‘The Affair’ Season 3 Finale: A Day in ParisThe Affair
By MIKE HALE JAN. 29, 2017
Season 3, Episode 10
No Alison, no Cole, no Gunther, only the briefest glimpse of Helen through a window. “The Affair” wrenched itself away from just about every previous story line in its Season 3 finale on Sunday, reaching a state of suspended narrative animation from which just about anything is possible for an already promised Season 4.
A running theme in your comments has been: Why didn’t they shut it down after Season 2? I don’t think there’s really any need to argue that, given the obvious financial and emotional incentives for creators to keep any TV show alive if the network is willing. What I will say is that it’s probably a lot easier to pull it off, year after year, with a genre drama — one of the crime or superhero or legal or political shows that make up the great majority of hourlong series — where the artificial conventions already in place provide ready-made catalogs of cliffhangers and new plots. “The Affair,” as divorced from reality (see what I did there?) as you may find it, can’t just gin up a new election or supervillain or mystery. Well, it kinda, sorta tried to pull off a new mystery this season, with disastrous results.
Back to the season finale. As if in a fairy tale, Noah and Juliette popped up in Paris, in bed together, memories of Brooklyn, Montauk and knives in the neck seemingly banished. A day in the city of light was seen from their contrasting perspectives, which played a bit like a “sophisticated” French romance (hers) and a moralistic American dramedy (his). It was set at Christmas, which kept making me think of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” though there are probably more apt parallels. (Definitely not Henry James, even if that’s what the writers, Sharr White and the showrunner Sarah Treem, had in mind.)
Juliette’s chapter was focused on Etienne, the husband with Alzheimer’s whom she had left behind during her year in New Jersey. She was still avoiding him, spending the night with Noah in his hotel room. That made it all the more guilt-inducing when she came home to discover Etienne’s apparent miracle recovery, as he spoke lucidly about the offer from Livingston University (the one Juliette had accepted in his stead). But it was a mirage — within minutes he was confusing his doting daughter, Sabine, with Juliette, and confusing Juliette with his first wife, Brigitte, who had died (like Gabriel, and like Noah’s mother). Like so many other “Affair” characters he was clinging to a fantasy version of his life, but at least he had an excuse.
Out and about in Paris, Juliette had an embarrassing encounter with two university colleagues who sized up Noah and inquired pointedly about Etienne. Then she had an even more disquieting meeting with her department head, during which she had to acknowledge that she had lied about Etienne’s condition and even signed forms and sent emails in his name. “This feels very close to fraud,” the extremely self-possessed administrator said, and you had to agree.
Wandering the streets of Paris, Juliette went into the Panthéon and walked up to Foucault’s Pendulum, suspended from the more than 200-foot-high central dome. Standing beside this monument to rationality, which proved the earth’s rotation, she began to rotate herself, spinning in circles, symbolically out of control, giving in to the chaos (the irrationality!) of her situation. It was a little on the nose, but that’s the French way — obvious but artful. Resnais would have been proud.
You know you’re in trouble, though, when Noah Solloway is your port in the storm. Juliette called him to meet up for an early dinner, where he demonstrated his newfound irrepressible happiness. She had pulled him back from the brink — all off camera, between episodes — and now he was writing like crazy. Then Juliette got a call from Sabine, and it was obvious right away what had happened: That crafty old Etienne had sandbagged Juliette twice in the same day, this time by dropping dead of a massive stroke while she was out with her lover.
Juliette’s day would get even worse: back at home, Sabine blew up at her, telling her that everyone knew about her American boyfriend and that she had humiliated Etienne even in his death. It was the same abuse we’ve been hearing Noah and Alison take for three seasons, and perhaps it constitutes the bond Juliette feels with Noah. In any case, when he appeared at her door that night, she jumped him, despite his attempted demurral, and her chapter ended with them having sex in the hallway (while Sabine slept inside). Business as usual for Noah, though
The idea of Noah as an overgrown child continued into his own story line, when he visited a bookstore and opened a copy of “Peter Pan.” Reading the first line, “All children, except one, grow up,” he grimaced and closed it again. Then he bought a very serious old edition of “La Morte d’Arthur” as a gift for Juliette.
