S05.E11: Episode 11

[AngelaHunter]

10 hours ago, Jaclyn88 said:

Martin who ? Was he even a factor in the show ? No need for him to be a 4th kid 

Well, there was that time when he had diarrhea or something and nearly died. I don't remember clearly.

16 hours ago, DakotaLavender said:

I am one of those viewer who never disliked Noah.

I never disliked him either. To me, he was a mature man acting like a kid in a candy store, IMO. He spent his teens caring for his sick mother and had no social life. He married young and started having a bunch of kids, never cheated on Helen, kept his nose to the grindstone all the while having Bruce telling him what a loser he was. So when he left the marriage he went wild in the way people usually do when in their late teens and early twenties before they "settle down". As I saw it he never did any of that so was making up for lost time although not consciously.

11 hours ago, Jaclyn88 said:

whitney was truly written as the biggest brat and I would have made her pay for her own wedding. 

Amen!

[Razzberry]

2 hours ago, AngelaHunter said:

Well, there was that time when he had diarrhea or something and nearly died. I don't remember clearly.

lol  He had something wrong with him, but I don't remember what it was either.  Helen met Dr. Ullah-lah when he operated on him, so I guess he served a purpose.

I wasn't moved by Helen and Noah's reconciliation because it wasn't until she started dating Sasha Mann and Noah had hit rock bottom that it came about.  He wasn't pulling the women he used to.

[Stad15]

6 hours ago, AngelaHunter said:

  17 hours ago, Jaclyn88 said:

Martin who ? Was he even a factor in the show ? No need for him to be a 4th kid 

Well, Martin did work at the Lockhart Ranch in summer of the first season  and nearly lost one of the horses in Episode 6.

[CarpeFelis]

Regarding “Bruce taped to the chair”: it looked to me like he was tied with ribbon, not duct-taped. And I don’t think it was a mean thing to do. He wasn’t in touch with reality until later in the day, and it was entirely possible he’d not realize what was going on and get up and wander around, disrupting the wedding. Would have made a lot more sense to have him stay in the house with someone to watch him, though.

[CarpeFelis]

On 11/3/2019 at 5:34 PM, stormy weather said:

- the whole flash mob was super clichéd and also how did Whitney know the choreography when she joined at the end?

- who has sex in a motel without closing the curtain?! WHO?! HOW?! WHY?!

- I'm sorry, maybe I'm an emotional glacier but the last scene of Noah dancing on the cliff was pathetic. Maybe it doesn't help that I hate that song. Also, how can Noah still remember the choreography of the flash mob 25-30 years later?

Someone said the flash mob was what Whitney wanted, so I assumed she had also learned some of the choreography in advance.

Right there with you - WHO THE HELL leaves the curtains open when they’re having sex? There hadn’t been any indication they were exhibitionists up until this point. Plainly it was done by the writers so the kids would have that “ewww” reaction and we the audience would figure out they were getting back together. But it could have been done much more plausibly by there just being a small gap in the curtains that they saw through.

As to remembering choreography 25-30 years later: when I hear certain ‘80s songs I can still remember some of the choreography from dance aerobics classes I took back then. If you do it over and over, some of it will stick with you. Also given that Noah was rehearsing everyone, it implied maybe he was the choreographer, though we’d never had any prior indication he had any dance background.

[AngelaHunter]

5 minutes ago, CarpeFelis said:

Right there with you - WHO THE HELL leaves the curtains open when they’re having sex? There hadn’t been any indication they were exhibitionists up until this point. Plainly it was done by the writers so the kids would have that “ewww” reaction and we the audience would figure out they were getting back together. But it could have been done much more plausibly by there just being a small gap in the curtains that they saw through.

I mentioned that upthread. Ground level dumpy room - sure, let's leave the curtains wide open so everyone passing can get a show. These weren't two teenagers so hot to get it on they forgot to close the drapes. Not cute at all.

8 minutes ago, CarpeFelis said:

Also given that Noah was rehearsing everyone, it implied maybe he was the choreographer, though we’d never had any prior indication he had any dance background.

