Down Cemetery Road: Comparable and Incomparable

I binged Down Cemetery Road -- all eight episodes -- on Apple TV last night.  It's being billed (on Screen Rant) as "the perfect replacement" for Slow Horses, in between its fifth and six seasons, also on Apple TV.  Both are adaptations of Mike Herron's novels, and both sport a spiffy amalgam of snappy dialogue and spy-on-spy lethal mischief.   But Down Cemetery Road doesn't have a theme-song co-written and performed by Mick Jagger (the best theme for a spy series since "Secret Agent Man"), a lead character who flaunts his flatulence in every episode, and quite the speed of narrative of Slow Horses.

Here's what Down Cemetery Road does have:

• Two brilliant and famous lead stars (Ruth Wilson and Emma Thompson) in contrast to one (Gary Oldman).  And I thought Wilson's Sarah Trafford was really exceptional.
• A really world-class villain, Amos Crane (played by Fehinti Balogun), who could have worked in any Bond movie.
• Speaking of Bond, Down Cemetery Road has a train scene nearly as edge of your seat as the scene in From Russia with Love.
• Down Cemetery Road has, I don't know, call it more of a soul, than most spy stories, including Slow Horses.  I don't recall many tears in my eyes watching Slow Horses, unless they came from laughter, which of course is fine in its own right. 
•  Down Cemetery Road may have slightly hipper dialogue, with a pretty funny extended disquisition over the term "mansplaining".

But the truth is, there's no need to compare Down Cemetery Road to Slow Horses.  Cemetery is a unique TV series, with a deft blend of humor and life-and-death excitement.   By all means see it.

Luther: The Fallen Sun: The Risen Hero

I just saw Luther: The Fallen Sun -- the continuation of Idris Elba's Luther TV series, in a 2+ hour movie on Netflix, and thought it was excellent, in all sorts of ways, for all kinds of reasons.  In fact, minute for minute, I thought it was better than any of the many series we've seen of Luther since it came on the screen in 2010.

[I'll warn you here of spoilers, though you won't find too many here, other than what you see in the blurbs and the trailers.]

So, Luther's in prison, not because he was framed, but because of the corners he illegally cut -- what he "had to do" -- to get the criminals in the past.  His adversary is a brilliant sicko, Robey (played by Andy Serkis), who is adept on the Internet and in torturing and leaving his victims hanging, literally.  One of his victims is a young man, and Luther was on the case but unable to get Robey before Luther was incarcerated.  Fortunately for Luther, the storyline, and the ultimate resolution of this movie, DCI Raine, who is currently investigating Robey without much success, suffers her daughter being kidnapped by Robey.  This is fortunate for the story, because it obliges Raine, who starts out being adamant about not enlisting Luther, and keeping him in prison, to instead welcome him in the frantic hunt.

As most of you no doubt know, Idris Elba was at at one point being considered to play James Bond, but recently actors his age were ruled out of that running.  First of all, Elba looks young enough to me.  More important, he's an outstanding one-of-a-kind actor who played and defined the indelibly memorable Stringer Bell in The Wire and continues to do the same in Luther.  He would have done the same for Bond.   I mention this because the Luther is this story has Bondian aspects, especially in snow and ice-water action near the end of the movie.   The Luther in the TV series rarely if ever made it out of London, if I remember correctly.  The Luther in this movie is now both literally as well as figuratively a man of the world.

But apropos both Bond and previous Luthers, I did miss any love interest (such as Indira Varma's Zoe Luther) or even the partially erotic spark (with Ruth Wilson's Alice Morgan) in this Luther movie.  Maybe that's because two hours is a little too short for such relationships to really start, let alone play out, when there such a demonic psycho to be caught.  But that absence is yet another good reason to make another Luther movie.

See also Luther 5.1: Back in Fine, Depraved Form ... Luther 5.2: "A Chocolate Digestive" ... Luther 5.3: Bitter Fruit ... Luther 5.4: Lethal Love

And see also Luther: Between the Wire and the Shield ... Luther 3.1: Into the Blender ... Luther 3.2: Success ... Luther 3.3: The Perils of Being an Enemy ... Luther 3.4: Go Ask Alice

 

His Dark Materials 1.3: Coulter's Daemons

I'm enjoying His Dark Materials, most of all the nature, behavior, and variety of the Daemons.  As I understand them, they're some sort of external manifestation of the humans they're connected with, including their human sensibilities, with perhaps some other things that Daemons have on their own.

