Why Did Carrie & Aiden Break Up? Their Old Issues Come Back in And Just Like That
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And just like that… Aidan is back. But with his return in And Just Like That comes thousands of questions from fans. What happened to his wife? Where’s his child? And most importantly, why did Carrie and Aidan break up in Sex and the City in the first place?
Sex and City was HBO’s romantic comedy series following the love lives of four best friends in New York City: Carrie Bradshaw, Miranda Hobes, Charlotte York, and Samantha Jones. Aidan Shaw, a furniture designer played by John Corbett, was introduced as Carrie’s second serious boyfriend in Season 3 of Sex and the City. They broke up at the end of the season before getting back together in Season 4 and breaking up again. Carrie and Aidan ran into each other in Season 6, Episode 1, “To Mark to Market,” where Aidan revealed that he was married and had a son named Tate. The episode was Aidan’s last appearance on Sex and the City. However, he also appeared in 2010’s Sex and the City 2, when Carrie runs into him while on vacation in Abu Dhabi.
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More than a decade later, Aidan returned to the Sex and the City universe in Season 2 of And Just Like That—a reboot of Sex and the City—after Carrie emails him and the two agree to meet up for a date. “I was especially excited, probably in large part, because I just love working with John Corbett so much,” Sarah Jessica Parker, who plays Carrie, told The Wrap in July 2023.“We just think he is very special and brings so much more—always—than what’s even written.”
She continued, “I could easily recognize and understand that the Carrie-Aidan relationship is worthy of revisiting and that they might find one another again, given that Carrie is now single and that relationship was important and probably ended not in an ideal way.” Aidan’s return raised a lot of questions about his and Carrie’s relationship in Sex and the City. Mainly, why did Carrie and Aidan break up? Read on for what to remember about Carrie and Aidan’s break up in Sex and the City and what happens next.
Why did Carrie and Aidan break up in Sex and the City?
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Why did Carrie and Aidan break up in Sex and the City? Carrie and Aidan broke up twice in Sex and the City. Carrie and Aidan’s first breakup was in Season 3 after Carrie cheats on Aidan with her ex-boyfriend at the time, Big, who was married at the time to his wife, Natasha. Natasha learns of Carrie and Big’s affair in Season 3, Episode 11, “Running With Scissors,” when Natasha catches Carrie in her apartment after she and Big have sex. In the process of chasing Carrie, Natasha falls down a flight of stairs and breaks her tooth. Carrie takes Natasha to the emergency room, where she meets Big and tells him that their relationship is “so over they need a new word for over.”
In the next episode, Season 3, Episode 12, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” Carrie tells Aidan about her affair with Big before the two leave together for Charlotte’s wedding to her fiance at the time, Trey. Aidan tells Carrie that he needs time and meets her after Charlotte’s wedding, where he breaks up with her. “I just wish I didn’t know about this,” he says. “I just know myself. This isn’t the kind of thing I can get over. I just need to be on my own for a while.”
Carrie and Aidan reconnect in Season 4, Episode 5, “Ghost Town,” when she receives an invitation to the opening of Aidan’s new bar, Scout, with Miranda’s ex-boyfriend. They get back together soon after and Aidan proposes to Carrie in Season 4, Episode 12, “Just Say Yes.” Carrie and Aidan move in together in the next episode, Season 4, Episode 13, “The Good Fight,” after which Aidan decides to buy Carrie’s apartment and the apartment next door to hers, so he can renovate and combine them to give her more space.
In Season 4, Episode 15, “Change of a Dress,” Aidan pressures Carrie, who wears her engagement ring on a necklace instead of her finger, to elope in Hawaii. Carrie tells Aidan that she needs more time before they get married, which Aidan agrees to. However, later in the episode, when they’re at an event, Aidan pushes Carrie to get married in Las Vegas that night. When Carrie reminds him that she’s still not ready for marriage, Aidan tells he that he wants to make their relationship “official” and let the “whole wide world know” that she’s his. That’s when Carrie realizes that Aidan still doesn’t trust her after her affair with Big. “Oh my God. You still trust me,” she says. “I am yours. There is nobody else. I love you but I can’t marry you to make you trust me.” Aidan tells her that she doesn’t want to marry him now, then she’ll never want to marry him. The episode ends with Carrie and Aidan sleeping together in the empty apartment before breaking up for a second and final time the next morning.
