Fan Forum - The Affair Discussion Thread #16: Season 2 Speculations are About to Begin

Fan Forum (https://www.fanforum.com/)

- Joshua Jackson (https://www.fanforum.com/f30/)

- - The Affair Discussion Thread #16: Season 2 Speculations are About to Begin (https://www.fanforum.com/f30/affair-discussion-thread-16-season-2-speculations-about-begin-63139266/)

The Affair Discussion Thread #16: Season 2 Speculations are About to Begin

The Affair Discussion Thread

Season 1 is Over, so it Begins for our Season 2 Speculations and Theories of this Golden Globe Nominated Show.
Bring IT ON!!

Please respect the No Spoilers rule that :ff: adheres to. :spoiler:

Discuss SPOILERS in this thread (at the Spoiler Forum):
http://www.fanforum.com/f15/affair-s...-4-a-63133824/

or you may find what you are looking for in the Cole Lockhart Thread
and why not keep the discussion on our Board for ease of reference
http://www.fanforum.com/f30/cole-loc...sies-63135537/

Cole
Cole Lockhart is Alison's husband. He is the prodigal son of a large, boisterous family who has owned a ranch in Montauk for generations. He is equally devastated by the horrible loss he and Alison have suffered, but he finds comfort in his responsibilities at the ranch and the loving support of his family.
http://www.sho.com/site/image-bin/im...6_1024x512.jpg

Alison
Alison Lockhart is a Montauk native who works as a waitress at a local diner. She is married to Cole, the son of a local landowning family. They are struggling to recover from a tragic loss and their relationship is in repair. The handsome writer from the city provides a tantalizing escape.
http://www.sho.com/site/image-bin/im...4_1024x512.jpg

Noah
Noah Solloway is a writer and schoolteacher who is happily married to Helen. They live in Brooklyn with their four children and are beholden to Helen's wealthy father, a famous novelist, for their spacious brownstone. Noah's first novel was recently published to mixed reviews. He is vacationing with his family at his in-laws' estate in Montauk for the summer, where Noah hopes to write a more successful follow-up. The appearance of a beautiful young waitress is a tempting distraction and a serious threat to everything he has.
http://www.sho.com/site/image-bin/im...3_1024x512.jpg

Helen
Helen Solloway is Noah's loving wife and the mother of their four children. A deft manager of their busy lives, she still loves her husband after all these years. While her father is a renowned novelist, that success has come at the expense of his family. Helen has high hopes for Noah's own writing career, but is wary of repeating the mistakes of her parents.
http://www.sho.com/site/image-bin/im...5_1024x512.jpg

About the Series

At once deeply observed and intriguingly elusive, THE AFFAIR explores the emotional effects of an extramarital relationship. Noah is a New York City schoolteacher and novelist who is happily married, but resents his dependence on his wealthy father-in-law. Alison is a young waitress trying to piece her life and marriage back together in the wake of a tragedy. Set in Montauk at the end of Long Island, the provocative drama unfolds separately from both the male and female perspectives, using the distinct memory biases of both to tell the story.

http://scontent-b.cdninstagram.com/h...46627907_n.jpg

Best TV Series, Drama
"The Affair"
"Downton Abbey"
"Game of Thrones"
"The Good Wife"
"House Of Cards"

Best Actress in a TV Series, Drama
Claire Danes, "Homeland"
Viola Davis, "How To Get Away With Murder"
Julianna Margulies, "The Good Wife"
Ruth Wilson, "The Affair"
Robin Wright, "House Of Cards"

Best Actor in a TV Series, Drama
Clive Owen, "The Knick"
Liev Schreiber, "Ray Donovan"
Kevin Spacey, "House Of Cards"
James Spader, "The Blacklist"
Dominic West, "The Affair"

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B4mX2uuCMAE5x8k.jpg

Some Episode Reviews from Lainey Gossip Entertainment Lainey Gossip Entertainment Update - Search Results Affair

Keep track of The Affair ratings here
The Affair TV show: latest ratings on Showtime (cancel or renew?) | canceled + renewed TV shows | TV Series Finale

Previous Threads:

Looking forward to some speculations relating to season 2 and where all the characters fit into the bigger picture. As we saw Noah and Alison are together in the future when Noah is arrested and from the look on Alison's face she is in the thick of it.

