Dominic West is always wonderful. It's the writing.

I really, really liked this episode. As I said on another forum, it's the first time in a very long while that Alison and Noah have shown any self-awareness. Bad things have happened to them partly due to their own damage, and they've finally grown from simply marinating in their woes to taking some responsibility for…

You can root for people who are not perfect.

See "The Hour." (BBC)

Helen swiped Joanie's pacifier toward the end of Season Two and gave it to Noah's attorney for analysis. The test came back to confirm that Joanie is a Lockhart. And as we saw Alison sleep with Cole—and she didn't see her sleep with any other Lockhart—I buy that Alison told Noah the truth when she confessed that Cole…

I know—it seems like there are no deal-breakers for any of the four principals on this show. That's why I have a lot of time for Luisa. She's outside the maelstrom. She has her own issues (feeling that she doesn't belong in Montauk, not able to have her own child) but she can draw the line with Alison because she has…

The problem is that Alison is not just damaged but weak. Due to depression or something else (cowardice), she never takes herself in hand. A character who is continually living down to everyone's expectations (including her own) becomes infuriating. She's always, always, her own worst enemy, and that's why, after a…

Bringing Julianne into the series may start to work eventually, but right now I think she's a terrible choice by the writers. The audience is deeply involved with the characters from Seasons 1 and 2 and we aren't finished with them yet; there's no reason to push a new character into the spotlight and push other ones…

Not sure if you are meaning to say that Cole doesn't love Luisa. I believe he does. Unfortunately for her, he also has a connection to Alison. As for who is standing in whose way, you could just as easily say that Alison is standing in Luisa's way by sleeping with Cole after he'd committed himself to a life with…

Helen had swiped Joanie's pacifier and given it to Noah's lawyer. When the DNA results came in, we learned that Noah wasn't the father, but IIRC we didn't get more information than that. Then, in the finale, Allison told Noah that Cole was Joanie's father, so I think we are supposed to take that on faith. She's…

Really! And who didn't see that coming (pardon the pun) when Juliette lay down with the book in one hand and the other one free?

You're right. Presenting Noah's greatness as a fait-accompli would have been much smarter. It didn't help that Audrey's prose, read aloud in class, sounded just like Noah's … but somehow her work was adolescent, and his was some sort of Norman Mailer-esque masterpiece.

Yes, it doesn't work for me here. But most of the time, IMO, it doesn't work in a Woody Allen movie either.

In Annie Hall, Diane Keaton has an affair with her college professor. In Hannah and Her Sisters, Barbara Hershey has an affair with her college professor, mostly because he's brilliant. In Husbands and Wives, Juliette Lewis has an affair with her college professor (played by Allen) and thinks he's brilliant. In…

Isn't that his sister, Nina? By the way, I've never caught the female student's name. Please help. (Edited to add: Oh, I see her name is Audrey.)

Last week, someone predicted that Noah would meet his ultimate "Misery" fan in prison. Whoever you are, I'm bowing down.

It's a college out of Woody Allen's imagination, where all students talk philosophy round the clock and lust after their professors.

So much of Alison's story here—the way Wilson performed it, the way it was written—reminded me of "Kramer vs. Kramer" … the way Alison watched Joanie outside school with Cole from afar, without Cole knowing. The fact that she left her child because she was having a breakdown. The intense therapy that followed. Her…

I agree that the disagreement of the basic facts on the ground is sometimes much too wide. You could argue for a "Rashomon" effect if an event is decades in the past or perhaps so shocking that the mind blanks out in certain ways. For me, the "shock" effect does explain the divergence from time to time. What an I…

I see what you mean now. But I am more hopeful than you that they will keep up with the "same event, different lenses," or at least an overlap in the POV-narratives. That's when the show is really strong. (WM expresses this well.)