Warning: This post contains spoilers.
As photos surfaced from the set of the new "Sex and the City" reboot, with one key member of the fabulous foursome conspicuously missing, fans couldn’t help but wonder … where’s Samantha?
“And Just Like That…” premiered Thursday morning, and addressed the absence of Kim Cattrall’s character early on. One minute into the first episode, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) run into socialite Bitsy von Muffling, who asks the question on everyone’s minds.
“Where’s the fourth musketeer?” Bitsy wants to know. “Where’s Samantha?”
“She’s no longer with us,” Charlotte explains. Miranda quickly clarifies, “No, no, no no, she didn’t die.”
“I just meant, she’s not with us,” Charlotte adds. “She’s in London,” Carrie reveals.
“She moved to the U.K. for work," Miranda says.
In a later scene from the same episode, Miranda tells Carrie, “You know, it is kind of like she’s dead — Samantha. We never even talk about her.”
“Well, what is there to say?” Carrie replies. “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. She said ‘fine’ and then fired me as a friend.”
“She didn’t fire you,” Miranda says.
“OK, she stopped returning my calls,” Carrie replies.
Miranda points out that Samantha’s pride was damaged, and Carrie reveals that she left numerous voicemails for Samantha asking her to discuss the situation.
“Look, I understand that she was upset, but I thought I was more to her than an ATM,” Carrie says.
Miranda then reveals that she and Charlotte haven’t heard from Samantha either.
Carrie laments, “I always thought the four of us would be friends forever.”
However, Samantha does make a sweet gesture toward Carrie in the new series' second episode, when she sends an elaborate display of flowers before Big’s funeral.
In an interview on TODAY Tuesday, Davis addressed Cattrall’s absence from the reboot, telling Craig Melvin and Sheinelle Jones, “"Samantha is never not going to be a part in some way, right?"
"There is respect for Samantha," she added. "It's part of the story."