Cyst and the City

When the writers of Sex and the City gave Samantha breast cancer, part of me winced, thinking that we were in store for some Very Special Episodes. At the very least I knew they weren't going to kill her off -- what, and miss out on the reunion special possibilities? My biggest fear was that they weren't going to figure out how to work the cancer angle for comedy. Fortunately, this last episode proved that I needn't have worried. Julia Sweeney's appearance as a cancer-stricken nun trying to work her way into a consultation with New York's best oncologist (alongside Samantha, her opposite number in so many ways) was a highlight of the season thus far.

I'm enjoying the last run of new episodes, and I hope they'll refrain from goofy stuff like marrying off Samantha and/or Carrie at the eleventh hour. (I don't think it's likely, but writers and producers get weird when series reach their ends.) The happy endings in Sex have always strayed from the expected result (who would have thought Charlotte's nickname would be "Star of David" by the series' end?), but I do think we'll get a happy ending for everyone before the last episode's credits roll. Let's just not have a flash-forward-to-the-future sequence, huh? The last time that worked was at the end of Absolutely Fabulous.