‘Sex and the City’: Fans Were Never Supposed to Know Mr. Big’s Name
Sex and the City were about four friends navigating their dating lives, professional lives, and friendships in New York City. However, as much as the series centered on Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Samantha (Kim Cattrall), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), and Charlotte (Kristin Davis), it also focused on Carrie’s relationship with Mr. Big (Chris Noth).
In fact, fans were never supposed to know Big’s name.
How did Carrie and Mr. Big meet in ‘Sex and the City’?
Carrie met Mr. Big in the SATC pilot. As she was headed home from an afternoon romp with an ex-fling, they bumped into one another on the street. From there, their tumultuous decades-long relationship began. By the time they broke up for the first time, the pair had been dating for about a year. However, instead of telling Carrie that he loved her, Big tried to whisk her away on vacation, which showed her that they didn’t want the same things.
The pair reunited in season 2, first as friends and then as lovers. However, once again, they weren’t on the same page, with Big telling Carrie he was moving to France with little notice. When he returned from France, he was engaged to a much younger woman Natasha (Bridget Moynahan), and the chaos between Big and Carrie continued.
‘Sex and the City’ fans were never supposed to know Mr. Big’s name
There was a reason why fans never knew Mr. Big’s name until the Sex and the City series finale. In the series DVD set, showrunner and co-producer Michael Patrick King revealed that he was simply called Mr. Big because he was the human manifestation of New York City and also “always slightly out of reach” to Carrie.
SATC fans should also recognize that Mr. Big’s occupation was never fully stated on the show. However, when writing the series finale, King realized he had to name the man that stood at the center of Carrie’s world.
He ended up choosing “John” because it was a pretty generic name. “In my mind? He had no name,” he said via Entertainment Weekly. “It was just one of those things where it’s like, ‘Oh, it’s happening right now,’ and you didn’t plan it.”
What happened to Mr. Big in ‘And Just Like That’?
Carrie and Big’s long, sordid romance came to a thunderous end in the pilot episode of And Just Like That. After almost 15 years of marriage and even surviving the pandemic, the executive had a heart attack on their bathroom floor after a rigorous ride on his Peleton bike. Sex and the City fans will recall that Mr. Big previously had a heart condition which meant that he had to be extra cautious about his health and diet.
The first half of the first season of And Just That followed Carrie navigating her new life as a widow. She returned to her Upper East Side apartment to rebuild her life with Miranda and Charlotte by her side.
During the And Just Like That finale, she returned to Paris, a special place she shared with Big, to spread his ashes. So far, HBO is keeping the second season under wraps, but it seems likely that Carrie might be rekindling something with her other big love, Aidan (John Corbett)
