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The Affair Episode 5 begins with a new change – the episode is first seen through Alison’s eyes. Really mixing it up, there…
She can’t be roused, first thing, as Cole is up at dawn’s crack to go surfing. Once he’s gone, however, she’s trying on her favourite dress in order to impress Noah, so is rather caught out when hubby returns a few minutes later because he forgot his board wax. D’oh! The guilt increases even more when he tells her that he loves how it looks on her. Awww… naughty girl!
Before long, Noah’s popped round to her hiding place – well, her friend Phoebe’s house – to come and butter her muffin. Instead, she’d rather talk about how she failed to become a doctor, before being interrupted by a call from her grandmother’s nursing home as her Mum, Athena, has come back to rock the boat, starting by attempting to change the elderly lady’s Alzheimer’s medication and replace it with homeopathy!
Then it’s off to the cop’s room, talking about how Oscar was friends with the victim, and then we’re back with her and Noah at Phoebe’s house. But why was Oscar taking an interest in the fact she’s minding Phoebe’s house?
Towards the end of this part, a family meal for the Lockharts goes wrong as they first start discussing selling Cherry’s ranch, which is worth $30m to the whole family, and then Cole lashes out (verbally) at Athena. In-laws, eh? Who’d have ’em?!
Finally, Alison gets to leave the cop shop after telling him how she didn’t know the location of Scotty’s whereabouts, so perhaps he has a part to play in this…
Part 2 is Noah’s turn and he sneaks out to be with Alison, first thinking Whitney’s gone AWOL but Helen confirms she spent the night at Ruby’s.
At Phoebe’s house they get to the bedroom quicker than before, but in this version of their morning ‘event’, he doesn’t even get time to take off his underwear, nor to butter Alison’s muffin as he has to rescue Whitney urgently from something undefined. Popping a tyre won’t help, nor wil bumping into arrogant Oscar who invites him to a fishing trip and tries to be all pally with him, but he manages to get out of this.
The Whitney situation is that she’s one of a group of kids who have been bullying a girl online called Jody… leading to her attempting suicide. Noah’s all set to frogmarch her over to Jody’s house to apologise, but Bruce is against it because he’s only worried that the girl’s family will sue Noah’s family. Helen suggests they all leave and go home a month early, yet Noah’s against the idea, not because he wants to spend as much time as possible with the in-laws, however, of course…
Oscar pops round as Noah dropped his AAA* card, trying to stir up trouble by letting slip to Helen that Noah’s been miles away from the bagel shop he was meant to be running past, but this is quickly glossed over. (For UK viewers, this is like the AA or RAC)
As Whitney is forced to apologise to Jody, Noah tells her she should stop doing bad things, realising he’s really talking TO himself ABOUT himself…
Helen thinks they should extend the summer holiday into the autumn (or fall), so they can all spend more time as a family and so Whitney wouldn’t go off the rails again.
With this part drawing to a close, Noah’s back at the cop shop, about to be released. He asks the cop what if the death of the unnamed person was an accident. But ol’ cop doesn’t believe in accidents. He poses a question back, asking Noah if he’s heard of a place called The End. He says he hasn’t, but the cop tells him it’s where Scotty was heading when he died… so it’s Scotty who’s the dead man. Yes, he who’s only in it every now and again. So who cares…
And whereas nothing happened in the bedroom at the end between Noah and Alison in her part, for him, he gets his oats, asks Alison to run away with him and she accepts…
Overall, this felt a slight improvement over the previous episode so I’ll stick with it and see how it goes…
Episode 5 Score: 4/10
Director: Carl Franklin
Producer: Andrea P Stilgenbauer
Writer: Kate Robin
Creators: Sarah Treem and Hagai Levi
Sound: Marcelo Zarvos
Cast:
Noah Solloway: Dominic West
Alison Bailey: Ruth Wilson
Helen Solloway: Maura Tierney
Cole Lockhart: Joshua Jackson
Whitney Solloway: Julia Goldani Telles
Bruce Butler: John Doman
Stacey Solloway: Leya Catlett
Trevor Solloway: Jadon Sand
Martin Solloway: Jake Richard Siciliano
Cherry Lockhart: Mare Winningham
Margaret Butler: Kathleen Chalfant
Detective Jeffries: Victor Williams
Oscar Hodges: Darren Goldstein
Mary-Kate Lockhart: Kaija Matiss
Jane: Nicolette Robinson
Athena Bailey: Deirdre O’Connell
Joan Bailey: Lynn Cohen
Jocelyn: Rebecca Rittenhouse
Caleb Lockhart: Michael Godere
Scotty Lockhart: Colin Donnell
Hal Lockhart: Danny Fischer
Ruby: Paulina Singer
Will: Sean Kleier
Harry: Stephen Kunken
Cook: Alfredo Diaz
Jules: Carolina Ravassa
Miranda: Teresa Yenque
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.