I was wondering where he got such expertise in dance that he could do the choreography. Really. Where?

[nara]

1 hour ago, AngelaHunter said:

I mentioned that upthread. Ground level dumpy room - sure, let's leave the curtains wide open so everyone passing can get a show. These weren't two teenagers so hot to get it on they forgot to close the drapes. Not cute at all.

I was wondering where he got such expertise in dance that he could do the choreography. Really. Where?

 I don’t think any expertise is required. He could have just watched some YouTube videos.

[CarpeFelis]

On 11/9/2019 at 2:52 PM, LibertarianSlut said:

I hate this. Whitney has some accent that's not native to lower NY, and it bothers me. I was raised on Long Island and I've only ever heard it pronounced "MON-tawk."  That "Mawn" is from some other region. Whitney pronounces it the way my cousin, who is from LA, would.

Same here - I grew up on LI and only ever heard it pronounced “MON-tawk”.

[AngelaHunter]

Okay, I changed my mind about the tackiness of Helen and Noah having sex in plain view of any passerby. IIRC, this is the first time we ever saw anyone having sex where both parties seem to enjoy it so I give them a pass.

[T Summer]

1 hour ago, AngelaHunter said:

Okay, I changed my mind about the tackiness of Helen and Noah having sex in plain view of any passerby. IIRC, this is the first time we ever saw anyone having sex where both parties seem to enjoy it so I give them a pass.

I guess the door fixed itself.

I always thought Alison and Cole 's love scenes seemed quite normal and natural.  That scene in s4 ep10 after Alison's funeral were Cole is sitting at Gabriel's grave holding Alison's urn remembering the first love scene we saw of theirs, the one where she had the kids band-aid on her finger is a real tearjerker! 😢🤧😢

I hated Noah and Alison's love scenes. What was with all that super loud smooching and smacking? It sounded like tearing velcro apart again and again next to a microphone. Did anyone ever notice... or was it  just me?

[CarpeFelis]

46 minutes ago, T Summer said:

I hated Noah and Alison's love scenes. What was with all that super loud smooching and smacking? It sounded like tearing velcro apart again and again next to a microphone. Did anyone ever notice... or was it  just me?

Nope, not just you! I hated that too. Way too many movies and TV shows seem to have kissing couples make all those damn smacking noises.

[HC87]

Didn't get a chance to see this until tonight.

At long last, sweet, sweet closure.

This season was a hot mess...won't repeat all the reasons why...already stated much better than I could here.

On a personal note, kind of sad to see this end as I watched the first couple of seasons with my Mom on Sundays who enjoyed this show (as did I then)...she passed away about two and half years ago....another connection with her now sadly gone.

Will miss the snark here....until we meet again on some other show's thread...adieu.

[msrachelj]

On 11/3/2019 at 1:49 PM, Razzberry said:

I've only seen half of it so far but it's really dragging for me. Some random thoughts -

So a flash mob is line dancing.  Why not just call it that instead of the rebranding.

Yay,  I'll never again have to hear that fucking Fiona Apple song.  Actually, the music in this entire series could've been better.

Oddly disappointed to learn Colin is from Northern Ireland.  Is he still considered Irish?  Just asking!

Nice flower arrangement, Sasha Mann. 

Sierra's director/date looks a lot like Eddie.  

Martin apparently is unaware of the green card issue here.

I fucking hate that song. I fast forwarded it every time. Just horrible!

19 hours ago, CarpeFelis said:

Same here - I grew up on LI and only ever heard it pronounced “MON-tawk”.

Yep! It's MON tawk. No question. 

[grommit2]

21 hours ago, msrachelj said:

So a flash mob is line dancing.  Why not just call it that instead of the rebranding.

Yes, one version of a flash mob is an exercise in line dancing.  But the approach is different.  That is, a flash mob is supposed to be a big surprise, starting with one person dancing or playing an instrument.  That one person is joined, incrementally, by others.  Even though the dancers or musicians have practiced many times, the whole thing is presented as a "surprise!!". 

They actually are very cool.  And the wedding flash mob was truly a highlight...everyone happy, dancing quite nicely, enjoying participating.  Gads, we need more of that in this world.

