S05.E09: Episode 9

[PrincessPurrsALot]

As controversy swirls around Noah, Helen and Whitney must decide where their allegiances lie.

Original air date 2019.10.20

More Noah drama!  Was he a creeper or were all the women mysteriously attracted to his magical unicorn dick? 

[LoveLeigh]

It is a long episode. I was bored.

This series is just trudging to the final episode. They dropped Joanie like a hot potato. I hated the Ben monologue crap, but at least it was something new. Now they shoe horned in the LA fires. 

This all now just seems tired and old and stale. It veered so far off the track. It seems the shelf life for this series is over.

[Stad15]

I liked the Noah-Helen argument in her car.

Helen is starting to find out about the real Sasha!  Exactly Helen, Sasha's agent knows the Vanity Fair interviewer lady.

I was cheering Whitney when she was defending her family against the former student on the plane, but hated her again when at the end.

The Eden on the Busy Phillipps Show was kinda cringey, but Helen saw that Eden was lying.

7/10

[cardigirl]

Thought this episode was an interesting discussion about #METOO. Even though I should be all about the women, I still wanted to punch that girl on the plane in the face. Ugh.

[NeenerNeener]

2 hours ago, Stad15 said:

I was cheering Whitney when she was defending her family against the former student on the plane, but hated her again when at the end.

Yeah, Whitney was a headstrong brat long before she knew about Noah and Alison. She can't rightfully blame her parents for anything except spoiling her.

Edited October 20, 2019 by NeenerNeener

[weaver]

The second half was a series of Ted talks put in characters’ mouths. That long dialogue by Audrey Nelson on the plane was tedious.  Now Whitney has translated that to explain her whole life and her own bad decisions taking no responsibility for herself.  

Was the whole character of Colin changed in a single scene?   Now he is this loving caring artist who doesn’t expect dinner to be on the table when he comes home.  And btw to the writer who wrote Colin’s dialogue, Ireland has some rather serious problems too. 

I dont think Treem will ever redeem Noah.  I think a Treem thinks the way Audrey Nelson thinks.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she kills him off at this point.  Then we’ll be left with the question of what was Noah really like?  

I wish Treem had stuck to the original story and stuck with the characters she had developed to date.  

Oh,  nice that they remembered that Priya existed.  

Edited October 20, 2019 by weaver

[preeya]

8 minutes ago, weaver said:

Was the whole character of Colin changed in a single scene?   Now he is this loving caring artist who doesn’t expect dinner to be on the table when he comes home.  

But he "hates this godforsaken country."  Then he should take his spoiled brat, cheating girlfriend/wife and LEAVE.

[mxc90]

Wow! Now it's convenient for Sierra call Priya for help! 

Good job Sasha! You have pushed her back to Noah.

Helen proposed to ditch school for the movies and the kids wanted none of it.

How long has Helen been divorced from Noah? Did she need to lose her job over this and all those moms staring at her?

The way Busy Philipps said "forward" bothered me.

Surprised the police haven't blocked the road (with that low visibility) or maybe Sasha has deep connections, promised them a part in his next movie and they allowed Helen to drive through.

Furkat (of all people) called Noah a massive prick?! Thanks for the good laugh!!

The woman sitting next to Whitney had the right idea wearing the noise cancelling headphones.

Colin you can do better. He took the news about her cheating well!

Per Colin: "it's really late". What time does ice cream shops close in California? 

Edited October 20, 2019 by mxc90

[weaver]

2 hours ago, mxc90 said:

Wow! Now it's convenient for Sierra call Priya for help! 

Good job Sasha! You have pushed her back to Noah.

Helen proposed to ditch school for the movies and the kids wanted none of it.

How long has Helen been divorced from Noah? Did she need to lose her job over this and all those moms staring at her?

The way Busy Philipps said "forward" bothered me.

Surprised the police haven't blocked the road (with that low visibility) or maybe Sasha has deep connections, promised them a part in his next movie and they allowed Helen to drive through.

Furkat (of all people) called Noah a massive prick?! Thanks for the good laugh!!

The woman sitting next to Whitney had the right idea wearing the noise cancelling headphones.

Colin you can do better. He took the news about her cheating well!

Per Colin: "it's really late", What time does ice cream shops close in California? 

Oh yeah, I forgot Helen’s being fired because of the Noah scandal.   And she didn’t even say “what has that got to do with me,” or that said firing was illegal.

Edited October 20, 2019 by weaver

[Snewtsie]

4 hours ago, weaver said:

The second half was a series of Ted talks put in characters’ mouths. That long dialogue by Audrey Nelson on the plane was tedious.  Now Whitney has translated that to explain her whole life and her own bad decisions taking no responsibility for herself. 

I hated that, too. A real misuse of the #metoo movement. Sometimes we make bad decisions and there is no one to blame but ourselves. Sometimes people are jerks to us, and as a result we have to grow a thicker skin and become stronger. Sometimes people get horny & it's not reciprocated and there is no harm done.  This doesn't give us license to accuse someone of sexual assault, coercion, & abuse. I hated that Treem ended the scene with Audrey's words resonating with Whitney. I feel like Treem is dismissing the seriousness of the #metoo movement and using it as a way to show innocent people's lives are being ruined when accusers use #metoo carelessly. While that may be true, but it's undermining the countless horrific abuses of power that occured. 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, mxc90 said:

Did she need to lose her job over this and all those moms staring at her?

OMG I can't with this. If anything people would feel sorry for her -- much like they did with Matt Lauer's wife. Even Georgina Chapman's business survived after the Weinstein revelations were brought to light. Worse still, Helen is Noah's EX wife. Why would she be on the hook for anything?!

And I don't remember much of the hot tub episode, but Noah wasn't looking at anyone there like prey--wasn't it pretty much an orgy scene? I mean, I could get giving him the side eye if he were doing it at a spa -- but it was an orgy. That's what people go to orgies for, isn't it?

And I'm sorry that the college girl got her feelings hurt by Noah. It sucks. But her accusations seem more like a #payback than they do of a #metoo. 

Keep circling the drain show. 

[scrb]

Helen's world blew up overnight from one Vanity Fair article?

Noah had one hit, he would not be getting this kind of media coverage, with Google sending alerts about him.

Ridiculous that she lost her job and the parents at school are all winking at each other.

