Alternative endings of the cult series "Sex and the City"
Photo: Amy Shamblen/Unsplash Writing the ending was difficult and beyond the scope of normal script writing. King knew he might disappoint at least a few million people who were hoping for a different ending, no matter what course of events he chose.
The writers argued among themselves: who will Carrie end up with in the end? With the man of her dreams? With Petrovsky? With someone else? Or maybe she will be left alone? King said it was always his plan for Mr. Big and Carrie to end up together. He just wanted to make sure that they would be together in an unusual way: no spectacular marriage proposal, it had to be Carrie's choice. Everything had to depend on Carrie’s decision to follow Petrovsky to Paris in search of her happiness in this dreamy European city.
Other heroines also had their own happy endings. In the finale, Miranda invites Steve's mother, Mary (played by the incomparable Anne Myra), to live with them in Brooklyn because she is showing signs of mental illness. When housekeeper Magda sees Miranda bathing a disoriented Mary like a fairy godmother, she feels truly proud. “This is love,” Magda says, kissing Miranda on the forehead. Charlotte and Harry receive news that they have been allowed to adopt a Chinese girl. And Samantha gives her triumphant speech in support of cancer patients with the support of her love, Smith Jerrod (played by Jason Lewis, model and guest star from Beverly Hills 90210). More importantly, she sends Smith on the set of the film, insisting that he have sex with other women. But at the same time she hopes that he won’t do this - and Samantha is incredibly happy when Smith returns home and says that he wants to be only with her.
Samantha has finally found love.
King added to the already insane workload with the unusual decision to film multiple endings as bait for the paparazzi and tabloids. They might be able to locate a shoot and guess from afar what will happen in a scene, or even get a crew member to tell details about the scene, but they won't be able to tell which shoot was real. He decided to confuse them: maybe she will be with Mr. Big. Maybe she will stay with Petrovsky. Maybe she will decide to stay in Paris forever. The actors and writers knew the real ending, but the crew, which may have included newcomers, freelancers, or just people willing to share secrets from the set with their spouses after a lot of hard work, had no idea.
In one alternate ending, Carrie deceives her friends by telling them that she is already married to Petrovsky. She then reveals that he is returning to the States from Paris so they can have a wedding ceremony with her three best friends as bridesmaids. In another alternate ending, Samantha says that Mr. Big went to Paris to stop everything for good. Carrie replies, "Big is over and we've all been waiting for it."
The twist endings created some absurd moments. After one long day of filming, they had to film all these alternate scenes in the coffee shop. Screenwriter Julie Rottenberg realized how obvious it was that the footage was not real. In the real ones, they ran between takes to give comments to the actors. She was quick to make recommendations for Nixon's false words. She gave her an incredulous look.
King decided to leave the controversy in the script for the final two episodes. Carrie and Miranda fight desperately when Carrie decides to quit her job and move to Paris. “What are you going to do there all day? Are there any croissants? - Miranda asks.
“I can’t stay in New York and be lonely just for you!” - Carrie answers her. This is the quintessential problem with friendships in adulthood: we are taught to prioritize romantic relationships over female friendships. We would consider it madness and perhaps stupidity to stay in a certain place for a platonic friend, even one we have known and loved for many years, even if the alternative is a prim, older Russian artist we have known for a short time.
As Carrie leaves, Miranda utters another rich line that's special to Sex and the City: "These are stupid fantasies!"
Another intense scene from the final episodes takes place on Carrie's street, Perry Street in the West Village, in that cozy, shady brick neighborhood that has become a second home base for filming over the years. That was the last time this street pretended to be an Upper East Side street. The street was blocked, as always, and lanterns were burning on the treetops. It was like a "magical terrarium," King says.
In the finale, Mr. Big comes to Carrie's house in a half-hearted attempt to either win her back or have a heart-to-heart.
“I came to say: I made a mistake,” he says. - We are with you…
- You and I are nothing! - she interrupts him with a shout. - I won't let you do this anymore. Stop pulling my strings!
After he states that “this time is different,” she cuts him off:
- Forget my phone number, forget my name. And you can keep watch outside my windows as long as you like, because I don’t live here anymore!
Most of the nights they filmed outside were in the spring or summer; this time it was winter. The final season was filmed in bitter cold, often with snow still on the ground. That night, the breath of the actors created small clouds of steam in the air.