Do Carrie and Aidan get back together in And Just Like That?
Do Carrie and Aidan get back together in And Just Like That? The answer is unclear. Carrie and Aidan reunite in And Just Like That Season 2, Episode 7, “February 14th,” after reconnecting over email the episode before. Carrie and Aidan meet for a date, which goes well, and the two return to Carrie’s apartment together. Aidan, however, refuses to go inside because Carrie’s apartment was the setting of their breakup in Sex and the City Season 4 and the space is a trigger for him. Just as Aidan is about to leave Carrie at her apartment alone, he suggests that they meet up elsewhere, which Carrie agrees to and follows him.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in July 2023, Sarah Jessica Parker, who plays Carrie, opened up about how Carrie and Aidan’s relationship is different now almost 20 years since their breakup. “I think they would project a hurdle and discover that there is less so,” she said. “They are mature adults. They’ve had a lot of experience; separate lives, children, the loss of a husband. Just everyday accumulation of life events that make you better equipped to deal with another person you love or value or have affection for. And so I think … you prepare yourself for an obstacle that may not exist.”
Screenwriter Samantha Irby, who wrote “February 14th,” told the “And Just Like That… The Writer’s Room” podcast about how Aidan is who Carrie should’ve ended up with. “Aidan, in the original series, was Carrie’s best boyfriend. He is the one who should have won,” she said. “Aidan is so hot. He’s so nice. He builds furniture with his hands. He and Carrie had such an insane chemistry, it was like jumping off the screen. They just looked so good and perfect.”
Showrunner Michael Patrick King also told the podcast that Aidan needed to have a serious makeover if he was to return. “We gave John a makeover. We cut his hair, we took the turquoise jewelry away. We told him he had to be rock-hard when he came back,” said King. “It was a story choice: If we’re bringing somebody back, we have to find some way to bring him back in a new way.” He continued, “So here we are now, bringing Aidan back, again, and we have tricks up our sleeves as to how he is new and what we can actually do with the storyline considering — and it’s a very big consider — all the water under the bridge, all the pain they’ve already been through, how much Carrie has hurt him in the past — according to fan boards… twice — and how badly he took the break up.”
King also told the podcast that he didn’t believe Carrie and Aidan would even meet again if her husband, Big, didn’t die in And Just Like That Season 1. “There was no way he would ever exist in Carrie’s mind,” King said. Writer Julia Rottenberg added, “I think if Big hadn’t died, I don’t think she ever would have reached out to [Aidan] again.”
King also explained how Carrie and Aidan’s relationship is different two decades after tier breakup. “The tone immediately should be different to people. Carrie is like, ‘I want to go on a date with him.’ Right up front. She’s not downplaying it. She’s like, ‘I said yes to the date. I knew it was Valentine’s Day. I want to have a date with him,’” he said. “Carrie points out in the scene that it’s been 13 years since she’s even seen Aidan. Which is kind of shocking to think about the stuff we’re about to pull off, which is John Corbett, Sarah Jessica in a scene after 14 years of an absence. That never happens, because no one plays a character for 25 years. Sarah Jessica did.”
And Just Like That is available to stream on Max. Here’s how to watch it for free.
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Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell by Amy Sohn
Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell by Amy Sohn
$7.99
For more about And Just Like That and Sex and the City, read HBO’s official companion book, Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell. The book, written by dating columnist and screenwriter Amy Sohn, is filled with behind-the-scenes secrets from Sex and the City‘s six seasons and details on the real-life stories that inspired the show’s shocking episodes. The book also includes 750 full-color photographs from filming the series, as well as an introduction written by none other than Sarah Jessica Parker. With fun facts on how many dates Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda really went on to never-been-told secrets about Carrie’s most outrageous (and fabulous) outfits, Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell is a must-read for any SATC superfan.
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