They clearly die - literally de-materialize - when their human partner is killed.  We saw an example of that in episode 1.3.  And conversely, when someone's daemon causes someone else's pain, that daemon's pain is felt by its human.   In both cases, Coulter (or her daemon) are the source of the damage.

But I'm wondering:  why is Coulter able to be separate - physically apart - from her monkey or whatever is counterpart?  And we've seen her hit her daemon - when she did this, we didn't see Coulter feel any apparent pain.   Feeling no pain, meting out punishment, adds to Coulter's sinister luster as a first-class, memorable villain.  Ruth Wilson plays this part perfectly.

And other questions abound: if a daemon is killed, will its human counterpart die, too?  Presumably not for Coulter, but how about everyone else?   If humans can in some cases survive the death of their daemons, can they bond with or generate another one?

And back to Coulter in particular:  she apparently controls and directs the spy flies (great name).  Are they another one of her daemons - does she have multiple daemons - or are the spy flies yet something else?

I'm looking forward to learning the answers to these questions and more, as this vivid series progresses.

See also His Dark Materials 1.1: Radiation Punk

more alternate reality - "flat-out fantastic" - Scifi and Scary

His Dark Materials 1.1: Radiation Punk

His Dark Materials debuted on HBO tonight.  It was good to see - especially Ruth Wilson as the mysterious and alluring Marisa, the very night after The Affair concluded, splendidly, on Showtime, where Wilson played the alluring Alison, of which I'll say no more in case you haven't seen it.

But about His Dark Materials, to begin with, a proviso about me.  Although the trilogy by Philip Pullman came out around the same time as I first started getting my science fiction stories and novels published in major places - the mid-late 1990s - I never read them.  I should have, and it's even more surprising that I didn't, since alternate realities are one my favorite science fiction/fantasy genres (the other being time travel).  But, in a way, I'm now glad that I didn't read the trilogy, because it allows me to approach the HBO series as a first encounter, unencumbered by comparisons to the appearance of the narrative in an earlier medium.

The ambience of the TV series including the set-up is a pleasure for the eyes and brain.  It's a kind of steampunk, except there are helicopters and all sorts of other present or close-to-present trappings, so maybe radiation punk would be a better label (there's also talk about some kind of dangerous "dust").  Animals talk and are bonded - in a "sacred" way - to humans.  That is, each person has her or his own sentient animal, known as a "daemon".  The academic town of Oxford is in this alternate world, as is London, much more than academic, which we haven't seen as yet.

It's too soon for a Dark Materials novice to get what's really going on, but we've seen enough to know there are no shortage of heroes and villains, and lots of compelling people in between.   Marisa, for example, seems to be such a mix, but Lyra seems as pure as the snow.  James McAvoy as Lord Asriel is looking to be entirely good, but Clarke Peters (Treme and The Wire!) as the powerful Master not quite so.  These subtleties make for good story telling.

Which I'll be watching and reporting about back here, on likely a weekly basis.

more alternate reality - "flat-out fantastic" - Scifi and Scary

Luther 5.3: Bitter Fruit

Alice's killing of George's son bore bitter fruit in Luther 5.3, as George goes after Alice and Luther to exact his revenge.  Of course, that's just what Alice intended - to draw George out into an all-out war against Luther, on the bet, probably safe, that Luther would prevail in the end and rid Alice and everyone else of George.

Did she worry about collateral damage?  Probably not.   Poor Benny went that way.  Alice herself is now at the other end of a gun.  But I can't see her succumbing after all this good effort to bring her back.

Meanwhile, the Lake story has come to an end of sorts, at least for Vivienne.  Her attempts to restrain her psycho husband fail.  After imploring him not to endanger her with his nefarious deeds, Jeremy drugs her, undresses her, tucks her in bed, in the hopes that she won't find out about his latest victim, at this point a kidnap.  But of course she does, and before the evening is over she's arrested by Luther, on the verge of dismembering the poor young woman to cover up her husband's evil work.

He manages to escape, so here's where we are on the edge of the season finale next week:  Jeremy's at large, desperate to escape and do who knows what.   George's hit men have Alice and Mark in their possession, with a tough road for Luther to free them, unscathed, and unhurt himself.   Actually, unscathed is no doubt impossible at this point.  The best we can hope for is unkilled.