So there's Eden and this Audrey girl who wanted to fuck Noah but complained because he didn't fuck her or compliment her enough.

That becomes a big #MeToo scandal?  

And Eden is on the next day on some casual talk show, giggling about her sexual harassment case while lounging on the divan of that talk show set?

Soft-headed Whitney becomes convinced by Audrey (BTW, the quietest plane ever!) and now looks for reasons to believe Noah is bad to women.  First he cheated on her mother, left her family and then he also showed up in the hot tub at that party where she was trying to hook up with some other girl.

Noah looks at women a certain way!

I can kind of get on board with them having reckoning with what Noah did to his family, particularly the children.  But it's a copout for her to blame Noah and Helen for her bad choices in men.  She's going to blame Furkat on them?

They had seasons and seasons to litigate how he messed up his children with The Affair.  But as the show drags its tail almost to the finish line, Whitney is going to bring it up?

In any event, those kids sucked before he left the family.  And we saw it with that punk son at Sasha's place.  Maybe they will all have bad relationships.

That party, people were hooking up all over and he thought he'd get lucky, didn't recognize  Whitney.  That makes him some kind of sexual predator?

They gave Whitney a POV segment just to put Noah on trial once again.  Meanwhile, Colin wins over Whitney with a portrait he's been doing of her.  She has a big blowup with her parents about the #MeToo and then goes back into her bedroom to look at it again.

No, nobody is surprised in the least that she's narcissistic.

[Mindthinkr]

23 minutes ago, scrb said:

Meanwhile, Colin wins over Whitney with a portrait he's been doing of her.  

I thought that was an interesting portrait of Whitney. Lots of times actors take a momento from working on a project. I hope Julia Telles gets that piece of art. 

[DoubleUTeeEff]

Furkat...wow. Just wow. He basically told Whitney that he didn't love her enough to hit her. That's just...I have no words.

Eden...spends a few minutes belittling Helen and then says she doesn't want to belittle her. That seemed to be a turning point for Helen. As soon as Helen is thrown under the bus, Eden is full of shit.

I mean, Sasha isn't wrong but he's still an asshole. It seems like he used what Helen told him about Eden to try and denigrate Noah as a serial cheater but it blew up into something else. Did he think he was going to ruin Noah just from Noah being an adulterer? That doesn't seem realistic to me. His entire book is about cheating for crying out loud. I guess everything worked out in Sasha's favor once Eden told her story. I'm still not sure if we are supposed to believe Eden and the student teacher. And who are the other 3 women? If 6 women (well 5, since Audrey doesn't count as sexual assault) are willing to tell their stories, I tend to believe it but here it's supposed to be some sort of gray area. I really think they are doing a disservice to the #metoo movement. Yes, a false accusation is horrible but most of the time, it's a true accusation and still we have trouble believing it. That's kind of the point. This whole plot line is so garbled and not in the way they want it to be. I think they want to portray this whole thing with nuance and instead nothing makes sense. Also, I can't get over that the thing with Eden was supposed to have happened 10 years ago but if that were true, Stacey would be much older now.

When Whitney told Colin that she didn't want to marry him, I was all YES! You two should NOT be getting married. But then Colin instantly forgave Whitney and showed her his wonderful piece of art and they're all happy again. Yikes.

Whitney turning on her dad seemed to be a way to try and punish him for breaking up their family. That's pretty immature. And it's another sign that she shouldn't be getting married.

Ugh...two more episodes? I'll slog it out until the end but so far, I hate that they're ending the series this way.

[preeya]

16 minutes ago, DoubleUTeeEff said:

Ugh...two more episodes? I'll slog it out until the end but so far, I hate that they're ending the series this way.

For all intents and purpose its likely already ended. You can't put 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag.

[DiabLOL]

A bizarre episode written by a horny heartbroken 13 yo boy. 

Each scene was more surreal than the one before. WTF was the point of the scene with Furkat? Was he having a psychotic break? 

[nara]

7 hours ago, Giant Misfit said:

OMG I can't with this. If anything people would feel sorry for her -- much like they did with Matt Lauer's wife. Even Georgina Chapman's business survived after the Weinstein revelations were brought to light. Worse still, Helen is Noah's EX wife. Why would she be on the hook for anything?!

And I don't remember much of the hot tub episode, but Noah wasn't looking at anyone there like prey--wasn't it pretty much an orgy scene? I mean, I could get giving him the side eye if he were doing it at a spa -- but it was an orgy. That's what people go to orgies for, isn't it?

And I'm sorry that the college girl got her feelings hurt by Noah. It sucks. But her accusations seem more like a #payback than they do of a #metoo. 

Keep circling the drain show. 

Actually, I think most businesses don’t want to be associated with a scandal. It’s completely unfair to Helen, but it doesn’t surprise me.  I actually think it might be a missed opportunity too because some people would hire them just to gossip with “the wife” in the scandal du jour.

I don’t think the party was an orgy. I think Whitney was kissing a girl, but otherwise not having sex with anyone else. And I think it’s pretty natural that the conversation with Audrey would suddenly take her back to that moment. She would no longer see it as “super awkward run in with my dad “ and now through adult eyes see it as “my dad’s modus operandi with young women”. That would be a shocking realization to her.

******

I really liked Audrey and Whitney’s conversation. And I think 2 things can both be true—Noah was unnecessarily demeaning to her and she’s pissed that she was attracted to a man who didn’t return her interest. Noah’s role was a teacher should have made his criticism more constructive AND Audrey needed to grow a thicker skin if she wanted to be an author. I think Noah should have lost his teaching job because of behavior, but not necessarily his book and movie.

However, he did leave that woman naked /topless at a children’s party, and he didn’t think twice about publicly humiliating her. So why should Audrey care about humiliating him when she’s telling her story? My understanding is that her book is about herself and it has a brief mention of Noah (unnamed). She didn’t lie about anything, I think, or accuse him of being anything other than a jerk who was demeaning to a young woman. I am curious about the 2 other women who have accused Noah of varying levels of bad behavior. So far, we have Audrey, Eden, the script manager, and the student teacher. Have there been hints about the others? One of them accused him of an actual assault right? That might be the one from college....

