages to Parker's Carrie.
"I think it reflects the relationship that we've been sharing via text for last season and this season. You know, this is a hugely important relationship for Carrie, it's been filled with affection," Parker said. "We just thought it was a really nice idea to put a face to the text, really in large part to celebrate the 25 years of [Sex and the City]."
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