The phrase “I don’t live here anymore” struck Parker to the heart. She didn't live here anymore. She was leaving Carrie behind. When the scene ended, her only consolation was a surprise visitor to the set: her husband Matthew Broderick stood there with three friends, watching.
All around them, crew members and producers were crying. Everyone decided to end the evening around the corner at the White Horse Tavern, a bar known as a literary hangout in the 1950s and 1960s, frequented by Dylan Thomas, James Baldwin, Jack Kerouac and others. It was the perfect place in New York to end an emotional night, except for one thing: The White Horse was closing early at 1 a.m. to prepare for a city inspection that was scheduled for the next day.
The cast and crew of Sex and the City began emptying their pockets of all the cash, handing it over to the bartender. “And for so much money you won’t close?” - someone asked. And the White Horse did not close that evening.
• • •
The finale was expected to be watched not only for its melodrama, but also for Carrie's fashionista trip to Paris.
Patricia Field did not disappoint. She found a huge, layered sea green Versace ballgown that stood out among her many outfits. This unusual Versace dress, which didn't look like Versace at all, was one of the many looks Field chose for the Paris finale. The whole team, even Field and Parker, thought it was too showy. But Parker said, “Let me just try to put it on.” They took a photo of it to show King.
Field and Parker often had to make a Supreme Court-style argument to convince King to approve their more daring outfit choices, but this time they had none. Field thought, "Okay, maybe when an American fashion icon goes to Paris, she'll bring all her clothes." Parker remained more down to earth: “We don’t have any arguments. This is just a dream".
Field saw it as perfect for one of the saddest scenes in the series: the main character living what she thought was her dream with the man she thought was her dream, and being terribly disappointed. Carrie could wear it in the scene where she stands next to Petrovsky - all the better, because she will look phenomenal when she waits for him. Baryshnikov described it as similar to a mille-feuille, a French cake whose name means “a thousand layers” (and known to many as Napoleon cake). “The more magnificent the dress, the more magnificent the sadness,” Field said later.
As Parker now sums up their plea to King: "It's everything she 'thinks she's running away from' and everything she 'thinks she's running towards.' This is just funny, and even too much. It’s not about what kind of person she is, but about who she becomes in Alexander’s presence.”
Finally, Field called King into her office, which was so filled with designer clothes that it looked like a department store. In the middle was a sea green Versace dress.
“This just came from Paris,” she said in the hoarse voice of a smoker. — This dress wants to be in the show.
- Patricia, it's amazing.
- It is unique.
- Patricia, how can she even take him? After all, if you think about it like that, Carrie will never be able to pack it into a suitcase.
Field ignored this remark:
- This is for the scene when she ends the relationship. I'm just saying it's one of a kind.
“She couldn’t take him with her,” he smiled sadly and left.
Then he thought a little and returned.
“Okay, go ahead,” he told Field. The decision to wear a Versace dress was one of the most important during King's time working on Sex and the City: sometimes it was necessary to create a spectacular spectacle.
When it came time to film the New York hotel scene—many of the Paris scenes were filmed in the States—Field arrived from her new job on the sitcom Screen Queen after a Friday night shoot to check out the Sex and the City set and dress. Parker's stunt double wore the dress while the scene was being filmed; to Field's horror, it was rumpled and looked like an unmade bed.
She stopped filming to express her displeasure and then asked to pet him. Parker was supposed to be lying in the middle of the bed, among layers of fabric. Then she should get up and go to the window, and the dress will follow her. “This is exactly how this dress should look in the frame,” Field recalled her words.
Parker needed the help of four team members to get the layered dress on correctly. The scene was filmed exactly as Field required. No one who watched the finale forgot that dress or how Carrie looked as she lay on the bed in it, waiting for her love.
Publisher: Bombora
• • •
Baryshnikov, Parker, Noth and the crew traveled to Paris to film in January 2004, during a cold and rainy time in the City of Lights.
They filmed at the Plaza Athénée hotel, where Petrovsky and Carrie were staying. The cast and crew also stayed at the hotel during filming. Parker's son, James Wilkie, then fifteen months old, first began to walk confidently in Paris. He took his first step back in New York, to the relief of Matthew Broderick's father, who didn't want to miss this moment. James Wilkie delighted the entire film crew, who felt like his big family.
Elsewhere in filming, Carrie dined with Petrovsky's ex-wife at the trendy Kong restaurant. She called Miranda from a payphone in Place Saint-Sulpice. She went shopping (and tripped) at the Dior store on Avenue Montaigne. She saw four girls having breakfast at the nearby restaurant L'Avenue, who reminded her of her friends. She stepped in dog poop in Louboutin shoes on Rue Servandoni. She and Petrovsky were walking like a happy couple along Dauphine Square in one of the last moments.
