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Loved and lost
‘The Affair’ resolves the departure of a major character in its final season
By Kenneth Andeel
TV Media
O
ne of Showtime’s award-
winning prestige dramas is
coming to an end. On Sunday,
Aug. 25, the fifth and final
season of “The Affair” kicks off,
and this conclusion promises
to resolve the cliffhangers of
Season 4 and reward fans who
have been loyal to the series
for five years with satisfying
closure.
“The Affair” began as a
relatively focused experiment
that told the story of an il-
licit relationship between two
married individuals and the
consequences of said affair.
The show used multiple char-
acter perspectives, flashbacks
and flashforwards to unfurl the
drama, and it established early
on that none of the main char-
acters were reliable narrators.
It was suspenseful and subtle,
and initially the story of “The
Affair” was designed to be
contained in a single season.
The success of the experiment
led to renewal after renewal,
and here we are five seasons
later.
The show boasts an impres-
sive cast, and the ensemble is
one of the reasons the series
works so well. The series
was built around the story
of waitress Alison Lockhart,
played by Ruth Wilson (“Jane
Eyre,” 2006). Alison was in a
dark place after the loss of her
child and made up one half of
the titular affair — the other
is Noah Solloway, played by
Dominic West (“The Wire”).
Noah is a writer and a school
teacher with what most would
consider the perfect family: he
has four beautiful children with
his wife and first love, but, of
course, all is not as rosy as it
seems. While both lead char-
acters are sympathetic, they
are also deeply flawed, and
neither is a particularly reliable
narrator.
Two television veterans
make up the supporting back-
bone of the series: Joshua Jack-
son (“Fringe”) played Alison’s
2 | Screentime
Maura Tierney stars in “The Affair”
husband, Cole, and Noah’s
was about as big as they get
long-suffering wife, Helen,
for a television show: Alison
is played by Maura Tierney
was found dead after an ap-
(“ER”). Both struggled hard to
parently successful suicide,
keep their respective marriages but in the penultimate episode
alive, but the flashforwards re-
of the season, it was revealed
veal early on that things never
that she had actually been
get back to normal for the
murdered. The sad details of
jilted spouses.
Alison’s life and death are sure
Fans are in for some major
to affect all of the characters
changes this season, but be-
in a big way in Season 5, but
fore I tell you about the losses,
a grown-up Joanie will be es-
let me tell you what the show
pecially interesting to watch.
has gained. Yet another deco-
Whether the crime will be
rated actor from film and tele-
solved remains to be seen.
vision has joined the cast: Anna
Killing off a lead character
Paquin (“True Blood”) plays
is obviously a huge risk for
the grown-up version of Alison
a show to take, but in this
and Cole’s daughter, Joanie.
particular case, it was unavoid-
Now to the losses. The
able: Wilson asked to leave
aforementioned cliffhanger
the show, so the writers were
August 21, 2019 | East Oregonian and Hermiston Herald
forced to find a way for Alison
to disappear. Thanks to the
myriad of questionable and
self-destructive decisions the
character has made over the
course of the series, there were
likely a lot of options.
Wilson has been diplo-
matically (or strategically?)
coy about her exact reasons
for departing. The issue of pay
parity has come up in several
interviews, but in subsequent
comments she clarified that she
never discussed the matter of
compensation with the show’s
producers. In an interview with
the New York Times, Wilson said,
“It isn’t about pay parity, and it
wasn’t about other jobs. But I’m
not really allowed to talk about
it. There is a much bigger story.”
A mystery, it seems.
The mystery deepened
when it was announced earlier
this year that Jackson would
not be returning to the show,
either. His reasons are even
more mysterious — Jackson
hasn’t commented at all on
his departure, and some fans
suspect it was an act of solidar-
ity with Wilson. Whatever the
secret reasons for the pair’s
exit, there’s no disputing that
Season 5 of “The Affair” will be
a significantly different show.
The forecast for Season 5 isn’t
all about losses, though. Pa-
quin’s arrival is welcome news
for fans, and her character’s
story arc adds a new gambit to
“The Affair’s” bag of tricks. With
two absent parents and signifi-
cant trauma in her past, Joanie
is sure to be a fascinating char-
acter. It’s a shame we’ll only get
one season to get to know her.
The timeline-twisting narrative
devices the series uses will con-
tinue, and fans will get to keep
speculating about which char-
acter’s experiences come closest
to the truth. It isn’t always easy
for a longstanding series to
introduce a major new character
this late into its lifespan, but
many are predicting Paquin will
carry the last season’s ups and
downs without a hitch.
The final season of “The Af-
fair” begins Sunday, Aug. 25,
on Showtime.