THE CARRIE DIARIES: Amy B. Harris on Tackling the AIDS Epidemic, Relationship Tension, and More

It’s Valentine’s Day on THE CARRIE DIARIES, but it won’t be all hearts and roses for our favorite characters. In fact, a few relationships will face some of their biggest tests yet.

“Well, I think this week’s episode is obviously a big one for Walt and Bennet, with a lot of dramatic underpinnings,” THE CARRIE DIARIES creator Amy B. Harris teased. “For me, I think using Valentine’s Day as a place to expose the conventions of love often bump up against the realities of love, was a very exciting for me with all the storylines, but obviously, for Walt and Bennet, this is a big one. And it’s something we’ve been very eager to lead up to, which is if you’re by the gay community in New York in the ’80s, the AIDS epidemic is obviously a part of that universe.”

As Walt and Bennet deal with life-or-death issues, Carrie and Sebastian struggle to figure out their own future, as Mr. Kydd ponders whether to get into business with a young Tony Hawk.

“What we’ve loved about the hindsight of 1986, and knowing that someone like Tony Hawk is a huge business man in skateboarding culture and created moguls and clothing empires, is that [Walt] may be on to something,” Harris noted. “It may be a pipe dream, but it could be something that is very special for himself. For Carrie, what I think they’ll be struggling with as the season goes on is that he hasn’t had much of a life in Connecticut beyond her; he’s gotten kicked out of a bunch of schools, he’s a bit of a floater, and Carrie was the grounding element. And what happens when the position is not necessarily reversed, but he starts to have his own interests in life? How will Carrie feel about that?”

Unfortunately for Carrie, she won’t be able to lean on her friends as much as she might like: in addition to Walt’s troubles, Maggie impulsively makes a huge life choice…and then immediately regrets it and has to figure out how to get herself out of her latest bind.

“I think when you’re lost and you don’t know where you’re going and someone comes from a very strong point of view about what your future could look like, sometimes that sounds like a fun thing to sign up for,” Harris acknowledged with a laugh. “Sadly for Maggie, I think it’s the wrong choice. So, she has to fix things, but she has this strange rag-tag team of friends to help her fix things. And a surprising help in that in Donna.”

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Check back for more from Harris after tonight’s episode about what went down and what comes next!

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