There were some amusing differences in his and Juliette’s versions of events. In a bit of meta-trickery, the French dialogue in Noah’s chapter wasn’t subtitled (as it had been in Juliette’s). This emphasized his cluelessness during the conversation among Juliette and her colleagues, and my high-school French wasn’t sufficient either. I got the sense that Noah imagined the exchange as more humorous and sexual (and flattering to him). If there are French-speakers among you, please enlighten us.
But the central action came in the scenes Juliette hadn’t witnessed, when — by dint of a typically egregious “Affair” coincidence, like the sudden death of Etienne — Noah discovered that Furkat was in town. Noah tracked down the happy artist, who was having a Paris exhibition, and Furkat greeted him jovially, the punch-up in Brooklyn forgotten. Jonathan Cake, as Furkat, gave the episode its few moments of humor, in the way he gushed: “I guess I’m having a little bit of a moment. At the moment. I’m just feeling really blessed.” Noah was feeling confused, having seen Furkat feeling up a young assistant — who wasn’t Whitney.
Staking out Whitney at her hotel, Noah caught her running Furkat’s errands (she was actually holding his dry cleaning) but while she was clearly unhappy, she was having none of her father’s interference.
At this point Noah got the call from Juliette, and we saw a much less happy and romantic iteration of their cafe meeting. An angry Juliette put down Noah by way of unloading on Etienne, explaining that he had philandered throughout their marriage and that he made Noah “look like an amateur” when it came to affairs. So not only was she with Noah when her husband died, she was bad-mouthing her husband, too.
While Juliette ran home to deal with dead Etienne, Noah went to Furkat’s opening to deal with an angry Whitney. Watching through the gallery window, he saw his daughter humiliated — serving champagne while Furkat ignored her — and then assaulted, when an argument boiled over and Furkat slapped her. We were primed for Noah to pop a vein and take Furkat out (or try to), but Whitney begged him not to make a scene. In a sudden display of maturity and emotional control he listened to her, choosing to follow her as she ran away rather than go Neanderthal.
Father and daughter had a before-sunrise scene by the Seine, during which Noah tried to convince Whitney that being hit wasn’t O.K. and Whitney, in her otherwise unconvincing defense of Furkat, pointed out that what Noah had done to Helen and his children was worse. It was epiphany time, as Noah stumblingly said, “I failed in the most important job I had, which was to protect you from men like — men like me.” That finally broke the ice, and Whitney admitted that she just wanted to go home to Brooklyn.
Juliette needed her epiphany, too, so we got the nighttime rendezvous again from Noah’s perspective. No sex in the hallway this time, just a sober and not very interesting conversation in which Juliette took the blame for her treatment of Etienne and Noah told her that looking after someone who was dying was hard. I’m guessing that’s the last reference we get to his mother.
In the morning, Juliette and Sabine met Whitney — with Sabine and Whitney looking like strong candidates for a Season 4 friendship — and father and daughter flew back to America. On the sidewalk in Brooklyn, the newly stable Noah looked up at his old home, saw Vic standing in front of the Christmas tree and calmly turned down Whitney’s request that he come inside. Father and daughter exchanged smiles, and then, in a real Capra touch, Martin — the angriest of them all — came out and invited Noah to go sledding in Central Park the next day. Helen appeared in the window and waved, but didn’t linger. Noah got back in the cab, and when the cabby said, “Where we going, buddy?,” Noah had no answer — the season ended on his puzzled face. So where are we going, buddies in the “Affair” writers’ room? You’ve made it clear that it’s Noah’s show. Will Juliette be there? Will Alison? You’ve got a couple months to figure it out.
www.nytimes.com/2017/01/29/arts/television/the-affair-season-3-finale-recap.html?_r=0'The Affair' Season 3 finale recap: A Paris rendezvousEthan Renner For The Baltimore Sun
Jan 30, 2017
"The Affair" recap: Season 3 says au revoir in Paris, for some reason.
