'The Affair' Season 5 Episode 8 humanizes Noah with flaws and impulse while Helen tries to mother children that aren't hers
This article contains spoilers for episode 8.
In a distinct digression from what seems to have been an established pattern this fifth and final season, 'The Affair's eighth episode finally sees viewers somewhat sympathizing with Noah Solloway (Dominic West) in what has been the longest time ever. And not just sympathizing, if you choose to overlook the not-so-pleasant track record he has maintained on the show, and judge him purely based on the climb in his arc of redemption, there's this feeling deep down that makes you want to root for him. In that, Noah is still very much a flawed man, and as unforeseen gusts of stormy winds try uprooting the life he is so desperately trying to cling on to, there's this reckless normalcy about the way he does whatever he does, which sort of makes us reconsider our opinion of him.
The episode opens with Helen's (Maura Tierney) narrative, however, it's her birthday and Helen doesn't like birthdays unless it's a quiet affair in the house, with the kids baking her a cake, and Noah not forgetting to get her a lasagna with a lit candle atop. As Helen goes about wowing the 'it people' of the interior design industry, getting jobs like a pro and impressing people the way she always has, her credibility as a mother comes into display too, and for no child of her own, shockingly.
First Helen can be seen taking care of Sierra (Emily Browning), trying to drill some sense into her weed addled brain ever since the unfortunate car crash Sierra got herself, and baby Eddie into. Social workers from Child Protective Services are hounding her place as part of the investigation, and somehow it is up to Helen to pick up the girl her almost-husband cheated on her with, to make sure of the illegitimate child they made. It's crushing to see Helen, after having been through so much, go through injustices like these, all because that was her dying husband's wish. One would think this gets balanced out by how happy she is in her new relationship with an A-list Hollywood star, but there's trouble in that paradise too.
Sasha's (Claes Bang) almost step-daughter, Christiana reaches out to Helen, to explain herself after that outburst between her and Sasha in a previous episode. Christiana explains that she shows up with such dramatic urgency and comes off as exploitative only because it's her money that Sasha gives her a hard time over. She also tells Helen that Sasha was the one who got her dead mother, and his ex-fiance Lily hooked on drugs, and now has a problem with control which he wants to exercise all because of some bad decisions in Christiana's past. Luckily for Helen, she sees quite the example of him butting in everywhere, when later in the day, he can't stop criticizing Stacy' sauce recipe, or tries to prevent Helen from helping out Sierra, once her mother Adeline shows up and wants her institutionalized.
As all of this unfolds, what it means to be a mother really comes into play. Helen looks at her own daughter Whitney running around the streets of Montauk with her father, while she can't be there as the two prepare for the wedding. She is too busy being mother to daughters whose own moms failed at doing the right thing. Be it Lily appointing Sasha as the head of Christiana's trust, or Adeline's manipulative crafty ways of always making Sierra cave into whatever she deems best - Helen is a saint in this situation; too bad the happiness is short-lived, thanks to a certain ex-husband.
When we first meet Noah in today's episode, he shows up with lasagna at Helen's doorstep in her half of the narrative. In his half, he can be seen battling the aftermath of acquiring sudden fame after a murky past. Like Noah's PR agents and lawyers tell him, he doesn't exactly have the squeakiest clean records: he went to jail for killing a man, and his mistress-turned-ex wife committed suicide shortly after his book about their affair came out. The publishing industry has labeled Noah a 'loose cannon' and in the wake of his book being turned into a movie starring Sasha, sexual assault allegations start drifting in from people he hasn't spoken to in a long time.
The first accusation comes from his former publicist on a book tour, Eden Ellory. She claims he invited her to his hotel room all those years ago and as a part of her job, she had to keep him happy by engaging in drugs and sex, which she now claims she was pressured into by Noah. Noah sadly remembers it differently, and so we are shown in flashbacks, where Eden can be seen coming on to him in a drunken stupor that never ends in sex. We have known not to always trust the show's flashbacks and narratives, especially after what they did to Alison's death, but the fact that Eden would only speak to the writer penning Noah's Vanity Fair feature is a little surprising.
The other accusation happens to be from a past student of Noah's - Audrey. The girl claims she had an emotionally and verbally abusive relationship with her professor, which she has explicitly mentioned in her new book, a memoir titled 'To Break a Girl'. If that wasn't suggestive enough, this Aubrey is allegedly going around telling people that Noah is the professor from her book, thus pretty much sabotaging any chance for the man to save his fall from grace. But Noah is smart, so he reaches out to all the right people before lashing out: he goes to his publicist, and then to his lawyer, and gets their expert opinions on how to tackle the situation, before diving headfirst to do exactly what they had asked him not to.
In a series of bad decisions, Noah moves further away from whatever scope he had for salvaging his image: he stalks Eden as she goes to a book release she is conducting, and in front of a crowded bookstore's eagle-eyed audience grabs her by the arm and somewhat aggressively asks her answers for the sick games he thinks she is playing. As Eden tells him she isn't afraid of him, it becomes clear why this narrative of Noah stands out. The madness mingled with desperation to hold on to whatever balance he had in his life is clear from the rash, impulsive way Noah acts out - something that humanized him far more than the dad-who-always-f**ks up yet is somehow liked by all.
'The Affair' season 6 airs on Sundays at 9pm only on Showtime.