The Affair
アフェア 情事の行方
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A Brooklyn schoolteacher and a Montauk waitress; the same affair told from his side and from hers, and the two do not match.
Noah Solloway, a Brooklyn schoolteacher and novelist, spends the summer with his wife, Helen, and their four children at her wealthy parents' house in Montauk, and resents living on his father-in-law's money. At a local diner he meets the waitress Alison Bailey, whose marriage to Cole Lockhart is coming apart two years after the death of their four-year-old son, Gabriel. They begin an affair, and each episode tells it twice, as he remembers it and as she does; the two memories rarely agree. In flash-forwards a detective questions them about the death of Cole's brother Scotty. The first season ends with Noah leaving Helen, the discovery that Scotty, a grown man, has been sexually abusing Noah's teenage daughter, Whitney, and, in the flash-forward, Noah's arrest.
The second season adds Helen's and Cole's versions. Both marriages end. Noah marries Alison and turns the affair into a bestselling novel, and Alison gives birth to a daughter, Joanie. Scotty threatens to tell Cole that Joanie is his child, not Noah's. On the road that night Alison pushes Scotty away just as Noah's car, with Helen at the wheel, comes past, and he is killed. Rather than accuse either woman, Noah confesses at his trial.
In the third season he comes out of prison three years later, haunted by visions of a guard who tormented him inside; an unseen assailant nearly kills him, and he and Alison divorce. The fourth takes him to Los Angeles, near Helen and her partner, Vik, a surgeon dying of cancer. Alison, now a grief counsellor, falls for Ben, a veteran who hides that he is married, and then vanishes. She is found dead and her death is ruled a suicide; a later episode shows two versions of her last night, and in the second Ben kills her in a rage.
The final season runs in two times. In the present, as Noah's novel is filmed and a former publicist accuses him of forcing an unwanted sexual encounter, which he denies, Whitney bars her father from her wedding. Helen and Noah flee a wildfire together, talk honestly at last, and reunite. Decades later the adult Joanie returns to a half-abandoned Montauk, works out that her mother cannot have died the way the record says, and hears Ben admit the killing, though the police believe him, not her. An old man at the Lobster Roll turns out to be Noah, who tells her that her mother was better than she thinks. Joanie goes home to her family, and Noah, after visiting Helen's grave, climbs a cliff above Montauk and dances, alone, the routine he made for Whitney's wedding.
Starring
Dominic Westas Noah Solloway
A Brooklyn teacher and novelist, resentful of his in-laws' money, whose affair with Alison upends both families.
Noah Solloway’s story
Noah spends the summer at his in-laws' house in Montauk, stuck on his second novel, and begins an affair with Alison, a waitress. He leaves Helen, marries Alison and turns the affair into a bestseller. When his car, with Helen driving, kills Scotty Lockhart, he confesses rather than accuse either woman, and serves three years. Out of prison, haunted by a guard who tormented him, he survives an attack, divorces Alison and moves to Los Angeles to be near his children. After Alison's death, as his novel is filmed, women accuse him of misconduct, which he denies, and Whitney bars him from her wedding. Fleeing a wildfire with Helen, he tells her he was the problem, and they reunite. Decades later, after visiting Helen's grave, he dances alone on a cliff above Montauk.
Ruth Wilsonas Alison Bailey Lockhart
A Montauk waitress grieving her young son, whose affair with Noah is an escape she later comes to question.
Alison Bailey Lockhart’s story
Two years after her four-year-old son, Gabriel, died, Alison is drifting from her husband, Cole. Her affair with Noah ends her marriage; she marries Noah and has a daughter, Joanie, who is in fact Cole's. On the night Scotty threatens to tell, she pushes him away as Noah's car, with Helen driving, comes past, and he is killed; Noah takes the blame. When Joanie falls ill at the age Gabriel died, Alison breaks down and leaves her in Cole's care for six months, then earns back supervised visits. She divorces Noah, becomes a grief counsellor, falls for Ben, a veteran who hides his marriage, and vanishes. Her death is ruled a suicide; a later episode shows that Ben killed her in a rage, and decades later Joanie hears him admit it.
Maura Tierneyas Helen Solloway
Noah's wife and the mother of their four children, who rebuilds her life after the betrayal and never quite lets him go.
Helen Solloway’s story
Helen brings Noah and their four children to her rich parents' house in Montauk each summer. Noah admits a fling and, after therapy, leaves her; learning that Scotty, a grown man, has been sexually abusing Whitney, she wants him charged. Divorced, she starts seeing Vik, the surgeon who treated her son Martin. She is at the wheel the night Scotty is killed, and Noah confesses in her place. She visits him in prison and takes him in when he comes out broken, which costs her Vik for a time. In Los Angeles Vik, dying of cancer, fathers a child with her neighbour, Sierra, and Helen stays Sierra's friend. Fleeing a wildfire, she and Noah talk honestly at last; on Whitney's wedding day she leaves the reception to find him, and they reunite. Decades later he visits her grave.
Joshua Jacksonas Cole Lockhart
Alison's husband, the eldest son of a Montauk ranching family, who shares her grief and loses her to Noah.
Cole Lockhart’s story
Cole and Alison are coming apart in grief for their son when Noah enters her life. Cole offers to leave Montauk with her, but she goes alone. He marries Luisa and buys the Lobster Roll with Alison as his partner. After Scotty's death Alison tells him Joanie is his daughter, and he raises her with Luisa while Alison is unwell, then lets Alison back in and sleeps with her again. On a walkabout in California he realises he still loves Alison. When she goes missing, he identifies her body, refuses to believe she took her own life, confronts Ben, attacks Noah and carries her ashes to Gabriel's grave. He stays married to Luisa so she can become a citizen, and takes Joanie to Vermont. Years later, back in Montauk and never remarried, he dies of a heart attack.
Julia Goldani Tellesas Whitney Solloway
Noah and Helen's eldest daughter, abused as a teenager by Scotty, who grows into an adult wary of her father.
Anna Paquinas Joanie Lockhart
Alison and Cole's daughter, who returns to Montauk as an adult decades later to learn how her mother died.
Why it matters
The Affair asks whose version of an affair is true, and its answer is that memory flatters everyone; Sarah Treem called it the Rashomon of relationship dramas. In Noah's half of an episode Alison pursues him, and in hers he pursues her. The device turns a familiar story of adultery into one about class, grief and the stories people tell to excuse themselves, and it darkens as it goes: Noah turns the affair into a bestseller, and a woman who has spent the series being narrated by others dies with her death written off as suicide. The show won the Golden Globe for best drama series in 2015, with Ruth Wilson named best actress. Wilson left after the fourth season without fully giving her reasons; a 2019 Hollywood Reporter exposé alleged she had been uncomfortable with the nudity the role required, which Treem acknowledged while denying that she had coerced her.