How ‘And Just Like That’ turned Chris Noth’s scandal into Carrie’s ‘Big mistake’
There was a moment about eight minutes into the eighth episode of the second season of “And Just Like That” that made you go, “And just like what?!”
That was when a sweater-clad Carrie — after confessing to a bemused Miranda that she’s been having the best orgasms of her life with renewed love Aidan — drops an even bigger bomb.
Stopping midstroll, Carrie takes a beat before admitting, “I’ve been asking myself, ‘Was Big a big mistake?’”
Just like Miranda, we were speechless. Where did all that Big love go?
Of course, Big — that’s John James Preston, as we found out in the first “Sex and the City” movie — was the man who Carrie chased around Manhattan in her Manolos for six seasons in the original show. After falling for Big — right along with those condoms — in the very first episode, she got her happy ending with him in the 2004 series finale.
But shortly after Big’s death-by-Peloton in the 2021 premiere of “And Just Like That,” Chris Noth — the actor who became as synonymous with his character as Sarah Jessica Parker did with Carrie — was hit with allegations of sexual misconduct.
Parker, Cynthia Nixon (Miranda) and Kristin Davis (Charlotte) — the stars and executive producers of “And Just Like That” — swiftly put out a joint statement in complete support of the women who came forward with the accusations.
And just like that … Big — even the ghost of Big — was problematic.
To many, Noth — who has denied the allegations — was Big. And for the lead character of a show about female bonding that empowered women all over the world to have chased a man whose portrayer was now being called a “sexual predator” undoubtedly tainted the “SATC” legacy.
That is why the recent reunion of Carrie and Aidan (John Corbett) — who she controversially cheated on with Big — feels like a course correction, a rewrite of “SATC” history.
Yes, there was always Team Big and Team Aidan. But now, all of a sudden, we’re supposed to believe that Big — the one who Carrie married and presumably shared a beautiful life with in the years between 2010’s “Sex and the City 2” and “And Just Like That” — was the wrong man for our heroine all along.
In “A Hundred Years Ago” — the same episode in which Carrie makes her Big revelation — Miranda’s ex Che (Sara Ramirez) asks the baguette-carrying writer and Aidan the very obvious question: “Why did this not work out the first time?”
“ ‘Cause I made a mistake,” Carrie responds in another WTF moment.
All those years, all those feels, all those shoes — it was all a Big mistake.
It reminded me of the 1986 “Dallas” do-over, when an entire season in which Patrick Duffy’s Bobby was supposed to be dead was written off as a dream.
In the latest episode of “And Just Like That,” there are signs that the show may be giving Carrie a different happy ending — with Aidan this time — in what feels like it could be another series finale next Thursday.
But I couldn’t help but wonder if they threw Big under the bus.
