On Sex and the City: I Heart NY

Every Outfit

On the 25th anniversary of September 11th, the podcast revisits 'I Heart NY,' an episode of Sex and the City that gained post-9/11 significa

Key takeaways

• The episode was written before September 11th but gained new meaning after the attacks, with the I Heart NY slogan becoming a symbol of resilience.
• Changes to the show's opening sequence and recurring imagery (like the Twin Towers snow globe) took on deeper emotional weight post-9/11.

Main topics

• The cultural significance of 'I Heart NY' post-9/11
• Mr. Big's decision to leave New York for Napa

Notable quotes

'Get it while it's hot.'

Conclusion

The episode stands as a poignant, emotionally layered moment in Sex and the

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:04) $1000 on shoes? What's the matter Morty? Laurel? What's this thing? Crunchy Marl! Great gowns? Beautiful gowns? Speaker 1 (0:17) Fashion has changed! Speaker 2 (0:24) Hi, I'm Lauren Garoni. And I'm Chelsea Fairless. And welcome back to our monthly Sex and the City rewatch Speaker 1 (0:29) episode. Today is the 25th anniversary of September 11th, so we thought it would only be fitting to revisit I Heart New York, the unofficial 9-11 episode. Speaker 2 (0:41) Yes, yes. Many regard this as the Sex and the City 9-11 episode, even though it was written and shot before September 11th, but this episode does come out. after the events of September 11th. This episode aired in February 2002. Because Speaker 1 (0:59) season four was split into two chunks. The first chunk ended in August. Then September 11th happened. Then the show didn't come back until January of 2002. This Speaker 2 (1:14) episode is written by Daddy MPK. It is directed by Martha Coolidge, director of Real Genius. She directed two episodes for Sex and the City, the Vogue episode of Vogue Idea, and then this episode. I did listen to the commentary track. I went all the way back to my DVDs. There is a commentary track with Daddy MPK for this episode. And he said that I Heart NY was actually picked in the writer's room because the big idea of this episode is that big is moving. And he was thinking of, you know, Carrie calls him the Chrysler building. What are other things synonymous with New York? And it made him think of the I Heart NY t-shirts, which when he wrote the episode had fallen out of favor. Post September 11th, they became a symbol of New York and people started wearing those shirts again. And so it is just happenstance. Speaker 1 (2:08) So crazy. Also, we should note that when the show came back post 9-11, they changed the opening sequence because the Twin Towers was visible in the card that said Sex in the City and in Sarah Jessica Parker's title card as well. They changed the Twin Towers to the Empire State Building. When the show came back on the air, as we discussed when we recapped the good fight, the Twin Towers were removed from the scene where Samantha and Richard danced to Shaw Day and fucked in the pool on the rooftop. Also, in the episode All That Glitters that aired after September 11th, we happen to get that scene where Carrie picks up a snow globe of New York that has the Twin Towers in it. Again, all shot before September 11th, but took on an eerie significance after September 11th. Speaker 2 (3:04) Yes, and it was an interesting time in pop culture because you had Sex and the City, you had Friends, you had a lot of New York-centric shows, some that shot in New York, most that didn't, but all that decided to not deal with the events of September 11th. Understandably so. I don't need a very special Friends episode with the events of September 11th, but a lot of these shows did. Their own nods to the heroes of September 11th. Joey wears a FDNY shirt. I don't think we confirm this, but we think that Sarah Jessica Parker did that final voiceover after the events of September 11th. You could certainly, even though there are not any overt references, even after the fact to the event, there is a certain reading of this episode that feels very post-9-11, especially Biggs' reasoning. potentially of leaving New York City. Shall we hop into the episode? Speaker 1 (4:00) For sure. So this episode begins, as always, with a Carrie voiceover. Speaker 2 (4:05) There Speaker 1 (4:05) is a time of year in New York when, Speaker 2 (4:07) even before the first leaf falls, you can feel the seasons click. The air is crisp, the summer is gone, and for the first night in a long time, you need a blanket on your bed. It brings up other needs as well. And of course, for Carrie, those other needs are calling Mr. Big. Speaker 1 (4:25) So she does. He picks up in his fabulous apartment. He's Speaker 2 (4:29) reading the Wall Street Journal, which, I don't know, the big that we've come to know and will know seems like a man that would be watching late night infomercials or boxing. Speaker 1 (4:40) Totally. Big's like, is this who I think it is? Speaker 2 (4:45) And Carrie's like, who do you think it is? And he goes, Princess Grace of Monaco. Great dialogue in this episode. Speaker 1 (4:52) Totally. Mr. Big then has a politically incorrect moment. Calling it Indian summer. Yes, he says, I thought it was still Indian summer. I guess I should take off my moccasins. Not his finest moment. No. I didn't know what that term meant. It refers to a period of dry weather that occurs in late autumn, typically after a frost. The origins are uncertain, but it may have been described to Europeans by indigenous people back in the day, but the PC term is now second summer. Speaker 2 (5:24) Okay, then. You learn something new every recap episode. Speaker 1 (5:29) Truly. In Speaker 2 (5:30) the commentary... Daddy MPK discusses that this is the first time they've ever overtly acknowledged the changing of the seasons. As I think we've discussed previously, Sex and the City, up until really the final season, exists in what the writers call a permanent spring or a permanent summer. Although, if I'm Speaker 1 (5:50) remembering Speaker 2 (5:51) things correctly, season two and even the top of season four, it's pretty chilly out. I Speaker 1 (5:57) don't know. It all blends together for me. Speaker 2 (5:59) Okay, so Carrie invites herself over, although she acknowledges as a friend because she is lonely. Do we think this is the first Speaker 1 (6:07) time that she is doing this? You get the sense that it is. But also, what time is it and why is she bringing pizza over? Because I always assumed it was like past midnight. Speaker 2 (6:18) Yeah, it is a time that you feel it is inappropriate for her to call any of her friends. Miranda, because she's about to have a baby and is sleeping. Charlotte, probably because she's sleeping. Samantha, because she's probably fucking someone. So she has no one else to call but Big. So Speaker 1 (6:35) she goes over to his house and we get this stunning greeting. Speaker 3 (6:40) Get it while it's hot. Speaker 2 (6:42) I thought it was just a company visit. Speaker 3 (6:50) All your furniture is gone. Speaker 2 (6:52) See? This is why I'm leaving New York. Speaker 3 (6:55) The Speaker 2 (6:55) crime. Leaving New York? Speaker 3 (6:58) I'm moving. I Speaker 2 (7:00) don't know if it's because Sarah Jessica Parker is so petite or she has gotten the largest pizza ever. It's huge. It's probably a combination of the two. I'm sure it's just a large pizza, but she's so tiny it seems extra Speaker 1 (7:15) big. Totally. And she's wearing a very casual Carrie outfit, a little pair of jeans, a tank top with some sort of ballet adjacent wrap sweater on top of it. I noticed that throughout this episode, she looks more normal than she has ever looked fashion-wise. Like she doesn't wear anything weird in this episode for once, except for the pretzel necklace. I was just about to say, I believe there is an insane pretzel necklace, but you are correct. And it was kind of like that in a Vogue idea. Also, she looked pretty normal. Like something happened in these episodes at the end of this season where she decided she wanted to look normal finally. Speaker 2 (7:55) Or perhaps they, and pardon this gross phrase, but they blew their load the rest of the season. Padfield was like, look, you want these insane Louboutins, you know, we got to put her in just jeans for the rest of the season. Or at least these last two episodes. I've spent our entire budget on Speaker 1 (8:12) that Vivian Westwood suit. But it's one of those things that makes this episode... look and feel more akin to a bittersweet rom-com than a typical episode of Sex and the City. I think the Speaker 2 (8:27) costuming definitely feels... It feels like perhaps we have stepped into a Nora Ephron version of Sex and the City. Speaker 1 (8:36) That's exactly it. But Speaker 2 (8:37) also I think it is Martha Coolidge's direction. She comes from the film world and then got into television directing. But also other than I think one and maybe the series finale, we don't get a lot of orchestral work and we get a lot of orchestral music in this episode, which I think aids to the cinematic quality. Speaker 1 (8:59) Totally. So Carrie is obviously shocked that Mr. Big's furniture is gone. So shocked that she sits on a moving box and falls through it. She says, you can't leave New York. You're the Chrysler building. The Chrysler building would be all wrong in a vineyard. Speaker 2 (9:14) Right. Because he explains that he's moving to Napa, which gets us to the best line of the episode. We'll argue that later. Or the worst. Speaker 3 (9:24) Why? Speaker 2 (9:26) I'm tired of old New Speaker 1 (9:27) York. Speaker 3 (9:28) Well, if you're tired, you take a nappa. You don't move to nappa. Speaker 1 (9:32) It's also the delivery