Part One: Juliette
The Season 3 finale of "The Affair" opens on Juliette and Noah in bed, in Paris. As the sun rises, Juliette remarks that they haven't slept all night.
So they were up reading books, right? Probably.
Juliette starts dressing for her day, and explains to Noah that she'll spend it explaining to her university why her husband won't be returning to teach there. She bought time by asking for a sabbatical when he first showed signs of dementia, but now the jig is up. Noah says he'll spend the day walking around Paris, and working on his writing. What he really wants, though, is for Juliette to dump her responsibilities and spend the day with him.
With an eye on her watch, Juliette agrees to sightsee with Noah, and the two walk around Paris canoodling. Juliette isn't into public displays of affection, and lets Noah know that. "Paris is a small town," she says, not wanting to be seen in a compromising situation.
'The Affair' recap: Helen tells the truth, while Noah reveals an even darker secret
As they kiss, right on cue, two of Juliette's colleagues approach. They comment on her handsome American friend, and ask whether her husband is well. Juliette insists that he's fine, just getting older. Her colleagues insist they won't tell on her, and say their goodbyes. Uncomfortable with how all of this went down, Juliette heads off to meet her husband, Etienne, and daughter, Sabine.
When Juliette arrives, Sabine alerts her that her husband is awake and is showing no signs of the dementia that has been plaguing him. "Hello, my love," her husband says in French. "It's like he came out of a time machine. It's crazy," Sabine says.
Etienne fires off a to-do list for Juliette and explains in great detail the work to be done with Livingston, the American university where she was teaching.
Just as things are looking up, Etienne confuses Sabine with Juliette and Juliette with his first wife, and the reality of his condition hits home. Juliette's face falls, but she assures her husband that everything will be fine, and urges him to rest.
Juliette heads to the university for her meeting and informs the head of the faculty that Etienne won't be returning to teach there due to his Alzheimer's. The university representative is surprised, especially since she's been corresponding with "Etienne" by email in the years that he has been on sabbatical. In reality, Juliette knew of his diagnosis when she arranged for the sabbatical, and sent emails in her husband's name.
"You have to admit, this feels very close to fraud," the faculty member says. "I didn't want to admit that he was sick," Juliette says. The faculty member suggests that a review of Juliette's status with the school is in order, sending Juliette to wander the streets and contemplate her lot in life.
She meets Noah for dinner, and he greets her with a Christmas gift — a rare book. Noah thanks Juliette for being good to him, and for bringing him back from the brink. The dinner is cut short by an emergency call from Sabine, who tells her that Etienne has taken a turn for the worse.
When she arrives, Juliette learns that Etienne suffered a massive stroke and died. As Juliette wonders how that could be, given how alert he seemed earlier in the day, the attending doctor explains: "It's what we call terminal lucidity. The patient surfaces right before the very end. Life a sort of final gift," he says.
Juliette asks Sabine to leave her alone with Etienne, but her daughter snaps, and tells her that she could have had plenty of time with him if she hadn't been away in America — or even that day, if she hadn't been running around with her "[expletive] American."
"You've humiliated him on his deathbed," Sabine says, and Juliette insists that she should leave. "Forgive me, Etienne," Juliette says, and the coroners take her husband away.
When Noah arrives later, Juliette grabs him and kisses him passionately and they make love in the foyer of her house.
This is a judgment-free zone, but isn't that just a touch disrespectful?
Part Two: Noah
Noah's point of view begins with his recollection of meeting Juliette's colleagues on the street, and again we see Juliette heading off to the university while Noah roams the streets of Paris.
He enters a bookstore, and settles on "Le Morte d'Arthur" as a gift for Juliette. After more wandering, Noah sees a poster advertising a Furkat exhibition at a local gallery, with an explicit photo of the female anatomy front and center. Enraged, Noah heads to the gallery. As he arrives, he sees Furkat groping a woman, and calls him outside to have a chat.