[AngelaHunter]

On 11/10/2019 at 9:33 PM, T Summer said:

What was with all that super loud smooching and smacking?

Yeah. I think it's one of those things that unless you're doing it yourself, it's pretty gross.

[himela]

What I get from the ending of The Affair is that people can have their flaws and make their mistakes, but in the end of the day these flaws and mistakes don't need to define them forever. Joanie managed to leave all this traumatic history behind her and try to live her life the best way that she can. She did quit for a while, but in the end she managed to say a big NO to who she was meant to be and try to change into someone better. I liked a quote from Whitney when her grandfather said she should forgive her father "if we are meant to forgive, what is the point to try to be good people in the first place?". It made me think. Are people expected to always forget? Does forgiveness require also to forget?

[T Summer]

1 hour ago, AngelaHunter said:

Yeah. I think it's one of those things that unless you're doing it yourself, it's pretty gross.

Nah, I've been married a long time and do my fair share of smooching  and have watched a ton of movies and TV dramas and I only ever thought about it during Noah and Alison's scenes.

[AngelaHunter]

2 hours ago, himela said:

It made me think. Are people expected to always forget? Does forgiveness require also to forget?

IMO, you may forgive, but I doubt anyone forgets. Expecting anyone to forget always makes me think of judges telling a jury to disregard testimony. No one can unhear something and that's like someone expected to forget wrongs that were done to them. It may be trivial to the person doing the wrongs or committing the abuse, but the same is not true for the person on the receiving end of same.

In the context of this show, I truly doubt Noah had any idea of the pain he caused Helen, especially when she found Alison's bra in her bedroom. She may have decided to forgive this, but for damned sure she'd never forget.

[T Summer]

2 minutes ago, AngelaHunter said:

In the context of this show, I truly doubt Noah had any idea of the pain he caused Helen, especially when she found Alison's bra in her bedroom. She may have decided to forgive this, but for damned sure she'd never forget.

You know what really registered with me as never before during Helen's speech to Noah at the Memory Motel? When she said if you'd have had an affair 50 years ago x, y, +z... and  you certainly wouldn't have written an f'ing book about it!

Damn. What if Helen is trying to forget? First, in the walk out of the canyon Noah says yes, I loved her(Alison), I was crazy about her, then that dweeb Sierra brought to the wedding goes on about the young tanned gorgeous waitstaff at the Lobster Roll and then there's always Noah's f'ing book!

[AngelaHunter]

3 hours ago, T Summer said:

Damn. What if Helen is trying to forget?

She's never going to forget, but probably just wants to put it in the past. And it wasn't all Noah's fault either. On rewatch of the very first ep, Noah is at a pool early in the morning, some young woman smiles at him, he goes home to where Helen is still in bed and he wants to make love. Helen bursts out laughing at him -  "Your face!" He was almost like some annoying boarder in his own home and then along came Alison, a pretty young woman who found him irresistible. I get it.

I see their getting back together as more of "It's just too exhausting to think about finding someone else and starting all over again, so let's do it" kind of thing and as I mentioned, both have no doubt learned a lot over the years about how to treat the other person in the relationship.

Edited November 13, 2019 by AngelaHunter

[T Summer]

Well, I've made 50-11 posts all over this thread and the 6 previous(since I joined),  stating Helen is the closest thing to a saint we have here on earth and Noah is trash---sarcasm---

and that I don't understand what more the dude could have possibly wanted, since he by far got the better deal, so I'll stop. keep it short😋

We will have to agree to disagree, because I remember that scene and ep and I also remember another early one of them having sex and Helen building Noah up about his legendary h_ _d _n He says something like legendary, where?  and she replied right here in this bedroom. So I think with that kind of ego boosting an ill placed giggle can be forgiven.

Also he could have gotten smitten w/ Alison, divorced Helen, THEN began seeing her.  Deceiving your spouse of 25 years who bore you 4 children is lower than low   and why Noah can do no right in my eyes.

