"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." -- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History

Monday, January 9, 2017

The Affair 3.7: The White Shirt

Another powerful, somewhat inexplicable, episode - 3.7 - of The Affair tonight. The Helen and Noah episodes both conclude with slightly different but completely compatible scenes of the two making love in bed in the basement of Helen's place. That was not the inexplicable part.   First of all, Helen's ended earlier, so we don't know what Helen felt or didn't feel at the very end.  More important, it makes perfect sense that a couple making love - especially a divorced couple - could each have a different view of the love-making.  So the two different versions of that same scene are fully in accord with the narrative we've been seeing the past three years.

But what about the scene earlier, in which the doc is wearing a white shirt in Noah's version, and a shirt of a different color in Helen's?   We've seen differences like that before in versions of our characters' accounts, and that's what doesn't make too much sense.

Again, I get completely why characters would leave this out that part out of their accounts.  I of course get why a given character would seem more flirtatious in one account - as Helen did in Noah's account - in contrast to how she appeared in Helen's.   Along with that, we've seen Alison's clothes looking sexier - the same clothes looking more provocative - in Noah's account, in contrast to Alison's, more than once in previous episodes and seasons.  All of that makes good sense in this story.

But literally different clothing?  When Noah sees the white shirt, he's seeing, what?  The doc is more formally a doctor in his account than in Helen's?  I guess so.

At the same time, Noah's hallucinations are becoming an increasingly bigger player as this season progresses.  It occurred to me that maybe even some or all of what Noah is remembering about what happened in prison happened more in his mind than to his body.

Which gets us back to who caused the wound in his neck?  We don't even know for sure that the pain he's feeling in his shoulder is real - but the wound, in contrast, is seen by everyone.

So, who caused it?  It would cool is the white shirt was some sort of metaphorical clue.   But it's probably ... just a white shirt.




podcast review of every 2nd season episode


podcast review of every 1st season episode



the Sierra Waters time-travel trilogy

Posted by at
Labels: ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)
InfiniteRegress.tv