Additional Fatal Fitness Crazes Had The Sex and the City Reunion Show Happened Sooner
Immediate spoilers for the first episode of the SATC reunion show
I hadn’t planned on watching the new Sex and the City reunion show, And Just Like That…, until yesterday, when I was spoiled for the death of Mr. Big on a Peloton bike because Peloton issued a press release (!) arguing that, if anything, riding a Peloton (!!) probably prolonged his (fictional) life (!!!).
And just like that, “Mr. Big dies on a Peloton” became my new “cellar door.” It’s so tawdry! So affective! “I can’t believe Mr. Big died on a Peloton” felt like a throwaway line from a half-hearted Sex and the City SNL sketch, or a placeholder script note that “we’ll change later, obviously, but just leave it there for now, something buzzy and unexpected.” I was suddenly immersed in a future where brands argue on social media about the risky lifestyles of pretend boyfriends, and I loved it. I wanted more. “Ted Lasso had a documented history of panic attacks, which can be sometimes be mistaken for cardiac events, and the same is true in reverse; if anything, Bagel Bites prolonged his life,” etc.
There was a whiff of desperation, too, like the writers simply could not imagine what a conversation between Carrie and Mr. Big might sound like, such that even after keeping them apart for most of the two movies, the prospect of putting them in a scene together felt so daunting that they just said, “No, he’ll die on a Peloton instead.”
Mr. Big is such a magnificent and ridiculous figure. His name is Mr. Big!!! He rides around in limousines and has a mighty zeppelin of a head, such that he looks like 007 in DK Mode in the old Goldeneye games, Jack Donaghy before Jack Donaghy. He had no friends. He lived in towncars, like Tom Hanks lived in an airport terminal in The Terminal, and only emerged once every hundred years to disappoint women, like a more sexist Brigadoon. As mysterious as Carmen Sandiego, a perfect double for Teddy Roosevelt from the neck down, an entirely out-of-place artifact whose mere presence on Sex and the City was a tonal and logistical paradox. Mr. Big and Carrie together was like if a beautiful robin redbreast fell in love with the Antikythera mechanism, a romance worthy of Hans Christian Andersen.
He was a grand old steamship of a man, who required multiple tugboats and six hours of changing lock levels just to tow him into Carrie’s storyline. He could never have died on a merely generic exercise bike. It had to be a Peloton that killed him, or nothing. Nothing but the top of the line would do.
CHARLOTTE [reading the obituaries aloud]: He died on a Peloton. Well, that’s tacky.
CARRIE [weeping]: No, that’s Big.
“He should have died hereafter, on a NordicTrak.”
Anyhow, here are the popular fitness and social trends of the last eighteen years that I think might have killed Mr. Big had they released the reunion show sooner. I hope you enjoyed their zeitgeisty poignance, and imagine Carrie announcing each one with heavy, grand-guignol sincerity:
2003: “Mr. Big died last night in a flash mob. So why did I feel like I was the one getting crushed?”
2004: “Mr Big is dead. I just found him collapsed over the Ab Roller.”
2005: “I came home last night to P90X looping on the TiVO, and Mr. Big wasn’t moving. Not even plyometrically.”
2006: “After so many years battling it out in matters of the heart, in the end, it was the battling ropes that decided the outcome. I tried CPR…as many rounds as possible…but he had lifted to failure.”
2007: “Mr. Big died playing Guitar Hero.”
2008: “Ironic, isn’t it? Wii Fit is the reason there’s no more we fit.”
2009: “He died during a Zombie Run. I used to think the only thing that would get him to run was commitment. I guess I was wrong.”
2010: “Mr. Big died in a freak planking accident.” [Samantha, distantly, from London] “Normally when a man lies down in front of me and imitates a plank of wood, it’s a good thing.”
2011: Dancing With The Stars.
2012: Zumba. “He was supposed to learn how to merengue, not pass away.”
2013: Google Glass, walked off a bridge during a phone call. “With those glasses on, I could never tell if he was looking at me or through me. And he could never tell if he was about to step over the edge of a bridge.”
2014: Ice bucket challenge. “I used to think there was nothing colder than Mr. Big’s heart. Now I know better.”
2015: Cinnamon challenge. “Talk about spicing up the bedroom!”
2016: Posting a haul video. I’m not sure. Some of these years are harder than others.
2017: “Mr. Big was killed in a Trainer Battle this morning while playing Pokémon GO.” [Miranda] “See? That’s what happens when you try to make it work with a man who’s obsessed with ‘catching them all.’”
2018: Tide Pods? I don’t know. Evil workout mirror. It’s hard to identify faddishness in the recent past. Mr. Big’s Peloton bike was shot down over the Sea of Japan. It spun in. There were no survivors. (Also, Radar O’Reilly looked an awful lot like Steve Brady, which is not exactly germane, but feels important to mention here.)
I was not ready for references to Macbeth or M*A*S*H* on this review of Sex and The City, nossir