And even though I can't see Alice dying - which would be a double death for Ruth Wilson in tempestuous characters in love affairs these past few years - I'd say the only survival we can be sure of Luther's.

See also Luther 5.1: Back in Fine, Depraved Form ... Luther 5.2: "A Chocolate Digestive"

And see also Luther: Between the Wire and the Shield ... Luther 3.1: Into the Blender ... Luther 3.2: Success ... Luther 3.3: The Perils of Being an Enemy ... Luther 3.4: Go Ask Alice

 

Luther 5.1: Back in Fine, Depraved Form

Luther was back for its fifth season on BBC America last night.  First and foremost, it stars Idris Elba in the title role, one of my all-time favorite actors since I first saw him in The Wire as Stringer Bell, second-in-command in a drug empire, so erudite he was studying economics in night school and quoting Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations.

The Luther character is a detective genius who has been through the mill in his personal and professional life, which often are the same and almost always intertwined.  As the trailer for this season aptly shows, Luther's wife and young partner were both murdered in previous seasons.   In the first episode of season 5, Luther continues to take a physical pounding, from the likes of a crime boss we saw in fine crafty and brutal form last season, but the apex case is a sadistic serial killer who's getting more frequent and gruesome in his killings.

Luther's opponent here is not just the serial killer, but a shrink, Vivien Lake (played by Hermione Norris, who was so good as Ros on MI5).  Lake is understandably protecting the serial killer, Jeremy, from the police. He's not Lake's patient but her husband, and likely her partner in sexual kinkiness, which may or may not extend to the killings.   At very least, Lake sacrifices one of her troubled patients, James, setting him up to take the fall for the recent spate of murders that presumably her husband committed.   James commits suicide before the police can nab him, but the case isn't closed.  Luther's new partner, Catherine Halliday, shows her mettle and realizes something is not adding up with James as the killer.

So Luther's faced with the fine kettle of depraved fish we've come to expect on this series.  But the knock on his door in the last scene was better than icing the on cake.  It was from Alice, back from the dead, played by the inimitable Ruth Wilson, back from our side of the Atlantic in The Affair.

See also Luther: Between the Wire and the Shield ... Luther 3.1: Into the Blender ... Luther 3.2: Success ... Luther 3.3: The Perils of Being an Enemy ... Luther 3.4: Go Ask Alice

 

Mrs. Wilson 3: The Spy Who Made Up Stories

Well, we already knew from the first two episodes of Mrs. Wilson last week that Mr. Wilson was a spy novelist.  In both senses of the phrase - he was a spy, and he was a novelist who told spy stories.  The question was and is: did he also tell stories in his real life, stories about his spying, and stories about whom he was spying on to his employer, MI5?

We also already knew that Alexander Wilson told stories to Alison, his wife, about his personal life - he was married to four wives, including Alison, at the same time.  So he definitely told stories about his real life.  But did he tell stories about his spying?

That's the question raised, not really explored, and therefore left unanswered in the third and final episode of this excellent little docudrama.   Alexander's superior - played by the same fine actress, Fiona Shaw, who plays a very similar character in Killing Eve (the debut of the second season was tonight, and I'll review that soon) - tells Alison Wilson that Alexander was fired in 1942 because he was making up stories about the Egyptians.  He was a fiction writer, after all, she says.

But Karim - well played by Anupam Kher  (who is in New Amsterdam, with much less hair) - tells Alison that it's MI5 that's lying.   According to Karim, they set Alexander up.  Who's a widow to believe?

Well, seeing as how Alison knows of two other widows of Alexander, she's not likely to believe  Karim, but she does.  She tells her children that their father loved them and his country.  But then she finds out about a third widow.  That shakes her belief, at least a little, in her husband vs. MI5.   And in the end .... it's still a puzzle.  A perfect ending to a puzzling story - which, as far as we know, is true.

Other things to like about this episode:  Some great Britishisms to my American ears, including "pay rise" for "pay raise," and phone "calling out" for an outgoing phone call ringing.  And the photos at the end, where you can see Ruth Wilson the actress with her large extended family, were just wonderful.

See this!

See also Mrs Wilson 1 and 2: Uh, Oh Mr. Wilson

Mrs. Wilson 1 and 2: Uh, Oh Mr. Wilson

If you're wondering what Ruth Wilson has been up to since she left The Affair, you'll be in for a treat with Mrs. Wilson, which debuted tonight (with two parts out of three) on PBS.  Actually, you'll be in for a treat even if you never saw The Affair (or, for that matter, Luther, in which Ruth Wilson has also distinguished herself).  And just good measure, Iain Glen from Game of Thrones is on hand in this, too.

