The Affair - Pilot - Review: "The Shape Of Things To Come"

Note: Please be aware that English is not my first language
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"1" premiered on Sunday, October 12 at 10:00 PM on Showtime.

January 16, 2014, Showtime ordered a 10 one-hour episodes of the new drama series The Affair. 


To be honest, at first sight, I wasn’t really convinced by the synopsis and the story of the show. However, one thing made me absolutely excited about it: Joshua Jackson. As an incontestable fan of "Fringe", I’ve been hoping to see Joshua Jackson and Anna Torv in new projects since the ending of "Fringe" in January 2013. So you can imagine how happy I was when I learned that a show was starring one of my favorite actor.

After several months of waiting, Showtime finally aired yesterday at 10PM the premiere of the anticipated pilot of "The Affair", its new ambitious show with very positive reviews for the time being.

Last year, ABC launched "Betrayal", a new dramatic show exploiting the consequences of adultery between two married persons. But it resulted in a monumental flop: the critics were harsh and the ratings were disastrous.
This year, we take the same theme around the adultery but we give it a shot on cable.
If we have to make comparisons between those two, we can say that the first one was predominately using the strings of soaps as ABC was trying to reiterate the success that "Revenge" was when it started. The second one is, on the contrary, a much more psychological show that takes its time to deepen its characters slowly but surely.
Let’s be clear from the start: this is far from being an entertaining or an action show filled with all kind of twists and turns. "The Affair" is mainly trying to explore the emotional and psychological effects of the extramarital relationship between two characters, Noah Solloway and Alison Lockhart, and in this point of view, the pilot is straightforward, simple and beautiful.

Noah Solloway is a new-york public school teacher and a novelist trying to write his second roman. He is the husband of Helen, the women he loves since college and who is his wife for 17 years now. She’s the mother of his 4 children.
When the episode starts, we slowly see how this family is dealing with their routine and their lives. Noah seems happy in his marriage, but he feels a little trap in this life he chose. And since they decided to go to Montauk for their summer vacation, Noah thought that it would give him the chance to reunite with his family, his wife and strengthen their relationship.

But when they arrived, they went to a dinner and that’s when Noah met Alison for the first time: she’s a waitress there. They truly met in front of the bathroom, when Alison got super emotional after Noah’s daughter chocked and escaped death thanks to the help of her father.
After they left the dinner, Noah decided to go back again because he presumably forgot to tip the waitress.
It led to another exchange between the two of them and we started to see the chemistry growing between the two characters.

The family arrived at Helen’s father house in Montauk and the same night, Noah decided to go by the beach after he tried to have sex with Helen and their kid woke up after a bad dream asking to sleep with them. Wandering in the beach, Noah saw a camp fire and came to see closer what was that about and he strangely saw Alison, watching the horizon of the sea. They started talking but we soon realize that Noah feels a little ill-at-ease, especially after Alison asked him to walk her home.

Notwithstanding, he agreed to accompany her home as Alison showed herself to be very persuasive and maybe a little provocative and seductive. When they arrived, Alison told Noah that she had an out-door shower and Noah admitted that he always wanted one: Alison asked him to go check it out even thought Noah insisted on the fact that he should be home by now.
Why did I say that Alison was a little seductive? She stripped down in the out-door shower in front of Noah who finally said that he had to go home to his wife.

On his way back to his house, Noah heard Alison screaming and having an argument with someone, with Joshua Jackson’s character. They were very angry to each other and Joshua Jackson’s character finally grabs Alison by behind fiercely and fucks her… which is pretty much rape as we heard Alison said: “leave me alone” and “get away from me”.
Noah tried to act and do something for Alison but she saw Noah and told him to stay where he was.

The next scene is pretty interesting as it gives a new directive to the show: Noah is being interrogated in what seems to be a police station with the interrogator asking: “Mr. Solloway, then, what happened?”

And that’s how the first part of the episode concludes. Yes, the episode has two different parts. The first one is the “Noah” part and the second one is the “Alison” part. The question is why? But further along in the episode we understand this choice of narration.

The second part of the episode opens up with an Alison, lying in bed with Cole, the Joshua Jackson character. They live in the same apartment and they are a couple.
The sex scene that they share is very sober and actually, those scenes are very present throughout the episode. But all of them are here to serve a greater purpose: understand the motivation of every character and their state of mind.
Alison is a broken person and the interpretation of the marvelous Ruth Wilson helps us see that. But we can also see that they are trying to do their best to stay a strong coupe, even if something probably happened to them in the past as they appear to be broken.

They love each other inside but they are eaten by some kind of pain that impede them to be serene.