We will all have different ideas as to how and why they got to where they are, who is involved and who is not.

Most of our questions and speculations from last season have not yet been answered/resolved so are still relevant to next season. I will bring the list forward for us all to look at and see if any of our ideas have come to fruition.

1. Jade86 guessed that there were drugs involved when we saw Alison with the cooler and was proved correct.

2. We all wondered about who was the victim and a few people guessed it was Scotty which was proved correct.

3. We all believe that Noah and Alison are hiding a lot from the detective while he is questioning them.

4. Jade86 believes that Cole is a really dark character and really wants to be involved with criminal activities, and is up to a lot more than we have seen so far.

5. Moonmaiden74 doesn't agree that Cole is that dark and is only in the drug business as a way of getting the ranch out of difficulties, as he is prepared to take the blame if they are caught. LWS53 agrees with this.

6. Jade 86 believes that Scotty and Oscar are in cahoots and set up Noah to see if he would tell Alison that Oscar reported them to the police.

7. JJH85 and Shelby discussed whether the suspicious death involves Whitney and or Martin and their dad and or grandad are covering for them or did something to cover it up and make it look like an accident.

8. We all discussed whether the Affair or the drug dealings are the reason for Scotty's demise.

9. Jade86 thinks that Cole might have drugs and related monies stashed under the straw or hay and Martin was looking at it in the Mares stable when the horse got out and ran away.

10. Escapism thinks that Cole may be already having an Affair and Tweener thinks that Cole may have an affair with Jocelyn from the pilot when he finds out about Alison's affair.

11. A few of us think that Cole and Helen have taken the news of the affair to well and that there will be some sort of reckoning in the next episodes.

12. Jade thinks that Cole being the head of the family happy carrying on the family tradition that started with the grandfather and bootlegging Whisky and carried on in some way with their father and has now been passed down to Cole with the drug dealing.

13. JJH thinks that Alison is very important to the drug business as well as to Cole personally which could be another reason Cole and Cherry wants her to stay.

14. A few people have thought Cole wanting to have another baby could be a way of keeping Alison with him and under his control as he appears to like to be in control of everything.

15. Jade thinks that Cole's necklace has something to do with their dead father.

16 As the necklace is a Celtic Knot LWS53 thought it may have been a gift from Alison at some point earlier in their relationship. It will be interesting to know what it represents.

17. Scotty's death ties two crimes together and detective jeffries interrogated alison and noah for two different reasons. The reason noah has been interrogated will be about Scotty's relationship with his daughter Whitney. Maybe noah tried to protect her by killing him. And since Scotty was involved in drug business, here is when Alison comes in. Detective Jeffries interrogated her because he is secretely trying to find out who is still behind this illegal business, this sort of crime. Alison was nervous because she was too worried that something wrong was about to happen, so when she was out she tried to call Cole! Yes..In the present day he is probably running illegal business and Alison and Cole are still married.(I copied this as Jade86 wrote it)

18 I haven't really made up my mind yet on who stays together and who separates, but what I think is that after staying with Cole for some time and perhaps having his baby, Alison leaves to "go find herself", but ends up reconnecting with Noah. When we see the funeral scene, Alison appears to be sitting by herself and it is present day because Detective Jefferies is there and Alison has short hair.( JJH85).

19. Jade86 is convinced that Cole and Cherry are against selling the ranch because of some dirty dealings related to the past generations of Lockhart's.

20. LWS53 thinks on Cole's part he is afraid of change and doesn't want to relinquish his authority as the manager of the ranch and his role as head of the family. On Cherry's part she is putting obstacles in the way as she knows something about the ranch that she doesn't want to tell the family ie there is outstanding debt or there is some sort of codicil to stop the land being used for development.