In fact, Carrie got everything she was looking for throughout the series: a famous suitor, a romantic city. But now she has become an outcast in a city even more glamorous than New York. She barely interacted with anyone, didn’t understand customs, and had lost her signature name pendant, an undeniable attribute of her personality.
The authors chose an ending that felt right to them from the very beginning: after all, her one and only was Mr. Big. And King arranged everything as effectively as possible.
Big asks Carrie's friends for permission to go to Paris to win her back. He shows that he understands his place in Carrie's life—and articulates the show's central message when he tells her friends, “You three are her true loves. And some man will just be lucky if he comes in fourth.”
Miranda says, “Go get her.” Nixon says it in a way that makes even those of us who don't like Mr. Big cry.
Mr. Big finds Carrie in Paris and vows revenge on the Russian when he learns that Petrovsky (accidentally) hit Carrie. “I don’t need protectors,” she says, and this is also one of the important messages of the final episode.
Big finally confesses his love on the bridge: “It took me a very long time. But now I'm here. Carrie, you are my only one."
She replies: “I miss New York so much. Take me Home".
But this is not the end. In the last scene, Carrie is alone among a crowd on the street in New York City, walking toward her future.
It was here that King pulled a surprise on the writers by revealing Mr. Big's real name on Carrie's pink glitter flip phone: John. The writers first realized this when they read the script. Normally, a detail like this would have been revealed in the writers' office. But as he was writing, it suddenly dawned on him: “He must have a name. Now that he finally realized that Carrie was the one for him, he became real.”
"John" was the most classic name he could come up with. Just John. Just "man".
King was proud of the last two episodes. “These Paris scenes are wonderful,” he says.
However, show creator Darren Star had a different reaction. He felt that the ending "betrayed the core message of the series." “The show was about women not being defined by men,” he said.
They can fall in love with men, but his main idea should not be about being happy with one of them. If she was alone on the streets of New York, it would be wonderful. Of course, she was reunited with her friends. Why did Mr. Big have to be such a big part of all this? “Overall, the show became a regular romantic comedy,” Star said.
Star's longtime friend Candace Bushnell agreed with him, although she understood King's decision. “In real life, Carrie and Mr. Big would never have ended up together,” Bushnell later said. “But at that moment the television show became so famous. "Viewers became so invested in the storyline of Carrie and the man of her dreams that it became a bit like the story of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet."
Viewers also differed in their opinions: many were crazy about the romantic ending. Others complained that the ending betrayed what they loved most about the show. Either way, everyone had a clear opinion about the ending, as well as the show itself.
• • •
By the time the show signed with HBO in 2004, the Sex and the City finale had been watched by 10.6 million viewers. The last episode was the most watched in the history of the series. Sex and the City helped transform the cable network into a provider of quality content. The show has earned a reputation not only from Emmy awards and rave reviews, but also from academic circles: British film professors Kim Acass and Janet McCabe edited Discussing Sex and the City, a 2004 anthology of critical essays in which explores the project's place in the literary canon (along with Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie), its connection to Woody Allen's films, and its strong connection to gay culture.
Over the course of the show's six seasons, it was nominated for more than fifty Emmys and won seven, including Outstanding Comedy Series in 2001, when it needed the recognition most. King won the statuette for outstanding directing for a comedy series in 2002, and Parker and Nixon won for their acting in 2004.
More recognition and legacy will come to the show over time. But not before King and Parker put everything into two feature films.
Deleted and extended scenes
The two-disc DVD edition of the film “Extende Cut” contained extended versions of some scenes (this edition was not officially released in Russia)[10]:
- Extended version of the scene: all the friends and little Lilly take part in the show. There is an extended scene in which Carrie turns off her phone and leaves the apartment.
- After having sex with Smith, Samantha talks to Carrie on the phone. Samantha says she won't be able to come to New York often because she has to mend fences with Smith back home in Los Angeles. This surprises Carrie. Carrie calls from a phone booth because she still hasn't bought a cell phone after throwing her old one into the sea.
- Miranda comes inside the apartment after noticing on the street with Magda and Brady that the owners are moving out.
