Take Three: The Affair

The Affair: Season 1, Episode 3 (B+)

It’s difficult to find a vantage point from which to approach this show since it’s near impossible to piece together the events as told by Noah and by Allison into one coherent narrative. What’s fascinating, however, is the way in which they perceive their own marriages, both jumping their spouses in the middle of the night and telling them not to wake up. In both cases, it’s the other who is the aggressor, though we see how this affair truly got started as Noah overcomes his desire not to keep the relationship going and Allison approaches that same line of thinking, each in their own version of events. I’m not usually impressed by a framing device like the one being used to tell these stories, but so far it seems to be paying off since this town is quite interesting. Noah continues to clash with his in-laws in a big way, and Helen clearly knows that this is something that’s destined not to change, resigned to playing peacekeeper and not expecting anything different from her husband or her parents. At the same time, Cole showed a passionate side of himself that we haven’t seen before, standing up to rail against Oscar’s proposed expansion with a stirring speech in which he invoked the memory of his dead son. We don’t yet know who got murdered, and it’s hard to believe that it would be Cole (I suspect it’s his brother), but I’m sure that things will only continue to intensify as the season progresses.