of that line. You take a nappa. You don't move to nappa. Yes. Like the inflection is so Speaker 2 (9:42) good. As we've talked about exhaustively, Daddy MPK's mind works Speaker 1 (9:47) in mysterious ways. But this is probably the most insane pun that she has ever attempted. I mean, let's say that it's the... Speaker 2 (9:57) sleep deprivation and late night pizza that maybe prompted her to say such a thing. But just think about it, because obviously we're admiring the delivery as insane as it is, but Daddy MPK wrote that. Then Sarah Jessica Parker saw it on the page and then had to imbue it with the correct tone and inflection. Yeah, Speaker 1 (10:17) she killed it. Speaker 2 (10:19) Finding time for meal planning or cooking is always a challenge. I thought this was true before I had a child, but now that I have a toddler, I need to employ every hack possible to get some time back in my day. And honestly, ever since I started using Forkful, I have added back so much time to my evenings. 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I love that I can switch things up, like maybe one week I'm feeling more plant-based, and I get to get introduced to interesting meals like lentil bolognese with mushrooms and linguine pasta. Or sometimes I'm in a protein-focused state of mind, and I can have meals like pulled pork carnitas over Mexican cauliflower rice. I never thought to make bolognese with lentils or do a cauliflower version of Mexican rice. Forkful is always giving me ideas for future meals. Explore Forkful's plans and menu of fresh ready-to-eat meals at forkfulmeals.com and use code outfit to get 50 % off your first order. That's forkfulmeals.com slash outfit and use promo code outfit for 50 % off. Thanks to Forkful for sponsoring this episode. Speaker 2 (12:16) So something else that I learned in the commentary is Big's apartment doubles as Charlotte and Trey's apartment. That makes sense. A classic six on the Upper East Side. Exactly. What, are you going to build two of those sets? I don't think so. So I went to Reddit, as I always do when we rewatch these episodes, and I found a post where someone was positing that the reason that Big is moving to Napa is that he survived the September 11th attacks. And this person was making the point of like, well, he's a financial bro. He probably worked downtown. I think this person was implying perhaps he worked in the World Trade Center. Oh Speaker 1 (12:55) my God. I Speaker 2 (12:56) will not go that far. Also, I believe when Carrie asks him for the money when Aiden makes her buy back her apartment, it looks to Speaker 1 (13:05) be midtown-ish, but... He did not work. At the World Trade Center. This is crazy, but it is true that a lot of people left New York after September 11th. That is absolutely true. Speaker 2 (13:17) Yes. And as we've said before, this was not in Michael Patrick King's mind when he wrote this episode. He wanted to move big out of New York because he was such a central force in Carrie's life. And what would that do to her? to not have this person that she could randomly call in the middle of the night and bring him pizza. Speaker 1 (13:35) Yeah. Speaker 2 (13:36) But there's certainly a read of this episode when it aired, and now 25 years later, or almost 25 years later, that it feels that Big could have seen the events of 9-11, seen his marriage fall apart and go, you know what? I'm moving 3,000 miles away. Speaker 1 (13:52) Yes, absolutely. For some people, it was so traumatic to live through, to witness. people got to a place where they were like, fuck this, the party's over. There Speaker 2 (14:01) was definitely that feeling. New York has survived many of those moments. I think the other thing that makes this episode feel cinematic is obviously the subtext of watching this episode post 9-11, but also the running theme, quite literally, of Moon River throughout this episode. Speaker 1 (14:22) Yeah. One of our... most on-the-nose Breakfast at Tiffany's episodes. There are a few of them. So Michael Patrick King gets into this in the commentary track, a Speaker 2 (14:32) commentary track that did not provide as much gems or trivia as I thought it would, given that it's the series finale. It's considered one of the best episodes. But Michael Patrick King talks about how he wondered at the time if they could get away with such a Breakfast at Tiffany's dog whistle. without invoking the film. Because if you notice, it's not mentioned at all. They lean heavily into Henry Mancini, who performed the music. And I think this is why we get this monologue of Big talking about his parents. Speaker 1 (15:03) Totally. Speaker 2 (15:04) Because in Michael Patrick King's mind, this scene is more about also playing up the age difference between Carrie and Big, which is one of those things that I learned after the fact was a big conversation