Why, you might ask, is this mini-series called Mrs. Wilson?  Whoever heard of naming a series after its lead actress?   But the series has that name because it's indeed about a Mrs.Wilson - Ruth's grandmother.  And seeing how the theme of this story is the fine line between fact and fiction, that title and Ruth Wilson starring in it works perfectly.

The Mr. Wilson in this mostly true story - Alexander, played by Iain Glen and reminding me of that "Uh, oh, Mr. Wilson" in George Harrison and the Beatles' "Taxman" - is a piece of work who was apparently married at least three times (at, so far in the story), worked as a British spy in World War II, and was a successful spy and crime-thriller novelist to boot.   Mrs. Wilson (the real Ruth's grandmother, played by Ruth) knows about the spy stuff and the novels, but finds out about the triple marriage and Iain's other lies after he succumbs to a heart attack.   The story so far shows the pain and surprise she endures, and how she more or less copes with it.

It's a wild story, with an enhanced wallop precisely it's basically true (like all docudramas, some facts have been changed to augment the narrative, and this series may have even more fiction).   Hey, I'm a science fiction writer myself, have written some science fiction/mystery hybrids such as The Silk Code, and I found myself regretting that Alexander died before I started publishing and attending mystery writers conventions.  I would've loved to hear some of his truths and lies.

But I regret nothing about this wicked little series, and I'll be back here next week with my concluding review.

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 

And see also The Affair 3.1: Sneak Preview Review ... The Affair 3.2: Sneak Preview Review: Right Minds ... The Affair 3.3: Who Attached Noah? ... The Affair 3.4: The Same Endings in Montauk ... The Affair 3.5: Blocked Love ... The Affair 3.6: The Wound ... The Affair 3.7: The White Shirt ... The Affair 3.8: The "Miserable Hero" ... The Affair 3.9: A Sliver of Clarity ... The Affair 3.10: Taking Paris

And see also The Affair 2.1: Advances ... The Affair 2.2: Loving a Writer ... The Affair 2.3: The Half-Wolf ... The Affair 2.4: Helen at Distraction ... The Affair 2.5: Golden Cole ... The Affair 2.6: The End (of Noah's Novel) ... The Affair 2.7: Stunner ... The Affair 2.8: The Reading, the Review, the Prize ...The Affair 2.9: Nameless Hurricane ... The Affair 2.10: Meets In Treatment ... The Affair 2.11: Alison and Cole in Business ... The Affair Season 2 Finale: No One's Fault

And see also The Affair Premiere: Sneak Preview Review ... The Affair 1.2: Time Travel! ... The Affair 1.3: The Agent and the Sleepers ... The Affair 1.4: Come Together ... The Affair 1.5: Alison's Episode ... The Affair 1.6: Drugs and Vision ... The Affair 1.7: True Confessions ... The Affair 1.8: "I Love You / I Love You, Too" ... The Affair 1.9: Who Else on the Train? ... The Affair Season 1 Finale: The Arrest and the Rest

the Sierra Waters time-travel trilogy

The Affair 4.2: Meanwhile, Back on the Island

Episode 4.2 of The Affair last night, was a pretty good, even excellent, standalone episode, though it had little to do with the central themes which animated the three previous seasons.   If an overall series is a book, and each season a chapter, Cole and Alison's half hours felt like chapters in a new book, a sequel, published some years later.

The two different takes on the same story still worked well, though actually there weren't too many scenes in which Cole and Alison were together, making 4.2 almost two half-hour standalone stories.  But my favorite was Alison saying "fuck" in her rendition, with the expletive absent in Cole's.

Alison's story was the more compelling and unusual.  In her half hour, which came second, we see her at work in a center that offers peer-to-peer counseling for parents who lost a child.  She meets a guy who saves her from a father suffering from a kind of PTSD - literally saves her life, from the guy who is choking her - and this proves to be the beginning of a longterm romance (also literally longterm, since the guy is in a program, too, which won't let him have romantic erotic relationships for another five months and x number of days and hours).   Hey, were it me, I'd have left the program to go out with Alison - but, then, I wouldn't have joined such a program in the first place.  Not drinking is one thing.  Not being allowed to have relationships is ... well, I'd say counterproductive at best.

