I won’t lie, these weren’t the best season finales, but I think the seasons as a whole were incredibly strong, with both shows firing at the top of their game. It’s almost shocking that both of these shows were on Showtime rather than HBO.
The Affair…The show revolves around the gimmick of subjective storytelling, as married Brooklyn writer Noah (The Wire’s Dominic West, showing terrific range in this role) and also married, relatively-poor Montauk waitress Alison (Ruth Wilson) begin a summer affair that is somehow tied to a suspicious death, and they narrate their conflicting versions of the same story to a local cop looking into the murder. Each episode begins with Noah’s version of what happened, and the second half is Alison’s version of what happened, and what’s fascinating is all the subtle differences in them. In Noah’s version, he’s a confused family man that’s targeted by a seductive Alison, but in hers she’s the haunted innocent while he’s more than game and a little lecherous. I think “The Affair” ‘s early episodes get at the universal truth that nobody is the bad guy of their own story, and our own actions are quite complex (to us) while the actions of others are usually much more black and white.
The show had a terrific pilot episode, but something got muddled in the season finale. For one thing, the “gimmick” of narrating the stories to the cop—although it worked really well—was for some reason abandoned towards the second half of the season, and so I’m not really sure what’s subjective and what’s objective anymore. Why are their stories still deviating from each other so much if they’re no longer telling a story to anyone? And I think the series missed an opportunity by not having their stories come into direct conflict more often in the police investigation, where each one should be subtly pointing the finger at the other. The somewhat directionless narrative seems confused by its (maybe?) murder-mystery plot, and that aspect has gotten almost too abstract to follow. [Why didn’t they show us the event in question in this episode? Don’t they know audiences get frustrated with murder mysteries that drag on into multiple seasons?] What’s keeping me hooked are the great characters, and the phenomenal performances of Maura Tierney (as Noah’s wife, who’s not unsympathetic at all), Joshua Jackson (as Alison’s husband), John Doman (as Noah’s father in law), Wilson, and West. “The Affair” keeps shifting our sympathies, and I’m still glad to be toyed with…for now. Grade for Season Finale: B-…Grade for Pilot: A…Grade for Season: A-
Homeland…For me, the fourth season was easily this show’s best. I know many viewers really miss Damian Lewis’s Nicolas Brody character, and even though I did love that character, I think the show was liberated from all the baggage that came with him (a too-simple Army wife, a bratty daughter, his wife’s boring boyfriend, etc.). Homeland’s fourth season was set almost entirely in Pakistan, and it just emphasizes what I’ve said about this show from the beginning: for a show called “Homeland,” the best parts usually take place overseas. [Plus, the CIA is an international spy agency, so it only makes sense that they would leave the domestic stuff sooner or later.]
This season seemed to finally admit that the real danger (and story) is in overseas war zones, and so I found the action a lot more credible than past seasons. Plus, it’s hard to pick a more interesting locale for a spy show than Pakistan, America’s top frenemy. In fact, I’m slightly jealous as I hoped to set a show there myself one day. Anyway…
Yeah, the season finale was pretty boring, but that’s no surprise since it was set—you guessed it—domestically, and this show’s strength has really never been in the character building that it wants it to be in. Most of Homeland’s characters are just not that deep (they’ve just always been a little too noble and clear-cut, lacking the real shading of a “Sopranos” or “Breaking Bad”-type show), but the tricky internal politics of Pakistan and how to stop an opponent that keeps pretending they’re your friend? Now that is interesting. Grade for Season Finale: B…Grade for Season: A