I also liked Whitney’s point about Noah’s behavior being normalized. I do think kids’ framework for what is normal in life does come from what they see their families do. It’s one of the reasons that abuse can be multigenerational. Whitney is also a whining, narcissistic brat, but that doesn’t mean she can’t have an insight every now and then. She has uncovered the cause of her seeking a relationship with Furkat, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t taking responsibility for making the decision to do so. In fact, I took her confession as a sign of a huge step forward in owning her choices. In my mind, finding a root cause and placing blame and two different things.

By they way, I continue to be outraged when they say Descent was 10 years earlier. That would make Whitney at least 27 and Stacey would have had to be an infant during the first Montauk visit.

Edited October 21, 2019 by nara
Edited because I was mistaken about preview comment

[chick binewski]

11 hours ago, weaver said:

The second half was a series of Ted talks put in characters’ mouths. That long dialogue by Audrey Nelson on the plane was tedious.  Now Whitney has translated that to explain her whole life and her own bad decisions taking no responsibility for herself.  

Was the whole character of Colin changed in a single scene?   Now he is this loving caring artist who doesn’t expect dinner to be on the table when he comes home.  And btw to the writer who wrote Colin’s dialogue, Ireland has some rather serious problems too. 

I dont think Treem will ever redeem Noah.  I think a Treem thinks the way Audrey Nelson thinks.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she kills him off at this point.  Then we’ll be left with the question of what was Noah really like?  

5 hours ago, Giant Misfit said:

I'm sorry that the college girl got her feelings hurt by Noah. It sucks. But her accusations seem more like a #payback than they do of a #metoo. 

4 hours ago, scrb said:

Soft-headed Whitney becomes convinced by Audrey (BTW, the quietest plane ever!) and now looks for reasons to believe Noah is bad to women.  

3 hours ago, DoubleUTeeEff said:

I mean, Sasha isn't wrong but he's still an asshole. It seems like he used what Helen told him about Eden to try and denigrate Noah as a serial cheater but it blew up into something else. Did he think he was going to ruin Noah just from Noah being an adulterer? That doesn't seem realistic to me.

I'd appreciate some of the comments Audrey made about having to navigate through a lot of bullshit but...she chose to align herself with a story about sexual assault when she was promoting her own book so it felt like complete crap. And again, Noah was the one who got her away from freaking Furcat in Paris. It doesn't make a lot of sense that Audrey's attitude would sway her so much.

One (more) frustrating thing about this season is Noah & Helen always did stupid things, but they were never unintelligent people. Between Noah taking every wrong step since he found out about the story (including not being candid with Helen when the reporter had already called her) and Helen not seeing Sasha's bs from a mile away (hey, I'm sure he's totally not gaslighting his ex's daughter!), I don't recognize these characters. 

Busy's show was cancelled for a reason and idk why they made us watch so much of it. Also, folks? Helen worked so hard for that job that she lost! Apparently zero education and no experience = hard work!

[HC87]

Did that feel like 3 hours long to anyone else?

Continually (I don't know why) amazed at how bad the writing/acting is this season.

Where is the 4th Solloway kid now? I forget.

[nara]

18 minutes ago, HC87 said:

Where is the 4th Solloway kid now? I forget.

He had the good sense to leave the s—t show that is his family. But really, college. Of course, this makes no sense because he must be 23 or so by now...

[ScoobieDoobs]

7 hours ago, Snewtsie said:

I hated that, too. A real misuse of the #metoo movement. Sometimes we make bad decisions and there is no one to blame but ourselves. Sometimes people are jerks to us, and as a result we have to grow a thicker skin and become stronger. Sometimes people get horny & it's not reciprocated and there is no harm done.  This doesn't give us license to accuse someone of sexual assault, coercion, & abuse. I hated that Treem ended the scene with Audrey's words resonating with Whitney. I feel like Treem is dismissing the seriousness of the #metoo movement and using it as a way to show innocent people's lives are being ruined when accusers use #metoo carelessly. While that may be true, but it's undermining the countless horrific abuses of power that occured. 

I hate what Treem did here with this MeToo stuff.  It's not a complete fake & yet it is.  Er, huh?  It's enough to destroy a man's reputation, career and his life.  OK, don't look to me to defend Noah, but does Treem want to rip him apart before our eyes?  It's kinda gross.  Shit, he wasn't Matt Lauer or Charlie Rose or Weinstein.

Yeah, I heard a lot of "MeToo-speak" from a really creepy Eden & that annoying Audrey.  And yet it seemed like a lot of hot air & babble & nothing.  It's like Treem has either no understanding or little to no compassion for MeToo.  Sorry, but Audrey was full of crap.  We saw Audrey & the way she behaved in Noah's class  And Eden was full of crap too.

It seemed like Whitney understood what Audrey was really about on the plane -- and then she does that total turn-around on Noah later?  WTF???  OK, I still think Colin is a freeloading bum & he got some poor student to do that pic.  Hey, Colin, one pic doesn't mean ya got any talent -- if ya love Ireland so much, go back & if not, get a fucking job, instead of living off Whitney.

Wow, that was a quick wrap-up to the Sierra & Eddie story.  Is that it for them?  Hopefully, we won't be seeing Furkat ever again . . . please?

Uh, so Whit, you left out a teensy-weensy deet in relaying that story about Noah mistakenly hitting on you, hun -- that you were making out with a chick at the time.  Why not not share it all?  Helen thinks she's such a cool mom!  And Trevor certainly wouldn't be shocked . . .

[LibertarianSlut]

I didn't get Eden on Busy Phillips. Didn't she say she had to give up her career that she'd worked so hard for, after encountering Noah? So what was she doing marketing herself at that party with Sasha? Handing out her Avon card?

[PrincessPurrsALot]

This episode could have been trimmed by a good 20 minutes.  Will this show never end?  I feel like I am aging with every episode. 

[ScoobieDoobs]

You know, when Whitney said she could tell what a predator Noah is cuz of the way he looked when he mistakenly hit on her, I screamed at my TV -- THIS IS SUCH FUCKING BULLSHIT!

Noah has NEVER been a predator.  Is Treem gaslighting us or what?  Did we EVER see Noah grab at women who were saying no to him?  NO!  WTF with this shit, Treem?

Btw, Audrey's speech on the plane was putting me to sleep.  I don't know what the fuck she was saying & I couldn't care less.  But by the end of her speech, it was sounding like a sum-up of what just happened with Whitney.  Uh, what?  C'mon, Treem, you really can't get your writers to make any sense, can you?