21. Cherry's husband (Lockhart boys father) had an affair producing an illegitimate child (Oscar?) who is also an heir to the Lockhart property. Cherry has kept this affair under wraps all these years, like all good, devoted wives do (sic).
Maybe, Papa Lockhart had the affair with Athena which is why there is such disgust for her. Maybe Cole is the only one of the boys who Cherry has confided in which is why Cole has such a thing for both Athena and Oscar.
This would make Alison and Oscar half brother/sisters!
Cole is good! Not bad(moonmaiden74)

22. I think it is more likely that Oscar's father had some sort of agreement with old man Lockhart when they were young and the document that Oscar is waving around has something to do with that. It may go even further back to prohibition days and be why there is a feud between the two families.(LWS53)

23. I hope it's not that. I wonder how and why Oscar and Alison met and why Oscar showed her those papers. Maybe Cole in the end didn't sign the agreement about the bowling alley, so Oscar looked for revenge and found some old documents that put the Lockharts in a bad light and he asked Alison to see him at his house to talk about that.(Jade86)

I'm going to have to read through those again and do count of all the theories we got right.

EDIT:

Bringing this over from the Spoilers Board. I'm sure we've all read these articles already, but having the text right in the Thread might help with our new speculations of S2.

'The Affair' Creator on the Finale's Big Reveal - The Hollywood Reporter

Quote:

'The Affair' Creator on the Finale's Big Reveal

The Affair is heating up.

The answer to one of the show's most highly anticipated questions — whether Noah and Alison leave their respective spouses to be with each other — was revealed in the Showtime series' finale Sunday night. But just because the two extramarital lovers end up together doesn't mean the titular affair is over, says series creator Sarah Treem.

Though the focus of the split-perspective drama's first season has been the forbidden romance between grief-stricken Hamptons waitress Alison (Ruth Wilson) and bored novelist and father of four Noah (Dominic West), the series intends to go beyond their amour. "The affair just becomes a larger landscape in the second season," says the former In Treatment and House of Cards writer. "It goes beyond a literal affair into a different kind of world."

The couple's relationship is only further complicated by the murder of Alison's brother-in-law, Scotty (Colin Donnell), who was revealed in the season's penultimate episode to be the father of Noah's daughter's (Julia Goldani Telles) baby. Also disclosed in the finale was the prime suspect of the crime. When Noah is arrested by Detective Jeffries (Victor Williams) in the final scene, it opens up next season to a whole new set of possibilities.

Hot off three Golden Globe nominations — one for leading lady Wilson; her onscreen lover, West; and another for the series — the critically acclaimed drama is gaining recognition for its freshman run. "I was hoping that Ruth and/or Dominic would be nominated because they both did such good work," show creator Treem told The Hollywood Reporter, "but the triple threat was a total surprise."

Here, Treem breaks down the finale, responds to the biggest criticism she's gotten from fans and reveals whose perspectives we will see the story told from next season (hint: it won't be just Noah and Alison anymore.)

The big reveal in the last scene of the finale is that Noah and Alison are together, but we don't quite see how they get to that point. Will we see the narrative catch up to the present-day detective storyline this coming season?

Yes. The way I've always conceived of the show is what I think of as an epic story structure, where the action starts in the middle of the story and then goes back to the past and shows you how they got to that place before it continues through that middle section into the future. Next season the past will catch up to the present, and then we'll move through the present into the future.

What's the one question you keep getting from fans about the finale?

One question that I've gotten from people is "Why would Helen (Maura Tierney) take him back or even want to take him back?" People are irate about that. I want to say to them "Guys, they have four children, and they've been married for 25 years." Most people don't end their marriages if they can help it. Helen loves them, and she loves their life, and she wants to make it work. That's much more realistic to me than somebody just kicking their husband of 25 years out and saying, "I never want to see you again."

People react to characters differently than they react to human beings in their life sometimes. We want characters to do the things that we ourselves cannot do. I think that's why sometimes watching television is exciting because we invest in these characters, who are perhaps braver than we are or more wild that we are or more self-destructive than we are. But we've been trying to write a show where the characters behave in very, very human ways. That was definitely the philosophy behind the last scene with Helen. It felt very true to her character that she wanted above all else to preserve this marriage.

