Saturday, November 19, 2016

Previewing The Affair: Season Three



As Showtime usually does with many of its shows, they premiered the first episode of The Affair new season early through various outlets. If you have not seen it yet, be warned I am going to spoil it because something huge happens at the end that I do not want to be vague about it, so head to your On Demand station or Showtime Anytime pass to watch it now. I will be vague about the other episodes I have seen. You have been warned.

At the surface, you would think The Affair was some intense family drama, but it was sneakily a murder mystery too as we learned early in the series that one of the characters was murdered. We finally learned last season that it was in fact Helen that ran over Scott Lockhart but Noah actually stood up in court and took the rap for his ex-wife. The new season picks up three years later, because apparently vehicular manslaughter is not a very serious crime in New York State. There is still the multiple act structure, but just like in the second season, it looks like some episodes, one person’s POV will take up the entire hour.

With that murder now solved, they replaced with another mystery, who stabbed Noah (I will no spoil whether he survived the attack yet, on account I do not know if he did or not yet). And what a bizarre scene, Noah clearly knew someone was there but does not turn around. And what kind of attacker just stabs once and leaves not making sure they got the job done? Of course the potential killer list is very long with all the Lockhart’s, really all of Montauk, he son was very cold at the funeral, and the eldest daughter did not even bother to show up.

I believe last season, the first couple episodes were solo perspective episodes, but in the early episodes of season three, Noah I the only one who gets a full hour to himself. The second episode gets split between Helen and Allison split time. Although this is a split from previous seasons because the two never cross paths in each other act, but we do get to see Helen’s visit to the prison from her perspective. And much like last season which saw the addition of the perspectives of Helen and Cole, this season we get the point of view of Juliette, a French Lit professor Noah meets in the first episode and we get to see the dinner party he attends (Haddie Braverman also is there as a student of both Juliette and Noah's) from her perspective in episode three.

Hopefully this opens up the show even more as the two person point of view got stale pretty quickly in season one as you were confined to following just two characters around. Even upping that to four got tedious at the end of season for. Maybe everyone is a possibly this season. I would wager a guess that Cole’s bride will get an act or two. But really, I just hope the bratty daughter gets her own episode. C’mon, who would not want to see how she ended up in a hot tub with her father last season? And this season is even better now she is dating an erotic photographer who calls himself Furkat who livens up the episode where Helen comes to visit. Actually I am now kind of hoping for a Furkat perspective episode.

The Affair airs Sundays at 10:00 on Showtime.

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