Showtime

Well. And you thought your family holidays can get weird. This episode of Showtime’s The Affair spends Thanksgiving with Alison and Cole as both navigate the boundryless minefield that is their simmering emotions, their fragile family ties and what is and isn’t real in their hearts, minds and lives. Athena reveals a touching secret — and Cherry a horrifying one — but are both revelations too late to be of any help to their children at all? And Oscar drops a bombshell that feasibly connects a few more dots in the mystery of who killed Scott Lockhart and what the real motivation might be. It’s a midseason-finale-worthy episode— and […]

On this week’s episode of The Affair on Showtime, we hit the accelerator on our story a bit and see Helen’s and Noah’s perspective on consecutive timeframes. Our leap to the now comes sooner than we’re used to. And Alison’s sojourn home in last week’s outing takes on potential new significance, if the timing is correct. We start with Helen, who is watching Trevor working on a school project with Stacey’s help. She tells them to clean up their work and get ready to go to a ballgame with their dad, which thrills Margaret to no end. She begins Margareting in earnest. Can we talk hair […]

Here’s the thing about a fiery romance (and, oh, aren’t they all at the get-go?). Eventually most cool into something more … temperate. Practical. A durable partnership warmed by the embers of that earlier passion if the pairing good. A daily disappointment if it’s not. In the fifth episode of Showtime’s The Affair Season 2, we see Alison’s and Cole’s take on a day that demonstrates this  — and though we don’t see the same events from differing perspectives, what happens to each gives aching insight into who these two people really are at their core. If we believe what we see. We start with Alison, who, […]

I’ll admit, this week’s episode of Showtime’s The Affair — told from the perspectives of imploding marrieds Noah and Helen — was a head-scratcher for me. Would Helen really unravel in such borderline slapstick fashion after 45 years of being the very model of enviable cool? Would Noah — no matter how much of a lovestruck egomaniac he may be — really watch his son writhing in agony on the bathroom floor of a cheap hotel room and not make a beeline for the hospital? But maybe that is the point. The depths to which this situation is dragging everyone involved seems bottomless. And […]

Call this episode of Showtime’s The Affair — in which we get Alison’s and Cole’s take events of last week’s episode, and a disturbingly better idea of what may have happened to Scotty — for Joshua Jackson. By turns chilling and heartrendingly sympathetic as the beaten-down Cole, he is as mesmerizing as Maura Tierney was as the resolute Helen last week. No worries about a sophomore slump for Sarah Treem’s stunning psychological study with these two at the forefront, and Dominic West and Ruth Wilson as good as ever. We begin at Noah’s damn-near-cliché writers retreat by the Hudson, where he is late for that […]

If you are a Maura Tierney fan (and if you aren’t, we should talk and set you right) Showtime’s The Affair Season 2 promises to be, er, a splendid affair if last night’s season premiere is any indication. Instead of adulterous couple Noah’s (Dominic West) and Alison’s (Ruth Wilson) dueling perspectives, this time we examined a stretch of time somewhere in between last season’s calamitous showdown at the Lockhart ranch and the unceremonious end to Noah and Alison’s happily ever after — from the points of view of the unfaithful dad and his beleaguered estranged wife Helen. (Tierney). • Miss the Season […]