Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
Carrie Bradshaw turns dates, overheard conversations and her own missteps into a weekly New York Star column, while her friendships with lawyer Miranda, gallery worker Charlotte and publicist Samantha give her a running audience. When Carrie meets the polished Mr. Big, attraction quickly becomes a question of what he will let her know about his life. She wants an exclusive relationship; he resists defining it, and she learns he was married before and says he will never marry again. The four women test the rules around them through awkward dates, brief affairs and encounters with married friends whose lives seem to belong to another social world.
Carrie and Big grow closer, but his private Sunday routine with his mother exposes how little room he has made for Carrie. After he calls her his friend at church and admits his mother has not heard of her, she refuses the Caribbean trip he offers in place of that recognition and ends the relationship. Miranda dates playwright Thomas John, whose guilt about sex and showering after it drives them apart; at the finale’s party she reconnects with her former boyfriend Skipper. Charlotte’s hope for a husband survives a string of disappointing matches. Samantha’s slower courtship with James hits a sexual mismatch in the finale; she confides her distress to the others, but she is still seeing him when the season ends.