The Affair: Season 2

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Generally favorable reviews based on 15 Critic Reviews

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Generally favorable reviews based on 71 Ratings

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7.5	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 71 Ratings

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Season Details & Credits

SHOWTIME | Season Premiere Date: October 4, 2015

Summary: Season two finds Noah and Helen divorcing, and Allison and Cole trying to move on.

Genre(s): Drama

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Season 2 Episodes

tbd
S2:E12. 212
Air Date: December 20, 2015
tbd
S2:E11. 211
Air Date: December 13, 2015
tbd
S2:E10. 210
Air Date: December 6, 2015

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Critic Reviews

Gwen Ihnat

Oct 2, 2015

With its bold new move to double our number of perspectives, it appears that The Affair will sail over that sophomore slump that has felled so many other Showtime dramas. Read full review

Melissa Maerz

Sep 30, 2015

The moment we glimpse Helen’s inner life, she becomes the most fascinating character on a show that’s full of them.... When a friend asks if she knew that Noah was cheating, there are unspoken questions there: How would I know if it happened to me? And if I didn’t know, how could I move on? The fact that viewers are asking the same questions only makes this season more compelling to watch. Read full review

Mark Peikert

Oct 5, 2015

That we never really know the people whom we love is a powerful, popular theme that fits snugly into the thriller and horror genres (think of “Rosemary’s Baby” and all those early ’90s erotic thrillers) but to see it rendered so artfully and crisply and unsentimentally as a weekly drama is to understand why we are so often informed that we live in a golden age of TV. Read full review

Tim Goodman

Sep 28, 2015

The combined performances here are exceptional. That work is helpful in glossing over some of the character flaws. Read full review

Kristi Turnquist

Oct 1, 2015

Season 2 improves on Season 1 by broadening the story to give us the points of view of the wronged spouses, Noah's wife, Helen (Maura Tierney,) and Alison's husband, Cole (Joshua Jackson.) Tierney and Jackson are both so good, they left us wanting more in Season 1, and it's great to see their characters do some well-justified venting. Read full review

Willa Paskin

Oct 2, 2015

Once you accept the absurdity, there is a minor intellectual pleasure to be had in using the opposing recollections as a kind of treasure map, not to figure out what really happened, but to figure out what the writers are so effortfully trying to convey. Read full review

Sonia Saraiya

Oct 5, 2015

Helen now has a perspective, which adds a lot of necessary depth (and gives us the added benefit of seeing Tierney do more things on-screen, which is never a bad thing). But the show is paralyzed by its own vision, at times; the problem with making a show about singular perspectives is that those people are necessarily self-absorbed. Read full review

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User Reviews

Winterflower

Oct 14, 2017

In this season, everything works (Or almost, but I'm not getting into spoilers), all the main characters are likeable and have good storylines. The episodic format makes it feels more like the A Song of Ice and Fire books and it warms my heart.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

dierregi

Oct 5, 2016

What makes this show brilliant is the attempt to show how memories are flawed and self-serving. There is no such thing as objectivity. Adulteres Noah and Alison are looking for different things, and that is why in Noah's narrative Alison is sexier and dressed in skimpier clothes, whileWhat makes this show brilliant is the attempt to show how memories are flawed and self-serving. There is no such thing as objectivity. Adulteres Noah and Alison are looking for different things, and that is why in Noah's narrative Alison is sexier and dressed in skimpier clothes, while Alison thinks of herself as restrained.

In the second series with get more of the story told from the additional point of view of Cole and Helen, the betrayed spouses. The four voices are actually complementing each other. Individual narrative often starts where the previous one ended and this allows the story to move more fluidly than in the previous series, where the same event was told from Noah and Alison's point of view.

Neither main character is particularly attractive, and the more we get to know them, the more we realize they were better paired off with their previous partner. Helen (Noah's wife) is not pleasant herself, a rich, spoiled woman who despite being a Newyorker and well over 40, apparently never considered the fact that her husband may stray. I find it hard to believe that a mother of 4 could not perceive her husband's boredom and frustration with what seems a very stressful family life.

However, bewildered Helen is going through a crisis herself (no surprisingly) and Cole is not doing much better. He is perhaps the only sympathetic character in the show, a forlon, taciturn guy who lost everything and uncapable of moving forward. There is something touching in hs quiet dignity, although one can also see how Alison felt lonely with him.

Really intriguing show. Hope it will develop in an interesting way.… Expand

2 of 2 users found this helpful20

jgzeger

May 1, 2016

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The Affair is a very well done and well acted drama series which I thoroughly enjoyed. Having said that, I want to add that it isn't without its flaws. The major one, as far as I was concerned, is that with all of its plot twists and turns, it stretches credulity pretty thin at points and breaks it in the final episode of Season 2. I'm talking about the scene where Scotty dies with every major character in the show there playing a role in his death except brother Cole. Noah and Helen were in a car together with Helen driving, while Scotty and Alison were each walking home although not together. They just all happened to converge at the same place at the same time for Scotty's demise. That would be as likely as three bullets from three different guns fired separately all striking one another in mid-air. Give me a break! Still, I'm planning on watching Season 3 to see some more great acting.… Expand

3 of 4 users found this helpful31

EPMD

Jun 7, 2016

Production values and acting seem spot on, but the writing and plot contrivances continually drag the show down. There are enough coincidences here that you'll be screaming out, "Oh, come on!" a few times. But it's an easy watch, even if it's sometimes a bit of a hate watch.

1 of 3 users found this helpful12

Seasons & Episodes

81

Series Overview
Season 5

77
- Season 5 Overview
  Air Date: August 25, 2019
Season 4

tbd
- Season 4 Overview
  Air Date: June 17, 2018
Season 3

72
- Season 3 Overview
  Air Date: November 20, 2016
Season 2

78
- Season 2 Overview
  Air Date: October 4, 2015
- tbd
  S2:E12. 212
  Air Date: December 20, 2015
- tbd
  S2:E11. 211
  Air Date: December 13, 2015
- tbd
  S2:E10. 210
  Air Date: December 6, 2015
- tbd
  S2:E9. 209
  Air Date: November 29, 2015
- tbd
  S2:E8. 208
  Air Date: November 22, 2015
- tbd
  S2:E7. 207
  Air Date: November 15, 2015
- tbd
  S2:E6. 206
  Air Date: November 8, 2015
- tbd
  S2:E6. 206
  Air Date: November 8, 2015
- tbd
  S2:E5. 205
  Air Date: November 1, 2015
- tbd
  S2:E5. 205
  Air Date: November 1, 2015
- tbd
  S2:E4. 204
  Air Date: October 25, 2015
- tbd
  S2:E3. 203
  Air Date: October 18, 2015
- tbd
  S2:E2. 202
  Air Date: October 11, 2015
- tbd
  S2:E1. 201
  Air Date: October 4, 2015
Season 1

85
- Season 1 Overview
  Air Date: October 12, 2014