Top 20 Small Details in Sex and the City You Missed

This episode explores the notion that married couples and unattached individuals are constantly in some unspoken competition. Carrie dates Sean, a pleasant but plain guy, and their evenings out become somewhat monotonous. However, when he invites her to a party full of his married friends, she realizes they clearly want different things and ends the relationship. As the episode draws to a close, Carrie goes out for a movie night with her friends, the most enduring relationship in her life. But hang on, what’s that poster just behind her? “Godzilla”? Do you know who stars in that movie? Yep, Sarah Jessica Parker’s husband, Matthew Broderick. Coincidence? We’d like to believe not.

It took six seasons, lots of break-ups, and a trip to Paris before viewers finally found out Mr. Big’s first name. If you weren’t paying attention when Carrie pulled out her bedazzled flip phone, you might’ve missed it. However, did you ever notice that Big’s name seemed to be the punchline of one of the show’s best-running jokes? Almost every time it was about to be unveiled, fate intervened with impeccable timing. We’d be waiting with bated breath while these brilliantly timed interruptions kept the reveal just out of reach. Executive producer Michael Patrick King said this Big reveal was a belated addition, and he deliberately picked the most run-of-the-mill name that came to mind.

The entertainment industry would have us believe that the Subway is practically a second home to all New Yorkers. But we can think of one local who prefers alternative modes of transportation. Incredibly, we don’t see Carrie get on the Subway until season six! Now let’s just think about it: Carrie’s more about Manolo buying than purse-pinching; we know this has landed her in some financial turmoil. So, you’d think perhaps she’d want to save the roughly $6 cab fare and join the masses on the train. At one point, she does take the bus as a cheaper alternative. We know the Subway can be grim, but the bus is hardly a rose garden, either.

This season five episode builds up to Carrie’s book launch party. It seems like anyone who is anyone is in attendance, including the woman responsible for countless iconic looks throughout the series. See that woman lighting up at the bar? We know it’s kind of dark, but those flaming locks seem to belong to none other than the series’ costume designer, Patricia Field. As far as we can tell, this is the only time we see the designer make an appearance. However, she leaves her mark in every scene where a character wears something you wish was in your closet. It’s just nice to put a face to a fabulous ensemble!

The four women wear countless pieces of clothing and jewelry throughout the show’s six season run, but there’s one that really stands out. Carrie’s nameplate “Carrie” necklace was meant to symbolize her comfort with herself and at the end of the sixth season, she loses it, implying that she has lost something much bigger in the process. When she finds it again, viewers knew everything would be okay. And this wasn’t the only important piece of jewelry on the show – in the episode where Carrie breaks up with Aidan, SJP wore her own earrings, which she claims are good luck.

“SATC” fans are often torn between Team Big and Team Aidan. So, what if we told you that the signs that Carrie and Aidan were not meant to be were there during their two breakups? They first split up after Carrie comes clean about her and Big’s affair shortly before Charlotte’s wedding. She’s in a white-ish dress because, apparently, that’s appropriate bridesmaid attire, and he’s suited and booted. Eventually, they reconcile and even get engaged, which brings us to breakup number two. Look at them both dressed to the nines! Carrie in that beautiful white gown and Aidan all dapper in a tuxedo. Their outfits might scream wedding, but their relationship most definitely doesn’t.

Let’s rewind to the earliest days of “Sex and the City.” Remember when Carrie would chat directly with the viewers? Now, remember how those moments suddenly vanished? It turns out that the folks behind the scenes realized it was distracting audiences from becoming fully absorbed in Carrie’s world. Also, she was already narrating, so did we really need her to break the flow even more? Do you also remember how the episodes would feature short interviews with random characters? Apparently, that was in homage to the books and articles written by Candace Bushnell that inspired the show. However, they ended up feeling out of place and gradually evaporated into thin air.

Don’t get us wrong, season five doesn’t exactly skimp on the “Sex” in “Sex and the City.” However, it seems to take a backseat to storylines focusing more on the women, their friendships, and personal growth. Charlotte navigates life post-divorce, Miranda adjusts to motherhood, Samantha prioritizes self-love, and Carrie delves into publishing. This season has only eight episodes, which is said to be due to Sarah Jessica Parker’s pregnancy. So, maybe they just wanted to save the juicy stuff for a time when it could be given the attention it deserves. Still, one thing’s for sure: Season five is all about the ladies.

In season two, we meet Natasha, Big’s 20-something-year-old fiancée. As Carrie and Big continue to cross paths, Carrie finds herself bumping into Natasha quite often. Keen-eyed fans might’ve noticed Natasha tends to dress in white, beige, and other neutral colors. It seems this was deliberate to show how calm and uncomplicated she is compared to Carrie. There are, however, two exceptions to this pattern. Firstly, in “Ex and the City,” Natasha blends into the crowd in a black gown while Carrie wears white—make of that what you will. The second time is during their infamous confrontation over lunch, where a burst of pink seemingly represents Natasha’s rage.