So Sasha is a shithead.  Wow, that was a real hard one to call, eh?  Er, did Helen design his place?  Meh.

[T Summer]

I know many here are sick of seeing Noah shunned  and blamed but I didn't mind. I actually really liked this episode.

Who gave Sierra a brain? Maybe her postpardom depression gave her brain fog and it suddenly lifted.

We know Eden acting afraid of Noah at the bookstore last week was  total BS, but to truly know if Noah pressured her into anything we'd have  to have seen her POV contrasted with Noah's back then. I'm going with No, because she was overbearing and intrusive to the point of ridiculousness. These writers can't do subtlety to save their souls. He was ready to get a room with Eden at the producer's party though (confirmed in the therapy session with Marilyn),  before the sight of his own daughter freaked him out. I didn't see orgies going on there, but when the sight of two young women making out caught his eye it looked like it could've even been Eden before the one girl turned her head revealing herself to be Whitney!

Hearing Audrey's POV she 100% described what her professor did.  Noah shouldn't have taken a teaching position   if he hadn't worked through his own trauma over having been incarcerated. It isn't right  to invalidate a student's writing aspirations, just because HE thinks a young college age woman  wouldn't have anything to say that he would want to read or that would rise to the level of serious literature to him. Wasn't he lamenting being branded a pulp novelist? That's why she was studying literature and creative writing in school, as Noah did decades  prior. Didn't hear him say anything like that to any of his male students. Quite the opposite. I think of the lengths he went to to draw Anton out and get him engaged.

Everything Audrey said Whitney 100% got and had experienced on the way to the freaking plane, yet! Treem and team make their points with all the subtlety of an anvil to the head, as has been pointed out again and again on this board. She spared poor Whit the part where he not only put a scene that could be interpreted as  rape  in his book, but he discussed it with students saying a woman need not consent to sex to enjoy it.

The sex with the student teacher was an abuse of power, that one he admitted to. In the  s2  ep where we see him in the rubber room he's with a few other women who possibly are students; for sure they were half his age. In reality no real person would be this one dimensional  and never ever grow, but that's how Noah is written. He can even speak the words to Whitney he's trying to protect her from men like him and go right on checking for women his daughter's age. Just as Furcat could never get over on someone his own age, Noah continually makes use of the same dynamic; his being a skilled practiced    liar and manipulator vs their inexperience. Also, Noah never ever admits to the truth "this isn't turning into some kind of me too story, is it?" until he's completely boxed in and can  do nothing else.

He told Ariel he examined why he does what he does in the book Jack Hunter, yet he hasn't changed one iota. His comments like the one to the V.F. writer "come on you're an intelligent woman" revealed that. I don't think Noah is a rapist, but he is a self-centered user who fundamentally doesn't respect women.

Throw in emotional tyrant too. I'm sick of Noah  blaming Helen for him going to jail! 1.That night Helen said she couldn't drive  because she'd had too much to drink and Noah  insisted 2. Alison pushed Scotty into the road 3. Noah picked then to touch Helen's arm and look into her eyes while she was driving 4. Helen paid for a whole  defense  lawyer but Noah  never listens to anyone. Even though Helen shouldn't have driven, I'd say a large share   of the responsibility was his and some was Alison's too. When Helen blurted out I killed Scott Lockheart!  to Vik. Well, that wasn't the whole truth. He continues to use this I went to jail for a crime I didn't commit line with Helen even now. (Plus he never told Helen of Alison's involvement, she had to learn it from her).

...and now he blames Helen  drinking and getting him drunk for Eden ending up in his room? What a loathsome individual.

He can be all that and still care about his own offspring, though.

Why did Trevor and Stacy's phones go to voice mail, not allowing Helen or Noah to reach them? Nothing in this ep has warmed me the forshadowed Noah / Helen reunion. Run Helen!

[Songbird]

I’m remembering when Allison had left Noah to work on his marriage in season 2, but he showed up unexpectedly at the new age/hippie retreat in the country she was at with her mother. He pushed her against a tree and forcefully had sex with her from behind. She didn’t want to, but he did it anyway. It truly was a rape and he had no respect for Allison saying no. I’ve always seen him as a narcissistic predator type ever since that scene....

[Toodleoo]

I bugged out of the show two episodes ago but still read the threads here to see if it was a good decision. Y’all are definitely reaffirming that it was.

A pox on all your houses, Treem.

[stormy weather]

15 hours ago, scrb said:

They had seasons and seasons to litigate how he messed up his children with The Affair.  But as the show drags its tail almost to the finish line, Whitney is going to bring it up?

In any event, those kids sucked before he left the family.

Yes exactly, those kids sucked before he left the family, and I think it's high time everyone stopped blaming Noah for every little thing that they feel went wrong in their life. Sometimes this show seems to forget how privileged and lucky these kids were to begin with, which makes their whining and overreacting even more grating. So what? Daddy left mommy for another woman that he subsequently married? It happens more often than you imagine so get over it. And in most cases the aforementioned daddy doesn't go to jail for 3 years to cover mommy's ass and doesn't bend over backwards to still be present in his children's life and be a good father to them. So hold your tears Whitney, I can assure you there's people in the world who had it much, much worse than you guys. 

13 hours ago, DoubleUTeeEff said:

I mean, Sasha isn't wrong but he's still an asshole. It seems like he used what Helen told him about Eden to try and denigrate Noah as a serial cheater but it blew up into something else. Did he think he was going to ruin Noah just from Noah being an adulterer? That doesn't seem realistic to me. His entire book is about cheating for crying out loud. I guess everything worked out in Sasha's favor once Eden told her story.

He used what Helen said to denigrate Noah as a sex offender, not a serial cheater, which not only is not true, but, like many others have pointed out, is damaging for the image of the whole #metoo movement, because it puts in the same category women who have really been victims of vicious sexual assaults and women whose professor in college told them they have no talent and should direct their time and energy towards some other activity (which is something which ANYONE who's been to college knows happens on a regular basis and could also be taken as useful advice). And whether Sasha was aware of this or not, Eden jumped on the bandwagon because she wanted publicity and money (just like Audrey with her book), which once again doesn't do any favors to the stereotype of working women and women in general. 

