Welcome to our weekly recap of The Affair Season 3! Each week we’ll go over the latest developments on the show, point out Hamptons locales and scenes, and occasionally poke some fun at the often-dark drama.

Read our recap of last week’s episode here.

This week: Helen continues to be a doormat, Whitney finds new ways to horrify us, Oscar offers a shoulder to cry on (without benefits!), Cole continues to be better than everyone else and more!

Season 3, Episode 2

A year ago: Helen and tenant/loverboy Vik attempt (poorly) to keep a normal house with the kids while Noah’s in prison. Her coworker Trish questions her about whether she’s happy with Vik, and Helen asserts that she is, but then goes to see a badly beaten Noah in prison, who just wants to see the kids. When Helen tells Noah the kids don’t like to come visit because him, he angrily tells her to stop coming by. He even drops a card that little Stacy made for him. Later, Helen and Vik go to meet Whitney’s new boyfriend in Brooklyn. Whitney’s much older beau, Furkat (of course Whitney is dating someone named Furkat), is a pretentious artist. Over dinner, Whitney and Helen fight over Noah. Whitney wants to know if something happened the night of the murder that she doesn’t know. Helen lies and says that Noah was drinking when Scotty died, and that she could have stopped him.  Vik hilariously purchases one of Furkat’s female anatomy photographs before Helen makes them storm out. Later, Helen and Vik get into a huge fight over trust issues (she went to see Noah, he had lunch with another woman) and Vik proves he wants to be with the harried woman by moving his stuff into her room. He asks Helen to stop seeing Noah, and she “agrees.” Because we all know Helen can stay away from Noah, right?

Meanwhile, back in Montauk…
Alison gets off the LIRR at the Montauk station and moves into a new place, where her landlord’s son gives her a coupon for Lockhart’s Lobster. After unsuccessfully attempting to approach Cole and little Joanie, Alison calls someone – her therapist? – for support. She finds Noah at Lockhart’s Lobster (aka the Lobster Roll) and the two argue over Alison’s disappearing for six months. He begrudgingly agrees to let her see Joanie. Alison heads to the Montauk Post Office for her mail and finds that Noah has been sending her letters every week. At Noah’s house, Luisa tells Alison that she can’t see Joanie and reminds her that she signed away custody months ago. Adding insult to injury, Luisa calls Alison out on her emotional and mental problems, instantly becoming this season’s villain. Defeated, Alison heads into town and runs into Oscar, who takes her for a drink. Oscar and his wife are expecting! Alison reveals that six months ago, she freaked out when Joanie came down with the flu and started seeing flashes of Joanie dying, like her first child. Knowing she needed help, she checked herself into a hospital and gave custody to Cole and Luisa. Oscar tells her that a good lawyer can help fix the situation. Later, as Alison paints the walls in Joanie’s would-be bedroom, Cole relents and brings Joanie to see her mom. Luisa’s not going to be happy…

Our take…
Far from the precious academic world and characters of last week, this episode felt more like “classic” Affair. Alison and Oscar’s little meeting was surprisingly poignant, while Helen’s dinner with Whitney was predictably disastrous in the best way possible. Cole continued to be the most standup of the group, rising above the drama for the sake of little Joanie. But who stabbed Noah?!

Random tidbits:
Line of the night goes to Whitney, in a shocking moment of compassion: “Mom, what happened to Scotty was in no way your fault.” Oh Whitney, if you only knew…