Did anyone think that was a good idea when Noah all of a sudden got down on one knee? I almost responded as viscerally as Whitney did when I saw what was going on here. Lest we forget that Noah was just telling Helen that he and Alison weren’t even living together, and muddling the waters certainly doesn’t seem like the best way to smooth out his divorce proceedings.

But while it might feel insane for the series to drop something like this so early into its season, the episode strangely makes peace with it. This third episode of the season spends a lot of time talking about how a good ending to a story—the right ending—works out that way because if you’ve done the proper groundwork everything should just fall into place naturally. And while Noah’s proposal may feel like the furthest thing from natural (even to Noah himself, who addresses as much), by the end of the episode I was essentially on board with it. Maybe it doesn’t matter if the inception of certain events feels wonky as long as the dive is landed in the end.

And while we’re talking about endings here, major points deserve to be given for this week’s flash-forward scene that give our best glimpse yet of how the dust will be settled. As Jon Gottlief finally begins to grill Noah on what happened, we’re given some considerable details, including that Scotty was killed on the night of Cole’s wedding (!), and that Scotty had also managed to get Whitney pregnant (!!). For once it feels like we’re not being jerked around with these puzzle pieces and finally starting to get answers. I’ve praised this season’s “new approach” to the flash-forwards already, but they’re continuing to make them engaging and successful. With the angle now shifting from whether or not Noah’s guilty to who in fact killed Scotty, there’s certainly a new energy driving this narrative forward. I’m actually excited for the next flash-forward now as opposed to being all, “Okay, let’s get it over with for this week.”

Let’s jump back a little bit though because this really is a stellar episode of The Affair, and it greatly benefits from the smaller focus that it takes. I’ve voiced my suspicions over the four-tiered perspective that this season has adopted (although ultimately trusting the show with it), but the device actually works pretty well when you segregate the couples into their respective episodes. Clearly every installment won’t be endlessly collapsed in on itself, deconstructed and reconstructed ad infinitum, with the Helen and Cole segments that we’ll get next week obviously covering entirely different material than what we saw here.

With the focus firmly on Noah and Alison this week though, we get a tremendous amount of insight into not only where they’re at, but also their thoughts on the future. It might be worth noting just how many of the introductions of our respective cast this season have begun with characters having sex. However, much like we witnessed with Helen’s introduction last episode, sex hardly means intimacy or that the bond we’re witnessing is golden. Not long after Noah and Alison are sharing some afternoon delight, they’re at odds with one another. That being said, the topic of contention between them is that of swimming.