Adding to that, the fact that Helen lost her job because of the "scandal" surrounding Noah would be absurd IRL. "Man screws up so even though the #metoo movement is all about the exact opposite thing, we'll just punish the woman because HIS actions reflect poorly on her and on our business."  

10 hours ago, nara said:

I really liked Audrey and Whitney’s conversation. And I think 2 things can both be true—Noah was unnecessarily demeaning to her and she’s pissed that she was attracted to a man who didn’t return her interest. Noah’s role was a teacher should have made his criticism more constructive AND Audrey needed to grow a thicker skin if she wanted to be an author. I think Noah should have lost his teaching job because of behavior, but not necessarily his book and movie.

Okay, Noah was demeaning to her, but who's to say he hasn't been just as demeaning to a male student who, like Audrey, lacked talent and depth? I'm sorry but whichever way you look at it, this is NOT a story about denigrating women. If anything, it's about a university professor doing his job, which he absolutely should not have lost because of Audrey. This is not kindergarten anymore, where you get a gold star for gluing two sticks together, it's college, and if people are not strong enough to receive some heavy criticism, they are probably not ready for it altogether.

To add to the age discrepancy issue someone has already addressed, might I add that in this episode Whitney said Stacey is right now 12, and if the publication of Descent and the book tour that followed took place 10 years ago, that means that when Stacey was 2 Noah was already married to Allison (which he "almost" cheated on with Eden during such book tour), which in turn means that, if we assume that at the time of the book tour Allison and Noah had been together for a couple years, Stacey was 0 years old when she almost choked at the Lobster place in Montauk and Allison saved her life. I seem to recall she was at least 5. Saraaaaaaah!!!! Invest in a whiteboard and keep track of the timeline! 

[bobbyjoe]

 None of this is where the show should have gone in the last episodes of the series. 
 

What we should be seeing is the final fallout of the genuinely major strands of the series:  the affair that started this; Allison’s death; maybe Helen finally grappling with the fact Noah went to prison for her; etc.  The episode should at least have been working hard to link up the “future” Joanie storyline to the present Helen/Noah one so that that storytelling decision felt more relevant; instead we get a recently introduced “hot topic” storyline driven almost entirely by secondary characters, sometimes reeeeeeeeeaaaaally secondary characters:  Eden, Audrey, Sasha, Furkat.

Just guessing, but given its almost over what it feels like they’re about to do is to somehow use the future storyline to just quickly wrap everything up in some “tell rather than show” way (like maybe Joanie encounters the old age version of one of our characters and they’re like “and then what happened was...”) which is just seriously bad storytelling. 

[DoubleUTeeEff]

23 minutes ago, stormy weather said:

He used what Helen said to denigrate Noah as a sex offender, not a serial cheater, which not only is not true, but, like many others have pointed out, is damaging for the image of the whole #metoo movement, because it puts in the same category women who have really been victims of vicious sexual assaults and women whose professor in college told them they have no talent and should direct their time and energy towards some other activity (which is something which ANYONE who's been to college knows happens on a regular basis and could also be taken as useful advice). And whether Sasha was aware of this or not, Eden jumped on the bandwagon because she wanted publicity and money (just like Audrey with her book), which once again doesn't do any favors to the stereotype of working women and women in general. 

But how did Sasha know beforehand that Noah would be accused as a sex offender? All Helen told him was "I think Noah and Eden were sleeping together on his book tour." To me, that indicates a consensual affair. We are supposed to believe that from that information, Sasha called up his publisher and told him or her to contact the writer of the Vanity Fair article and tell her that. That's what I don't get.

[LoveLeigh]

1 hour ago, bobbyjoe said:

 None of this is where the show should have gone in the last episodes of the series. 
 

What we should be seeing is the final fallout of the genuinely major strands of the series:  the affair that started this; Allison’s death; maybe Helen finally grappling with the fact Noah went to prison for her; etc.  The episode should at least have been working hard to link up the “future” Joanie storyline to the present Helen/Noah one so that that storytelling decision felt more relevant; instead we get a recently introduced “hot topic” storyline driven almost entirely by secondary characters, sometimes reeeeeeeeeaaaaally secondary characters:  Eden, Audrey, Sasha, Furkat.

Just guessing, but given its almost over what it feels like they’re about to do is to somehow use the future storyline to just quickly wrap everything up in some “tell rather than show” way (like maybe Joanie encounters the old age version of one of our characters and they’re like “and then what happened was...”) which is just seriously bad storytelling. 

That as exactly what happened in season 2 of True Detective. It is just lousy writing. 

Plus, I think Treem shoehorned in the #MeToo plot and the LA fires to make the season relevant but it is a fail.  Why introduce new plot lines in the final season? Why waste time bringing back Furkat? Why spend time on Sierra? Why spend so much time on Whitney? Who cares about her, she is not important to the show. 

the entire season should have been resolving the past... or not resolving it but showing us attempts to resolve it.  

9 hours ago, ScoobieDoobs said:

Btw, Audrey's speech on the plane was putting me to sleep.  I don't know what the fuck she was saying & I couldn't care less.  But by the end of her speech, it was sounding like a sum-up of what just happened with Whitney.  Uh, what?  C'mon, Treem, you really can't get your writers to make any sense, can you?

That whole speech was Treem talking. She just had to insert her politics into the show. 

[hoodooznoodooz]

I am really not sure why I am still watching this show. I guess it is because, like many of you, I need to see it through. 

I will enjoy it more if I approach it as if it’s a comedy: “I know I paint really slowly” is entertaining to me. 

He painted her as if she needed electrolysis/a waxing, however. Also funny.

[PrincessPurrsALot]

Noah was a creeper.  He got a bit of fame and used it to get women.  In his view, women were throwing themselves at him and the show never disputed that.  A teacher sleeping with a student is never okay because there is an imbalance in power.  So are we going to bring back Professor Oh So Franch because she slept with a student. So, yes, Noah (and POSF) sleeping with students was an abuse of power regardless of whether it seemed consensual. Power inequities of this type supersede consent.  

With that said, Noah having consensual sex with other grown women is not a problem outside of its impact to his personal relationships.  He cheated on Helen. He cheated on Alison.  He is a cheater.  That is between Noah and Helen and Alison.  The kids were impacted by the breakup of the marriage and have the right to ask what led him to cheat/leave.  It was also a long time ago.  At Whitney's age, she would have had this conversation with him before now.  The other kids may now be at the (totally not matching the timeline of the show) age where they would be more likely to ask. 

