This week on The Affair: We finally find out who died! It is probably someone that you expected!
Phoebe’s Story: Do you know who I am? I am Phoebe, world-famous folk singer who travels the world and sings backup for Sting and other musicians of that type. I have a beautiful house in Montauk paid for by my folk music and a beautiful friend named Alison who housesits when I leave — she does the dishes, feeds the cat.
She is also, apparently, using my house as a sex shack love nest. And I hate her for it. Alison? More like asshole! But she told me all about what went on, so I will share it with you. It’s a very soulful story. I could feel her weird lust energy even though I was stuck singing about ships and prostitutes out in Chile. Do you know how many didgeridoo versions of “Fields of Gold” I have to listen to? So many! As a result I have way too much information about Alison’s life.
We start with a sleeping Alison, wedding ring visible. Shirtless Cole invites her to watch him surf. She makes terrible decisions, and instead of sleeping with that fine piece of man, says she’s going to “get more sleep” when she’s really putting on a lavender dress — that Cole loves — in order to have sex in my bed. She’s never taking care of my house again!
That douchey writer comes over and he starts by going down on her, which is cool, I guess, Cole would never; and in the afterglow, they talk about their pasts. Alison wanted to be a doctor, couldn’t afford it, didn’t get a scholarship. Writer is — surprise! — not a rich boy, but a leech; the son of a trucker and a waitress. So he has Oedipal issues. Total catch there, Allie, you bitch! Love you forever!
Then the nursing home calls, and Alison has to go save her grandma from the hurricane of terror that is her mother, Athena. “Athena,” who I always knew as Shelly, has come back to Montauk after energy healing around the world. I know she’s an asshole, but I love her. She’s an expert in reiki. She “could feel it all the way in Jaipur,” her mother’s distress. A breakup is described as “we are no longer traveling together.” She wants to be the healthcare proxy for grams, but it’s not a great idea. She’s too flaky.
At The Lobster Roll, Alison can’t wait to get back to my house of sin. Oscar asks to see Scotty Lockhart, Cole’s handsome brother that creeped on Noah’s teen daughter. He comes in and it’s all very hush hush.
[Detective Framing Device breaks in: “Oscar had a relationship with the victim.” They were friends, Alison notes. We know now who the victim is: Scotty Lockhart, too good and handsome for this stupid world. Noticeably, Alison is wearing a tank top that looks expensive.]
Then Alison and Noah are back at my house eating MY peanut butter and having a beer and talking about the world. Noah says he’d go anywhere with Alison, but ideally he’d like a place in Bodega Bay where they could drink wine on the beach and then hang out in their authentic cabin with no electricity. You know what Bodega Bay is known for, Alison? It’s where Alfred Hitchcock filmed The Birds. In fact, there is nothing there except for Hitchcock paraphernalia and Tippi Hedren-labeled wine. That’s it. And every bird is a terror. Stay away! I can’t believe you let this asshole into my house but I guess it’s ok because he really likes “offering something to the world” when he is “teaching.”
Athena shows up again when Noah’s leaving. With a mother’s intuition she says that — first off, I have “such a spirit” in order to get off the island, which is true, I am the best — and she also notes that Alison had just had sex, because of the “lust energy.” She also doesn’t have a cell phone because radiation is a disaster and it kills spontaneity. A gal after my own heart! She also notes that Alison’s life force is back for the first time since Gabriel died, not some oppressive set of rules.
And with that, to the Lockhart family manse for dinner! Athena continues to give excellent advice to sister-in-law Mary Kate, freeing up her sexual energy because “it’s not safe to own our sexual power.” Cherry, the matriarch, mentions that a realtor says the ranch is worth 30 million, but Cole doesn’t want to sell. It’s been in the family for seven generations. Scotty wants the money, though, and Athena thinks its an option for “reinvention.” But Cherry gives Alison her wedding band, which sets off Althea because it’s just another chain and Cole is all like, who was there when Alison couldn’t deal, post-Gabriel? Cherry. Like anyone named “Cherry” is trustworthy and good. I don’t believe it!
Alison takes her mother home, or someplace else at least, and she has some insights into her daughter, she’s a very smart hippie: maybe now that she knows security is an illusion, she’s “becoming someone else.”
[Here comes Detective Framing Device, with Alison as someone else. He says she’s free to go, and he asks whether she talked to dead dead dead Scotty the night of the wedding. She didn’t. She left early since she had to go back to the city.]
So, Alison tried to apologize to me by telling me about captain douchey writer’s awful day and how my place was the only privacy they could get, but I still wasn’t into it. It wasn’t much of a story.
Noah got up to go for a run. Freaked out because Whit wasn’t in her bed, until Helen reminded him that she was sleeping over a friends house and could he get some bagels please? Dick denied, he then yells at one of his annoying children when they want to spend time with him. He speeds to my place, and tries to fuck Alison in a quickie, until crazy text messages send him back home.
But he gets a flat tire, and that annoying Oscar decides to “spend time” with him while they wait for AAA. Oscar invites Noah to fish, Noah says no but then suggests a lame beer.
When Noah gets home, everything’s crazy since romper-crazed teen Whitney has been cyberbullying some poor young girl who has attempted suicide. Whitney’s guilty as hell, tossing her phone into the pool. Noah suggests that she writes a letter of apology and he’s bringing her to the girl’s house in order to “beg forgiveness,” but the Butlers butt in due to a fear of legislation. Noah feels like this is some rich people lotus eaters bullshit, going all class warrior and such, but he capitulates once Helen suggests that they go back to Brooklyn, a land without Alison.
Then Oscar shows up, and he gets into a shoving match with Noah. Oscar calls him “a douche like the rest of them,” them being summer people, rich people, or anyone on Oscar’s shitlist. Noah responds by taking Whitney to the house of the teen girl who she terrorized in order to apologize.
In the car, Whitney asks whether she’s a good person, says she does bad things, and that she doesn’t want to be an asshole. Asks the eternal question: “How do I un-asshole myself?” Noah says she needs to know that her words and her actions have consequences, and that she’s not the only person who’s real. (#irony #Alaniswouldbeproud) At the Butlers, Noah and Helen decide to put Whitney in therapy, and then Helen suggests that Noah takes time off work to care for the kids and finish the book. He storms off when she says “You’re never going to be successful if you only write one book per decade!” Because if he was successful, he’d be Jonathan Franzen or Donna Tartt and obviously this story has no birdwatching and even less interest in fancy art.
[Detective Framing Device: You are free to go Noah, you’re reminding me of my awful divorce. Also, do you know about a cool club in Montauk?]
Noah runs away to have meaningful sex in MY bed, like a jerk, and he’s giving it to Alison and she’s loving it and he’s like run away with me, and she’s like yes, yes, yes, and then we’ve got simultaneous mutual orgasms for everyone!
God, Alison, you better have cleaned my sheets, you slut.
[Correction: a previous draft misidentified Alison’s mother as “Althea,” not “Athena,” which is the correct name. We regret the error.]