bobo chimpan SG Standard • a year ago
The beginning of this episode made the answer of that pretty clear, if only in my mind. While Noah is telling the investigator that he wasn't thinking of Alison at all, the flashback was showing him borderline obsessed with her. To me, that says that what we see is memory, and any voiceover is storytelling. So the differences we see aren't differences in their story to the investigator, but actual differences in the way they remember things. Any lies or distortions there are for nobody's benefit but their own...
That's the theory I'm currently working with. In a way it makes it simpler -- reliable narrators, with only the treachery of memory to consider -- but at the same time it means there are not two but potentially four parallel stories running here: Noah's memories, Noah's story to the investigator, Alison's memories, Alison's story to the investigator.
http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/affair-episode-two-210685#comment-1645518343
LeslieKnope2012 sodannysaid • a year ago
I'm still working through this myself, but I agree with you in that we are seeing their memories, which may not be what they are telling the investigator. But I think the discrepancies could be attributed to selective memory and the length of time between the events and recollection. Noah could have forgotten what he saw with his daughter, because she has snuck out with numerous boyfriends since then. Yet Alison remembers that because Whitney was with her brother in law.
And in terms of when they headed outside to the beach, we don't know what instigated that. It could have been anything. Noah could have caught Alison on a smoking break later on during their affair, but he remembers it as the night they first kissed. Maybe Alison remembers Noah's speech about time travel as what led to the kiss because it makes her feel better about the affair, even though he actually told her about that at a different time. Given that they are talking to the investigator at least three or four years after the affair started, I wouldn't be surprised if events started blending together. I certainly don't think I could reliably tell you when or how I met many important people in my life. And I feel like I remember things differently all the time to justify my actions.
Essentially I feel like the differences in memory are a little meaningless to the plot. But they are so instrumental in understanding their characters. Noah has a more romantic view of the affair, an undeniable attraction forcing two lost souls together. In his mind, he brings out the vitality in Alison, something her husband doesn't give her. Alison sees the affair as more of an escape; she was pulled into his orbit and she relented. She sees his flaws more clearly than he sees hers.
TLDR: The accounts differ because 1)selective memory 2)events blend together after a while. But, the memories are still important, because they tell you how the characters view themselves, other characters and the affair itself.
http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/affair-episode-two-210685#comment-1644295380
a quiet storm • a year ago
Bruce Butler was the third most central, but unsung, character this episode, which surprised me. I'm amused to learn how widespread the dislike and disgust for Bruce Butler extends. The pilot episode set us up to believe that Noah alone felt inadequate and disgruntled with his father-in-law. All those hugs for Grandpa may have been perfunctory. Turns out his daughter and mother despise him too, and the townspeople, at least Alison, scoff at his pretentiousness. (Hard eye-roll at that book title, "The Castle of Man"). Not surprised he had an affair, and flaunts attention to his lover the piano teacher Teresa flagrantly at that pool party, to parallel Noah's impending affair with the servant class in his own house.
I'm so bummed we didn't get to see Operation: Throw Whiskey in Bruce's Face for $1,000 come to fruition! What a careful pay-off in writing strategy: use that glass as the nodal point in the two cocktail hour stories, and indulge in the delicious irony that Noah's swagger to grab that glass from Alison's tray pre-empts Bruce's public-shaming by his wife -- a takedown of the chauvinist that Noah would've cheered for.
(Edit: Oh, did Noah's heroic memory of admonishing Bruce for referring to Alison as a "whore" and himself as a "schmuck" substitute (or function as placeholder) for Alison's memory of the plot to humiliate Bruce w/ the whiskey toss b/c of his misogyny? I must re-watch to figure out timeline, but indeed, awesome writing!)
http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/affair-episode-two-210685#comment-1644316088
inostranets • a year ago
In the pilot, I had assumed that Noah's version was further from the "actual truth" than Alison's (or externally consistent), but I'm not too sure this was true. I felt that Alison's version of the discussion with Noah in this episode could be mistaken for Noah's version of the discussion with Alison on the beach on the last episode. So we can't just compare the first half and second half of each episode, but the first half of one episode to the second half of another.
My intuition is that Alison's recollections are perhaps more internally consistent - to me that implies she tried to make sense of the events (and her own behavior) of that summer, but Noah's recollections are more externally consistent - he didn't as much. She has demonstrated a lot of self-knowledge in both the pilot, emotions that are not apparent in the acting (saying she was angry while at her special place on the beach near the lighthouse in the pilot and her in-laws' presumed terror at what she is thinking in this ep), whereas Noah is actively withholding information and omitting details about events. Her mismatch is with emotions; his mismatch is with events.
http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/affair-episode-two-210685#comment-1644318766
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From the moment Noah and Alison met, it’s almost as if there was an invisible string connecting them to each other. It is a string they don’t control, and a string they both at times wish they could cut. Most of all, though, it’s a string they both don’t quite understand, and this episode is all about them exploring what their connection means, and why it exists. On the surface, their attraction to each other is simple: For Noah, Alison represents a clean slate, someone who doesn’t have the tethers to his family, the same tethers that drag down his self-esteem. Alison doesn’t see him as someone who could be a better (more commercial) writer, or someone who could make more money, or someone who could support his family better. For Alison, Noah represents someone who doesn’t know her whole tragic life story just by hearing her name or seeing her face. He doesn’t look at her and automatically see death.
There’s a similarity here, and that similarity boils down to emotional freedom. Noah loves his wife and kids, Alison loves Cole (even if she’s less adamant about it in her perspective than Noah is about Helen in his), but they both feel trapped. In that way, the day trip to Block Island is not really a rendezvous to be together as much as it is a rendezvous to get away from themselves, at least the selves they are in Montauk. The problem with running to someone else to escape yourself is that it involves another person, so you must navigate that other person’s thoughts, feelings, and mind in order to do it. This space—between Noah and Alison’s expectations of losing themselves in each other and the reality of the complications this entails—is where this episode shines, as they stutter and start and finally see each other for what feels like the first time.
...
If anything, this episode is about the fractured way we get to know other people, and how people reveal themselves to each other one fragmented moment at a time. Noah and Alison spend almost the entire day on Block Island completely out of sync, one minute laughing together and feeling close, and the next minute acting like they are on completely different planets. The both adamantly don’t want to end their own marriages (at least according to Noah’s perspective), both thinking the affair can live almost on a surface level, but only can truly connect once the surface is scratched. As the weeks progress, The Affair is more and more revealing itself as a show about how hard it is to know another person, and the price you pay to have that knowledge.
The common ground does come, and in turn makes their connection make sense in a way it hasn’t before this episode. You can almost see in Alison’s eyes something crumbling when she hears Noah tell his story about hearing his dead mother’s voice call out to him; as if his telling this story makes it safe for her to tell him about Gabriel. Alison has spent her entire relationship with Noah to this point hiding the reason behind her sadness, but it isn’t until she tells Noah that Gabriel drowned that they finally see each other. And it isn’t until this moment that they ever feel in sync. Her confession unlocks something between them—as evidenced by the final scene of the episode, as they have sex completely present with each other—and that something is the reason this episode works so well. It was necessary to see the journey getting to this point, no matter how messy it was. Now that this is unlocked, how do Noah and Alison reconcile this connection with the rest of their complicated lives? The real world is constantly looming in the background, even if—for this one day—they allowed themselves to forget.
...
Interesting: In both versions this week, the little things are the same, such as clothing and the room. It’s as if both Noah and Alison were more attuned to the reality of this memory. No need to fill in the blanks with false details.
http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/affair-episode-four-211311
