Showtime’s critically acclaimed drama, “The Affair” officially premiered last night. “The Affair” season 3 premiere episode focuses on Noah Solloway and his return from prison, broken but still his normal jerk self. It ends with a shocking twist that the whole “The Affair” season 3 will most likely try to unravel.
“The Affair” season 3 starts with a fidgety Noah Solloway (Dominic West), heavily bearded, sitting alone on a table staring blankly ahead. His sister Nina(Jennifer Esposito) enters and beckons him if he’ ready. It turns out that Noah and his sister Nina and her family is on the way for the funeral of their father, Arthur Solloway.
At the chapel, Noah sits at the back while Nina and her family sit on the front pews. Noah’s ex-wife, Helen (Maura Tierney) and their three kids arrive for the funeral. Noah’s eldest son, Martin (Jake Richard Sicialiano) completely ignores his father while Helen and the younger kids greet him. After which Helen and the kids take their seat far from Noah.
During the funeral service, Noah gets distracted by a man in the graveyard. He seems to recognize the man but is startled from his staring by the pastor who calls him to say a few words about his father.
Noah starts to say something about the fishing trips he used to go with his father but clams up. He professes he didn’t really have a good relationship with his father and was closer to his sister. Noah’ relationship with his father suffered even more after his sister left.
After the funeral service, Nina understandably reprimands Noah for saying something like that about their dead father. After that, Helen comes up to Noah to talk about being there for their children. She even asks what’s going on between them but Noah coldly brushes her off.
Nina invites Helen and the kids back to the house. Helen asks Noah if it was ok but Noah again acts indifferent. Helen refuses the invitation and leaves with the kids. Back at the house, a lady stops Noah thinking he was Nina’s husband. When he says he’s not Nina’s husband but her brother, the old lady then asks Noah if was the one who went to prison.
When Noah answers yes, the lady then informs Noah that he was the one who caused his father’s death. The old lady adds that his father died because he was too broken-hearted from Noah’s actions. Nina then takes Noah away for a cigarette.
While outside, the siblings talk about forgiving each other from past faults. Nina even assures her brother Noah that she thinks he is innocent and believes Noah didn’t kill Scotty Lockhart.
The following day, while Noah’s in the bathroom, he overhears Nina and her husband arguing. He comes up to them to ask what’s going on. Nina’s husband, JP, angrily tells Noah that the house was left to him by their father, Arthur. JP angrily screams at Noah that he doesn’t deserve the house as it was Nina who took care of their father until the moment he died. As Nina drops Noah off the university, Noah tells Nina he doesn’t want the house and gives it to Nina and her family.
During Noah’s writing class, he gets distracted when he spied a man in a baseball hat standing out. Noah is so distracted that he only half-heartedly listens as a student, Audrey, reads her work in class. While Audrey’s classmates give positive comments on her work, Noah rips it apart calling it dull and uninspired. Audrey walks out of the class while Noah is left dumbfounded on what he did wrong.
As he leaves the classroom, Noah sees an ad for a cheap student apartment. He visits the apartment and decides to take it. Noah walks around the campus and comes upon a chapel where he falls asleep in one of the pews and dreams about Helen visiting him in prison.
The dream is a flashback on the first few days of Noah in prison. Helen worries about his life and prison and tells him that she could ask her father to get Noah out of prison. Noah assures Helen that prison is not what it seems. He calls it as a kind of writer’s retreat. In the dream/flashback we also see Noah feeling confident that he definitely would not have to really stay three years in prison.
Noah gets woken up by a lecture held in the chapel. The professor of the class is Juliette Le Gall (Irene Jacobs). Juliette asks Noah who he is and promptly answers. Instead of leaving the lecture, Noah stays to listen.
After the lecture, Noah and Juliette encounter a student protest. Juliette shares that people were apprehensive with Noah on the campus as he is a convicted murderer. Noah and Juliette grab some coffee nearby and Noah notices the man again. Juliette invites Noah to a dinner party she’s hosting which he accepts.
After having coffee with Juliette, Noah meets his parole officer. The parole officer reminds Noah to stay out of trouble. The parole officer also wants to make sure that Noah has a stable job and a place to live in. As the meeting with the parole officer ends, Noah asks the parole officer if anyone, perhaps a prison guard, knows where he is. The parole officer asks Noah why he is asking that but Noah does not answer and walks away.
At Juliette’s dinner party, Noah is surprised that Audrey, his student, answers the door. The conversation during dinner is about sexual permission of which one of the students invited, a guy, says he’s scared to have sex with girls nowadays as some of them might wake up the next day and call it rape.
The conversation turns to Noah’s opinion. Noah fumbles for an answer but Aubrey brings up a scene in “Descent”, Noah’s book where the male character had rough sex with his wife against the tree. Aubrey considers the act rape while Noah disagrees. Aubrey then calls Noah’s book a manual for being a jerk and a cheat while Juliette defends it saying it is a book about a man courageous enough to get what he wants.
After dinner, Noah goes to Aubrey to apologize for his behavior back in class. Juliette interrupts them and invites Noah to a tour of her house. As Juliette and Noah tour the house, things get heated up and the two end up kissing. As the two start to have sex, Noah hears a train and stops. He panics and abruptly leaves Juliette. As Noah is seen leaving Juliette’s house, he pops a pill. Earlier, Noah tells Nina that the pills are muscle relaxants for his shoulder.
The scene then cuts to a flashback of Noah in prison. It is then revealed that the man Noah keeps seeing everywhere is a prison guard.
As Noah rushes to go home he calls Alison and leaves a message. Alison doesn’t pick up and the call goes to voicemail. Noah leaves a message saying that he knows Alison doesn’t want to hear from him but he just wants to hear her voice.
Noah is getting paranoid as he rushes in his apartment. He gets spooked out from every noise and thinks someone is in his apartment. Behind Noah, someone appears to be stalking toward him. Suddenly, Noah clutches his neck and sees his hand covered in blood. Before he can reach his cellphone, he falls over.
What do you think? Did someone really stab Noah? Or was it just his imagination? When will we be formally introduced to the prison guard? What happened to Noah in prison? Share your opinions in the comments below!