Edited November 13, 2019 by T Summer
typo

[AngelaHunter]

10 hours ago, T Summer said:

I also remember another early one of them having sex and Helen building Noah up about his legendary h_ _d _n

"Hard-on"? Heh. I don't remember that scene. I'm certainly not defending him but I see how it all came about.

I don't think what Noah did - especially screwing Alison in Helen's bed which was an epic betrayal - was okay.  He made a big mess, fucked up a lot and acted like a jerk but I don't think he was being malicious about any of it. Selfish and thoughtless, but not malicious.

10 hours ago, T Summer said:

Also he could have gotten smitten w/ Alison, divorced Helen, THEN began seeing her.

He could have, but not many people do that. If they leave their marriages it's usually to go straight to the person with whom they are having the affair and only after they are sure they want to leave that marriage, hence the divorce comes later.

[izabella]

2 hours ago, AngelaHunter said:

I don't think what Noah did - especially screwing Alison in Helen's bed which was an epic betrayal - was okay.  He made a big mess, fucked up a lot and acted like a jerk but I don't think he was being malicious about any of it. Selfish and thoughtless, but not malicious.

And then Allison took a shower in Noah and Helen's shower, and poured Helen's expensive shampoo down the drain!  Still unforgivable!!

[T Summer]

7 hours ago, AngelaHunter said:

"Hard-on"? Heh. I don't remember that scene. I'm certainly not defending him but I see how it all came about.

I don't think what Noah did - especially screwing Alison in Helen's bed which was an epic betrayal - was okay.  He made a big mess, fucked up a lot and acted like a jerk but I don't think he was being malicious about any of it. Selfish and thoughtless, but not malicious.

He could have, but not many people do that. If they leave their marriages it's usually to go straight to the person with whom they are having the affair and only after they are sure they want to leave that marriage, hence the divorce comes later.

Well, betraying Helen wasn't some accident that happened to him. As a matter of fact, he thought about it first,  remember after kissing and making out with Alison when she was ready to take it further he said to her I have to go at my own pace or on his terms something like that. So he thought about it for a while.

Not only did Noah deceive his wife of 25 years and mother of his children.. he is a low down dirty USER! If he'd have done the right thing and told Helen, divorced her and then started seeing Alison ... he'd have had to give up that cushy life in the Park Slope brownstone where he worked at teaching as much or as little as he wanted to and had plenty of time to take a shot at writing a successful novel. He had no financial worries because Helen's family paid for the kids private school and probably other things too. Also, don't forget Helen is an only child destined to inherit Bruce and Margaret's Montauk pad and the  money that goes with it.

He wanted to hold on to all that AND indulge his fantasy of Alison the 31 year old waitress, try it out and see where it went. Noah was fine with deceiving Helen and wasting Alison's time. I recall when they were planning to move in together and he wanted Alison to hang around in that closet sized NYC apartment and wait a couple of years until Whitney was in college for him to broach the subject of splitting up with Helen. Alison wasn't having it and pushed back... I'm just pointing out all his impulses were to preserve his old life and all the advantages that went with it including Bruce's literary world contacts and risk as little as possible, selfish A-hole that he was.

Sometimes I'm so blinded by hatred of users and liars that I have to remember the reason I've watched until the end is that Maura Tierney AND Dominic West's acting is next level! 😄

Edited November 13, 2019 by T Summer
typo

[stefinny]

On 11/6/2019 at 11:48 AM, JenE4 said:

At the wedding they made a point that Sierra was now in a relationship with the director, and the director’s parents were babysitting where he grew up nearby in Great Neck, so it’s entirely feasible that she married him and they moved back to the area of his family. These are all assumptions filling in the blanks, of course, but they threw in enough of these little details that the assumptions could make sense.

I missed this part...must have been dozing.  But Great Neck is about 2.5 hours from Montauk, so not really near his family at all.   And along these lines, Hicksville (Ben's hometown) is also over two hours from Montauk.  The episode (where Joanie confronts Ben) made it seem like it was just around the corner.  I would have liked a little more clarification regarding this and other things.

