And Just Like That spoilers: EP on Mr. Big’s death, Chris Noth fake scene

The premiere of HBO Max’s And Just Like That on Thursday accomplished a lot, but at the top of the list was delivering an enormous stunner: The death of Mr. Big. Given how huge Chris Noth was in the story of Sex and the City, it’s clear that the producers wanted to deliver a seismic event at the start of the new series. They had to justify doing another show, and illuminate what made this portion of Carrie Bradshaw’s life so important.

Now, we get it: The story of And Just Like That is about how she moves forward, and how she finds a way to fill this enormous void that now exists in her life.

As you would imagine, trying to keep a spoiler like this under wraps is incredibly difficult, especially when so many people scout filming locations in and around New York City. Yet, executive producer Michael Patrick King notes that they went to great lengths to disguise what was going on here, to the point where they even had Noth show up at his own funeral, in costume, to try to throw people off the scent.

Here is some of what the showrunner had to say on this subject via Deadline:

“Chris was really pleased with the collaboration and we’re both very happy with the daring choice to have Mr. Big come back and go, so much so that he even put on a suit and came to the funeral when we were taping … And I wrote a fake scene, so he and Sarah Jessica [Parker] put on costumes. He said to me, ‘You really want me to put a face of makeup on and come down and shoot a fictional scene at my funeral?’ I go, ‘Yeah,’ because I really wanted the audience to be as surprised as possible before we did it. And that was one of the red herrings that we threw into the mix. He’s great. And he’s great in the show. I mean, if you’re going to die that’s the episode to die in.”

King also notes that it would’ve been hard to do And Just Like That without Big, given that the writers needed an event like this to kick the series off. Even if the character may no longer be in the realm of the living, it’s clear now that his character will live on.

Are you shocked that And Just Like That killed off Mr. Big?

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Photo: HBO Max

This article was written by Jess Carter.