A Vik storyline is long overdue, so this is a welcome development. If the barely-seen Juliette from last season could get a point of view devoted to her, then it’s about time that Vik gets that privilege. Omar Metwally’s performance as Vik has been a consistent highlight through this season and while Metwally always does a great job, this episode is his freaking Emmy tape. Vik wades through a veritable haunted house of emotional horrors. His half of the episode is not easy to watch and it almost makes Cole’s “vision quest” that follows feel like a joke. Vik currently experiences life at its harshest and it’s important to get that perspective. It hopefully won’t be the only Vik-fueled segment that we get this year.

It makes for a welcome change of pace to get inside of Vik’s head and it already helps this season feel more varied. Not only that, but there are no flash-forward teases in this episode and in that sense, “405” distills The Affair down to its best qualities and brings the show back to classical, raw human storytelling. It’s just a shame that this storytelling happens to go to such questionable places to find its voice.

Vik finds himself already feeling pains from his pancreatic cancer, which prompts him to have some important conversations with his parents about his mortality. In many ways the scenes with Vik’s parents are more difficult to watch than the scenes where Vik is in physical pain. It’s heartbreaking to watch Vik’s mother as she continues to live in denial and insist to him that he needs to live and that no grandson or any alternative will suffice. Suddenly Vik’s job becomes a lot more grueling and while he tries to not think of himself while he informs other families of their difficult lots, his parents’ vulnerability allows the struggles of the job to leak in. He tries to work through a script, but he starts to feel like his days of following a routine are over.

Vik gets a healthy release by the end of the episode, but everything that leads up to it is crippled in dysfunction. There are some sweeping betrayals that take place in this half of the episode, but it’s honestly for the best that this rushed baby idea between Helen and Vik remains exactly that and doesn’t come to fruition. Helen lets loose that she was never all-in on the idea to begin with, but neither was Vik. This was all just something he was doing for his parents and thankfully two different gene pools of cowardice won’t get to make a panic baby.

As Vik attempts to finally face the fact that his death isn’t far off he goes down a tailspin of atypical behavior where he abandons patients at the children’s hospital, buys a Porsche, and has an affair while he talks about haunted highways. Plus, if I know The Affair like I think I do, Ciara will likely end up pregnant and Vik will get his baby after all. As clichéd as all this is, Vik’s talk with Ciara is actually quite cathartic and helpful. He’s lived his entire life for other people and while his realization may come at a tragic time, it’s comforting to at least see him reach it, selfishness be damned. If anyone has needed to live for themselves, it’s Vik.