Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress

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

Monday, August 13, 2018

The Affair 4.9: Two Alisons

So The Affair 4.9 - as brilliant an episode as ever there was, which is to say, pretty brilliant - had two Alison half hours. Not only that, they covered just about the same time, and were quite different. As different as if the first episode wan not Alison's, but someone else's - like, just for instance, Ben's - except both the first and second half-hour episodes were clearly labeled "Alison".

So what are we to make of this? The best that I can do is the first Alison is the way she would've wanted it to be with Ben - truthful from the beginning, vulnerable, and loving - in contrast to the second half hour, in which Ben is quite the opposite, and indeed kills Alison at the end.

But here's a question: where does Alison's voice come from in that second half hour, when she is unconscious and eventually thrown into the water to die by Ben? Is that her unconscious talking to us, when she is literally unconscious? If so, that's a new gimmick to pull out of a hat - especially at this juncture, when we the audience are hanging on every world, in our keen attempt to learn what actually happened.

The end of the half hour clearly shows Ben as the killer. But from whose point of view? God's? That would be something new on this show. And if it's Alison talking to us in her unconscious state, that would be something very new, too, as I just said (but it's worth saying twice, in this review of this double Alison episode).

All of which means that this next-to-last episode of the next-to-last season of The Affair, which seems to tell us an awful lot, actually conclusively tells us not too much at all.

Seeing as how there's an episode and a season still to go, I guess that's a good thing. (As indeed were the sterling performances of Ruth Wilson and Ramon Rodriguez, the only actors in the entire hour.) I certainly enjoyed this episode - until the last few minutes - immensely. And I'll see you here next week with a review of the season finale.

See also The Affair 4.1: Quakes and Propaganda ... The Affair 4.2: Meanwhile, Back on the Island ... The Affair 4.3: Dire Straits (Not the Band) in California ... The Affair 4.4: Ben ... The Affair 4.5: B'shert ... The Affair 4.6: "Good News and Bad News" ... The Affair 4.7: Noah and Janelle ... The Affair 4.8: I Don't Believe It