Part One: Helen

One Year Earlier

Helen and Dr. Oola are having sex, and it's very sexy.

He appears to be living in her basement.

The kids are getting ready for school and when Vic comes upstairs, some of them run out of the room.

Helen is selling real estate. She loves what she has with Vic. They both have their own space, great sex, one flight away. She doesn't know why she ever got married in the first place. It's the happiest she's ever been.

She goes to see Noah in prison. He's beat up. She's pissed at fatty over there, who is either letting this happen to Noah or is doing it himself.

Noah wants to see the kids. But they hate seeing him beaten and bruised. They hate going. an argument ensues. He doesn't want to see her and won't keep the drawing from Stacy.

The elevator to Whitney's loft is sketchy. Furkat is Whitney's boyfriend is a photographer. He has three foot photos of vaginas, asses and breasts all over. There is a show in Berlin and another in some other German place.

Helen is wondering whether Whitney is going to school. She just paid tuition.

Then they launch into why Noah isn't guilty. Helen almost tells too much, but pulls back just shy of the confession.

Vic buys a giant gaping vagina photo and it sits between the two of them in the cab ride on the way home.

Helen and Vic fight about everything on the way home. She thinks he's cheating and he wonders why she's lying about visiting Noah. She can't live like this anymore. Suddenly, they're living together. But Helen doesn't look happy. Helen never looks happy.

Part Two: Alison

Alison arrives on the train to Montauk.

She's moving back, and with her new apartment comes a coupon to Lockhart's Lobster Roll.

She's setting up a child's room, but she has no child with her.

Alison is spying on Joanie at school. Cole picks her up and takes her away.

Alison is talking to someone on the phone. She says she couldn't do it. She froze.

She goes next to the Lobster Roll. Cole is in a booth when she approaches. Alison has been gone for six months. No warning, no explanation.

Alison gets her mail, which is mostly from Cole.

When she gets to Cole's, Luisa takes control. She says no. She's not putting Joanie through anything else.

Alison keeps saying she wasn't in her right mind, but she's not explaining anything. She says nothing of value, nothing that explains what "sick" meant or why they are wrong in their belief that her child is better off somewhere else.

She leaves and is accosted by Oscar. His wife is pregnant. Even to him, "I just had to go away for a while." But he's the one who recognizes that she had to go away because Joanie turned four.

When Joanie got sick last winter, a fever that wouldn't go away, she freaked out. She thought it was her. She was the same age as Gabriel. She was seeing flashes of what could happen to Joanie. She knew if Joanie stayed with her, she would die. While in the institute, she gave custody of Joanie to Cole.

She thought it was going to be temporary, just until she got out.

After learning Joanie's favorite color was yellow, Alison set to painting the room.

A knock at the door. It's Cole. He's giving Alison one hour with Joanie.