The Affair 206 recap: Did she die?

The affair 206 recap

This episode started as a lullaby, and ended at a headbangers gig. Not that poor Martin's perforated bowel, wasn't distressing. But it seemed that puking green is a great way to get your parents back together. Take that Lindsey Lohan. It took their son to get seriously ill, and a very reassuring and stern doctor to finally stop Noah and Helen from tearing their kids apart.
Noah, and certainly Alison, were right. Martin was really sick and should have gone to the hospital the first time he doubled over in pain.
This lead to the most satisfying part of this episode, and maybe of the whole damn show. Helen realizes, that she can't think for herself. It's her mother's constant yapping, that fills her head, till she cannot not hear herself think anymore. When Helen tells Margaret this, it becomes even more obvious to her how manipulating dear mom is. Blaming Helen exhaustion, for the harsh truths she is dispensing makes Helen goes one step further admitting that she let herself be manipulated into believing that Noah wasn't worthy of her sincere love. And with that Margaret gets thrown out of the brownstone.
Margaret almost crawled to her town car, trying one last pity card. Your father is divorcing me. Well we saw Bruce earlier,  at a meeting with Jon. They were  supposed to be discussing a strategy to keep Noah from getting co-custody but it disgressed when dear mom kept insisting that Bruce must have paid his new paramour ( I couldn't resist) to pretend to love him.
There have been a lot mirror scenes this season, where the main characters were pitched against their parents. It seems that Helen finally decided to stop being like her mom. But maybe it is not so easy. After closing the door on her mom, Helen, having made the best decision of her live, turns to Whitney, starts crying in her arms, all needy, leaving her daughter bewildered, and guilt tripped. Hopefully this vicious circle will not go on and on.

Helen's part doesn't sound like a  lullaby, I know. It's Noah's version that starts all idyllic, on the day that Martin comes back from the hospital. Noah is trusted to be back in their house, the kids are happy, they all have a celebratory gluten free cake. This is the first scene ever where we get see how once this family could have been happy. I say could have been. Because we don't know, if they ever were. When the show started Martin committed a fake suicide, Whitney was whining, the kids were fighting in the car, it was chaos.

And then the sweet lullaby stops, Helen sends Noah away.

Time for reality.

Well, a strange version of it. It seems that Alison, after she fled to see Cole, decided to go to see her mother at the Sousanna Institute. For a moment I was expecting to see Don was here carved in one of many trees. Anyway. It's a Dionysian utopia, and the first time Noah sees Alison there she is in the water, as a nymph, surrounded by naked people. For a moment we get to think that Alison is naked too. I am wondering why the director made this choice, and if it will significant. Is it a test, for how we ourselves see Alison? Do we expect her to be naked frolicking about with her new friends?
It seems that Noah's version and Alison version of herself are coming together. Because this is not the seductress anymore. I haven't have sex in six week. Is one of the first things Alison tells Noah. Well Noah, will be relieved to hear that, but we know that Cole was the last one she had sex with.
I read your book is the next thing she says. Which part, did you read the end?
The end of the book, will it be the end of the Affair? That would be awful, especially now that Noah is the least sympathetic character in the story. But I'm the asshole in the story, he counters when Noah sees how upset Alison is.
Let's go on. Alison looks amazing, feels amazing and like Helen she came to certain insights about herself. She chased grief away by being reckless. Cutting herself, having sex. But now she is starring to feel like herself. Clear. She urges Noah to stay, to see what the effect this place has on him.
No, we don't get to see Noah, beaming, eyes closed, happy and content, a bell chiming. Noah hates bells, the spiritual speeches. He can't write, wanders through the gardens, lost, irritated. Then he meets Alison new friend. The writer Sebastian Junger. who tells him that Reiki helps him through writing blocks.
The perfect storm. Is that how Noah sees Alison, is that how their love his, one giant wave that will break everything apart?
Noah follows his fellow's writers advice and lets Alison's mother perform her Reiki voodoo on him. Athena's speech, while she focusing all her attention on is penis, ahum chakra, comes down to  the age old struggle/dichotomy between the Dionysian and the Apollonian. Reason against irrationality.
Noah is trapped between his attraction for the darkness and his will for order and stability. No shit, certainly someone in this mess sees things clearly.
Both the mothers in this episodes are trying to put their own stamp on younger love. And while Helen succeeds in banning her mom from her head, Alison's mom gets into Noah's. On her table, he has the flash again. We see an overturned car, a woman on the road. Noah driving like a maniac towards her. Noah freaks out by the vision, goes out to find Alison, drags her to a tree, spouts all sorts of passive aggressive stuff and lets his animal impulses reign free taking potion of his nymph. (Remember this is how Noah saw Alison having sex with Cole that first time, on the car hood. In Noah's head it was almost a rape, in Alison's version it was different, initiated by her. So what was Noah's intention here?)
When its over Alison turns to him, and says: I'm pregnant.
And that night, with that knowledge Noah finally writes the ending he was supposed to write. The one that is fated. He is driving towards a smiling Alison and he never stops.
When his agent calls, Noah tells him its done. Like a hired killer.
But what could he do? Even his son knows it. When Martin implies that he met a girl at the hospital, Trevor asks, did she die? Because that's when it becomes a story.

In the future we see Helen with Jon. He tells her that Oscar has something on Scotty. Oscar wants 100 grand. Do whatever you have to do to get him off. It sounds so logical , he is the father of my kids. But it sure sounds like there may be a different reason for Helen's instance on saving Noah.