There's a reason Mr Big is dead.
A reason why he wasn't revived as he lay gasping on the shower floor of Heaven on Fifth, not even for the ghostly dream sequence, already filmed and ready for the season finale.
It's because, one week after Chris Noth's iconic character died on screen, two women told their stories, and Noth's career was over.
These unnamed women told The Hollywood Reporter that the press promotion around And Just Like That had encouraged them to put their allegations of sexual assault on the record. They approached the publication separately, and didn't know each other, but they couldn't bear to see that man continually celebrated on their screens.
The alleged assaults occurred far apart, in 2004 and 2015, but followed a similar pattern. The complainants were young women who had met Noth in a professional capacity. One of them had agreed to a date. One of them had found herself in his apartment after an afternoon by the pool of his LA apartment building. Both say that after a few interactions they were raped, despite resistance. One of the women ended up in hospital after the encounter, receiving stitches to her injuries.
After the women spoke, it became impossible for Noth - who had always had a reputation as a kind of crotchety, gruff Alpha - to be seen as anything other than an abuser. He lost his job on the TV show The Equalizer, he lost lucrative endorsements, notably one from a tequila company worth $12 million. And he lost the ability to be featured ever again on the show that had delivered him stardom.
Until this week, Noth had never spoken about this, other than to deny the women's accusations.
Now, he wants to put it behind him and get back to work. Only, there's no work to be had.
He can't sell to women any more. Not a character, and not a product. Women who may have once considered him a suave grown-up with rising bad-boy now look at him and wonder if he's dangerous in an entirely different way. They think he's an abuser dressing himself up as a lothario. A man pretending he loves women when actually, he wants to hurt them in the worst way.
We have a radar for that kind of man, because we've been attempting to avoid them our whole lives.
The fact the three actresses who'd worked with him for years, Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis, all released a statement backing the women who had alleged assault cemented that perception.
If Noth's interview this week was his first step on a comeback trail, he might want to get some better advice. Because overwhelmingly, it reads as a whine.
He is the victim, here. If there's another one, maybe it's his wife.
"I strayed on my wife, and it's devastating to her and not a very pretty picture," he told USA Today. "What it isn't is a crime."
He is cynical about the complainants — who have not filed a criminal case against him — bringing potential civil action. "That's a money train for a lot of people," he says.
And, he complains, he could afford to lie low for a year, but now he needs to get back to it, both for his creative satisfaction and the dollar bills. "I have children to support. I can't just rest on my laurels. So yeah, I have enough to let a year drift, but I don't know how to gauge or judge getting back into the club, the business, because corporations are frightened."
We can't imagine why.
There is one telling quote in the interview that reveals a truth no-one wants to hear, and it's about fidelity, fame and entitlement.
Noth is clearly comfortable stating (and maybe even believes himself) that he is just a man whose profession profile meant that in young, beautiful women were prepared to have sex with him and... hey, who could resist that?
"You give yourself the same excuses that many men do; it's just a little side dance, and it's fun," he said. "You're not hurting anybody. No one's going to know about this, you know, and sex is just enjoyable. And suddenly, a lot of people want to have sex with you. It's like, 'Well, I will not get this chance again.'"
Famous, powerful, rich people have more access to more kinds of sex. It's just true.
It's a brave celebrity who will say it out loud - that even if they struggled for sexual attention when they were just a "civilian", it all changes once you're well known. Couple increased supply of potential partners with opportunity — work that takes you away from home — and it's just accurate, if not popular, to state that it might be harder to stay faithful if you're famous.
Ali Wong joked about it in her most recent stand-up special. "I think about cheating on my husband every five minutes," she said. "My mum can't relate because her world is a lot smaller than mine. The only men my mum has had an actual conversation with are my brother and my dad, that's it. I, on the other hand, have met the entire cast of the Avengers and I want all of them to [insert sex act here]"
Australia's Tim Minchin attracted criticism for acknowledging this temptation in a song. "I'm away a lot and I am in a really flamboyant industry and I'm really flirtatious and I really like women," he told Australian Story. "It's very intoxicating. You're away from home for a long time, and you're jet lagged, and you're drinking. The times I got close to doing the wrong thing made me realise that it wouldn't be worth it to blow my marriage up."
John Legend says he "Escaped ‘technically cheating’ by keeping my relationship ill-defined," in his first years of fame. "But it was really cheating. I definitely was dishonest and selfish and just enjoyed this new attention I was getting."
It's possible to imagine that for a man like Noth, who found significant fame relatively late, he believed consent was a non-issue because so many women wanted to sleep with him - for a good story, for kudos, because they found Mr Big irresistible. No need to ask. No need to listen to them. Of course they were into it... wasn't everyone?
That seems to be his story, and he's sticking to it.
"It's just a little side dance, and it's fun," says the man who, allegedly, caused a woman to need stitches.
If fame blurred his judgement to the point where women were voiceless vessels, isn't it only fitting that fame is what's being taken away from him as he reckons with what to do with his third act?
Chris Noth's new job is modelling suits. The brand who employed him insists they didn't pay him for his work. He's also been doing some small-town theatre in Britain. Spruiking a card game on Instagram.
It must be difficult. It must be humiliating.
And it must be gratifying for the women with the scars who no longer have to see his face on billboards and screens all over their worlds.
RIP, Mr Big.
Image: Instagram/@chrisnothofficial/NBC/HBO.
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