Love is in the air! Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) made great strides in moving on from the death of her husband, Mr. Big (Chris Noth), and that included sharing a surprise kiss with her podcast producer, Franklyn (Ivan Hernandez).
After Mr. Big died from a Peloton-induced heart attack, viewers watched Carrie attempt to help and get back out into the dating world with fellow widower Peter (Jon Tenney). The grieving Manhattanie wasn’t actually able to take that next step with Peter, but she was able to find closure with her past.
Carrie’s trip to Paris, where she scattered Mr. Big’s ashes, pushed her to notice her connection with Franklyn. After he convinced Carrie to be the star of his new podcast show, titled Sex and the City, the pair grow closer and have a passionate makeout session in the elevator.
The big step for Carrie comes without a cameo from her true love. Scenes where she says goodbye to her late husband were scrapped after sexual assault allegations against Noth were made public, HBO Max confirmed.
In December 2021, the Law & Order alum was accused of sexual assault by multiple women in separate interviews with The Hollywood Reporter. One woman, who was referred to as Zoe in the article, claimed that Noth “rape[d] her from behind” in 2004. A second woman, who used the name Lily, recalled an alleged assault at his New York City apartment after meeting the actor in 2015.
Noth denied the allegations in a statement to Us Weekly, stating, “The accusations against me made by individuals I met years, even decades, ago are categorically false. These stories could’ve been from 30 years ago or 30 days ago — no always means no — that is a line I did not cross. The encounters were consensual. It’s difficult not to question the timing of these stories coming out. I don’t know for certain why they are surfacing now, but I do know this: I did not assault these women.”
At the time, a source told Us that Parker star was “livid” and felt “blindsided” by the accusations against her former costar.
“It is not about the money, but rather her legacy. Carrie was all about helping women and now, under her watch, women are saying that they have been hurt,” the insider shared. “She takes the power of being Carrie Bradshaw very seriously. With great power comes great responsibility and although SJP knows this is about him, not her, she feels like she has let everyone down.”
Since the news made headlines, creator Michael Patrick King explained that Carrie will continue to move forward following Mr. Big’s death.
“The interesting thing about Carrie is Carrie’s always been grieving Mr. Big, in some way or another. On Sex and the City, she was always feeling the loss of him in her life when she couldn’t have him,” he told Entertainment Weekly on February 2. “So the DNA is tragic and more finite and more real. She’s always had a longing for Big, and what was interesting to play with for us as writers was the reality and how she’s going to let go of the longing that she can never win. She can’t win this one — he’s gone. If she doesn’t let go of him, it will be torture.”
He added: “Our journey was to honor in our realistically fantastical writer minds … What would be a respectable story arc for someone to go from shocking loss to being able to let go. And we just took a little journey that took 10 episodes, but we were very deliberate about how much light we kept letting into the dark. We didn’t want to deny the dark and we didn’t want to not give light.”
Scroll down for everything to know about the new man in Carrie’s life: