Kevin Scanlon

Oscar winner Anna Paquin has been tapped for a key series regular role in the fifth and final season of Showtime’s drama series The Affair, which will introduce a flash-forward storyline. It will center on Alison and Cole’s now-adult daughter Joanie Lockhart, played by Paquin, who returns some years in the future to a climate-change ravaged Montauk to piece together the truth about what happened to her mother and bringing the whole story full circle.

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In addition to the setting decades into the future, Season 5 of The Affair also will follow the events in the months after Alison’s (Ruth Wilson) death at the hands of a violent boyfriend, with the two narratives running parallel to each other.

Paul Sarkis/Showtime

Returning as series regulars for the present-day Season 5 storyline are Dominic West as Noah, Maura Tierney as Helen, Julia Goldani Telles and Jadon Sand as Noah and Helen’s children, Whitney and Trevor Solloway, and Sanaa Lathan as Janelle, Noah’s love interest. It has been reported that original star Joshua Jackson, whose Cole was last seen grieving over Alison’s death, does not intend to return as a series regular though there is still a chance for him to appear as a guest star in 1-2 episodes.

The Affair‘s Season 5 guest star/recurring cast includes new addition Claes Bang, who will play a charismatic movie star and new love interest for Helen, as well as returning Emily Browning, Omar Metwally, Russell Hornsby, Abigail Dylan Harrison, Jake Siciliano, Kathleen Chalfant, Max Fowler and John Doman.

Photo: Steven Lippman/Showtime

Season four found Noah (West), Helen (Maura Tierney), Alison (Wilson) and Cole (Jackson) in their own orbits, alienated from each other, spinning further and further away from where they all began. Season five, which has started production for a 2019 premiere, will chronicle the aftermath of the season finale’s horrific events and find the characters coming to terms with the consequences of their choices – as they make the realization that if they really want to change their futures, they must first, face the past. This final season is about how everything does really fall apart in the end, but somewhere in that wreckage, the seeds of change finally sprout.

The Affair was created by writer-showrunner Sarah Treem and Hagai Levi who executive produce with Jessica Rhoades and Michele Giordono.

X-Men alumna Paquin, an Oscar winner for The Piano, headlined HBO’s hit vampire drama series True Blood. Her starring TV series credits also include the mini-series Alias Grace, Susanna and Bellevue, which she executive produced. Paquin is repped by WME, Brillstein Entertainment Partners and Sloane Offer.