Noah asks whether Furkat and Whitney are still together, and Furkat says that they are, but that she's off running errands while he mans the show. Furkat goes on to brag about how busy he is and how well his work is selling. "I guess I'm having a bit of a moment at the moment. I'm just feeling really blessed," he says, taking a drag of a cigarette. For all of my problems with this show this year, Furkat has been a delight. Their awkward meeting ends with Furkat inviting Noah to return later for the opening of his exhibition.
Noah finds out where Whitney and Furkat are staying, and heads off to the hotel to try to intercept his daughter for a conversation. Whitney arrives, and quickly dismisses Noah, who then runs off to have dinner with Juliette.
Juliette tells Noah that Etienne was his old self earlier that day, and Noah tells her to go be with him. "I wanted to be with you," Juliette says. Noah's take on how the women in his life speak to him is a low-key highlight of this series. "Juliette, I've been here before. You haven't. These things can turn quickly," Noah tells Juliette, urging her not to do anything she will regret.
Juliette turns the tables on Noah, and tells him that her husband had affairs for years. She turned a blind eye to them, she says, and now, on the one day he actually wants to spend time with her, Noah should understand why she wants to be elsewhere. A call from Sabine interrupts their conversation, and after Noah gives Juliette her book, she rushes off to her husband's deathbed.
With his evening free, Noah heads to Furkat's exhibition. Rather than entering, he creepily stands outside the gallery, and looks on while Furkat is dismissive of Whitney. Moments later, Noah witnesses an argument between the two, which quickly escalates. Furkat strikes Whitney in the face, sending Noah rushing into the scene. He checks on Whitney, who says she's fine, then heads inside to fight Furkat. Whitney begs him not to, then rushes off. Noah decides to go after her, rather then create an even bigger issue with Furkat.
As father and daughter walk together, Whitney tries to explain her boyfriend to her dad. "He's an artist. He can't just turn his passion on and off," she says.
"Love isn't supposed to be pain. Love is supposed to make you feel wonderful about yourself," Noah says. That might be the most poignant line in the history of this series.
Whitney throws that back in Noah's face, and calls him out for not doing that with Helen. "I never hit your mother," Noah says. "You may as well have," Whitney fires back. Noah says he doesn't think he's better than Furkat, but that Whitney is better than him. Seeing her defend Furkat kills him, because it means he failed in protecting her "from men" he says, then leaves a pregnant pause. "From men like me."
After Noah pleads some more, Whitney agrees to take a break from Furkat, and father and daughter agree to fly back to America together the next day. Noah gives Whitney his hotel room for the night, and heads off to Juliette's.
Juliette apologizes for her demeanor earlier and talks about her husband — the guilt she feels now for how she thought of their relationship, and how she handled it at the end. "I abandoned him when he was helpless," she says. Noah urges her not to put any of the weight of Etienne's death on her shoulders.
Noah escorts Whitney back to New York, and drops her off at Helen's. He tells her that he loves her, and she thanks him, but doesn't profess the same. Baby steps, people. Martin sees his dad outside, and comes out to invite him to go sledding with the kids the next day.
As Noah gets in a cab to leave, Helen comes to the window and they exchange waves. "Where we going, buddy?" the cab driver asks. Noah doesn't answer.
Final Thoughts
As a standalone episode, this was probably the best of the season. As it relates to the rest of the story that came before it, this finale left me scratching my head. We didn't see how Noah got better after his psychotic episodes, and I have issues with spending a finale episode with Juliette. She's a character worth getting to know, and she injects some much-needed life into the narrative possibilities for the show's future, but I think her point of view would have played better in next season's premiere.
Indeed, where are we going from here? Season 3 was the weakest of the series by far. I'm hoping for a quick return to Season 2's form.
www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/tv/tv-lust/bal-the-affair-recap-season-3-finale-20170130-story.htmlThe Affair Season 3 Finale: Ending Baffled Fans; What To Expect NextBY PRABHU GOWDA ON JANUARY 31 2017 02:25 PM
Showtime’s adultery drama had its third season finale earlier. The Affair season 3 was a kite cut away from its characters’ string.