[cardigirl]

On 11/13/2019 at 5:00 PM, T Summer said:

Well, betraying Helen wasn't some accident that happened to him. As a matter of fact, he thought about it first,  remember after kissing and making out with Alison when she was ready to take it further he said to her I have to go at my own pace or on his terms something like that. So he thought about it for a while.

Not only did Noah deceive his wife of 25 years and mother of his children.. he is a low down dirty USER! If he'd have done the right thing and told Helen, divorced her and then started seeing Alison ... he'd have had to give up that cushy life in the Park Slope brownstone where he worked at teaching as much or as little as he wanted to and had plenty of time to take a shot at writing a successful novel. He had no financial worries because Helen's family paid for the kids private school and probably other things too. Also, don't forget Helen is an only child destined to inherit Bruce and Margaret's Montauk pad and the  money that goes with it.

He wanted to hold on to all that AND indulge his fantasy of Alison the 31 year old waitress, try it out and see where it went. Noah was fine with deceiving Helen and wasting Alison's time. I recall when they were planning to move in together and he wanted Alison to hang around in that closet sized NYC apartment and wait a couple of years until Whitney was in college for him to broach the subject of splitting up with Helen. Alison wasn't having it and pushed back... I'm just pointing out all his impulses were to preserve his old life and all the advantages that went with it including Bruce's literary world contacts and risk as little as possible, selfish A-hole that he was.

Sometimes I'm so blinded by hatred of users and liars that I have to remember the reason I've watched until the end is that Maura Tierney AND Dominic West's acting is next level! 😄

I think, also, that these things follow a pattern. Psychologists and psychiatrists will tell you that when a spouse decides to cheat, it's rarely a straightforward decision, and certainly not one where they decide "I'm unhappy enough to leave first, get a divorce, and then start seeing someone else."  Usually they muck it up by getting involved with someone before they've really untangled how they are feeling about their spouse.  

And how they ARE feeling about their spouse is complicated. There is the history of a long marriage, the good parts, the traditions, the children you created together, the familiarity of a home, the security (financial and otherwise) that is all very difficult to just cut off. 

Along comes someone that makes you feel like you did when you were 18 or 20 and suddenly you think, "this is what is missing, this is what I need, I've been dead inside and I need to explore this." And off goes the spouse, obsessed with the new person, because they are feeling the infatuation feelings they did when they were young, and those feel good.  They never last, but they feel good.  The hope is that infatuation deepens into something else, but I think people begin to miss that heady feeling they had when they first fell in love and if something triggers that in them, they feel that they are with the wrong person, and have to with the new person to be "happy." 

So, while Noah said that he enjoyed being married, he was also kind of looking for something and along come Alison, who was exotic enough to make him feel like he could be that superman again.  An for Alison, she was looking for an escape from a pretty dreary life.  Yes Cole loved her, but the tragedy of losing their son, in the way that they did, she could not deal with it, on top of having to deal drugs to maintain the ranch, who wouldn't want to escape that life?  

So Noah hesitated on divorcing Helen, because he wasn't sure he wanted to end that marriage, even though he was infatuated with Alison at the time. And that is part of the pattern.  A married person leaves for a lover, but then, doesn't end up marrying that lover, or hesitates to commit. 

Over the course of the show, there were numerous times when Helen and Noah would reconnect, and that happens often with long-time married and then divorced couples too. The kids keep them connected as well as their history and they find they still have affection for each other. So I didn't find the end of the show all that far-fetched.

Edited November 20, 2019 by cardigirl

[Double A]

I enjoyed this whole ridiculous series. Watching the end as they panned out from the dancing Noah I realized they took us far, far from where they started. I would have liked a hint of whether Whitney's marriage lasted or just the choreography. Stacey becoming an author is perfect. She would have a compelling and possibly balancing perspective.

I thought the dialogue throughout the episode accomplished a good "finish" to it all.

"Time makes big things seem small." For all the drama these people lived it's just a blip in the grand scheme of life. And a salacious story for onlookers.

"So if we both die and you don't find out I still love you I win the prize?" Helen's words for every person ever hurt by someone that they want to be with. Moral - choose what you can live with.

"The universe rewards courage." Must be the only explanation for Noah outliving everyone with all his hair and teeth in tact b/c that fool had a lot of nerve. 

