'The Affair' Season 5: Will Anna Paquin's Joanie be able to replace the thrill and drama of Ruth Wilson's Alison?
The Affair's fifth and final season will be the first one to return without Ruth Wilson's pivotal character Alison Lockhart. But filling up that void left behind by the character who was one half of the titular affair that kicked off the events of the plot will be her daughter, Joanie, now all grown up and with kids of her own. Played by Anna Paquin who recently garnered critical acclaim for her role in 'Flack', the character of Joanie is not the five-year-old we last saw. As per the show's signature narrative, two simultaneous timelines will pan out and Joanie belongs to the one set some 30 years in the future from the time we saw her last. And while it's easy to be doubtful whether the final season could work in the absence of the lead character of the show, the potential prospects of where Joanie's plot arc could lead to offers much-needed hope.
Joanie returns to the town of Montauk to dig deeper into the mystery of her mother's death. She announces in the trailer for season 5 that she has tried to be the opposite of Alison her entire life and her biggest fear is ending up like her mother. But events in her life somehow start falling into the same cold cut blocks. So if you're worried about the drama quotient of the show being lost in season 5 because the source of it all, Alison, won't return, there's a major chance that Joanie's arc is a pretty decent replacement.
With marital issues rife in her life, Joanie's husband Paul at one time tells her how "f*cking broken" she is. And just like Alison's struggle with depression, grief, and loss, Joanie's plot also has a similar arc because Paul says he is constantly trying to save her from “falling off the cliff of depression.” This is a clear reminder of the truth about Alison's death, as we saw it at the end of season 4. The finale showed how Alison really died, or rather, how she was murdered. And as Joanie finds out the dark, harrowing truth about her past, there's a high chance that her relationship with those around her, or worse, close to her, will be strained, only making the plot more complex.
Speaking of Alison's murder, nobody knows that it was a murder, yet. Everybody thinks that Alison had jumped into the sea, but viewers know that she was attacked by her then-boyfriend Ben in a violent outburst before he dumped her body into the sea. Still, nobody seems to suspect that Ben might have had something to do with this, given he has had a wife and kids and was playing his entire family by dating Alison secretly. If Joanie really does find out about all of this, ideally she shouldn't let Ben get out of being convicted easily. And while there is the whole Joanie puts Ben behind bars speculation to look forward to, there's also a high chance that Joanie might, after all, turn out to be just like her mother and cut off all ties from everyone to cope with grief and tragic realizations.
Somehow or the other, pretty much everything will be connected back to Alison, so if you're a hardcore fan of the character worried about the show's fate in an Alison-less plot, worry not. For all you know, Wilson might make a comeback - in flashback or in memories - to give Alison's babygirl Joanie the closure she needs, so there's that to look forward too!
'The Affair' season 5 premiers on August 25 at 9 pm, and will air on the same time every Sunday, only on Showtime.