- After Carrie buys Vogue, she comes to Charlotte and says that those who don't know her will only see beautiful photos. Friends will understand what a scoundrel Big is. Then, the Goldenblatt family goes to collect Halloween treats, but only in the building of their house. Carrie goes with them and meets an acquaintance who expresses sympathy for her about the failed wedding.
- Stanford calls Carrie and asks her to come to the New Year's party.
In addition, the publication includes completely unincluded fragments.
Main heroines
Carrie Bradshaw
Carrie Bradshaw
(Sarah Jessica Parker) is the narrator in each episode. Each episode of the series is built around her thoughts while writing her weekly "Sex and the City" column for The New York Star. She belongs to the New York elite - she is a regular at clubs, restaurants and bars and is known for her unique pickiness (especially in shoes).
Carrie is included in the society of the “rich and famous”, attends fashion events (newly opened clubs, restaurants, bars, fashion shows) to advertise her column; She has an excellent eye for fashion (especially shoes) and is famous for her unique style.
Carrie rents an apartment in one of the townhouses in the prestigious Upper East Side of New York. In addition to three close friends, Carrie also has a close friend, Stanford Blatch (Willie Garson), a young homosexual man from an aristocratic family, the owner of a talent agency.
Carrie is in a complicated romantic relationship with the Man of Her Dreams, also known as Mr. Big (Chris Noth), whose name remains unknown to the viewer throughout the series, and is only revealed in the last minute of the final episode of the series. John (full name John James Preston) has experienced two unsuccessful marriages that ended in divorce, and therefore strives for a relationship without commitment, which is the cause of many of Carrie's worries. Chris Noth's character is a successful businessman, an avid cigar smoker and a big fan of Frank Sinatra.
After breaking up with the Man of Her Dreams, Carrie manages to build her next serious relationship in the third season of the series with New York furniture designer Aidan Shaw (John Corbett). John Corbett's character is a man oriented towards family values, the most patient and reasonable of all Carrie's partners. Aidan is more conservative and traditional in love relationships than Carrie, which ultimately causes their breakup.
Alexander Petrovsky (Mikhail Baryshnikov) is a famous artist who becomes Carrie's lover in the final season. He captivates her with beautiful romantic gestures and shows her a new side of New York. Alexander is divorced, his daughter is 22 years old. His ex-wife and daughter live in Paris.
Samantha Jones
Samantha Jones
(Kim Cattrall) is the oldest of them. She has her own PR agency. Very extravagant and scandalous. Loves conversations on intimate topics and quickly moves from talk to action.
Jerry (Smith) Jerrod (Jason Lewis) is a young waiter whom Samantha seduces in the final season. Jerry wants to be an actor, so he combines work as a waiter in a restaurant with performances in a little-known theater. Samantha, using her connections, helps him (including changing his name from Jerry Jerrod to Smith Jerrod) to get his career off to a good start. In one episode, Smith mentioned that he is a former alcoholic and attends Alcoholics Anonymous sessions. In his relationship with Samantha, Jerry showed himself to be a faithful and devoted partner.
Charlotte York
Charlotte York
(Kristin Davis) - works in a contemporary art gallery. The most conservative and optimistic of all.
Charlotte studied at the private independent women's liberal arts college Smith. Her major is art history, with a minor in finance. Charlotte was a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority (there are no honorary sororities in the real college, unlike the fictional one). Charlotte was homecoming queen, student council president, and captain of the cheerleading team. In the third season, Charlotte meets her future husband, Trey MacDougal, an attractive cardiologist from an ancient Scottish clan. The head of the McDougle family is Trey's mother, Bunny, a power-hungry woman who seeks to control her son's life, which complicates the relationship between Charlotte and Trey. In the fifth season, during the divorce proceedings, Charlotte's lawyer Harry Goldenblatt falls in love with her at first sight. Charlotte does not find him attractive and only dates him for sexual relations, but over time their relationship becomes serious and they get married.
Miranda Hobbs
Miranda Hobbs
(Cynthia Nixon) is a lawyer by profession and proud of it. Very cynical and independent.
At the very beginning of the series, Miranda is portrayed as a masculine woman with a negative attitude towards men. But over time, she becomes more feminine, softer, especially after the birth of a child. Further, her storyline reveals the difficulties faced by a woman who wants to raise a child and build a career at the same time. Miranda also continues to look for a suitable partner, because she believes that Steve, the father of her child, is not suitable for her as a life partner. Miranda lives in an Upper East Side apartment that she bought on her own. Later, after marrying Steve, she moves to a spacious townhouse in Brooklyn.
