The extramarital relationship between a waitress Alison and Noah, the father of four who is a novelist and a school teacher and depends on his father in law financially.
With only one, tantalizing episode to go on, it's perhaps too soon to know if The Affair will live up to the promise shown in the pilot. But the first episode is intriguing and unsettling enough to inspire confidence.
It's fitting, then, that the first glimpse we get of the main character (played to perfection by Dominic West) is of him swimming... His perfect form emulates nearly everything that he's going to tell us during the first half of the premiere episode.
The Affair clings to that old trope until half-way through, when the narrative switches perspectives to the female point of view. This is where the story gets interesting.
When I heard about this show, I was cold to it, even with these actors involved, even with Treem running things. But the first episode, at least, is terrific, with a distinct, involving tone, and it does very right by its leads.
The Affair's opening episode asks more questions than it answers, but it explores a side of cognitive behavior and unreliable narratives in ways that are new and novel for TV.
This dual perspective is a tricky line to walk, especially when it is tied to a risky device like a season-long mystery to unravel, but at least in the pilot it is managed with extreme grace.
