The Affair is quickly becoming my favorite new show. It is beautifully written, has a breathtaking aesthetic, and has the most compelling and unique premise I have seen on television.
The show uses the Rashomon effect to demonstrate how two people can have contradictory recollections of the same event. In The Affair, the two individuals are Noah and Alison, and both are being asked to recall their extramarital affair that transpired years ago in True Detective– like interrogations about which we (so far) know very little. Each episode devotes the entire hour to the same day and events, but the first half-hour shows Noah’s perspective, and the second half-hour shows Alison’s. The discrepancies in their memories are sometimes glaring, and other times subtle. For example, in the first episode Noah’s daughter chokes on a marble at the diner where Alison works (she is their waitress, and this is how they meet). Noah and Alison both remember her choking, but in Noah’s scene he saves his daughter, and in Alison’s scene she is the one who saves her. In Noah’s memory his wife wears glasses, and in Alison’s memory she does not. In Noah’s memory Alison offers him a cigarette, and in Alison’s memory Noah offers her a cigarette. I imagine as the show evolves the inconsistencies in their stories will become more and more consequential.
The Affair examines the disparities in how others perceive us and how we perceive ourselves, as well as how self-perception can skew the truth in our memories. The show is artistic and romantic, but with criminal undertones that add an air of mystery to this captivating story.
You need to see The Affair to truly understand it. There have only been two episodes, so catch up… Sundays, 10 PM, Showtime.
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