Alison’s side of the story, that we start the episode on, is the more familiar of the two that we get this week, with much of it augmenting what we saw from Noah’s perspective in the premiere. Alison was so fragile last season and I’m genuinely curious to see how she’s holding up now that she “has” Noah. She appears to be restless at the moment and unable to focus. Her segment is more lethargic and ethereal like they’ve been in the past, and continues to reflect her clouded personality well.

It’s kind of devastating to see Alison asking questions to Noah about what Helen and his family thinks of her and what they see her as, when in Noah’s side of things we’ve seen that he flat out denies that he’s still even with her. Noah truly does seem to be in love with Alison (although the fact that this is happening from Alison’s perspective is certainly worth remembering), but there’s still something holding him back from going all-in.

The direction that Alison’s story ends up going is that Cole has tracked her down and they have a rather confrontational reunion, which really shouldn’t be all that surprising. Such a thing was inevitable and it’s nice to see it not being dragged out at the least. Cole basically holds Alison emotionally hostage as his mood ping-pongs all over the place. It’s also worth noting the parallels going on here and within the scene between Noah and Margaret last week, with both of these heavy scenes originating around the taking and returning of possessions from a move.

Let’s also not forget that the end of Alison’s day in Noah’s account of all of this had her saying that her day was good in spite of everything that we’ve seen. Or perhaps Noah, in his safety net, is just hearing what he wants to hear. However, in the version presented through Alison, things are even bleaker. Noah doesn’t even ask her how her day is here, with his lack of interest ultimately being more important than what her answer is.

It’s additionally brutal when Noah basically grumbles his way through being with Alison and shoots down absolutely everything that she brings up. It gets to the point where he’s approaching becoming a caricature until Noah catches himself, apologizes, and we see that it’s just the bad day he’s been having and not any animosity towards the woman that he’s changed his life around for. It should be very interestin in the coming weeks to see how Alison’s new job as the assistant for the head of a major publishing house ends up intertwining with Noah at all.