In future episodes, can we expect to see the story told from the perspectives of any of the other characters besides Noah and Alison?

Yes, we're definitely going to expand to more perspectives in the new season. We haven't exactly decided how many new perspectives we're going to have, but we'll definitely see Helen's and Cole's at least. Because if Noah and Alison are now together, they are not as mysterious and unknown to each other in that scenario — but the Noah-Helen relationship, for example, all of a sudden becomes more interesting because they're not together. They don't understand each other, and they don't experience each other as naturally. We're always trying to keep in mind in any given scenario which character will see it most differently because therein the conflict lies.

Between Alison and Noah, whose perspective do you find viewers identify with more?

Now the viewers hate both of them, which I find pretty funny. People are uniformly against Noah, and people still have some sympathy for Alison because of what she's going through — but still, they're not particularly pleased with her either. The longer the characters stay in the affair, the less sympathy people have for them. People really want marriages to work, which I think is great.

And what about you? Are you more comfortable writing for one or the other?

I've kind of internalized them both after a certain point and just felt that they were both sides of my own experience and the experiences that I've gleaned from talking to other people. I don't really have a preference for one character or another. I actually love both of them. The Alison character is, of course, easier for me to identify with because I'm female, but in terms of writing the Noah character — I have a lot of men in my life, and I have a lot of conversations and experiences that I'm eager to put onto the page. It's been nice for me to think about relationships from both genders because a lot of times when we are in relationships, our gender plays a big part in how we perceive what's happening. So being able to put myself into the head of a man has been very exciting and also very relieving to see it from the other side. When you get into the head of somebody else, you get to realize that everybody is real, and therefore actions and consequences are not as black and white as they seem. There aren't necessarily good guys and bad guys in the world, and I actually find that comforting.

How have you struck the balance with Noah and Alison to where viewers still retain some sympathy for them despite their immoral behavior?

We tried very hard to explain where they're coming from. What I didn't want to do is give people an easy answer for their actions, like that they were just in a bad marriage. We presented Noah as a character whose life seems perfect from the inside, and then when you get deeper inside it, you realize that he's incredibly dissatisfied — and part of that is because the people in his life don't necessarily take him seriously, or he doesn't have as much influence over his own life as he'd like, but also because he is dissatisfied. He hasn't become the man that he wanted to be. For Alison, she has lived through this intense tragedy [of losing her 4-year-old son] and that has a tremendous amount of bearing on the choices she's making right now. But I don't think that's all of it — she also has been very reactionary her whole life, trying not to lead her mother's life, and has been trying to please the people around her. Now she's realizing that that's perhaps not the road toward the person that she's wanted to be.

I'm trying to get people comfortable with the idea that sometimes making the right choices in life is not the way to feel self-actualized. I just wanted to make it pretty messy. We can go back through our lives and explain to other people why we did the things we did and try to stack the deck so that it seems like our choices were the right ones, but we all have hurt people unintentionally in order to save ourselves. I think if we were all to go back and examine the choices we made through the lens of somebody else's perspective, we would see ourselves as the villain, and that's hard. It's a very uncomfortable place to be, but it's really necessary to understand our place in the universe.

What do you hope viewers take away from the season on the topics of marriage and infidelity?

I want people to take away the idea that being a human is hard, that we really have very little business judging each other's lives. We are all trying to live as well as we can, but people hurt each other a lot. This is not a public service announcement of any kind, but I think that we could all perhaps benefit from a little less judgment in terms of how other people live because I don't think any of us are saints. We're all trying our best.

You've said before that you plan to take Noah and Alison's affair beyond its literal implications, so how will it manifest itself in season two?

You see at the end of season one that Noah and Alison are together in the future, turning that "affair" into something else. Season two is going to show how the past catches up to the present. It goes beyond a literal affair into a different kind of world. What I can say for sure is that characters like Helen and Cole don't go away when Noah and Alison start a life together. When people leave their spouses, their spouses don't disappear and their families don't disappear. We like to think of our romantic lives as very black and white. This is my chosen person. I am his wife and he is my husband, and that is the totality of my relationship. But it's not, and it's really not if you've already had a first marriage.

