What Happened to Skipper on Sex and the City?

HBO

Throughout six seasons of Sex and the City the main foursome had a ton of flings, but only a handful of their relationships lasted longer than an episode or two. Carrie had Aidan, Berger, and Big, Charlotte had Trey and Harry, and so on. All of these were definitively resolved, save for one — Miranda's love affair with Skipper Johnston.

Played by Ben Weber, Skipper was a 27-year-old "website creator" who debuted in the pilot and appeared throughout season one, then vanished without explanation after popping up in one last episode in late season two. Miranda had crushed Skipper's heart into a million pieces by that point (recall the time he broke up with a woman mid-coitus just because Miranda called), but this was still unusual because he'd been introduced as a friend of Carrie's and not a love interest. The only other recurring Carrie friend introduced in the pilot is Stanford Blatch, and he made it not only to the end of the series but to both movies as well. So what happened to Skipper?

HBO

Skipper as introduced in the pilot.

"I don’t know," says Ben Weber, who now lives in Los Angeles. "It's sort of a mystery. I have tried to figure this out." He thinks it may have something to do with the fact that the show closed in its on main foursome very quickly after the show began, but that still doesn't account for the way Carrie seemingly cut him out of her life for no reason. Is this just another case of Carrie being The Worst?

"I thought Skipper was adorable," says Susan Seidelman, who directed the show's pilot and two other season-one episodes. "He was a really nice counterpoint to Miranda's no-nonsense behavior, him being so romantic and such a cuddly, teddy-bear kind of guy. Maybe [the writers] felt like that was not a relationship that was going to last too long because they were so different...I don't know!"

Susan is right in her assessment of Miranda and Skipper's compatibility — Miranda would have eaten him alive — but surely some kind of excuse could have been given for his disappearance. If Stanford suddenly stopped participating in Carrie's life, she'd mention it at brunch, right? "Stanford moved to L.A.," she'd whine, probably hijacking someone else's attempt to talk about vulvodynia or whatever. "I can't believe he left me!" Couldn't she have done the same for Skipper?

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, author of Sex and the City and Us, believes Skipper got canned along with some of the show's earlier conventions — breaking the fourth wall, man on the street interviews — as it evolved into more of a dramedy. "The reason he sticks in my head a little bit is that the scene Cynthia Nixon did for her audition is the one with him where she says something like, 'Keep your hands where I can see them,'" says Jennifer, noting that she learned this bit of info while doing research for her book. "At least he gave us Cynthia Nixon!"

It's sort of a mystery. I have tried to figure this out.

Skipper sticks in other people's heads, too, and did so immediately after the pilot aired in 1998. "The next day I was walking down 57th Street," says Ben, "and a guy a in a business suit came right up to me and was like, 'You were on that show that was on HBO last night!' And I was like, 'Yeah, you watched that?!' I'd been in New York like six years at that point and I was like, 'I've made it! I've made it in New York.'" He says he still occasionally gets recognized as Skipper, by a very "specific" type of person, and recently did a little reminiscing about the show when he starred in last year's Manhunt: Unabomber with fellow SATC alum Chris Noth. "We had all of our scenes together," says Ben. "We lived next to each other [during filming], we went to the gym together, we went out. It was like college all over again."

As for what Skipper would be doing had he made it to the series finale or a potential Sex and the City 3, Ben and Susan are mostly in agreement about his career path. "Total Bitcoin billionaire," jokes Ben. Susan thinks he'd be living in Silicon Valley, probably working for a company like Apple, dating a woman his own age (Miranda, you'll recall, was several years older than he was).

Ben's also sure about one last thing — no amount of heartbreak would stop Skipper from voting for Cynthia Nixon for governor. "He'd be doing voter registration drives outside the Whole Foods."

Sex and the City turns 20 on June 6. Read more anniversary articles here.