The Affair season 3 won’t last long in fans’ memories after it left a bitter taste in the mouth. Not only was the show devoid of its favorable characters, but also made futile attempts of empty rhetoric. Noah’s temperament, for starters, is taking a detour from its orthodox chaotic frame of mind. One can excuse the oddity, but what was all the Alzheimer’s indifference about?
THE AFFAIR SEASON 3: MEDIOCRITY
Whenever a show airs its finale of a season or its entire run, fans are mostly equivocal in response. Some provide room for some betterment, some are happy and some are obviously not. The Affair finale, on the other hand, has the better part of the fans feeling downcast. Noah took the most of screen-time and gave very less to cherish about, to say the least.
Vulture terms the finale a character redemption gone astray. The character in question here is Noah, of course. If you’re looking close enough, Noah is nothing like his old self. No mention of his parole status, for starters. Moreover, he’s visibly stable. When did that happen? Behind closed doors? Just a thought, perhaps!
Whatever happened to Alison and Cole, anyway! The fan favorite characters went AWOL and left a sorry-looking Noah to make up for their screen-time. Noah and Juliette are together in a predicament of their own. Also, Juliette isn’t aware of her position with respect to Etienne’s. Now that the latter is out of the equation, things might mellow down a bit. Not for Noah, though.
THE AFFAIR SEASON 3: NOAH’S CONUNDRUM
Noah’s struggles with himself and his family soars in the finale. He has to confront his shortcomings from the past through Whitney’s unsavory situation. After Noah stumbles upon Furkat’s gallery, he’s met with an ugly truth of Whitney’s relationship with Furkat. Furthermore, things go awry and Furkat goes ballistic on Whitney, only for Noah to intervene just in time.
The show casts Furkat in a bad light only to sell the good in Noah. Last we remember, Noah was the one assaulting and behaving abominably. Times, they do change, don’t they? Noah too, but hey, he’s an eccentric guy. Show runners are vehemently trying to turn over a new leaf for their pseudo-hero, of course. Not with much success, however.
www.trippedmedia.com/tv/the-affair-season-3-finale-expect-next/206942/'The Affair' finale recap: Episode 10SARA VILKOMERSON@VILKOMERSON
POSTED ON JANUARY 29, 2017 AT 11:00PM EST
Welcome to the season finale of The Affair! Or I guess I should say “Bienvenue,” as we travel across the globe for a special Parisian edition of this show for our finale. I will be honest: I was very dubious about a Juliette perspective being half of this episode, but you know what? It was a very good episode, and a big return to form for The Affair, in this recapper’s opinion. Maybe all we needed was to drop the hysterical, crazy pill-popping flashbacks? In an ideal world, I would have liked an episode between last week’s and this one’s — maybe one that explained how Noah got off the floor in a grimy New Jersey bathroom and into a cute coat in Paris?
We begin with what seems to be wintertime in the future, and we are in France. All together now: ooh-la-la. Noah is no longer a wild-eyed lunatic but a hunky pillow for Juliette. He’s staying in a charming little garret (because, you know, France), and we are treated to a look at just what a slamming bod Juliette has. She’s nervous because she has an appointment at the university to tell them the truth about her husband. Noah is charm incarnate and lures her back to bed.
They walk around beautiful Paris and kiss a little bit. But then Juliette gets busted by some frenemies (or, rather, frenchemies). Honestly, one of them is wearing a beret. The women and Juliette do some passive aggressive chit-chat about Noah, who just stands there looking tall and handsome in a pea coat.
Juliette heads home (beautiful apartment) and her daughter, Sabine, rushes to tell her that her husband has “woken up.” I immediately get some PTSD-like feelings on remembering Awakenings. But there Etienne is: erudite and charming and eloquent. He seems miraculously back, but those of us who’ve watched Grey’s Anatomy know this can’t last. Sure enough, before long Etienne is mixing up Sabine with a young Juliette. Worse, he mixes Juliette up with his first wife, whom he does indeed seem to have loved better. Merde.
