What I’m Watching: The Affair

The Affair: Season 4, Episode 5 (B+)

I knew that we were headed for this, and while I had thought it would be especially cool to have an episode that was split between Vik and Luisa’s perspectives for the first time, having Vik’s take followed by Cole’s made a lot more sense because the paths they took were quite similar. We’ve only ever really seen Vik as portrayed through Helen’s eyes, doing his best to support her and be understanding when she was far too accommodating to the nightmare ex who actually went to jail for her, and who then wanted Helen to have a baby by herself when he wasn’t going to seek treatment for his pancreatic cancer. But digging into his past and the fact that he’s done so much for others and nothing for him almost justified his impulse purchase of a fancy car (I have to imagine that the credit card he dropped was really fancy since I’ve found that in real life it’s not so easy to buy a car with a credit card) and his inevitable sleeping with Sierra, who wanted to fuel what seemed like a midlife crisis before realizing just how close to the end of his life he actually was. Cole’s self-exploration wasn’t a very pleasant journey, and the woman his father loved played by Amy Irving didn’t appear to be helping when she encouraged him to be distracted by Delphine. She wasn’t ever really the one taking his attention, and realizing that he doesn’t feel the way about Luisa that he does about Alison is important. It’s going to blow up in his face with both of them, since Luisa is going to be furious about the time she invested in the relationship and Alison may not feel the same way about him, especially since the way in which he’ll try to get rid of Ben probably won’t go well.