For the second part of the episode, like the first one, there is a voiceover and it seems to be the voice of the interrogator interrogating Noah saying:
The interrogator: “Why don’t you tell me how it began?”
Alison: “It was so long ago, who remembers?”
The interrogator: “We’re hoping that you do Miss Bailey”

We start to understand that the narrative construction of the show is based on flashbacks showing the story of how the affair began. And they are probably doing it a la True Detective. The characters are telling their story, locked in a room, one after the other. And the idea of giving two different visions from the two characters concerned, by changing some elements from one to another, is very intelligent and it gives to the show an extremely realistic side.

Indeed, from the Alison point of view, she was the one saving Noah’s daughter from chocking by giving her a slap on her back.
The first time Alison and Noah truly met was also quite different from Noah’s perspective. The dialogues and also the way Alison was acting were different. In Alison’s perspective, she wasn’t as “seductive” as we saw her in Noah’s remembrances. She was just a little shaken by seeing Noah’s daughter chocking. And the scene that follows explains the reason of Alison’s reaction to this: she visited the grave of Gabriel Lockhart (2008-2012). We soon understand that it’s her son and that it was the thing that destroyed Alison, Cole and a part of their relationship. Losing a child is probably the worst thing that could happen to a parent.

At the fire camp, the one where Noah went when he wanted to walk a little on the beach, we witnessed a very different scene between Noah and Alison. Alison is not “provocative” at all regarding Noah.
He was the one offering Alison a cigarette when she was the one offering him one in his version. He’s also the one asking her if he could walk her home. She’s not trying to seduce him in the outdoor shower, she’s not stripping in front of him but he’s the one at the limit of crossing the line. He even kissed her on the cheeks when she clearly was against it:
Noah: “Uh, sorry, I don’t know why I did that… I guess I’ll see you around.”
Alison: “There is no real way to avoid it.”


The presumably “rape” scene between Cole and Alison wasn’t really a rape scene in Alison’s story.
Cole came back home as Jessa gave him a ride back from the fire camp which lead to a fight between the couple and that was probably my favorite scene of the episode, so I’ll just write it down:

Alison: “Fuck her if you want but just don’t let me watch.”
*Cole hits the hood of the car*
A: “Cole!”
C: “What?”
A: “Don’t do that (…) you’re scaring me.”
C: “I’m scaring you? I’M SCARING YOU? I’ve done every fucking thing you’ve asked me Alison. I read all of the books, we went to see the therapist, I went to see a fucking priest. I’M TRYING. I wake up every morning with his face in my mind too. You’re not the only one who lost a child here.”
A: “I know, I know, please… sorry… just, it just hurts, so much.”
C: “I know it does baby.”
A: “Just... make it stop.”
C: “I don’t know how.”

They start kissing each other and all of this violence and the truth of their exchange led to this intense sex scene. It wasn’t a rape at all, Cole asked her: “is this what you want?”, she responded: “yes.”
But Noah heard the screaming and thought it was a rape.

The episode ends with a scene from the present: Alison is also in the commissary interviewed by the interrogator. She’s asking how much longer this is going to take because she has to pick up her kid.
So we have the confirmation that they are going to tell their story like True Detective did and I’m glad about it because it’s a very interesting way to help the show create its own identity.

And what I love the most about this is that we have absolutely no idea why the both of them are being interrogated and I doubt a lot that it’s about the assumptive rape. The fact that the episodes will be built as flashbacks is very interesting because we’ll have to try to assemble the clues to try to we figure out what so terrible happened this summer.

Verdict: 6,5/10. All in all, I truly enjoyed this pilot. It was such an interesting and original way to start the show. I loved pretty much everything concerning the episode. The characters are very well deepened, especially Alison. The realization is sober, simple and neat. And beyond that, the story is structured perfectly, they seem to know exactly where they’re going for the rest of the season. It’s also well-written and the writing is helped by a very talented cast. I was really impressed by Ruth Wilson and Joshua Jackson was stunning in his last scene with Alison. However, I wasn’t really convinced by Dominic West.
But this idea of giving to different perspectives is actually very smart as it pushes us to wonder who to believe between Noah and Alison.

Hit the comments section below and tell us what you thought about the first episode of The Affair. Who do you believe the most? Alison or Noah? It's your turn !

About the Author - Adil Daoumer

Adil Daoumer is an almost 18y/o Moroccan student living in Paris, France, studying law and economy. He spends the majority of his life watching TV shows, reading books and listening to music. He has a lot of favorite TV shows such as Breaking Bad, LOST, Six Feet Under, Friday Night Lights, Shameless, Fringe, Hannibal, Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones, Revenge and more recently, Fargo and The Leftovers. He also enjoys having a good laugh in front of Community, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Happy Endings and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
This season on SpoilerTV, Adil will review Ray Donovan, The Affair and Shameless.
Don't hesitate to contact him on one of these social media sites.

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