To continues Juliette’s weird day, she goes to her university and has a really terrible conversation with the meanest lady ever to rock a cashmere turtleneck. This feels pretty unrealistic to me, but the long and the short of it is, they’re furious with Juliette for keeping Etienne’s illness from them, and on top of it, they don’t see a need for her at all anymore. Or, more specifically, they don’t know where Etienne ends and Juliette begins. I’m guessing Juliette doesn’t either.
She walks to the Pantheon and — dang, nice location scouting, The Affair! — it is beautiful and solemn, and she gazes at the Foucault pendulum, watching it go around and around. (Yes, I did look up the history of the pendulum to see what it might signify beyond time and spinning, etc. )When she leaves, it is snowing. She calls Noah and runs — so French, so pretty — down charmingly crooked streets and looks at Noah from outside the window. You know that great feeling when you can see someone’s face in repose and they don’t know you are watching? He has a gift for her, an early rare edition of Le Morte d’Arthur. But then the phone rings and, ugh, it’s Sabine with some bad news.
Etienne is dead from a massive stroke by the time she is home. Her daughter’s grief has turned into white hot rage as she accuses her mother of humiliating her father on his deathbed. Juliette screams for her to leave her with her husband, and when she is alone, she solemnly apologies to his body.
There’s a bit of uncomfortable physical comedy when they can’t get the body into the teensy European elevator. Afterward, in the empty house, Sabine has fallen asleep in her mother’s lap. Noah is at the door. She pulls him into the hallway and they have sex while she whispers, No, no one is coming — about the worst thing I can think of to say in the throes of passion, but there you go.
Next: Noah’s Paris contains a Furkat
We’re in Noah’s perspective, and here he has a different and, in my mind, a lesser coat. He loves Paris, though, and enthuses to Juliette about cheese and things. Oui oui!
They again run into her friends, and I have to say, this is when I remember how amazing The Affair can be. From Noah’s English-speaking perspective, there are no subtitles, so it’s just a lot of French-talk with zero understanding. Also, I think the camera is higher up, so you really see it from his view. This was the sort of thing I missed this season.
Anyway, they part and he wanders into Librairie Auguste Blaizot. He looks at a copy of Peter Pan, flashes to his old life and Alison (hey, remember Alison?) before he finds good ole Le Morte d’Arthur. But when he leaves the store, he sees a giant vagina. Are you surprised? It’s Noah! But no no, it’s a poster for our friend Furkat’s exhibition. In fact, his gallery is across the street.
Noah looks through the window (there is an awful lot of gazing through glass panes in this episode) and sees Furkat molesting a slender dark-haired girl who turns out not to be Whitney. Good old awful Furkat comes out and is his total ridiculous self, explaining that Whitney is out running errands and talking about the linens at their amazing hotel. He’s having a show tonight and tells Noah he’ll put his name on the list. Noah waits for Whitney in the lobby. She comes in, looking tired and drawn and totally overloaded by dry cleaning and packages. She does not seem all that thrilled to see Noah. At all.
He gets a call from Juliette — interestingly, in his mind it is not snowing, and it it is he who gazes rather fondly at Juliette through the window. She’s drinking a glass of wine and reading Noah’s first novel. She tells him about Etienne waking up, and Noah is fairly horrified that she’s not using this opportunity to spend every moment with him. She bristles at his judgement. She’s like, Oh hey, by the by, you are not the expert on affairs. That would be my husband. She’s angry, clearly, and makes it clear she’s purposely choosing to stay away from Etienne because of past grievances. She gets that fateful phone call and yet tells Noah everything is fine. He does indeed present her with the book, but with much less fanfare and wrapping. She takes off.
Noah goes to the Furkat show and spies Whitney through the glass, looking simply stunning in a red dress but also very sad, as she’s clearly been demoted from girlfriend to cocktail server. She watches Furkat lavish attention on her replacement and tries to pull him away to talk. Noah watches as she succeeds in getting him outside, where they start to fight, and then, and then! Furkat hauls off and hits our girl! Noah goes all Incredible Hulk-y and flies to her side, but Whitney begs him not to make a scene. Oh, Whitney.
