Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress

reviewing 3 Body Problem; Bosch; Citadel; Criminal Minds; Dark Matter; Dune: Prophecy; Fauda; For All Mankind; Foundation; Hijack; House of the Dragon; Luther; Outlander; Presumed Innocent; Reacher; Severance; Silo; Slow Horses; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Surface; The: Ark, Diplomat, Last of Us, Lazarus Project, Orville, Way Home; True Detective; You +books, films, music, podcasts, politics

George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.

Sunday, January 29, 2017

The Affair 3.10: Taking Paris

After a ragged, often frustrating season 3, the finale of The Affair tonight served up an altogether sensitive, satisfying episode - not only the best of the season, but one of the best of the series. By the far the closest we've seen in this series to anything approaching a happy ending.

The Paris parts - Juliette and Noah - were excellent, just because of the great Paris scenery, including a bookstore (of course) and the Foucault Pendulum. It was great to see Juliet and Noah in bed, and after, and the story of Juliette's husband was interesting, too.

But that was just an appetizer for the main event, much shorter in time, which came near the end of Noah's half hour, and ended with the rapprochement of Noah and Whitney. This has been brewing and needed for almost three seasons, and the conversations they have in Paris allow Noah to finally come into his own as father. He was positively profound when he tells her that children can learn from their parents and be better parents, not perfect, but better, and someday in the future maybe someone will have a perfect childhood.

And Noah goes home with Whitney - or she with him - and the last scene outside of Helen's apartment is also the happiest we've seen of that family since maybe the first episode of the series. At this point, not only is Helen and family and Vic happy, but so are Noah and his children, and, as per last week, so are Alison and Cole.

And there's even a chance we'll see more of Juliette and Noah, though that's the least certain at this point. Noah in the cab, not knowing where he wants to go, was sad, but at least he's no longer psycho, and he could even take a plane right back to Paris.

In any case, given this insane world off-screen we currently inhabit, I'm more than content to close the curtain on The Affair until the next season, and know that all of our major characters are ok - and, hey, I don't even mind too much that we still don't know why the detectives investigating Noah's stabbing never found his self-inflicting knife.