How much of the new season have you mapped out?

I wouldn't say we have a whole season locked up, but we have a bunch of different arcs already in mind. It's nice because we purposely kept this first season very intimate — and maybe even a little claustrophobic — because we thought that that sentiment reflected the experience of being in an affair, but now we feel like we can branch out and broaden the world of the show without diluting the intensity.

In that larger landscape, which character's story are you most eager to expand?

One of the things I'm really interested in as a writer is what happens to Helen after her marriage falls apart, because this is a woman who has defined herself for a long time by this marriage. She's been a good girl to a certain extent — she really has been everyone's favorite daughter, friend and wife. When a person like that loses the framework of their world, who is that character? I just feel personally that I've been through that experience, and this is the thing that I always wanted The Affair to address.

As people, we are all kind of infinite. We have the possibility to lead many, many different lives and behave in many, many different types of ways. But we make some choices that end up defining us, and then we act in a way that reinforces that character that we've created. At a certain point, usually through crisis, that character is revealed to us as something that has been constructed to a certain expect. Then all of the sudden, we are limitless. I'm just really excited to see who Helen becomes. From both her and Cole, we're going to see some really radical departures from the characters we thought we knew.

full article at link.

E!Online | The Affair Boss Explains Stunning Finale and What's Ahead in Season 2 (More Narratives!)

Quote:

The Affair Boss Explains Stunning Finale and What's Ahead in Season 2 (More Narratives!)

"Do you believe me?"

Gah. We think that's the best way we can sum up our immediate reaction after watching The Affair's season finale. (Warning, spoilers ahead!) We didn't get to see how Scotty's (Colin Donnell) murder went down, but an arrest was made: in the final scene, set in the present-day, Noah (Dominic West) and Alison (Ruth Wilson) are in their NYC apartment (yes, they're together!), getting ready for a night in after putting their (?) daughter to bed, when Detective Jeffries comes in and arrests Noah. "I'll get you out of this," Alison promises. "Do you believe me?"

This. Freakin'. Show. But worry not, as a definitive answer to who murdered Scotty and how it went down is coming...eventually. Also on the way? Point-of-views other than Noah and Alison's. (Can we get an amen?!)

Here, creator Sarah Treem answers (as best she can) burning finale questions and previews what's ahead for season two:

Will we see Cole and Helen's point-of-views in season two? Get excited because, as of right now, that's the plan. "I hope we'll be seeing Helen and Cole's [narratives]," Treem says. "It's all still very much theoretical, but that's the idea in my head at this point."

Aside from varying narratives, will the objective truth ever be seen? Treem reveals that she has a plan to reveal the objective truth behind one of The Affair's biggest mysteries.

"In my mind, in terms of what the truth of the crime itself is at the end, I think we need to and we are going to see that and understand what happened there objectively," she says. "In instances like that, where there is crime or something, where it's not basically the emotional interaction between two people…that to me is the one moment where I actually want to know the truth. That's the moment I'm pretty sure we will see objectively, but I think the way that we get there is going to be a bit of a puzzle, so when the audience arrives at it, they will discover it for themselves."

SHOWTIME
So when will season two pick up? "Season two in the past will pick up very quickly after season one ends," Treem reveals. "We have more to go in terms of the story before the past catches up to the present."

Will Noah be put on trial for Scotty's murder? Viewers will soon learn that Detective Jeffries (who was revealed to be gay in a phone call at the end of the episode, proving even he was lying to both Noah and Alison, and us, all-season long).

"If you think about the evidence the detective is arresting Noah on, he doesn't actually have that much to go on. So he needs more. It's circumstantial, what he's arresting Noah on right now. It's not conclusive. We're going to watch that detective do more work to figure out what actually happened."

Mark Schafer/SHOWTIME
Why did the writers decide to have Helen reconcile with Noah? We were a little sad to see Helen, whom we adore despite how some fans feel, say she didn't want to divorce Noah after their four-month separation. Why oh why, we asked?! Well, it's complicated, just like it is in rea-life, Treem reasons.