They stroll along the Seine and Whitney asks who Juliette is and if he loves her. Noah says, rather sagely, that he’s trying to more careful with that word. But he is mostly concerned about what he just witnessed. He tells his daughter that what happened was absolutely not okay. Whitney is all, but he’s an artist! He’s supposed to be passionate. And man, poor Whitney: I think your 20s are going to be very, very difficult. Noah tells her gently that love isn’t supposed to be pain.
Whitney, true to form, is ready to strike back. She says, Oh you mean like how you treated my mother? You may as well have hit her. Truth. Noah takes this and says that she right: that he has failed to protect her from men like Furkat and men like himself. She looks really young and tells him she just wants to go home. He tells her he’ll take her. (I press pause and call my father to say hi.)
He leaves her in his hotel room and gives a sweet speech about parenthood and how things get better generationally. He’s rewarded with a smile.
He goes to Juliette’s house. If they have sex in the hallway, we don’t get to see it. They have a long and very interesting conversation about watching someone you love die. About the lies we tell ourselves. She realized she didn’t mean any of the things she said earlier — she really did love him. She had this idea that she was the lady in the tower, waiting to be rescued. But now she realizes it was actually Etienne. Sheesh, this is sad.
Noah can empathize, especially the part about watching someone be sick. “After someone dies I think we want to tell ourselves a story of how it was our fault because at least that gives us some control.” So again, here is where it would have been nice to see how Noah got himself together. But what’s important here is that he’s being very sweet and kind to Juliette in her time of need.
RELATED: Hear more of the latest TV news from this week
In the morning they say goodbye (Whitney and Juliette meet, as well as Sabine) and fly home. When the cab pulls up to the brownstone, Noah can see his family inside. The kids laughing, the pretty tree, and — hello! — Dr. Vic laughing at Helen’s side. Merry Christmas to us all. Phew. Noah tells Whitney that he shouldn’t come in, and she smiles affectionately at him when he tells her he loves her. She thanks him. So it seems like these two are on the road to recovery. Helen catches sight through the window and they gaze at each other and wave. It’s a real moment. When he gets in the taxi, the driver asks where he is going to next, and he has no idea. And, as our French friends might say, fin.
So it’s a little weird we just left Alison and Cole where we did, right? And I’m not sure where this show is going to go in season 4, but thanks to this last episode, I can promise you I’m in.
ew.com/recap/the-affair-season-3-finale/2/The Affair Ends Its Season With A French ReconnectionLook, it's been a long season. You'd take a road trip, too, if it meant getting away from Noah. ...What? Noah's here, too? Oh, man.
LET'S TALK IT OUT
Our Players
PM- Hello, I'm Previously.TV Contributor PHILIP MICHAELS.
LS- Hello, I'm Previously.TV Contributor LISA SCHMEISER.
The Talk
PM- So I guess time has elapsed between Episodes 9 and 10? Because we're now seeing Noah's neck sans festering pustule? He's not gulping pills by the handful? And 75 percent of the series leads are missing in action?
LS- I wouldn't say I've been missing them, Bob.
PM- I mean, after a season of watching Noah's downward spiral, thank heavens all those scenes of him apparently cleaning himself up happened off-camera since if there's one thing an audience hates it's being rewarded with resolution.
LS- I just wish we had a scene with him checking in with his parole officer. "You're calling from where, now?"
PM- At least we finally get to the bottom of Madame Professor Eau So Franch's career and marriage. I had so many lingering questions, like "Who were you, again?" and "Why are you on this show?"
LS- I enjoyed Madame Professor Eau So Franch's segment because it was comparatively Noah-free and so much of it was in French, so I could just ignore the actual content of the episode and pretend I was watching a French film about exquisite architecture, tastefully eclectic decor, and, of course, absolutely killer un femme d'certain age style. This is what it has come to, Phil -- I was looking at Madame Professor Eau So Franch's apartment and wondering which bibelots Pottery Barn would be knocking off in the Fall 2017 collection.
PM- You know, the film critic Mark Kermode posits that when you are spending your time obsessing on the decor and background in a scene, it's because the actual scene itself has failed to engage.
