'The Affair' Season 5 Episode 10 offers Helen respite as Noah works on easing her wounds, both old and new
This article contains spoilers for Season 5, Episode 10.
Where we begin tonight's episode of 'The Affair', the wildfires might be still on their way to unleash its horrors upon LA, but for the Solloways, everything is crashing and burning already. Following the extremely emotional outburst of Whitney that we saw in the previous episode, still lodged at her and Colin's house are her parents - Helen and Noah, along with the kids, Trevor and Stacey. And while most of the episode's first half goes into Whitney spewing venomous resentment at her mother and hurling accusations at her father in the wake of his Me Too story getting published, the latter half of the episode - switching as many times between Helen and Noah's individual narratives as it might be - is somewhat hopeful.
For the first time bringing up the unfortunate incident of Noah having spotted Whitney making out with a girl in the same tub that he was soaking in at some party in Hollywood, Whitney manages to strike all the right chords. A dubious Helen is torn between a daughter questioning everything about her father, and an ex-husband who still can't stop running from things. Whitney accuses Helen of some obsessive codependency that she feels towards Noah - still defending him, helping him in any way possible. Her biggest aim in life is not to turn out like Helen, she screams, but more than letting out steam, it is a tug at viewers' brains. Is the resilient, sassy Helen Solloway really that dependent on Noah? Even after all he has put their family through?
Love works in mysterious ways in case of the Solloways, so when Helen finds that Noah has disappeared from Whitney's, she goes looking for him at his place. Tired and exhausted from the day's ordeal, Helen falls asleep next to the drunk and passed out Noah - kind and compassionate as ever. Sadly, Noah's brain is functioning more towards pushing away the only people on his side. When evacuation units start urging inhabitants to leave the area, as the fire gets nearer and more disastrous, Noah complains about how he isn't ready to go. - specifically leave behind all of his belongings at the house because that's all he has now. He remarks at Helen's persistence in leaving as his sick obsession with him once again, and this is the first time we hear Helen actually say something spiteful: "I hope you burn."
There really is no respite for the caring, tough Helen, one would think, as she drives out into the crowd in her designed-to-survive chemical warfare vehicle, picking up a pregnant couple on the way as many drivers were offering pedestrians a ride. There's the inevitable pile up and the smoke from the fires getting deadlier; meanwhile, back at Noah's house, he goes through tapes of his and Alison's deposition back when he was arrested, and things change. Earlier that day, Helen had come across a letter Noah had written to her the night before their wedding, and emotional and teary-eyed upon coming across it once again, she had told him "Never imagined you'd stop loving me." Luckily, all it took was listening to the voice of the woman he ruined their marriage over and can't-live-without-Helen Noah was back, and rushing to seek her out amidst the fires.
When Noah reaches Helen, the smoke is infiltrating the vehicles, there's no way they are going to survive if they don't get out and run towards the opposite direction. But danger chases them again as the opposite direction requires the two to climb down a really steep mountainside. Within seconds, the dynamic shifts - Helen is suddenly a little child left out alone in the world, asking Noah to make the climb and come rescue her later. And doing what they do best, Noah talks Helen through the process as she complains about how she's going to kill him if something happens to her. Suddenly it makes sense why the two of them ever landed up together in the first place. And later, when they trek further up the mountain to get farther from the fires, things get emotional.
For the first time, Noah asks Helen what it was like for her - the affair and the divorce, and Helen doesn't hold back. She comes clean about the months and years of crying at everything and the self-loathing she was consumed with. Even though Noah tries to reason her with the whole "I was incomplete", "It wasn't you," bullsh*t there seems to be some kind of honesty in there. It's raw, vulnerable, and most importantly, uninhibited. Gone are the days of weighing and measuring how much they slip in; we finally get the much deserved Noah and Helen moments this season, but sadly, they must overcome another hurdle.
Helen gets bitten by a rattlesnake and dangerous as it might be, the aftermath of it is what makes us so hopeful. Noah carries an unconscious Helen down the trek-route to find a very timely arriving vehicle passing them by. He is able to get her to the nearest hospital and soon she is provided the needed medical care, along with being monitored. On the hospital TV Noah catches the news, and Helen's car that they deserted in the middle of the road - burning now. Good save, he probably thinks, but when Helen comes back to consciousness, he looks at her with a beaming smile and says "Hi, friend." And once again, good save indeed.
'The Affair' season 5 airs on Sundays at 9pm only on Showtime.