The kids were a mess prior to the divorce so neither Helen nor Noah were great parents.  Not that good parents cannot end up with not great kids but their batting average is pretty low here - missing suicide faker boy, Whitney the most entitled, Trevor of the snit fits and no respect.  Heck, Stacey is the only seemingly decent one and much of her childhood was impacted by Vik.  

So yeah, this whole #metoo thing with Noah is ridiculous.  It harms the metoo movement overall, turning it into women aggrandizing events to make themselves victims.  Also, Noah had one very popular book that is now being made into a movie.  He is not a big enough fish for anyone to give a damn.

Noah is a dick.  Noah has had major issues with consent in his close personal relationships (Alison anyone?).  Noah would not have his career blowing up over this, nor would Helen, decorator to the stars, suddenly be pushed aside (unless we're finally admitting that with her lack of training and experience she did only have this position because Sasha was telling people to hire her - which again, great view of women Treem).

[preeya]

6 minutes ago, PrincessPurrsALot said:

Also, Noah had one very popular book that is now being made into a movie.  He is not a big enough fish for anyone to give a damn.

Same thought here. Why would anyone give a shit about a "one-book" writer's personal life? There are probably hundreds of Noah's in the USA that no one has ever heard about.  Whitney said at one point "my father just got Harvey Weinstein'd"

There is no way in hell that this run of the mill bumbling teacher/writer is even close to being in the same thought as Shitstein.

[LibertarianSlut]

3 hours ago, stormy weather said:

 Daddy left mommy for another woman that he subsequently married?

When did Noah get married to Alison?  I have been watching since episode one of season one, and I remember thinking when the Joanie paternity shit went down, like, well, thank God these two never married.  I'm not saying I'm definitely right, I am just so curious about how this happened.

26 minutes ago, PrincessPurrsALot said:

 A teacher sleeping with a student is never okay because there is an imbalance in power.  So are we going to bring back Professor Oh So Franch because she slept with a student. So, yes, Noah (and POSF) sleeping with students was an abuse of power regardless of whether it seemed consensual. Power inequities of this type supersede consent.  

I agree with the first part of this paragraph--although I never say never.  (My middle school best friend's parents met when her dad was her mom's teacher, and they continued to have a solid marriage as long as I knew her).  The last part of the paragraph is where I strongly disagree.  I feel like--and I'm not trying to put words in anybody's mouth, I'm just going off how I interpret this--if my college professor or my boss wanted to have sex with me, I could always say no.  There was no pedophilia going on here--it's one adult saying yes or no to another.  Consent is the difference between rape and sex.  If the argument is being advanced that what Noah was engaged in was coercion, I'm not sure I buy that argument, but coercion "please have sex with me" or "if you have sex with me, who knows where your career can go" is nowhere near lack of consent, which is rape.  I mean, one is creepy behavior that should get you dismissed from your job and the other should have you locked up for a really long time.  I get distressed when society conflates the two, because they're so different.  The ability to say "no" in one area makes them completely different animals to me.  Being coerced into sex requires bad decisions from both parties.  Being raped requires bad decisions from one party.  My perspective.

------------------------------------------------

This episode was ok, I just have a few nit picks:  I didn't see any merit to Whitney's original argument against Audrey that Audrey should have thought about Noah's family before she accused him.  Whitney's presence as a daughter is really immaterial as to whether a person wants to speak up about the way they feel another person mistreated them.  It sounded so naive.  So...if someone does something awful to me (and I'm not saying Noah did anything awful, I'm just going off this train of thought), I'm supposed to check if the person in question has offspring before I level my charges?  Like, how does the presence or absence of offspring mitigate or aggravate the interaction we had? 

And...Colin.  You total piece of garbage.  You made a nuisance of yourself, wouldn't attempt to fix a toilet, wouldn't pick up coffee when you said you would, couldn't get an off-the-books job to help with the seriously overdue bills...for that?  And the fact that he was painting Whitney makes it ok??  Fukrat made an entire show based on Whitney's image a few episodes ago, so wouldn't she be alright with Fukrat?  The egos of these people!  The retconning by the writers!  Suddenly now that it's down to the wire, Colin hates America, but the whole thing was in order to be with Whitney?!?!?  Give me a fucking break.  Ya know, Colin, there are other countries in this world--like 200 of them--and maybe if you hated America so much you should have told your fiancé.  A fiancé will tend to disclose to their fiancé which countries they hate when it comes to spending the rest of their lives there.  Maybe she would have been much happier joining you in Ireland than having you grill her for some citizenship test when she was too tired to think. Nope, this is stupid retconning from the writers, I think.  Colin was a total piece of shit a few episodes ago, and now he's this great guy that we should pity because he's a slow painter.  Gag.  Nope, not buying it.  He's the utter worst.

I had a few other things to say, but the only thing that's actually important to me?  I want to see Martin again for some reason.  They can't keep paying him lip service and he never shows up.  When Oscar showed up for Alison's funeral last season after he'd been written out of the show, I was really, really happy.

[lightninggirl]

On 10/20/2019 at 5:44 AM, Stad15 said:

Helen is starting to find out about the real Sasha!  Exactly Helen, Sasha's agent knows the Vanity Fair interviewer lady.

From the very first time he was shown in the restaurant, I knew he was up to something. I wonder if he's going to destroy Helen like he's destroying Noah? Taking her kids was creepy as hell and there is absolutely no way he'd be getting away with that with me. None.

Edited October 21, 2019 by lightninggirl

[LydiaE]

34 minutes ago, LibertarianSlut said:

When did Noah get married to Alison?  I have been watching since episode one of season one, and I remember thinking when the Joanie paternity shit went down, like, well, thank God these two never married.  I'm not saying I'm definitely right, I am just so curious about how this happened.

He referred to her as his wife in season 1 flash forwards, latter season two, and he signed divorce papers in season 3.  He coerced her into going to Block Island with him under the premise he’d sign divorce papers.

Instead of the Vicodin-fueled mental breakdown and French professor storyline, I wish season three had focused on Noah’s prison stint, Alison/Cole custody drama, and how Vic transitioned into Helen’s family life. 

