Season 2, Episode 3

Last things first. We’re going to jump to the end of Sunday night’s episode of “The Affair” because that’s where the news was. Noah and Alison, in the future timeline, met with Noah’s lawyer, Gottlief, who announced, “So, ladies and gents, it’s time to talk about that night.” Long past time, you could argue. In any case, we find out a few things. Scotty Lockhart died the night of his brother Cole’s wedding (we didn’t know that, right?), though the bride is not identified. Noah’s account of his actions: He didn’t want to be there, he drank too much, he and Alison fought, she left, he went to look for her and he — hit a deer.

This isn’t a satisfying alibi either for us or for Gottlief, who asks, quite reasonably, whether Scotty Lockhart was riding the deer at the time. Alison, meanwhile, is giving Noah the arched-brow side-eye. Gottlief continues: what about the bribe you offered the mechanic to lie about your damaged car (caught on tape) and your public threat at Planned Parenthood to kill Scotty (also caught on tape)? Noah rationalizes the bribe by saying that when he heard of Scotty’s death in a hit and run with no suspects, on the same night that he himself happened to get deer blood and guts all over his bashed-up car, he was afraid he would be suspected — in part because his second book (the one he’s still working on in the show’s main timeline) alienated the locals in Montauk. Of course he is now the main suspect, so we know how that worked out. The episode ended with Noah declaring that while he would have liked to kill the lowlife creep Scotty (who got Noah’s oldest child, Whitney, pregnant), he didn’t, “Because I’m a civilized human being.” But as usually happens when Noah gets riled up, he didn’t look very civilized.

Back in the present, it was an “Affair”-classic episode, the first one this season that was one part Noah, one part Alison. (With no appearances by Maura Tierney as Helen or Joshua Jackson as Cole.) We saw another highly charged few days in the life of the Cold Spring guesthouse from their alternate points of view.

Noah’s outline: Sex in the morning. He tries to get Alison to go swimming, she gets upset. Noah proposes to Alison (although he’s still married to Helen). Dinner with the landlords, Yvonne and Robert, at which the engagement ring is admired. Whitney bursts into the house, having Ubered from the city (a direct parallel to her mad dash to Montauk in Season 1). Whitney is not happy to see a ring on Alison’s finger. Alison and Noah have a heart-to-heart in which she admits to having sex with gross Oscar in Montauk and to trying to drown herself. Noah goes into the city with Whitney the next day and meets Max, who doesn’t admit to sleeping with Helen and gives Noah $50,000 to speed up the divorce mediation process. Noah is served with divorce papers by Helen, who’s apparently had second thoughts about the whole mediation thing.