The Affair 4x03 Episode 3

Remember when I outlined my problems with season 3 of The Affair and one of the biggest one was the fact that they for some reason ceased to put any emphasis on the little (or not so little) differences between the characters’ recollections, which is essentially what made the show so unique and intriguing in the first place. Well, it’s almost as if someone heard my complaints, and instead of remedying them, decided to double down on them just out of spite. The two parts of this episode, Noah and Helen’s respective stories, had absolutely nothing to do with each other. Noah showed up for maybe five seconds in Helen’s bit, delivered the best line of the episode („Two fucking kids, coming right up”), and that was it. Otherwise they were completely self-conatined units that could have worked as individual episodes of any regular family drama series, and the funny things is, I actually liked it this way. I can’t even explain why, but this time the fact that there wasn’t any major conflict between any of the main characters somehow felt refreshing. Weird, huh.

Noah’s story this week was concerned mainly with his work as a teacher. He tried to speak up in favour of Anton, the kid who’s repeating the year due to plagiarism, but it turned out the principal is his mom and she wasn’t so keen on discussing the potential troubles abounding in their home life. Noah then took matters into his own hands by trying to convince Anton and all the other kids in class that they have the ability to take their future into their own hands and stand up against the system that’s trying to keep them down, which culminated in a school-wide walkout topped with some police brutality, Noah being mistakenly identified as principal in the local news, and some heart-to-heart over a few drinks with the actual principal, Jenelle, about how the whole thing is only being treated this way because she’s a black woman, whereas a white man like Noah would definitely be praised for doing the exact same things. The episode as a whole was really heavy on racial issues and the question of privilege, with Anton previously asking why should he and the other kids (most of them being black, latino and from poorer backgrounds) care about The Waste Land when it is nothing but the musings of some long dead old white dude, which, honestly doesn’t endear me to his character at all, no matter how much the writers were trying to hammer home that he was justified in this assessment. This is the exact same logic that says you can’t identify with a fictional character unless you share a race/gender/sexuality, and I cannot get behind either of these statements. Nor do I believe that Jenelle’s skin colour had anything to do with the negative press the walkout received, I mean come on, these kids were smashing up cars and chanting „fuck the police” at the fucking police, and you’re trying to make me believe a white principal wouldn’t have been criticized for this lack of discipline just as harshly? Yeah, no.

The little teachers’ night out then ended with Jenelle and Noah making out in the parking lot, which was more cringey than anything else. Look, I totally buy Dominic West’s sexual attraction. He’s not a conventionally handsome dude but there’s something about him alright… but the show sometimes likes to take this up to extraordinary levels, like when even his students were talking about his attractiveness (in his class!), in the season premiere, and then there was that annoying college girl last season who had every reason to hate him but somehow still wanted to jump his bones… it’s weird and I honestly don’t get why is it so important to show that everybody wants to fuck Noah, but I guess I’ll just have to accept it any move on. At least Jenelle exercised some restraint and broke things off before they got really into it, but somehow I don’t think we have seen the end of this „relationship”. Whatever ramifications it might have for Noah’s budding mentorship of Anton remains to be seen. What we do know is that Anton is definitely involved in Noah and Cole’s „six weeks later” investigation into Alison’s whereabouts, but how all that came about is probably going to remain a mystery for a little while longer.

Over at Helen’s corner, things are definitely not looking too rosy. Vik’s little accident at the end of the premiere turned out to be a sign that he has late stage cancer, and now that he knows, he refuses to do anything about it. He even tells Helen not to tell his parents, which she of course does as soon as an opportunity arises, which leads into yet another long lecture about the nature of white privilege. Yeah, that was definitely a theme in this episode. According to Vik, Helen could never understand what his parents are going through right now with this diagnosis, because they sacrificed everything so that Vik could become a doctor (in a way Helen, her parents, or basically any other white person never had to, obviously), and now it was all in vain because he’s going to die. I mean… really? I would say he has an awfully law opinion of his parents but then again, his mother’s reaction to the news was basically like „Oh cool, I’m gonna go home now”, so… maybe it’s justified. The whole situation is just bizarre and then Vik tops it off by telling Helen that the only thing she can do right now to help is to give him a baby. Really??? Dude I get that you’re probably in shock right now but what kind of person tells his partner… his 50+ years old partner no less… that she should get pregnant so that when he eventually dies in a couple of years she can be left alone with a baby that she didn’t even want in the first place? That’s a weird last wish and what’s even weirder is that Helen actually went to a clinic at the end of the episode so maybe she’s actually considering it? Please don’t let her do that to herself.