The affair focus obviously ended with season two and now in the eleventh hour the show is trying to show how affairs and divorces devastate kids and blindsided spouses for a lifetime.  They definitely do and that’s why I initially was drawn to the show.  Season three and beyond just collapsed into a stupid soap opera mash-up and everyone involved in this season should be embarrassed.

The script supervisor should’ve pressed charges against Noah, not told a stupid MeToo story. That was some evil shite he pulled there. Noah has always been mentally imbalanced and morally bankrupt. His affair just gave him agency to abandoned the nice-guy facade he’d been deceiving people with for 20+ years. 

[T Summer]

A few people have asked about Martin. So for those of you who can't get enough of every single Solloway kid, charmers that they are... He was at Vik's funeral s5 ep1 pt1. He was openly hostile to Noah when he approached offering  a ride to the grave site,

...and munchies. What the heck was with that?

Martin said  to Janelle: We're waiting for our mom, then we're going over to the grave site to bury him

Then he said to Noah: Look dad, why don't you just head back. We'll see you at the house.

[nara]

37 minutes ago, LibertarianSlut said:

 The last part of the paragraph is where I strongly disagree.  I feel like--and I'm not trying to put words in anybody's mouth, I'm just going off how I interpret this--if my college professor or my boss wanted to have sex with me, I could always say no.  There was no pedophilia going on here--it's one adult saying yes or no to another.  Consent is the difference between rape and sex.  If the argument is being advanced that what Noah was engaged in was coercion, I'm not sure I buy that argument, but coercion "please have sex with me" or "if you have sex with me, who knows where your career can go" is nowhere near lack of consent, which is rape.  I mean, one is creepy behavior that should get you dismissed from your job and the other should have you locked up for a really long time.  I get distressed when society conflates the two, because they're so different.  The ability to say "no" in one area makes them completely different animals to me.  Being coerced into sex requires bad decisions from both parties.  Being raped requires bad decisions from one party.  My perspective.

------------------------------------------------

This episode was ok, I just have a few nit picks:  I didn't see any merit to Whitney's original argument against Audrey that Audrey should have thought about Noah's family before she accused him.  Whitney's presence as a daughter is really immaterial as to whether a person wants to speak up about the way they feel another person mistreated them.  It sounded so naive.  So...if someone does something awful to me (and I'm not saying Noah did anything awful, I'm just going off this train of thought), I'm supposed to check if the person in question has offspring before I level my charges?  Like, how does the presence or absence of offspring mitigate or aggravate the interaction we had? 

So I get your point about coercion and rape being different, but I don’t understand why Noah should not be called out for a history of coercion. Should he go to jail? I don’t think so. But I would like to know if someone had a history of doing that. I would also be reluctant to put someone with that history in a position of authority.

re: Audrey and Whitney, I thought Whitney’s complaint was not about Audrey saying what she experienced, but rather about jumping on the whole “his publishing deal should be gone” bandwagon. The latter was about hurting his income (and ability to hurt his family) vs. telling her own story. I could be wrong but that was my interpretation.

14 minutes ago, LydiaE said:

The script supervisor should’ve pressed charges against Noah, not told a stupid MeToo story. That was some evil shite he pulled there. Noah has always been mentally imbalanced and morally bankrupt. His affair just gave him agency to abandoned the nice-guy facade he’d been deceiving people with for 20+ years. 

I doubt that the police could have done anything to  Noah. Misdemeanor larceny? More likely, they would have brushed it off as a prank.

[LibertarianSlut]

^^^

Noah should definitely be called out, if he has a history of coercion, or even if he coerced once (I can't really make a statement either way, because of the format of this damn show). I recognize a power imbalance, and I don't think professors should be allowed to sleep with their students.  Where it's allowed, I think the rules should be changed.  I'm just specifically saying I don't recognize the idea that a power imbalance supersedes consent.  If there's not consent, it's rape, and that's a whole other ballgame to me.

If the coercion is serious enough, I would even say that the victim of the coercion should file a civil suit, if it caused them enough damage, such as having to leave a high paying job or something.  But there needs to be compelling evidence, such as reports filed to HR, witnesses, etc.  

I get what you're saying about Whitney with regard to Audrey, but...I still think true is true and false is false and if you have to say something about someone that is true--and if Audrey thinks it's true that Noah transgressed so badly that his publishing deal should be gone--there's no room to consider "the children."  That falls squarely on Noah for committing the transgression.  Otherwise, where do we go with that?  If there was a single person with no kids, it would be more moral to speak about their wrongs? I just don't see it that way.  I'm not going to think about your children when you did wrong if you didn't think about them when you did wrong.  

Now that I said that, you've convinced me that it's not as naive of a question as I originally thought.  If some guy murdered my parents, I would probably want to ask him if he ever thought about their children, even though people would probably be like, "are you out of your fucking mind, lady?  He never thought about you."  So...yeah.  This is all thought-provoking, which feels strange on this show...

[stormy weather]

5 hours ago, DoubleUTeeEff said:

But how did Sasha know beforehand that Noah would be accused as a sex offender? All Helen told him was "I think Noah and Eden were sleeping together on his book tour." To me, that indicates a consensual affair. We are supposed to believe that from that information, Sasha called up his publisher and told him or her to contact the writer of the Vanity Fair article and tell her that. That's what I don't get.

Well I can't be sure, but I think that when Helen said that, Sasha recognized in Eden the kind of person that would do anything to get ahead, so he thought it wouldn't take much convincing for her to start spreading sexual assault rumors about Noah if she could somehow profit from it. And he was right.  

1 hour ago, LibertarianSlut said:

When did Noah get married to Alison?  I have been watching since episode one of season one, and I remember thinking when the Joanie paternity shit went down, like, well, thank God these two never married.  I'm not saying I'm definitely right, I am just so curious about how this happened.

I agree with the first part of this paragraph--although I never say never.  (My middle school best friend's parents met when her dad was her mom's teacher, and they continued to have a solid marriage as long as I knew her).  The last part of the paragraph is where I strongly disagree.  I feel like--and I'm not trying to put words in anybody's mouth, I'm just going off how I interpret this--if my college professor or my boss wanted to have sex with me, I could always say no.  There was no pedophilia going on here--it's one adult saying yes or no to another.  Consent is the difference between rape and sex.  If the argument is being advanced that what Noah was engaged in was coercion, I'm not sure I buy that argument, but coercion "please have sex with me" or "if you have sex with me, who knows where your career can go" is nowhere near lack of consent, which is rape.  I mean, one is creepy behavior that should get you dismissed from your job and the other should have you locked up for a really long time.  I get distressed when society conflates the two, because they're so different.  The ability to say "no" in one area makes them completely different animals to me.  Being coerced into sex requires bad decisions from both parties.  Being raped requires bad decisions from one party.  My perspective.

