Mayday

I wonder if the writing deficits that crept into the later episodes are linked to the departure of Hagai Levi, half-way through the series. I can't help but think that he would have maintained a much tighter focus. Until I read this piece I hadn't realised that he had quit the show. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4607929,00.html

While Helen's insistence on pursuing Scotty was very likey, as Higgs suggests, misplaced anger about an older man bedding a younger woman and did indeed show a degree of obliviousness to the impact on her her daughter, I do think it pales in comparison to Noah's obliviousness towards his wife and daughter when he rushed to comfort Alison in the aftermath of what must have been a terrifying experience for them and which was an indirect consequence of their affair. And, of course, if he had told Helen that Scotty was the father rather than deciding to take that moment to tell her that he didn't "want this life" and wanted to leave (sometime), perhaps they might have been able to have an adult conversation and make a more measured decision together.

What I find amusing is that although Helen may like expensive shampoo and her daughter may have some French clothes, she dresses quite casually and is generally unadorned, yet the future Alison is dressed from head to toe in expensive gear, with a sharp haircut. I'll wager that she has designer shampoo now. As to Noah not telling Helen that Scotty was the father, I think that was as others have said, because he was a Lockhart (it's more or less the first thing he tells Max) and was, no doubt, aware that the link to the Lockharts could open many more cans of drug-dealing worms in which Alison was directly implicated. Of course, the reality was that in that moment, he was totally pre-occupied with his own needs and not his daughter's or his wife's.