The Affair Season 5 Episode 8 Review: The Tide Turns Against Noah
Paul Dailly
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The tide is turning against Noah.
The embattled author took center stage on The Affair Season 5 Episode 8, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to follow the character.
If you watch The Affair online, you know we've been through a lot with him, but the current storyline focusing on a feature about him for Vanity Fair is bringing out a whole host of ugly secrets.
Eden may have been painted as the villain initially for coming forward with a completely different recollection of the night they had sex, but we need to remember that particular storyline was told from Noah's perspective.
Would he admit to forcing someone to have sex with him? Probably not, and given Eden's claim that she was not the one who pursued an interview with Vanity Fair, it certainly raises a lot of questions.
It's difficult to take a side here because this show has proven time and time again that not everyone is telling the truth.
However, it did seem a little out of the blue for Eden to pop up in Helen's narrative earlier on The Affair Season 5.
Noah is a horrid character, and there's no question about whether he's been through some tough times. But we need to remember that most of them have been self-inflicted, in large part thanks to his impulsive and erratic behavior.
Audrey paints you as a rather unapologetic misogynist.
Petra
For her part, Petra is trying to find out all the facts before publishing her piece, and Noah shouldn't have visited her to try to set the record straight.
He has a knack for going above and beyond to get his point across, and in this instance, he does look like the villain.
Audrey writing a book about Noah was no surprise, but it's bizarre that their back and forth several years made her even want to write one.
Noah has royally screwed up his career, to the point that he's doing the stupidest things to make himself look innocent, but the proof was in the pudding about how he felt by the end of the episode.
He returned to Helen with lasagne for her birthday, and her home was bright and looked like a happy place, illustrating that he needed some much-needed respite from his professional life.
The most significant part of the whole lasagne incident is that Helen remembered that in her perspective, but it was way more romantic in that Noah put a candle in it when he arrived at her door.
Woman: You know you don't have the best reputation around this stuff, right?
Noah: That was in college. That was 30 years ago.
Woman: That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about your current reputation Noah... in the community.
Noah: What community?
Woman: The publishing world. You're seen as something of a loose cannon.
Noah: What? Why?
Woman: Well, you've had a storied past. You went to prison after all.
Noah: That's just fucking ridiculous ... I went to prison for my --
Woman: For what?
Noah: For my... I don't deserve that. I have the most boring fucking life. I work, I write, I see my kids, and I try to be a good person. That's it.
Woman: I know you do, but look, when you got out of prison, you were a little bit angry, right? A little bit bitter.
Noah: Sure, prison sucks.
Woman: Right, well do you remember teaching a class with a student named Audrey in it? Audrey Nelson.
Noah: Yeah, yeah I think.
Woman: Were you not very nice to her?
Noah: Well, I was as nice to her as I was to anyone else in that class. Why?
Woman: She's written a book.
Noah: Good for her.
Woman: Apparently, you're in it.
Noah: Really?
Woman: She doesn't name you directly, but it's a memoir about her abusive relationship with an older male professor. She's going around town telling people that the character is based on you.
Even more worrisome, is that Helen had the day from hell as well. It's painfully obvious Helen is going to reunite with Noah and help clear his name.
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Even though she has had her fair share of run-ins with her ex-husband, she knows better than most what he's capable of, and she's not going to allow the father of her children to get dragged through the mud.
Alarm bells will ring for Helen the moment Noah mentions Eden because, why would Eden want to represent anyone close to Noah if he was that bad?
That will be Helen's defense of Noah in this instance.
Then they will get married again and rush back to Montauk to escape Los Angeles. It sounds out there, but plausible.
Helen is starting to understand that Sasha is not a new and improved Noah after all.
Sasha thrives on making passive-aggressive comments about Noah, but he should be doing that from the confines of his mind.
The last thing he should be doing is trying to poison Noah's kids against him.
Then there's the whole storyline about Sasha keeping money from his deceased lover's daughter.
That's grim, and while we don't know whether there's much truth to it, Helen should cut him loose.
Telling her what to do with the whole Sierra scenario was way off base because he doesn't know what her relationship is like with Sierra.
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He knows Adeline, but he doesn't know what type of mother she's been to her daughter.
For him to get involved when Helen was handling it like a champ was the most upsetting aspect of it, and I'm surprised Helen didn't tell him to get get out of her house by that point.
Helen knows that being with Sasha gives her a certain status. She's attended parties with him that should never have attended when she was with Noah, but she's not cut out for the Hollywood lifestyle, and that's where the cracks are starting to appear.
Helen desperately wants to have a career again, but she wouldn't have gotten considered for the job in the first place if she didn't drop some high-profile names to get her foot in the door.
That the two women interviewing more concerned with Helen's Instagram follower count than her actual talent was right on the money.
We live in a world obsessed with social media, and if there's one thing The Affair Season 5 is doing right, is it's handling of societal themes.
This was the most well-rounded episode of the season, and it was about time we got an installment like this.
All of the storylines felt fresh and exciting, and this should have been the quality we were getting all season long.
What did you think of the episode? Did you like the twists and turns?
Hit the comments below.
The Affair continues Sundays on Showtime.
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Paul Dailly was an Associate Editor for TV Fanatic.Follow him on X.
