On the topic of breezing through time, as relentless as this season has been, this episode isn’t at all interested in slowing down even though it’s an extra 10 minutes in length. We’re barely 10 minutes in before we’re already at Cole and Louisa’s wedding, and it’s not much later that Alison is revealing to Noah that Joanie might be Cole’s child. These are big events and I figured they’d be happening in the back end of the episode at least.

Alison’s confession scene to Noah is a brutal piece of acting from both parties here. Wilson and West have been truly putting out incredible work this season. Seeing Noah barrel through the gamut of emotions as he processes this news is great stuff, but what’s even more terrifying is watching Alison in the background covering her ears and trying to hide like a scared child. Noah gets some fairly articulate honesty out here as he quickly reduces everything we’ve seen in the series so far into a fucked up mistake. If there’s any one word to describe this finale, it’s “raw,” and this early scene in the episode sets the tone perfectly.

What I love so much about this last episode of the season is how it so carefully plays with what we think we know is going to happen. Alison blowing up her life with Noah is more than enough to send him into a drunk driving rampage that ends in Scotty’s death, yet the situation sees diffusion as soon as it looks like it’s going down that direction. At the same time, the episode continues to pair Noah and Helen and Alison and Cole together in a way that makes it seem like these original pairs will see reconciliation. Once again though, it wants us to question whether this is a trick of perspective. The way in which we’re being shown scenes, in juxtaposition with how the series has been presenting all of this so far, conditions us to think this way. Not unlike when Noah learns what’s happened with Alison and Cole, it changes how he’s seen everything else that’s gone on, whether it’s true or not.

It almost seems too perfect when Noah and Helen have nicely found acceptance between each other just as Cole talks to Alison about a future that she can very easily give to him. The episode dangles these happily-ever-afters right in front of these pairings’ faces, making the inevitable conclusions here all the more devastating. To see how close everyone is to happiness right before it all comes crashing down shows that perhaps alternate futures were mere moments away. We now realize how close Alison was to being that manslaughter victim instead of Scotty. Who knows how things could have been different? We see Noah bragging over cute videos that he’s taken of Joanie dancing, while in flash forwards he seems completely removed of the child. The episode keeps playing these stark binaries against each other, putting the audience in just as much disarray as the characters.

These tricks continue to masterful effect, keeping your expectations in constant flux. I can’t tell you how big the smile on my face was when Noah and Helen had a spontaneous swim session while Alison is presumably crying her eyes out somewhere as Cole kisses his new bride. However shortly after, the situation they find themselves in is as if they discovered they were swimming with sharks. I love, love, love the idea that Noah and Helen finally embracing their past and deciding to reconsider everything is what leads to Scotty’s death (especially since he’s much more of a problem to Alison and Cole at this point). I love that it’s not just Noah being a stupid, reckless alcoholic, but rather a twisted scenario that does bind these two together, but in entirely different ways. It’s great plotting that’s also nicely simplistic in a way that I never could have seen this coming either.