It's gratifying to see Alison in such good shape - the best she's been in the entire series, I'd say, and much better than Cole, who seemed more pathetic than usual last night.  I'm with his wife - what's he so unhappy about?  I know, he was a harrowing backstory, too.  But, hey, man, get over it - you have a good life now, including on the verge of being a millionaire.  Does he love and unconsciously miss being with Alison that much?  Maybe.

Very well acted as always by Ruth Wilson as Alison and Joshua Jackson as Cole, and I forgot to say the same for Dominic West as Noah and Maura Tierney as Helen last week, because that was true, too.  The Affair was always a unique series, and I think I'm going to like the new turn it's taken this year.

See also The Affair 4.1: Quakes and Propaganda

And see also The Affair 3.1: Sneak Preview Review ... The Affair 3.2: Sneak Preview Review: Right Minds ... The Affair 3.3: Who Attached Noah? ... The Affair 3.4: The Same Endings in Montauk ... The Affair 3.5: Blocked Love ... The Affair 3.6: The Wound ... The Affair 3.7: The White Shirt ... The Affair 3.8: The "Miserable Hero" ... The Affair 3.9: A Sliver of Clarity ... The Affair 3.10: Taking Paris

And see also The Affair 2.1: Advances ... The Affair 2.2: Loving a Writer ... The Affair 2.3: The Half-Wolf ... The Affair 2.4: Helen at Distraction ... The Affair 2.5: Golden Cole ... The Affair 2.6: The End (of Noah's Novel) ... The Affair 2.7: Stunner ... The Affair 2.8: The Reading, the Review, the Prize ...The Affair 2.9: Nameless Hurricane ... The Affair 2.10: Meets In Treatment ... The Affair 2.11: Alison and Cole in Business ... The Affair Season 2 Finale: No One's Fault

And see also The Affair Premiere: Sneak Preview Review ... The Affair 1.2: Time Travel! ... The Affair 1.3: The Agent and the Sleepers ... The Affair 1.4: Come Together ... The Affair 1.5: Alison's Episode ... The Affair 1.6: Drugs and Vision ... The Affair 1.7: True Confessions ... The Affair 1.8: "I Love You / I Love You, Too" ... The Affair 1.9: Who Else on the Train? ... The Affair Season 1 Finale: The Arrest and the Rest

the Sierra Waters time-travel trilogy

The Affair 3.5: Blocked Love

A classic Alison and Noah episode 3.5 of The Affair tonight, departing from the template in that Noah's story takes place mostly after Alison's, not at the same time. But that makes the hour even stronger, and just about perfect in every way.

We finally get to see them together tonight - it took five episodes, far too long, but the wait was worth it.   Alison's episode gets the two to Block Island - away from Montauk - as Noah's price for agreeing to sign the divorce papers that Alison wants him to sign.  They take off their clothes, but just for the hot tub, and do end up in bed together - looking into each others' eyes but fully clothed.

Noah's episode is the powerhouse, with Noah explaining to Alison why he truly loved her - after she has dismissed their relationship as something much less.   The key to Noah's love was that he assisted his mother in her death, and felt a unique kinship with Alison, given what she had been through with Gabriel.   Noah breaks down as he tells Alison this story - an outstanding performance by Dominic West, and also Ruth Wilson - and this melts Alison, all the way into Noah's arms and bed.

Noah, still ultimately a gentleman when it comes to Alison, later signs the divorce papers.  But I'm hoping they won't be filed.  Or maybe it doesn't matter - what Alison and Noah have, flawed as it is, needs no legality.

Meanwhile, I've got to say that the other part of Noah's story, about the sicko, sadistic prison guard, is a piece of this I'd rather do without.   I know, it's the necessary motive for Noah becoming somewhat delusional - but he's not completely delusional, either, given that we know (or, as far as know) he didn't stab himself.

So Alison's slept with both Cole and Noah now.   Who does she really love?  The choices are (a) neither, (b) both, (c) Cole, (d) Noah - I know which answer I'd choose.