point, but I've always just sort of gone with. Speaker 1 (15:20) I never thought the age difference was particularly subversive. Speaker 2 (15:23) Me either. But clearly this was a thorn in the writer's side because the whole reason, or at least one of the reasons they created Petrovsky was sort of a fuck you to the audience of like, if you think big is old, we're going to give Carrie a real old boyfriend. How about that now? Speaker 1 (15:37) Yeah. Before they even get into Moon River, though, this is where we get the blood, sweat, and tears reference. One of the few things about Big's musical taste that we know. Speaker 2 (15:47) Right, because I think the season finale of season three is where we get the reveal of the red bedroom and also Carrie bitching at him after they fall into the Central Park River that she couldn't stand him playing Blood, Sweat, and Tears one more time. I still don't know what this band is. I Speaker 1 (16:07) learned of this band. Speaker 2 (16:09) I mean, my parents are around the age of Chris Noth and the character of Mr. Big, but I have only learned about this band through Sex and the City. It has to actually be Chris Noth's favorite band or Daddy MPK's. It's too specific. Speaker 1 (16:26) Okay, well, there's one Blood, Sweat, and Tears song that I'm pretty sure you know, which is called Spinning Wheel. Look, I get why Carrie doesn't fuck with it. Speaker 2 (16:53) And you know what? Mr. Big is that charming that if I had to hear that morning after Speaker 1 (16:57) morning, I'd be like, nah, it's worth it. But like what's genuinely surprising is the fact that she thinks that Moon River is corny. I reject this. Let me think about that. Well, obviously Moon River in a certain context is extremely corny. But the song itself? I don't think so. And you would think that Carrie Bradshaw of all people would appreciate it. Carrie Bradshaw from And Just Like That would love Moon River. She would never say that Moon River was corny. Speaker 2 (17:25) Also, we are just an episode away from the beginning of like, well, super c-c-curly Carrie and also super corny Carrie. Again, this might have been the influence of... September 11th. But like season five is really Carrie talking about how much she loves New York. So I feel like you're right. Season five threw in just like that. Carrie would love Moon River. She Speaker 1 (17:50) was more of a bitch, though, in the beginning of the show. She was more discerning and cynical in that New York sort of way. I Speaker 2 (17:58) think this is also setting up. Carrie thinks it's corny so that Big can reveal maybe the most we've ever seen this character reveal about himself, his interior life. We get this anecdote about his parents playing this song and how he thought that two drifters was two twisters and they begin to Speaker 1 (18:17) do the twist together. Maybe this whole thing is corny, but it kind of gets me, you know? Well, yes, I think this Speaker 2 (18:24) is obviously the goal of this scene is that you want them to kiss, you want them to make love, but the record skips and so they don't. And then Carrie's like, okay, great, I'm done, bye. I guess I didn't realize this until watching this episode that Carrie and Big have really never been fuck buddies. Right. They've had an affair. They've dated. They've been seeing each other and screwing around before they started dating again in season two, but they've never just been honest to God fuck buddies. And I think that's what this dynamic needed. Speaker 1 (18:59) Totally. Like Speaker 2 (19:00) you're telling me after his divorce and her engagement. implodes that they're not seeking comfort with each other? Okay. Yeah, Speaker 1 (19:10) you're right. That makes absolutely no sense. So... This long, beautiful Carrie and Big scene that we've just described was actually interrupted by a Samantha and Richard scene for some reason. I know, this makes absolutely no Speaker 2 (19:24) sense. We have made the editorial choice to combine the entire Carrie and Big scene. But when I was going back through my notes, I'm like, oh, I must have gotten this wrong. No. Speaker 1 (19:36) No, there's a whole scene where Richard comes home. He's been working late. Samantha's pissed at him. She has been eating a box of Speaker 2 (19:44) chocolates, which we know from, well, this episode and then the events of the first Sex and the City film. This is what she does when she falls in love with men and they get busy. She's going to eat her feelings. Speaker 2 (19:59) I'm back to talk about Wayfair. As I've spoken about before, Wayfair was an essential resource during my home renovation, from storage solutions to kitchen hardware, even toilets. Wayfair not only had it, but for cheaper than anywhere else, and it arrived oh so fast. Somehow, the renovation stage may be long done, but the decorating phase may never end.