The Affair (TV Series) Episode #3.5 (2016) User Reviews

Finally some answers

[dierregi · 8/10 · 28 January 2018]

All the questions left pending about Allison and Noah's separation finally find answers in this episode.

Despite the fact that each character may have an independent story, I never forgot that these two getting together were the reason why the whole story started.

Therefore, I was curious to know what happened to their love story. Turns out, life happened. I found the summary given by Allison very realistic, although she did not take into any consideration the attraction she felt for Noah.

Allison's dismissal of Noah is quite cold. Now she is - again - a mother and she pursues motherhood with selfish determination, caring nothing for the life of the man she contributed to destroy.

Very life-like.

Funny and poignant

[ann303 · 10/10 · 23 September 2021]

This is one of the only episodes with the Noah/Alison story halves that I like. Most of season 1 when it's just their stories, I'm left rolling my eyes with exhaustion at their self-destructive and selfish tendencies, and I dearly LOVE this series. In this episode, the two of them return to Block Island, but instead of this trip happening at the beginning of their relationship, as in Episode 1.4, this trip takes place after a lot of sad and tragic things have happened. The episode manages humor alongside some deeply tender moments. The scene at the bed and breakfast where Noah shares with Alison the details of his mother's death and all the context surrounding that event is unbelievably sad and touching. This episode drives home the point that we hardly know these two as a happy couple. The scenes in which we see them together as a couple in the previous two seasons are fraught with conflict. We never even get to see them get married, and in fact in this episode, their marriage is dissolved.

As much as I sometimes struggle to like both Alison and Noah, Ruth Wilson and Dominic West are just phenomenal and absolutely inhabit these characters.