See also The Affair 3.1: Sneak Preview Review ... The Affair 3.2: Sneak Preview Review: Right Minds ... The Affair 3.3: Who Attached Noah? ... The Affair 3.4: The Same Endings in Montauk

And see also The Affair 2.1: Advances ... The Affair 2.2: Loving a Writer ... The Affair 2.3: The Half-Wolf ... The Affair 2.4: Helen at Distraction ... The Affair 2.5: Golden Cole ... The Affair 2.6: The End (of Noah's Novel) ... The Affair 2.7: Stunner ... The Affair 2.8: The Reading, the Review, the Prize ...The Affair 2.9: Nameless Hurricane ... The Affair 2.10: Meets In Treatment ... The Affair 2.11: Alison and Cole in Business ... The Affair Season 2 Finale: No One's Fault

And see also The Affair Premiere: Sneak Preview Review ... The Affair 1.2: Time Travel! ... The Affair 1.3: The Agent and the Sleepers ... The Affair 1.4: Come Together ... The Affair 1.5: Alison's Episode ... The Affair 1.6: Drugs and Vision ... The Affair 1.7: True Confessions ... The Affair 1.8: "I Love You / I Love You, Too" ... The Affair 1.9: Who Else on the Train? ... The Affair Season 1 Finale: The Arrest and the Rest

podcast review of every 2nd season episode


podcast review of every 1st season episode

the Sierra Waters time-travel trilogy

The Affair 2.2: Loving a Writer

I was going to wait until Sunday to watch the next episode of The Affair, but I realized there may not be Showtime where I'll be, so I watched episode 2.2 last night on Showtime On Demand.  I'm glad I did. It was superb, continuing its compelling mix of great acting, cinematography, and storyline, with Alison's and Cole's stories this time.   The Affair this season will be presenting four points of view - not only Noah and Alison, but Helen and Cole - and, so far, that's enriched the story.

Joshua Jackson's performance as Cole in 2.2 was Emmy worthy. The subtle, under-the-surface, powerful but contained display of hurt, hate, pain, love, fatigue with the world, and, in that last scene, just a hint of satisfaction at seeing Noah charged in court, was just masterful.   This was about the best performance I've ever seen of a man after his wife has left him.

Of course, Cole is nothing but considerate to Alison in his take, in contrast to being disruptive, even frightening in her rendition of the same story.  Ruth Wilson also puts in a fine performance, down to the expression in her eyes when Noah comes home after the lousy day in New York City that we saw in episode 2.1.   After he grouses and leaves the room, the camera twice shows Alison looking at something with concern, uncertainty, and a touch of bracing in her eyes - perfect camera work - and it turns out that's Noah, who apologizes and takes Alison in his arms.   The love they feel for each other is vibrant.

Alison's day in the vivid green of Cold Spring is notable in other ways, especially with Yvonne, who gets off one of the best lines in the episode, remarking to Alison that it's a "horrible thing to love a writer".  Alison learns that Yvonne is head of Bradford Publishing.   Are they Noah's publisher? Probably.  We know that Harry - Noah's editor - arranged for Noah and Alison to stay in the beautiful house in the country, which we now learn is owned by Yvonne and her husband.   There are important connections to be explored.

There's poetry in almost every scene of this drama, including in the taxi with Cole driving Noah's soon to be erstwhile father-in-law, who paints an appealing picture of how Montauk used to be - getting Cole to almost roll his eyes in the front seat - including "the way the ocean changes like a moody woman".

A hallmark of great narrative is how even the minor characters are memorable.   The Affair has all of that, and I'm looking forward to more.

See also The Affair 2.1: Advances

And see also The Affair Premiere: Sneak Preview Review ... The Affair 1.2: Time Travel! ... The Affair 1.3: The Agent and the Sleepers ... The Affair 1.4: Come Together ... The Affair 1.5: Alison's Episode ... The Affair 1.6: Drugs and Vision ... The Affair 1.7: True Confessions ... The Affair 1.8: "I Love You / I Love You, Too" ... The Affair 1.9: Who Else on the Train? ... The Affair Season 1 Finale: The Arrest and the Rest

podcast review of every 2nd season episode


podcast review of every 1st season episode

The Affair 1.9: Who Else on the Train?

Well, The Affair 1.9 was near as perfect as a story with two different perspectives can get, sometimes mirroring, sometimes opposing, and tonight converging literally at the end as Noah arrives at the train station in time to see Alison and Cole the second we left them at the end of her half hour, which in this episode - as once before - started first.