Btw, for any Six Feet Under watchers - Margaret dying the same year as Helen made me think of Brenda Chenowith dropping dead as her brother Billy babbled on. I imagine Helen going out like that during one of Margaret's critical rants and Margaret trolling her into the afterlife.

[scrb]

2 hours ago, Double A said:

Btw, for any Six Feet Under watchers - Margaret dying the same year as Helen made me think of Brenda Chenowith dropping dead as her brother Billy babbled on. I imagine Helen going out like that during one of Margaret's critical rants and Margaret trolling her into the afterlife.

There is no comparison to the 6FU ending, which moved a lot of people on TWoP.

If there was social media back then, it would have probably had a huge reacting at the time.  Not as big as the Red Wedding in GoT but still pretty big.

And it's not like viewers loved all those 6FU characters.  After the first 2-3 seasons, people got fed up with the soap opera trajectory of the show.

But the ending brought people back.

[AngelaHunter]

7 hours ago, Double A said:

Btw, for any Six Feet Under watchers - Margaret dying the same year as Helen made me think of Brenda Chenowith dropping dead as her brother Billy babbled on. I imagine Helen going out like that during one of Margaret's critical rants and Margaret trolling her into the afterlife.

I was the biggest fan of 6 Feet Under and I did appreciate the black humour that continued until the end.

4 hours ago, scrb said:

There is no comparison to the 6FU ending, which moved a lot of people on TWoP.

I was one of those people. That finale had me sobbing. One person on TWoP questioned why this would be so - why the tears for some fictional character? It wasn't that. It was the all-too-realistic depiction of grief - which many of us have experienced -  by the very fine actors that did it.

I agree Helen may have keeled over to finally escape Margaret's critical yammering. The ending of "The Affair" was okay with me. I've seen a lot worse - *cough* "Dexter".

[grommit2]

I watched the last episode again.

Watched the flash dance...again and again.  And again.
Very nice moves.  Everybody happy.  Everybody enjoying themselves...and each other.

Makes me wish for...a different life. 
Oh, how I wish things were different.
But, for a few moments, I can forget and just watch everybody enjoying dancing around.

And then, Noah, at the end...dancing the same way, sort of. 
Age certainly has a way of changing our dance.
Clearly, Noah has reconciled with his past life, warts and all. 
Good for him.

What a great ending. 

[scrb]

But isn't that expression of joy or happiness kind of out of place over the totality of the series?

In any event, I think when characters in a drama break into song and/or dance, it's kind of a shortcut or a cheating way to have the characters express joy.

I think it's enjoyable but on The Affair, it seems to jump out of nowhere, after all the dreary sadness and expressions of hostility throughout the series.

Compare that dance to the song and dance numbers in Crazy Ex Girlfriend.  Or they had some dancing scenes in Jane the Virgin which were well-done.

Point is, the producers can always hire a choreographer and have the cast rehearse one dancing scene and just plot it down in one of the episodes.

It might have been more fitting with the context of the show if they had some sad ballet or interpretative dance, though they chose to make Whitney's wedding coincide with the happy ending they wanted to have.

Edited December 1, 2019 by scrb

[wmdekooning]

On 11/3/2019 at 8:34 PM, stormy weather said:

 

- Stacey drinks champagne. Stacey is 12. 

Stacey is my favourite character on the show. Stacey is 12...

[Aqua]

On 11/4/2019 at 2:14 PM, Blakeston said:

If the writers didn't want us to think that Bruce died as a result of jumping in the pool in winter weather, then I think it was a disastrous mistake for them to establish that he died within (at most) a few weeks of the party.

If they didn't want us to think the events were related, they had no reason to establish that.

 

However, I think it made sense for Margaret to be born in '51. The scene where she said she was 73 was presumably set in 2024.

 

I don't think there's any evidence the "present" scenes were any year other than the year they were filmed, i.e., the finale occurred in 2019. Bruce died in 2024, five years later.

This idea that the present scenes are actually future scenes stem from the fact that the characters started referring to the affair as having occurred "ten years ago" when it was really only five years ago. 

However that does not mean the intent was to place these scenes in the future. They fudged a lot of time issues in this show, for example in the premiere episode, Stacey was 6 ("How long til she goes to college?" asks Noah when her call for Helen upstairs disturbs them during sex. "12 years," replies Helen).  However in the finale, Stacey is 12, not 16, which she would have been had ten years elapsed.

[Aqua]

On 11/3/2019 at 2:59 PM, T Summer said:

Cole and Helen were good!

Ok, I'll stop 😄

Helen, who let her husband sit in jail for three years for a crime she committed, is not good.

[Aqua]

On 11/4/2019 at 8:06 AM, Milburn Stone said:

Re this thought, a PS that occurred to me this morning. How deliciously ironic that all this time we thought we were seeing the POVs of the various characters, when from the pilot through to the final episode we were seeing Stacey's POV on the whole story, adapted into film.

Well not really her POV because she wasn't in any of those scenes. I think it's more like she talked with each of these people (except Allison) and got their differing recollections of what happened.

[Milburn Stone]

9 hours ago, Aqua said:

Well not really her POV because she wasn't in any of those scenes. I think it's more like she talked with each of these people (except Allison) and got their differing recollections of what happened.

I use Point of View to be synonymous with "take," "interpretation," "angle." Which is what I understand POV to generally mean, rather than that it require actual ocular sense organs to relay information to the brain. We acquire information through all five of our senses, and maybe even a sixth one.

That said, she may well have talked with each of the participants, or she may have received information second-hand, or she may have "lightly fictionalized" her family's story, or she may have created a work of purely imaginative fiction that even includes a scene in which the writer reveals she has created a work of purely imaginative fiction.

[Aqua]

5 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

I use Point of View to be synonymous with "take," "interpretation," "angle." Which is what I understand POV to generally mean, rather than that it require actual ocular sense organs to relay information to the brain. We acquire information through all five of our senses, and maybe even a sixth one.

Okay. As a writer, I was thinking in the literal sense but I get your point.

[grommit2]

Wow...the show ended 3 years ago, and we still have some discussion.
I still marvel at that flash dance. 
And I still wish life were different.
<<<SIGH>>>

[Aqua]

On 11/4/2019 at 12:53 PM, LoveLeigh said:

However, I am very sentimental so when I saw the scene with Noah at the graves and then dancing on the cliff I cried. I cried not so much for Noah but because that combined with the final scene of THE DEUCE really drove home hard how we do all pass into "the arms of time" and we will all age (hopefully) and one day be there where most of the people we know are gone. So we either remember them as "ghosts" as did Vincent or we visit their graves. 

So I cried. 

I cried too but for a different reason. I saw joy in Noah, as in that moment on the cliff, dancing that dance from decades ago, he reached a moment of self-forgiveness.

On 11/4/2019 at 12:53 PM, LoveLeigh said:

[T Summer]

On 6/12/2022 at 10:13 PM, Aqua said:

Helen, who let her husband sit in jail for three years for a crime she committed, is not good.

Not an argument or anything, but I can tell you why I still  view Helen as basically a good and decent person.

I don't overlook the fact that Noah went to jail for a crime Helen committed while driving.

I don't find her solely responsible though, for these reasons:

1. Helen told Noah she was too  drunk to drive, but he insisted.

2. Being that Noah insisted Helen drive even though she'd been drinking,  why did he pick that moment to touch her arm affectionately? The two had been separated, he was with Alison and touching her in that way was a complete upset of the circumstances. Of course she glanced his way and that's when the crash happened.

3. Then, there was Alison's contribution. Pushing  a drunk, menacing Scotty into the road.

4. Scotty himself was partly the cause of his own death. He never would've been in that dark road if he hadn't been hassling Alison to the point she had to push him away.

The show suggested those two married people had conversations we weren't privy to wherein Noah and Helen decided she should remain in the family home caring for their children and use her / their considerable means to mount the best defense possible for Noah.

We all know what they both should have done...NEVER GET BEHIND THE WHEEL OF A CAR DRUNK and  call a taxi.