The Affair Season 2 might be back to its former format of two perspectives, but ever since the second season has started the viewers have been able to understand that there was a major change in the lives of the characters.
The second season opened with Noah (Dominic West) and Alison (Ruth Wilson) living together. The two have started having a pretty normal and happy life, but in the previous season we see that Noah is on the verge of cheating on Alison at the launch of his book Descent.
Noah and Alison might be living together, but their relationship is anything, but good. Alison realizes that and forces Noah to go for therapy.
Alison feels that Noah doesn’t give her enough time since he was preoccupied with the book and its launch and she feels lonely and completely without a friend or companion in New York City.
Episode 10 of The Affair Season 2 began with Noah heading to therapy. He sat with Marilyn (Cynthia Nixon) and the viewers had to sit through the whole session with him for the first half an hour of the episode.
The New York Times reported that those who tuned in for the tenth episode of The Affairs Season 2 might have thought that they are watching In Treatment since the show resembled the counselling sessions showed on the latter.
The session was a revealing one for the audience it brought to light Noah’s perspective on things. Noah tells Marilyn that he had received the divorce papers from his ex-wife, but he still hadn’t informed Alison about it since he fears that he might again cheat. He was almost on the verge of it with Lucy, one of students.
Marilyn listens to everything that Noah had to tell her and was completely nonjudgmental about what Noah had to say. Noah went on to talk about his father, who was loyal to his mother, but left her and went away when she fell ill.
Noah and her sister had to take care for their mother in his father’s absence and he questions whether a man could be both a loyal husband and an achiever.
When Marilyn asks whether Noah’s student, Lucy is the first woman he finds attractive ever since he has been with Alison, he lies to her and says that he turned down Eden, whereas it was actually her idea not to mix business with pleasure.
Noah figures out in the course of the therapy that he is not happy with Alison since what he wants to do in life is to go to France and spend around eight weeks there for research, but he has to stay back and support Alison while she juggles a new baby girl and her coursework.
There goes the first half of the episode that deals with Noah’s perspective on things. The shift to Alison opens with her and the baby girl, Joanie sleeping together in the nursery.
Alison wakes up and puts the baby down. She decides to go to sleep on her bed, but since she is already awake and has a scheduled mid-sem exam she decides to study.
Next day at college, Alison has a tough time in the class. She has a hard time, particularly in one of her important classes and decides to drop the subject. When she inquires about dropping out of a class, her teacher advises her against it and asks her to think about the decision before going ahead with it.