Type keyword(s) to search

TV TATTLE

Sex and the City revival won't work without acknowledging why Samantha Jones was so important

  • Kim Cattrall's character's "explicit, shame-free sexuality is far more routine for women characters today than it was in 1998, when Samantha’s refusal to censor or restrain herself when it came to sex was a deliberate shock to TV’s system — and for Sex and the City, a crucial cornerstone to the series’ success," says Caroline Framke. That's why Framke worries that the lack of Samantha Jones in the HBO Max revival "will be an insurmountable obstacle to recapturing what made the original show work," adding that "Samantha’s defiantly open, down for anything sex life provides a necessary counterbalance to the other three women who are way more uptight than they often care to admit." Without Samantha, Framke says, "Sex and the City just won’t have the pulse of enthusiastic sexual energy that made for some of its best moments. If Cattrall remains out of the picture, as seems likely, And Just Like That will have to do more than just catch up with Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte in order to recapture the series’ original spark. It will either have to undergo a shift in narrative focus, as is perhaps inevitable given the characters’ advancing age and more settled lives, or replace Samantha’s singular voice in a way that feels authentic. Maybe this comes in the form of a new character — preferably one in her sixties, as Cattrall is and Samantha would be — or else one of the remaining women evolving into more progressive views (which, frankly, would feel more unrealistic than Samantha’s sudden absence). No matter what, though, the worst thing the revival could do would be to dismiss Samantha like one of the show’s countless exes and move on without acknowledging why she was so important in the first place. Carrie Bradshaw may have made a name for herself by saying she 'knows good sex,' but it was Samantha Jones whose raison d’être was having it."

    ALSO:

    TOPICS: Sex and the City, HBO Max, Candace Bushnell, Kim Cattrall, Sarah Jessica Parker, PETA