LS- I'm not going to apologize for my love of a live-action Anthropologie catalog, Philip.
PM- I'm just impressed that a prestige cable show is finally willing to devote 25 full minutes to tenure-track pissing contests in your average French medieval literature department. At last, we're going to have a long-overdue cultural conversation.
LS- So what I want to talk about with regard to this episode is how Madame Professor Eau So Franch seems to regard Noah as a sort of pleasant distraction hovering on the periphery of what matters to her -- academia and family. And how in Noah's segment, she really could not give a hoot about either. This goes along with Noah's historical inability to conceive of women as having anything better to do than, well, him.
PM- I would love to contribute here but I cannot bring myself to care about any of Madame Professor Eau So Franch's segment. Though mad props to Sarah Treem for getting Showtime to bankroll a week in Paris.
LS- At the risk of playing devil's advocate here, I think the point to Paris was actually this: for Madame Professor Eau So Franch, it shows that she has a life here and Noah is merely a diversion. And that's a first, because Helen built her life around Noah and Alison used Noah to blow up her old life. Here, he's merely a hobby. Not one I'd choose, mind you, but for once, he's more a placeholder than the main attraction. And in the Noah segment, the benefit to Paris was that it allowed him to resolve some of the stuff with Whitney in a setting completely free of all their old drama. So I think the episode was supposed to be about location as a metaphor for emotional context.
PM- I absolutely hated Noah's segment. I loathe unearned redemption stories and this was one of them. The last time we see Noah he's sobbing on his kitchen floor, and now he's able to walk around the City of Lights dispensing wisdom?
LS- Oh, I'm not disputing that. And I want to point out that in his segment, he spends all his time rescuing women from themselves and their lives. If Noah has come to terms with his mother's death and his role in it, it's more along the lines of "I am always doing women big favors."
PM- It was his horrible speech to Whitney that really set my teeth on edge, specifically the part where he says "I should have protected you from men like me." Buddy, your job was to give Whitney enough self worth to where men like you don't even get within a zip code of her.
LS- I do like that she goes home for Christmas. And that Vik is apparently cool with Helen killing a dude, because he's back under the family Christmas tree.
PM- It's a Vik Christmas! It's the greatest gift of all! I'm sorry I told you to go away! I'm glad you're being pulled down by these idiots just so I can see you at Christmas!
LS- It's a shame Furkat turned out to be a woman-hitting son of a bitch.
PM- Let's talk about the last scene of the season, where the cab driver asks Noah, "Where to, buddy?" and Noah looks like he's been asked to solve a math problem about trains leaving different cities.
LS- To be fair, Noah always looks slightly, petulantly confused.
PM- That almost read to me as a cry for help. "Where do we go from here?" the writers ask. "Because, boy, did we lose the plot this season."
LS- Honestly, this season finale could have served as a series finale: Noah drives off into whatever, wrapped in the smug certainty that women everywhere will benefit from his Noah-ness, Helen has a family and a partner who is -- let me stress this again -- totally okay with her killing a man and letting someone else go to jail for it. And off on Long Island, Alison is adulting more or less successfully and Cole is…well, one assumes he's self-destructing but who cares? Unless the next season is about Luisa realizing she could better, I'm not here for it.
PM- Let's do our final LVP and MVP. The LVP is Noah, for being a needy sex ghoul in Madame Professor Eau So Franch's segment and being a deluded Galahad in his own. The MVP is whatever Showtime bean counter got the expense report for The Affair's week in Paris, heaved a heavy sigh, then told an intern, "You get the receipts from Dominic West and I'll put on the pot of coffee."
LS- I'm honestly shocked Vik didn't get a nod for merely showing up. We were both giddy as children when we saw his beautiful profile. For me, the episode LVP was Furkat because bad artists hitting women should be censured loudly and often. And the episode MVP was the poor French EMT who had to get an upright into a turn-of-the-century elevator. He had one job and he managed. That's all anyone can ask for sometimes.
previously.tv/the-affair/the-affair-ends-its-season-with-a-french-reconnection/