If I could like your comment 100 times, I would. This is exactly what drives me nuts about this movement or at least the way it's mostly portrayed, the fact that they often tar everyone with the same brush and it's just not fair to real victims. 

3 hours ago, hoodooznoodooz said:

I am really not sure why I am still watching this show. I guess it is because, like many of you, I need to see it through. 

I will enjoy it more if I approach it as if it’s a comedy: “I know I paint really slowly” is entertaining to me. 

He painted her as if she needed electrolysis/a waxing, however. Also funny.

Might I add to your list of comedy relief moments: Helen's melodramatic gaze at the wildfires through her helicopter (thanks show for reminding us once again how poor and destitute these people are) window and then later on the scene where she and the kids drive through the smoke with those masks on like they were on a roadtrip to a nuclear waste site. I know both scenes were probably meant to be touching but to me they were just hilarious.
Also, I said it before and I'll say it again, now that we've also touched on the subject of wildfires, if there's a shooting at Trevor and Stacey's school next week I think Team Treem will have successfully managed to talk about every single topic that was prominently featured in the news these past couple years. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be disrespectful to anyone but it's just ridiculous how they decided to cram all these super serious discussions together in one season of a show that has absolutely NOTHING to do with any of them just because they can't come up with a decent storyline for their characters!

[Cheyanne11]

17 hours ago, LibertarianSlut said:

I didn't get Eden on Busy Phillips.

Worst part of the episode for me, not just for what Eden was saying, but, ugh, if I wanted to listen to Busy's vocal fry I would've watched her show.  And the whole being so judgmental of Helen was obnoxious (did Sasha only have his publicist release part of her statement or did BP not read it all?  Seems like her entire statement made her look better, which I would think would be Sasha's intent).

[PrincessPurrsALot]

Seeing Helen and the kids wearing the masks didn't bother me because we did wear those masks during the Northern California fires.  The air quality was really poor.  The masks they were wearing are the correct ones to filter out the small particles that were causing breathing problems for many people.  It was a reasonable precautionary measure.  Now as to how pristine they looked, um, no.  They go pretty smushed looking by the time you make the mask fit well to your face and it reacts to the moisture in your breath.

However, adding the fires to the mix is yet another how many things can we shove into this season move.  Now we need a dead whale to hit the beach.  Then someone can try to jump over it for an updated version of jumping the shark.

[nara]

In all fairness regarding the fires, wouldn’t it have been stranger if they were living in the area at that time and were not affected by the fires? It’s like how many shows in NYC ignored 9/11, though I get it more for comedies that don’t want to bring the mood down.

[Razzberry]

So many great comments I have little to add, but #IToo enjoy watching it as a comedy.  The whole thing with Eden confuses me because there was no power imbalance, they were associates.   We've watched Noah's behavior for 5 years and now he's supposed to be a predator?  All this manufactured drama is much ado about nothing and can only hurt real victims of actual predators, imo.  

I wonder if trauma inflicted on parents by spoiled children have a dna marker?  How would that work?  But anyway, someone needs to remind Trevor that throwing the first punch will always make him wrong regardless of provocation.

Stacy's comment was a scream.  Is that wrong?  I'm so confused...

[JenE4]

2 hours ago, stormy weather said:

Also, I said it before and I'll say it again, now that we've also touched on the subject of wildfires, if there's a shooting at Trevor and Stacey's school next week I think Team Treem will have successfully managed to talk about every single topic that was prominently featured in the news these past couple years. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be disrespectful to anyone but it's just ridiculous how they decided to cram all these super serious discussions together in one season of a show that has absolutely NOTHING to do with any of them just because they can't come up with a decent storyline for their characters!

Brooklyn brings a gun to school to escalate his fight with Trevor, and Stacy takes up vaping to deal with the anxiety of all of those social media posts.

[Guest]

The one ridiculous thing that made me irrationally angry last night was Stacy using the phrase, "mise en place." Sure, whatever. 

[Wavy]

4 hours ago, stormy weather said:

Well I can't be sure, but I think that when Helen said that, Sasha recognized in Eden the kind of person that would do anything to get ahead, so he thought it wouldn't take much convincing for her to start spreading sexual assault rumors about Noah if she could somehow profit from it. And he was right.  

If I could like your comment 100 times, I would. This is exactly what drives me nuts about this movement or at least the way it's mostly portrayed, the fact that they often tar everyone with the same brush and it's just not fair to real victims. 

Might I add to your list of comedy relief moments: Helen's melodramatic gaze at the wildfires through her helicopter (thanks show for reminding us once again how poor and destitute these people are) window and then later on the scene where she and the kids drive through the smoke with those masks on like they were on a roadtrip to a nuclear waste site. I know both scenes were probably meant to be touching but to me they were just hilarious.
Also, I said it before and I'll say it again, now that we've also touched on the subject of wildfires, if there's a shooting at Trevor and Stacey's school next week I think Team Treem will have successfully managed to talk about every single topic that was prominently featured in the news these past couple years. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be disrespectful to anyone but it's just ridiculous how they decided to cram all these super serious discussions together in one season of a show that has absolutely NOTHING to do with any of them just because they can't come up with a decent storyline for their characters!

Yeah, when Helen suggested to the kids that they skip school for a day of fun and they refused, I had a bad feeling there was going to be a school shooting.  Glad I was wrong.

[Razzberry]

If an old boyfriend looks this happy about your engagement news -

you probably missed some previous red flags.

Colin really hates this "God-forsaken country" for.. reasons he won't, or can't, disclose.  And yet, he's still here.   Why so secretive, what's he been doing  all year while Whiney slaved away at the gallery?  One piece of artwork, really?  I mean, it's nice but hardly the Mona Lisa.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Razzberry

[T Summer]

11 hours ago, stormy weather said:

Stacey was 0 years old when she almost choked at the Lobster place in Montauk 

I'm not wild about extracting fragments out of  whole posts, but please forgive me this time, because this is hilarious StormyWeather!