The Carrie Diaries Gets Serious With AIDS Crisis Storyline

Photo: Bennett (left) and Walt

CW's Sex and the City prequel series, The Carrie Diaries, will begin to explore the impact the AIDS epidemic had on the New York City gay community in its latest episode, titled "Date Expectations." The show focuses on Walt, Carrie Bradshaw's gay best friend, who discovers that his boyfriend Bennett's ex-boyfriend has been diagnosed with AIDS and is dying.

"We felt a huge responsibility having the show set in the '80s in New York, in a world that has a very present gay community, that we [would] explore what that would mean," executive producer Amy B. Harris told Zap2it. "We felt like it was the right time to really talk about how different the gay life was in 1986 than today where having kids, marriage, the white picket fence, was not something that was even considered a possibility."

Harris promises this is only the beginning of the journey for Walt and Bennett as the two together overcome the fear of getting tested, but their individual results will take the characters in different directions.

"What I love about doing this show is that we've been able to tell bigger and more impactful stories about that time in history," he explained. "And I hope we've done it in a way that doesn't feel like anything more than just good storytelling. I like that we're able to reveal things from that time period."

The Carrie Diaries airs Fridays at 8 p.m. on the CW. Watch a clip below: