S01.E08: 8

[Milburn Stone]

Thanks, Pallas. So that was Blair Brown! Didn't recognize her.

[Boundary]

Thanks, Pallas. So that was Blair Brown! Didn't recognize her.

 

I immediately recognised her. I half expected her to show us her creepy robotic hand ...

[jeansheridan]

A lot of details on this show are told to us rather than shown. I just remember Bruce sounding so smug about the spanish.

[Nonlinear]

The observations and discussions on this forum are really great. The show becomes better for me.

 

Edited December 15, 2014 by Nonlinear

[briochetwist]

 

Second. As we keep saying on this forum. Memory is a slippy thing. So when Helen said in the therapist session that she could have had anyone and she choose Noah because he was safe, did Helen actually say that, or was *Noah-as-Helen* saying that? Remember it came right after she rejected his gift and talked about the bills they had to pay. I dunno I still think Helen, Cherry and Cole are nowhere near as bad as Alison and Noah remember them to be.

 

Exactly.  That's the problem I have with everything that Allison and Noah 'remember'.  They aren't exactly honorable people, and they're always trying to put themselves in the best light possible.

Edited December 23, 2014 by briochetwist

[truthaboutluv]

But the differences were actually superficial - what they're wearing, who said "I missed you" first, etc. Where they coincided, the show opted not to show us exactly the same thing twice and those were the more significant moments: he took her to hospital, then came back for her, their conversation in the car, her grandmother passing away. He didn't have to say "I love you" in his version, he clearly simply demonstrated it.

 

 

See for me the differences weren't superficial and instead they are part of why I'm struggling to buy any legitimate love story between those two. In my opinion, the differences in Noah and Alison's version always seem an attempt to shift "blame" to the other, to sort of insinuate the other one was more the pursuer/aggressor. And I feel like if they're really and truly in love and found each other in a hopeless place (yes Rihanna song reference intentional), it shouldn't really matter who did and said what. But in both versions, especially Noah's, there seems this intent to put a lot of what happened on the other person.

 

Noah's version has Alison in her slinky black dress, her acting like she's ready to pounce the second she sees him to the point that he has to say "I can't" when all that's exchanged is a hello, her almost sounding like she's coming onto him when asking him to come into the hospital with her and her frankly really not seeming very broken or vulnerable as her grandmother is about to die. Her only real emotions in his version is when he wakes her up to tell her her grandmother is about to die.

 

In Alison's version, Noah is the one who comes up to her first while she's innocently hiding away in coat check, he's the one that tells her how beautiful she looks after saying he doesn't want to talk about his family and she's the one bringing up how she and Cole are doing better. And at no point in her version does Noah ask where Cole is and why she won't call him, he's the one who offers to come and stay with her in the hospital and shows up even after she tells him goodbye.  And of course he's the one who tells her he loves her first. 

 

My take on the scene was different. Helen's expression changed in that scene from "Whee! Pretty shiny thing!" to "Um, no" the very minute Noah thanked her for 'sticking it out'. Which I took to mean she hadn't yet decided she would, or that she was still too hurt by him to accept a gift meant to represent 'all better now!'.

 

 

Agreed except I took her change of expression when he mentioned it was a gift for her sticking it out to mean one, he basically just reminded her of his infidelity which would naturally kill the mood and two, she now saw the gift as tainted, an "sorry I banged someone else, here let me buy you some shiny necklace we can't afford because that will make it all better..." 

 

But his remoteness in their conversation about her grandmother's DNR seemed false to me.  His speech, and body movements, the very flow of his words seemed choppy.

 

 

What made that scene odd to me was the previous one where she got the call about the heart attack and he quickly suggested rescheduling with the appraiser and coming with her. But then I thought maybe his reaction there was in response to her in that previous scene where she all but snapped out that she did not want him at the hospital with her. I think it's been very clear from the first episode that Cole has gotten to a place in that relationship where he just lets Alison be and figures if she wants to, she'll come to him. So once she snapped at him and said she didn't want him to come with her, when she came back later, he took his cues from that earlier moment and didn't push or try to comfort her because he probably figured she didn't want it. It's amazing, I am shown Alison's grief and pain in spades because we're seeing her POV and yet I find myself feeling horrible for Cole being married to her.

 

I've watched that Helen's Shop scene a few times now it just feels like she's being stone cold and you can almost see her thought bubble saying, "Do I go with Plan A and go crazy and whoop her ass right here in my shop, or do kill her with kindness and make her feel even more guilty and shitty and possibly mortify her into never ever coming near my husband ever again...oh, I choose Plan B, annnnd, ACTION!"

 

 

I think the scene was because Helen obviously had strong suspicions about Alison and Noah which were later confirmed when Noah admitted to the affair. Because it's telling that she immediately name checks Alison after Noah confesses and my guess is she does because not only did she have some suspicions but seeing Alison show up in Brooklyn in her store, all but confirmed it to her. And that's probably why she showed so much restraint at the time because while her suspicions were very strong then, she still didn't have solid proof until Noah confessed.

 

Noah's memories are too self-aggrandizing, while Allison's are too self-deprecating. Now I know that Noah did not save his daughter from choking in episode 1, because I don't believe that he recognized that grandma was dying so he gently awoke Allison so that she could say good-bye. He's such the "hero" in his own memories--that school scene was the worst! I was waiting for those school kids to jump up on their desks and shout out, "O, Captain! My Captain!" And damn these "adults" (spouses) ruining the PURE, INNOCENT LOVE he has with his MUSE! His entire segment was just so over-the-top. Meanwhile, Allison just sleepwalks through her stories--just taking whatever direction/feedback anyone gives her. Even when she wanted to stand up to her mother, she didn't really know how. And instead of shouting from the rooftops DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH MY SON'S TRUNK, she needs her MIL to say she's going to keep it and then she SNEAKS upstairs to look at it?! Like, why the f-- couldn't she look at her son's belongings?!

 

 

This is absolutely perfect...

[paramitch]

I found my way here once I realized it was the team behind "In Treatment," which I adored beyond the telling. But this show is a really odd experience. I've been bingewatching over a week or so and am just about to embark on the final two. I haven't really loved the entire thing, but I'm finding it fascinating -- more of a cerebral than an emotional experience (and I'm one of those people who tends to respond emotionally first). The dual  points of view have been fascinating but also maddening (more on this farther down), but I've loved reading all the discussion threads as I've gone along with each episode too, so thanks for so much smart and insightful commentary! You guys especially catch little point-of-view subtleties that I would have missed otherwise, and have made the show so much fun for me.

 

Good question! I'm worried that the show is going to go the "alternate universe" route. I'm sure there are holes in this theory, but I feel as if the hints are adding up:

 

• The fact that, as mentioned above, the narratives don't seem to work as either private memories or self-serving testimony.
• Noah's speech to Alison in Episode 2
• Alison's reference to "Sliding Doors" in Episode 7
• This interview with Joshua Jackson, in which he ALSO references "Sliding Doors" (hmmm) and teases about there being similarities between The Affair and Fringe: http://blogs.wsj.com...out-the-affair/   He also says this:

 

At first I thought this was a reference to Noah's Episode 2 speech. Then I thought it was referring to the interaction between Scotty and Whitney. Now I'm not sure.

 

For me the single glaring WTF moment that has made no sense at all (and which I keep thinking back to) is the "Don't wake up" moment occurring in BOTH narratives, I think from episode two, in which both Noah and Alison have a nearly identical sleepy-sex scene with their respective spouses, telling them, "Don't wake up." It was so oddly placed, it was an intimate marital moment unlikely to be discussed between Noah and Alison, and the dialogue was so odd and specific that I have always wondered if this was meant to show us, for instance, at least some collusion or fiction in Alison and Noah's versions of the stories.

 

We see him -- in his memory of that night with Alison at the hospital -- actively remembering another time at another hospital, with another woman he loved. It makes sense that he doesn't remember anyone else having been there.  Once he returned to the hospital, no one but living Alison, her dying grandmother, and his own dying mother had any substance for him.  

I thought this as well. I also agree with the poster who said farther up that Noah would have recounted it as we saw here, but if someone had prodded him even slightly: "Was anyone else there?" he would have perhaps gone, "Oh, right, her mother was there too, then she left," etc.

 

Given the low regard he has for his father in law, it's hard to believe the "every fucking day" becomes an epiphany for Noah to go see Alison at the hospital.

Plus the guy obviously wasn't pining for that former student when he had affair(s) that humiliated Helen's mother.

 

But by actually rebelling against the ease and trappings of the life Bruce provided him through Helen, and choosing a lover from both men's former class, Noah caught Bruce's eye.  As a disinterested critic of Noah the character, Bruce might have said, "That's the first thing he did that ever interested me."  Now, he feels, Noah finally has some skin in the game.  

 

Bruce can certainly be an ass, but I also think he's capable of deep feelings (and I'm sorry, but I find his wife so horrible that I enthusiastically support his evidently endless series of extramarital flings -- the woman's monstrous). So I loved the scene in which Bruce told Noah of his own temptation years ago, first because of the unexpected humanity it revealed in Bruce, and secondly because to me it spotlighted an important aspect of this show. This show is about "THE Affair," a pivotal affair between two people that appears to have pretty huge ripples into multiple lives.

So yes, Bruce has affairs all the time, as we know from the previous episodes but I think those mean very little to him. But what got me about his story was that he was describing to Noah THE affair -- the affair he'd wanted, the girl he'd wanted. The girl he still thinks about every single day of his life as a missed opportunity. It reminded me very much of the "girl in the white dress" monologue from Citizen Kane in its unexpected eloquence.

I also thought John Doman (whom I've loved ever since "The Wire") was terrific as Bruce in this entire episode, and found his physical fragility in the end really moving. He just seemed so weak and scared when Noah came upon him having so much trouble simply rising from his chair.

 

But I want to give a shout-out to whomever mentioned the lyrics to the theme song a week (two? more?) ago: Singer dies, falls into the water > creates a wave that causes an avalanche > man dies in avalanche > widow meets a new man > child is born. I don't think Noah and Allison will ever get back together. The affair was just step 1 in the chain of events. An accident will take place that will kill a man (Scotty). A child will be born (Allison's). Assorted other things will take place. But I think Allison will always be Noah's muse from afar--just lijke Bruce and his student.

 

I love that you and others have brought up the lyrics, because more and more each week, I've wondered about them. I'm very interested that the song is about the unexpected impact of a single event -- a death. I didn't like the song much at first but it's grown on me as the episodes have flown by. As with the song, I also agree with you that the show isn't about these two people forming some lasting love, but that it's about the unexpected impact that affair has on multiple lives.

[SlackerInc]

"You were safe, quiet, I could have had anyone."  What a bunch of shit!

 

Whatever the case, he should divorce her.  Whether he is 100 percent in the wrong or not, the marriage is toxic.

 

When Alison and Noah pulled up to the ranch, I thought she was going to ask him what his note said.

 

I found my way here once I realized it was the team behind "In Treatment," which I adored beyond the telling.[snip]

 

So yes, Bruce has affairs all the time, as we know from the previous episodes but I think those mean very little to him. But what got me about his story was that he was describing to Noah THE affair -- the affair he'd wanted, the girl he'd wanted. The girl he still thinks about every single day of his life as a missed opportunity. It reminded me very much of the "girl in the white dress" monologue from Citizen Kane in its unexpected eloquence.

I also thought John Doman (whom I've loved ever since "The Wire") was terrific as Bruce in this entire episode, and found his physical fragility in the end really moving. He just seemed so weak and scared when Noah came upon him having so much trouble simply rising from his chair.

 

Agree with all of this!  I too absolutely adored In Treatment--all three seasons.  I totally thought of the Kane monologue and was going to bring it up if no one else did.  And I agree that it was some amazing acting from Doman.  It can't be that easy to play that you have an infirmity you don't really have.

 

Or, at least, Tara is. A defense of The Affair's 'jackass' father-in-law, who may just be misunderstood. Or both misunderstood and a jackass.

http://previously.tv/the-affair/theyre-not-booing-theyre-saying-bruuuuuuuuce/"> Read the story

 

Wow, do I ever dislike these recaps.  I couldn't even finish this one.  I hope S2 is recapped by someone who doesn't hate the show so much.

 

I would like to take a minute to thank Joshua Jackson for telling the world what DNR means. I know it's a petty complaint, but the explanation really "broke" the scene! I half-expected the "The More You Know" rainbow star would appear for a second.

 

LMAO, great image.  Yeah, that was cringeworthy.  Don't they know people can just Google stuff like that?

 

I do agree that there is a slight problem with the murder mystery structure, in that, we have absolutely no reason to care that Scotty is dead.

 

I don't think the point is caring that Scotty's dead, it's caring that his death may have serious implications for the characters we do care about (namely, Noah and Alison).

Edited October 8, 2015 by SlackerInc

[stillshimpy]

I don't think the point is caring that Scotty's dead, it's caring that his death may have serious implications for the characters we do care about (namely, Noah and Alison).

 

Yeah, for me at least, my point stands unaltered.  "Noah could go to jail!"  "Allison will lose the love of her life."  

 

I find these characters interesting, but not likable enough on any front to care whether or not if that happens.  I suppose the point might be, "clearly some would cheer that outcome on!"  

 

"You were safe, quiet, I could have had anyone."  What a bunch of shit!