The last time Alison started first - in episode 1.5 -  I said I especially liked the flow of that episode with the one that came the week before it, because that in effect gave Alison a complete hour, starting the previous week and ending with the current week's episode.   That worked well again this time, from Alison's arriving in Brooklyn, happier than we've ever seen her, in bed with Noah, until she discovers Whitney's pregnancy test and thinks it's Helen's.   Her mistake epitomizes both her and Noah's problem: with the at best partial evidence they have of each other's lives, in their pounding carnival of illicit love, it's almost impossible for there not to be some misunderstanding.

What happens next with Alison is heart wrenching, and Ruth Wilson's best acting to date on this powerful series, as we finally find out what happened to Gabriel and why Alison feels so guilty about it.   And that guilt is what leads her to the train station.

Noah gets to that place in a very different way, for other reasons.  Probably the tipping point for him is seeing the guy jump off the building to his death, because it signals to Noah what he's in effect doing with his own life if he doesn't leave Helen to be with Alison.  Significantly, Noah leaves even though knows that the best thing he can do for Whitney as a father is stay with his family.   Yeah, Helen throws him out after he tells her about his feelings for Alison, but the reason Noah does this is he wants to leave.  Love like this conquers all is the message, even a conflicting requirement of parenthood.

So the question now is, back on the station at the end, is Alison going on the train (a) expecting Cole to follow, (b) expecting Noah to follow, or (c) expecting/hoping that no one follows, so she can go off on her own?    There are arguments in favor of each of these - though I'd expect (b) -  but we'll have to wait until next week to find out, unless Alison walks right back out of the train.

One of other thing: I don't think Noah killed Scott - that would be too obvious after what happened this week.  I have a slight feeling that Cole killed his brother.  But - hey, maybe it's that lying detective?  Nah - I'm not sure, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's neither Oscar nor Noah, but Cole.

See also The Affair Premiere: Sneak Preview Review ... The Affair 1.2: Time Travel! ... The Affair 1.3: The Agent and the Sleepers ... The Affair 1.4: Come Together ... The Affair 1.5: Alison's Episode ... The Affair 1.6: Drugs and Vision ... The Affair 1.7: True Confessions ... The Affair 1.8: "I Love You / I Love You, Too" ... The Affair Season One Finale: The Arrest and the Rest

The Affair 1.4: Come Together

An unusually tender and beautiful episode - 1.4 - of The Affair last night, different in two important respects from the first three episodes.   We see no major characters except Noah and Alison.   And their stories are not parallel but sequential - Alison's commences in time right after Noah's concludes. We thus get a true hour of story, rather than two half hours superimposed on one another.

The acting was truly superb, as well.  Dominic West and Ruth Wilson were nonpareil in their delivery, facial expressions, and body language.    We see the lead-up and aftermath of Noah and Alison making love, which is literally the fulcrum point between the two accounts, Noah's the lead-up and Alison's the aftermath.

But in some ways the most powerful moment happens at the very end of Alison's segment, when she tells Noah about the loss of her son.   We learn why she feels a revulsion for Cole - he has a tattoo on his back of the angel Gabriel, the name of their son, and it's the first thing she sees when she wakes up every morning.   We also learn why she pulls away from Noah in her account the second time they're in bed - he asks about the scars on her thigh, and they of course remind her of Gabriel, since she's been cutting herself to make her "feel better," as she says, in her grief about Gabriel.

Noah's reaction is also wonderful, and about the most human and admirable we've seen of him in this story.  When Alison asks if he sees death when he looks at her face,  he says no and takes her in his arms, and they're soon in bed together again, and this time it's good for Alison, too.   Given that this is Alison's story, this moment is especially significant:  she's telling us that Noah is making her happy.

The Affair continues to be a superb piece of television, and this episode shone.   It did this with a much shorter police segment than usual (and it contained the one discrepancy between Noah's and Alison's account in the hour - he tells Noah he's divorced and Alison that he's happily married).   And that's fine by me.   There are many good police stories on television, but few stories of human relationships as compelling as The Affair.

See also The Affair Premiere: Sneak Preview Review ... The Affair 1.2: Time Travel! ... The Affair 1.3: The Agent and the Sleepers ... The Affair 1.5: Alison's Episode ... The Affair 1.6: Drugs and Vision ... The Affair 1.7: True Confessions ...  The Affair 1.8: "I Love You / I Love You, Too" ... The Affair 1.9: Who Else on the Train? ... The Affair Season One Finale: The Arrest and the Rest

podcast review of every 1st season episode