“Sex and the City” has got to be one of the most fashionable series out there. Whether you’re more of a Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha, or Miranda, you’ve probably selected the outfits you wish you could own, and there’s a lot to choose from! Believe it or not, you’re highly unlikely to see any character wear the same outfit more than once across the series. In fact, Carrie’s fur coat might just be the only exception— she wears it in season one and then again in the series finale. SJP said she kept a lot of Carrie’s signature pieces, which came in handy when the series got revived. We’re glad to see our favorites are still in vogue!

In one of the most moving moments of the series, Samantha gives a speech at a charity benefit. While her words are certainly encouraging, she struggles to deliver due to the side effects of her treatment. Then, in an incredibly empowering move, she takes off her wig and gets real with her audience. This inspires other women to stand up and do the same. What you may not know, however, is that, reportedly, these women are real cancer survivors. This has always been a standout scene due to Samanth's rawness. Including real survivors really drives home how crucial it is to have these conversations in mediums that reach a wide audience.

In season six of the show, Carrie gets involved with an artist named Aleksandr Petrovsky, played by the famous dancer and actor Mikhail Baryshnikov. Be sure to take a look at some of the artwork in Petrovsky’s home because, apparently, much of it came from Baryshnikov’s personal collection. Turns out, besides being an amazing actor and dancer, he’s also a skilled musician. In the episode “Ick Factor,” he plays Carrie a tune that he says he wrote just for her. We can’t confirm he really did create it for Carrie. But apparently, it was actually composed by the actor. Keep an ear out for it again in the series finale when Carrie wanders around Paris alone.

You may notice that while the girls are running around NYC, they encounter surprisingly few of the posters, billboards and ads that one would encounter in real life. That’s because the producers of the show intentionally omitted anything that would date the show too much, though there are some exceptions throughout the series where advertisements are left in. We saw the “Godzilla” poster earlier on. However perhaps most notably, in the episode "The Good Fight", when Samantha and Richard Wright are dancing on the rooftop, originally, you could see the towers of the World Trade Center in the background, but they were digitally edited out in post-processing to keep the focus on the scene at hand.

For the first four seasons it seems as though it’s always either spring or summer. This let the girls travel around the city in their most fashionable outfits without ever having to cover up for warmth. They also rarely celebrate major holidays on the show so we never see Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving or Valentine’s Day. It’s only in the season four finale “I Heart NY”, we finally see the seasons begin to change for the first time on the show. In the later episodes, we do get to see the characters living through New York’s harsh winter, and it definitely gives the story a different feel.

Something that goes hand in hand with not celebrating holidays is the fact that we see surprisingly little of the girls’ families throughout the run of the show. We never meet any of the girls’ parents – or really learn much about them at all – with the exception of the episode where Miranda’s mother dies or that time Carrie makes a throwaway remark about her absentee father. Even when Charlotte is planning a wedding and eventually gets married, her family never plays a role. Although we do meet her brother, Wesley, in season two. The idea behind this seems to be to show that the family you’re born into doesn’t always matter as much as the one you make for yourself.

Justin Theroux, who was still in the early days of his career, appeared on “Sex and the City” not once but twice in the first two seasons, playing two completely different characters. In season one, he plays a guy named Jared that Carrie uses to make Big jealous when she realizes that their relationship isn’t monogamous. He plays a bigger role in season two as Vaughn Wysel, a man that Carrie starts dating and who turns out to have some “shortcomings” that cause them to part ways despite the fact that Carrie loves his family.

Though “Sex and the City” was created by Darren Star, most people know Michael Patrick King has the man behind the show. He worked as a writer, producer and director for many episodes and it turns out he also found his own ways to insert himself into the show. In one memorable episode, he played the voice of the “sandwich” that Miranda thought was sexually harassing her, and he also leant his vocal talents to yelling “feces” in an episode that takes place at a mental health facility. His handwriting also makes an appearance in an episode where Miranda is writing a letter to Steve.

When Charlotte meets Trey, their relationship is a love at first sight whirlwind and before viewers knew it, they were heading down the aisle. Were there some red flags before they said their “I dos”? Oh definitely. But there was one subtle hint that the producers gave you viewers that you may not have picked up on. The Scottish bagpipe music playing as Charlotte prepares to walk down the aisle isn’t typically a wedding song, but rather a funeral dirge, which was meant to symbolize the fact that Charlotte is walking straight into a doomed marriage.

One of the elements that remains consistent is that Carrie poses questions to the audience which often form the basis for her columns. They vary widely from episode to episode, but at the end of season six when the series is coming to a close, Carrie actually stops asking questions altogether. In the episode “Splat!” when she decides she’s going to move to Paris to be with the Russian, she asks, “Is it time to stop questioning?” but ultimately changes the question mark to a period. According to the DVD commentary, this is the last time she asks her infamous questions in the series.

According to Michael Patrick King on the DVD commentary, the street we see Carrie walking down at the end of the series finale as she takes a call from Big – where, as we saw earlier, we also find out his real name – is actually the very same street she walked down in the opening credits. He says though that this time, she’s actually walking in the opposite direction, signifying the changes that she has made throughout the series. King says that this artistic choice was supposed to symbolize the fact that as a character, she had finally come full circle.

Do you spy any other easter eggs or hidden details? Let us know in the comments.