 

It's also Noah's memory, which has a tendency to justify his own actions.  He always remembers Allison as being the person who pursued him, pretty much relentlessly, whereas she remembers herself as being grief-stricken and seeking emotional solace.  The two pretty can't match up in several instances.  Again, she remembers meeting him on the anniversary of her son's death, on the same day she went off to read Peter Pan to a gravestone.  He remembers her, as one reviewer put it , "as succubus in a tank top" ....which I thought was pretty funny....but truly, it's unlikely that she was the come-hither-take-me-now share-my-shower nymph he remembers on the  anniversary of her son's death, fresh from a spot of ritualistic mourning.  

 

So I think it's also possible he remembers Helen as emasculating him at every turn in much the same justifying manner. 

 

Just saying, Noah's memories tend to justify divorcing Helen and leaving his kids.  In season two they have expanded the POVs. 

[SlackerInc]

I see where you are coming from.  I can't justify clicking the "like" though, because I do care about Alison and Noah, and root for them and their relationship.

[stillshimpy]

It's cool :-)  I understand where you're coming from also.  

 

Sometime relationships need to end for a huge variety of reasons, including falling in love with someone else.   Falling out of love with ones spouse and into love with another person is not the mark of the Beast or anything silly like that.  It's human, it happens.   One of the best movies I ever saw about it was actually Twice in a Lifetime (the 1985 movie, vs. the tv series) ....and in it, there are no bad guys.   Gene Hackman simply falls deeply in love with someone who is not his wife and he leaves his long time spouse for Ann Margaret's character ....who is not the devil either.   Neither is the spouse that Hackman feels he has to leave, even though she literally begs him to stay.  She's a good person, was a great mom....and the movie manages to make it understandable that if he stays, she'll be cheated of something else entirely:  Not the "this is the life I thought I would have" ....but of actually still being loved, which she also actually deserves as a person. 

 

The reason I don't like Noah has to do with Noah....but I actually often like Alison.  I don't like a lot of their actions. 

Edited October 9, 2015 by stillshimpy

[SlackerInc]

The bottom line for me is that I just don't fundamentally believe that anyone can be held to a promise they made one day, years or decades earlier, to never sleep with anyone else and never fall out of love with their spouse, or fall into love with anyone else.

[Higgins]

On 12/8/2014 at 5:05 PM, jrlr said:

Yes, that was Blair Brown playing the therapist who - to my surprise - didn't seem to think it was a bad idea for Noah to go to Montauk.  I thought it was clearly a terrible idea - the wounds are too raw.

I completely believed the exchange of ILYs between Alison and Noah.  And I think the reason Noah was able to be so compassionate is because his own mother died when he was 17 or 18, and it affected him profoundly (earlier he alluded vaguely to marrying Helen right out of college because he was kind of rudderless as a result of his mom's death).  And I thought Alison taking the toys out of the chest was heart-wrenching.  

Helen telling Noah in therapy that she married him because she thought he was safe was really a twist of the knife (not that I blame her for it).  But if Noah was feeling emasculated before, what with his horrible in-laws, the jabs about his writing and the whole monetary issue, then I think Helen saying that was really the cherry on the icing.  I didn't marry you because you were gorgeous, smart, promising, the best lover I ever had, I thought you'd make a good father, I thought we were meant to be together, hell no, I married you because I thought you were safe - OUCH!!!!!,

Those are good reasons to marry.

[T Summer]

Some aspects of this series are so good, but my God! sometimes it can be hard to watch!!!

Incredibly stupid for Noah to go to his father in law's party without his wife / family!

Then as if that wasn't stupid enough, the writers expect us to believe Alison can't get a cab or a friend or family to take her to the hospital to see her dying grandmother? Nope, the only one who can do it is Noah!

 

Then while Noah's there having an intimate chat with his FIL Bruce, the old crock feels the need to tell Noah

1. That the girl he just swore off in favor of trying to save his marriage might have been his muse... the one to open the flood gates  at long last to the commercial success he covets and thirsts after.

2. That he had his own young woman  muse when his daughter Helen was little who he gave up, and he then feels the need to tell Noah he's thought of the woman he gave up every day since.

3. Bruce gives Noah absolutely no encouragement to save his marriage  to his own daughter!! Actually leaving him with this story and suggestion if Noah lets his muse go, he'll not only not have the impetus to write his greatest novel, he'll also have lifelong regret about not making a life with her.

Who's father does this to his own daughter... he seemingly has no thought or care he could be influencing Noah  thereby sabotaging their marriage and possibly leading to the break up  of the family?

Maddening.