****

So Alison and Noah got into a fight the night of Cole's wedding(!) the night Scotty Lockhart got killed. Noah tells his lawyer that that same night he hit a deer. That's why he bribed the mechanic. The deer are fucking everywhere in Montauk!

Noah is still wrestling with the ending for his book. As it is so accurately put by Yvonne, if you have difficulty with your ending, you probably screwed up the beginning.
Earlier that night, at the dinner table Yvonne asks the lovebirds where they met.  Although Noah is the writer, the one with the fantasy, the one with the secret world, it is Alison that invents a new origin story. They met at a lighthouse, on a rainy night. Like something out of a steamy romance novel. Of course this is in Noah's retelling of that evening.
We know, they met at run of the mill diner. One of them saved Noah's youngest from suffocating.

So did Noah screw up the beginning? Alison, who in his version, was a femme fatale in her short uniform, is that the women fated to end up dead in his novel?
Because the broken hearted girl, the one that saved his child and cried in the bathroom after, she certainly is not the one that deserves an ending like that.
So about that fight, the night of the hit and run. Noah still has flashes/flash forwards of speeding up to someone on a dark road. A woman. Did Noah intend to kill Allison and ended up killing Scotty instead?

In Noah's version Alison is always curt, cynical, standoffish. His story is the mystery. The Noir where a poor schmuck is seduced by a sphinx and ends up losing everything. What does a femme fatale want? Money. In Alison retelling, money is the last thing on her mind. Her version is a melodrama, a doomed romance, with a fragile, broken main character. Her story is romantic, philosophical, devastating.
Is Noah's story colored by what will happen that night? This episode we see them  having sex, dinner at their hosts, dealing with Whitney showing up at the cabin . And we focus on his gaze, always surprised, puzzled, and suspicious.
But why then, ask this girl, this woman, to marry him? Noah presents Alison with a ring. And that same night they already almost come back on their decision. Alison is defiant in Noah's version, almost taunting him to take the ring back. She tries to push him away, and he won't let her, even when she tells him she slept with Oscar and tried to drown herself.

In Alison version she never tells him her secrets. But she must have done it, how would Noah otherwise know?

The strange thing is that In Noah's version, even if he is distrustful, even if he always comes over like an asshole, Alison seems to be the most important thing in his life.

In Alison's version, Noah is not.
A lot of the best scenes in The Affair are the ones with Alison and other pople other than Noah. It is there that we get to look into her remarkable vulnerability and soul. In this episode the best scene was the one between Robert and Alison.
Yvonne is insufferable.  These snobby book people, as Robert says of his wife and Noah. Yvonne demands that her husband goes out to kill his dog that runs wild, and apparently killed some chickens.
Robert is a wise man, instead of complaining about his wife, he gives Alison an important piece of advice. Alison is incapable of opening up to Noah. But Robert she tells about Gabriel and how much she still hurts.
And the very important fact that she hoped that if she would be somewhere else, with someone else, it would be better. But she feels the same.
Someone else, not Noah, specifically, just someone.
But she does love Noah. So Pete tells her not to expect a marriage to fulfill all your needs, that another person never can be all things to you, they are different and they may not know you, but life is hard and lonely and marriage makes it a little bit less so.
They don't kill the dog. They let it run free.

This episode is bookended by two sexscene. The first in Noah's version is a quick romp on the couch, quite banal. Alison is clearly faking it. She seems distracted, looking over his shoulder.
In Alison's version they make love in the pool.
Earlier that day Noah wanted her to get into the pool, and started dragging her. She freaked out. Of course dude, duh etc.
But after her talk with Robert she jumps in, a little more healed, and free.
When Noah comes home, he is surprised and happy to see Alison in the pool smiling.  He joins her.
This gorgeous scene is only intercepted by Robert, standing on the porch of his house, looking at them. A menacing imagine. Again Alison looks disturbed over Noah's shoulder.

What were Noah and Alison fighting about the night Scotty was run over? Was it her pregnancy? Something to do about having kids? Their different views on having children are central in this episode. Noah is quite insensitive, when he declares at Yvonne and Robert's table that he is done with having children. Alison is clear shocked.

We know that they will have  a kid, we know that they will get married. But was this marriage not meant to be? Did they get married after an awful fight that resulted in Scottys death? Is that the terrible secret between them?

Three ticking bombs:

1. What a good liar Max is. Yes, I met someone, I think its serious. Here you have 50 grand.  Oh did I forget to mention I am screwing Helen?
2. Whitney is already playing Noah, Alison and probably Helen against each other as a pro. She wants Scotty's address. A restraining order mean nothing to her.
3. Cole did leave a box with Gabriel things behind. But did he really hand it over like Alison remembered? Such a dick ass move.
Till next week!