Channel Surfing: The Affair - "Pilot"

Left to right: Dominic West and Ruth Wilson

Welcome to a new column called Channel Surfing, in which I sporadically look at current TV shows and talk about them. These are not ones that I care to write weekly recaps for and are instead reflections either on the episode, the series, or particular moments. This will hopefully help to share personal opinions as well as discover entertainment on the outer pantheon that I feel is well worth checking out, or in some cases, shows that are weird enough to talk about, but should never be seen.

With Gone Girl as the number one film in America two weeks in a row, it seems like the concept of marriage is in a bit of a crisis. Along with The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby films, the sanctity has been shaken up to explore a dark underbelly in ways that are alarming and use creative styles to present their demise. In the case of Showtime's latest series The Affair, it appears that going back to Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon is the way to go. From the perspectives of married man Noah Solloway (Dominic West) and waitress Alison Bailey (Ruth Wilson), the series comes in a fascinating, if gimmicky, form. Told entirely through individual interviews with Detective Jeffries (Victor Williams), the titular affair is explored with each side showing their story.

While this sounds like it could go wrong so easily, the first episode does a phenomenal job, especially if you go in without any prior knowledge. Opening up on Noah's story as he finishes a night with Alison, the story focuses on his family life and a son who things faking a hanging is a good idea. From there, it paints him as a heroic father incapable of controlling his family and enjoying the splendors of having a published book. He has achieved the life. There's a lot of sexual undertones and the journey of meeting Alison is one based more on his family being rude. This is how it goes for roughly the first half hour. Then all of the sudden... it cuts to Part 2: Alison. It's her turn to tell the story of how she woke up and dealt with her boyfriend and coworkers before meeting Noah. While it could seem redundant, there is one specific moment that makes me believe that this series will get very interesting.

After Noah is attracted to the beach by his house, he runs into Alison. The two have a small conversation regarding the coincidence. In both instances, there was a cigarette involved. However, the story shifts. Noah claims that he accepted it from Alison. Alison claims that Noah offered it to her and she rejected it. While this detail may seem like a very menial moment, it is the first sign of differing opinions that can impact a greater narrative. For the episode, it was mostly about introducing both figures and their backgrounds. With plenty of adult themes mixed in, it's already a rather erotic and mature show with great chemistry. Still, the matter of how shows dominance is important from here on out.

It also helps that Dominic West has a lot of good will after playing Jimmy McNulty on The Wire. He may start off seeming like a surface-level father with a very strange family, but he does manage to have a vulnerability to him. Also, Ruth Wilson's narrative is equally engaging with a boyfriend who isn't necessarily the greatest. Still, it is about the differing perspectives and the art of the unreliable narrator is the driving force of the series. It has the ability to go off the rails so fast, but provided that it keeps up the momentum and manages to work with this dual perspective when they become closer and more intimate, this may become one of the best new series of 2014.
The only real complaint that can be lodged against it is that it feels very much like True Detective, but with a love story. In the HBO series, Cohle and Hart tell their sides to a murder investigation to a series of interrogators before transitioning to a straightforward narrative. There's a chance that this could work for The Affair, but the subject matter has a familiarity that its decision to be about "two sides to the truth" can give it some extra momentum. It can help us to pick sides and better understand what lead us to them sleeping in that bed. What happens to Noah's family? Will Alison's boyfriend get violent? There's a lot of great questions here.
Most of all, I hope that it becomes a show with so many nuanced and inconsistent details that it becomes like a mystery unto itself. Who is really telling the truth and what does that say about them? Who is the most innocent of the two and who dominates everything? I am unsure of where things will go, but considering that this may be the lowest concept series of Showtime's recent series (Penny Dreadful had monsters, Masters of Sex had sex), it doesn't have much room to simply wane. It must be true to itself. While it keeps changing who is handing out cigarettes, I will gratefully watch. The Affair is a series with nuanced details that with two great leads creates a fascinating portrait of romance and deception in the modern era.