"She has four kids with him, they've lived their whole lives together…I think people are not as quick as we'd like to think they are to break up their marriages over an affair. I think that when you find yourself in that position, there's a lot of, ‘OK, does this really have to be the end?' And I think she does miss him and she does love him, and for me, that's what's going to be really interesting about Helen's arc in the second season, is that this man has really betrayed her and yet she still loves him. What do you do with that?"

Was that always going to be the finale's ending, even if the show wasn't renewed? When we spoke with castmember Colin Donnell before a second season was ordered, he hinted that we would be satisfied by the finale. However, after watching it, we would've been frustrated if it acted as the series finale. There were too many questions, too many dangling threads.

"There was a point in the middle of the season where everyone's like, ‘I don't want this show to have a second season,'" Treem says. "I thought was odd actually because I always conceived of it as at least a three season show, so I was like, ‘We're not even close to done yet with this story.' But it surprised me that people could not conceive of how this could possibly keep going. To me, that sort of tells you more about what the expectation of an affair is in people's mind because everybody thought they kind of knew how it would resolve itself."

Quote:

This is very curious! I'm not sure if this post is in the right thread because i actually don't know if he was filming for "The Affair"
I only know that Dominic and Ruth were still filming in NY today but why Cole would be there without beard? Was josh filming something else? I'm confused O_o

Neil Schloth ‏@NeilSchloth
Mama Schloth spending the day with #JoshuaJackson as he films at the nursing clinic she runs in Brooklyn. Casual.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ByaAMLfCAAAOzRC.jpg

Found the pic and caption that went with it. Originally posted by Jade86

Good find, now if we only knew exactly what that was all about.

This just about sums up how I feel about episode 10 as well

So… If you’re hoping for some answers in the season finale, you’re best advised to discard those expectations to spare yourself from experiencing the same frustration I went through after watching it. It didn’t feel like a finale at all, very little was resolved and just when the story starts to pick up, the screen goes blank and the credits roll in.

Rather than building on the momentum from last week’s ending, The Affair decides to have another timejump of four months. Watching Noah’s new life after his seperation with Helen is perhaps the most bizarre aspect of the episode. I felt like I was involuntarily watching the beginning montage of a rom-com, introducing us to the womanizing lead character who sleeps with every woman he lays his eyes on. But it is the consequences of Noah’s frantic and reckless behavior that serve as an incentive for him to write his new book “Descent”.

Alison's life also looks vastly different as she spends the four months with Athena and she seems to have mended her rocky relationship with her and considering how broken it was, I quite frankly find it disappointing that we don't get to see how or why it happened; They had such an intriguing dynamic and to have it turned completely upside down without an explanation is dissatisfying.

But eventually, they are both sucked back into their old lives as Whitney (who, by the way, isn't pregnant anymore) ambushes the Lockhart's at their home to warn them her parents might sue Scott for statutory rape. Once Helen and Noah arrive, the situation escalates in two different ways in each perspective. If you wanted to see more of Joshua Jackson, you can look forward to him appearing for more than a brief scene. I really wish they would have made more of an effort to flesh out Cole more. I hope we get to see more of him in Season 2.

You can also expect to see more than short glimpses of the present timeline. Like the synopsis suggests, the detective will make progress in his investigation with the help of a person who met Noah during his first visit in Montauk and he'll even make an arrest at the end of the episode.

This season finale doesn’t bother to give us answers or a sense of resolution, instead it treads the opposite direction: It opens up even more cans of worms and reveals more than it resolves. I really, really need the question of why there are still two perspectives answered, because at this point we are not seeing two different versions of the same story, we are seeing two completely different events all together.

The Affair - Episode 10 - Advance Preview: "More Revelations Than Resolution" | Spoilers

I think that is the best article so far and it definitely reflects how I am feeling about E10 as well. If they hadn't gotten renewed for S2 then I would have been very dissatisfied with this as a finale to the show as it really didn't cover enough and I'm still of the opinion that 10 episodes just doesn't cut it when you have so many unanswered questions and so much of the back story left untold. Sorry, but I'm all for the 22 episode series.

