In the trailer for its second season, Sex and the City sequel series And Just Like That revealed that the return of Aidan, played by John Corbett (Northern Exposure, My Big Fat Greek Wedding), to the life of Carrie Bradshaw, played by Sarah Jessica Parker (Hocus Pocus, Footloose). Kim Cattrall’s (Police Academy, Porky’s) character Samantha also makes a return. Director and writer of And Just Like That Michael Patrick King sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss the second season and the return of some of its old characters.

One of the things King discussed is when he made the decision to have Aidan return. “The minute I knew we were doing a season two. Before I even started writing, there was only one word in my mind for the season: Aidan. I didn’t know how, what, where, when; I hadn’t even vetted it with anybody. The first person I went to was Sarah Jessica, and then the studio and then the writers. It felt like it would create excitement, which is great as a showrunner. And as a writer, it creates a very complicated past that we’re bringing into the present.”

King also revealed that thought he would never have the character of Samantha return to the show. “ You probably know more than me. I did not start this season thinking Samantha would ever appear in the show. Now, my Samantha has always been in And Just Like That. And in actuality, the audience saw Carrie texting with her and she sent flowers [in season one]. And in my writer’s sense, when I’m away from the screen, they’re calling and seeing each other. I know Kim said that she’d hung up the Samantha wardrobe, and then some magic happened behind the scenes because all of a sudden, there was a possibility of it happening. And I think, I don’t know, something about the 25th anniversary, the fans have always asked for Samantha and something happened where all of a sudden I was like, ‘Well, maybe if it’s a possibility, I can come up with a small beautiful little treat.’ And that’s what happened.”

Further, King discussed what he learned from the first season that he brought into the second season. “You knew all of the original characters for so long, so the most we could do with the new characters in the first season was to introduce them, really. You judged everybody by the cover of their book last year because everybody only got the cover of who they were. When we knew we were coming back, we wanted to show who these people really are from Che [Sara Ramirez] to LTW [Lisa Todd Wexley, played by Nicole Ari Parker] to Seema [Sarita Choudhury] and Nya [Karen Pittman]. And then our mandate of why we came back to do And Just Like That at all with new people was to invite more points of view and more people to the table of this feast. And then the other thing was to try to connect them all because the first season they were on individual runways. It was Carrie and Seema, Nya and Miranda [Cynthia Nixon], and Charlotte and LTW. So, in the room was almost like when you see those shows about a serial killer where the FBI has all the red yarn going [from one suspect to another]. But for us, it was, like, Carrie to Che to Miranda. That was our goal; to make it become more integrated.”

And Just Like That’s first two episodes of its second season are available to stream, and new episodes will be available to stream each Thursday.