Warning: This post contains spoilers for And Just Like That... episodes 1 and 2.
The first episodes of Sex & The City's long-awaited revival, And Just Like That... started with a huge shock and the death of Chris Noth's Mr Big, and unfortunately, the show could now follow the most notoriously disappointing TV show finale of all time: How I Met Your Mother's ending. In removing the love of Carrie's life, and with her other most prominent romantic interest set to return to the revival, the pathway is intriguingly set.
Killing off Big - an original Sex & The City series character who originally debuted in the very first episode - was a bold move, but it could be an inspired one. Narratively speaking, killing Big to open And Just Like That... fits with the agenda to continue where Sex & The City left off. Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw was New York's most famous singleton, who navigated life and love in the big city even as relationships with recurring characters came and went. Eventually, it seemed inevitable that she'd find her happy ending, but the big debate for a long time was whether that would be with Noth's Big or with John Corbett's Aidan. Ultimately, Big won out, despite Carrie's brief flirtation with infidelity and Aidan in Sex & The City 2, but lots of fans believed she chose the wrong man.
Now, with Big dead and Aidan confirmed to return in And Just Like That... (with John Corbett suggesting he would appear in multiple episodes), there is a distinct possibility that the happy ending Carrie missed out on the first time could be revived. After all, the revival's story will now be about Carrie dealing with grief and finding herself again, and while she doesn't need a man for that self-revelation, the idea of exploring love through grief is And Just Like That...'s most compelling opportunity. Rightly or wrongly, the idea of reviving a missed romantic opportunity that fans were originally in favor of after seemingly arriving at a completely different ending would be dangerous, particularly after the precedent set by How I Met Your Mother. Because, while Aidan would be a popular choice for Carrie, undoing all of the set up for Big would be very much like HIMYM killing off the Mother and having Ted and Robin. And nobody wants to emulate the worst TV ending ever.
Giving Carrie another chance of a happy ending isn't necessarily a terrible idea in itself, because of the set up of exploring the different romantic dynamic that comes with bereavement, but Aidan's story in this universe is over. If the show itself hadn't proved it, his part in Sex & The City 2 as "the other man" drew a line under the idea of him being in the past. Even with Big killed off in And Just Like That... this is not a narrative binary where it has to be either Carrie's first choice or "the one that got away". And going back on what was the right ending - because Big and Carrie were always the best match, not least because their flaws were very similar - for a fan-baiting pay-off would be repeating How I Met Your Mother's biggest mistake.
The difference here, of course, is that Aidan being in several episodes could lead to a more nuanced build to a happy ending than How I Met Your Mother's Robin and Ted pay-off. The biggest issue in that example was the break-neck speed with which the show tied up its central premise to get to the cheap sweetness of the finale, disappointing fans and leaving nobody satisfied. Even those who wanted Robin and Ted to be together were robbed, because the story-telling wasn't there and the long-term narrative pointed to something else. That's the same as Sex & The City, which seeded Big as the romantic endgame from the very first episode, with Aidan representing a misstep on the journey that helped Carrie get to her ending. To undo that and to bring Aidan back as the new happy ending for And Just Like That...? simply wouldn't be right.
New episodes of And Just Like That... air every Thursday on HBO Max.