I think that is the one comment that Josh made that still irks me and there's not much that he says that I don't usually love. When he said that you can make the quality of the show better by doing it with fewer episodes than the usual Network 22 episodes, I felt that was an insult to all the good shows out there, including Fringe and for me Fringe was one of the most clever and high quality shows I have ever seen and 10 times better than The Affair, but that's just my opinion. I guess I'm still feeling a little bitter over that comment. (sorry Josh, but that one hit a nerve)

Quote:

Originally Posted by JJH85 (Post 79516288)

I think they can make good series with ten episodes but this wasn't one of them. They spent far too long on showing Noah and Alison pussyfooting round each other and not enough time on the other main characters especially Cole, for a ten episode season, especially if it has finished at the end of season 1. I think Sarah Treem must have had a behind the scenes reassurance that the show would be renewed for her to have spent so much time on the frolics and less on the other important stuff - like where the story was going.

It was supposed to be a look at marriage and as a married woman of 27 years I didn't see that at all - but ST has only been married a short time in comparison so I think my experience of long term commitment is as valid as hers. I know they used so called experts but I have experience of these experts and well, I will say no more about that subject.

About the subject of the loss of a child I have known a few people who have lost children in different circumstances and every couple acted differently, some stayed together, some it affected really badly which in the end made them split up and some lived through it and came out the other end eventually - but not without scars.

I think Josh is just bigging up the show as it is his latest project and has to be loyal to it. I think it must be very difficult to give your best work when you have really strict deadlines so I can see his point on that aspect, and he is probably still feeling the after effects of working for five years on Fringe and all the promotions etc that went with it. Remember after finishing Dawson's Creek he was ready to throw in the towel as he felt so burnt out and didn't return to TV for five years but now he feels an affection for the show.

At least with The Affair he has time to recuperate before next season where hopefully we will see more than a few minutes of him in each episode, which is better than nothing.

I do see your point and maybe I would feel differently if this show had given more of the story and less of the "pussyfooting" around. I think the Noah and Alison affair may have been more believable if they had spent less time on them after their initial meeting in E1.01 and just showed brief meetings and let our minds take that relationship to where we wanted it to go. However, if I felt more chemistry between them, I might feel differently.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JJH85 (Post 79516766)

It says a lot for the actual affair that the best moment was when they were moving the furniture from one room to another when Noah kicked a hole in the chest of drawers. It also showed that Noah has a temper along with the beating up of Scotty so he is not that different from Cole - and Alison was dressed very similar to Helen in the last scene of the last episode so it looks like they have swapped their respective partners for carbon copies of them.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B5i9ScoCYAArZw-.jpg

There's just something dreamy about the way Josh is leaning in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LWS53 (Post 79516551)

I have to wonder how satisfied Josh is with this series. Perhaps because I am an American, but to me, Josh is the headliner here-more so than any of the other 3 leads. It really makes me wonder what he wants out of his career because I think he is so much more than the bit part he has in The Affair.

What is next Josh? Are you just biding time while you devote energy to your new home? I can't help hoping that the role of a lifetime finds you and your talent is allowed to shine!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moonmaiden74 (Post 79526541)

I think he enjoys his down time, so this was probably something he was looking for. A quick and easy job that may or may not last up to three years. Why not do it? (channeling his thoughts there)

Quote:

Originally Posted by JJH85 (Post 79526689)

I think he enjoys his down time, so this was probably something he was looking for. A quick and easy job that may or may not last up to three years. Why not do it? (channeling his thoughts there)

You also have to remember what you sign on for often changes from what you were told it was going to be.

Lets just hope Josh has more opportunities in Season 2 than he did in the first season

Given that Sarah Treem already had 3 seasons planned since the beginning i bet she also had an idea of the story's structure through the seasons. I think actors, josh included, knew what the first season was about and Sarah Treem never promised lot of screentime for josh and maura...and when she said that the second half of the season had more cole and helen that actually happened.