Does Helen Move Back to Ny in Season 5 of the Affair

After five seasons and countless betrayals, it's finally happened. The Affair has come to an end. But exactly how did Showtime's steamy and brooding drama about marriage and mistakes finish up?

Created by Sarah Treem and Hagai Levi, The Affair started as the story between the Solloways. Noah (Dominic West) and Helen (Maura Tierney) were in a seemingly happy, stable marriage. At least that was the case until the also married Alison (Ruth Wilson) slept with Noah, irreparably damaging both of their lives. Each episode of the angst-ridden drama was told through the perspectives of different characters. It's not unusual to see the same fight play out between both people involved, showing viewers how wildly different each confrontation is perceived.

But what was the actual truth behind this twisting show? Here's your guide to unpacking The Affair's final episode. Spoilers ahead for The Affair Season 5, Episode 11.

Do Noah and Helen Get Back Together?

I think we secretly knew what the answer to this question would be. After a rocky marriage, an affair that tore them apart, jail time, and a last minute #MeToo scandal, Noah (Dominic West) and Helen (Maura Tierney) got back together. …probably.

True to the structure of this show, their reconciliation was all kinds of messy. After a devastating Vanity Fair article exposed Noah's history of sexual mistreatment and general creepiness, his eldest daughter uninvited Noah to her wedding. In The Affair's final episode Whitney (Julia Goldani Telles) held true to that decision, not allowing her father to attend even after he planned her wedding and choreographed the flash mob she wanted so badly. Remember that flash mob. It's going to be important later.

But in the middle of the wedding Helen had a nervous breakdown. She left her daughter's wedding to see her ex-husband in his sad motel room. After a lot of self-blame and reflecting on how people used to judge women who were victims of affairs, Helen relented and admitted she still loved Noah. To no one's surprise, it turned out that he loved her too, and the two ended up having sex. To quote Helen, "No one does what's good for them and if they do they certainly don't enjoy it."

Helen repeatedly told Noah that their hookup was a one time thing. But eventually that led to both of them claiming that they want to try again. Because of course it did.

Oh by the way, all of this happened while Whitney and their three other children were eating wedding cake and drinking champagne outside of their motel room. At some point they sneaked out of the wedding to see their father instead of, just a thought, calling him? The Affair can be a weird show. We never see the aftermath of Noah and Helen wanting to try again, but thanks to Joanie's timeline we see that Noah still religiously visits Helen's grave. That feels pretty co-dependent, so it feels safe to say they got back together.

Do Alison and Cole Make Another Appearance? Do Ruth Wilson and Joshua Jackson Return?

They do not. Though most of Season 5 revolved around Alison (Ruth Wilson) and Cole's (Joshua Jackson) daughter Joanie (Anna Paquin) figuring out what happened to her mother, both Alison and Cole are absent in this finale. Last week's episode showed Alison through a series of flashbacks. But there were no new scenes from either Wilson or Jackson.

Photo: Showtime

What Happened to Joanie?

After discovering that her mother was murdered by her ex-boyfriend Ben (Ramon Rodriguez), Joanie became hellbent on killing him. She took her father's shotgun, knowing that if she tried to hurt Ben the police would arrest her immediately. Thankfully her own affair, EJ (Michael Braun), talked her out of this rash behavior.

EJ convinced Joanie that she shouldn't have to carry around the burden of her parents' mistakes. She should live her own life. And to that end, she should abandon her family and run away with him. We were with you until the end there, bud. Joanie seriously considered it. Or at least she did until EJ dropped the bomb that they're affair related.

Remember Helen's ex-boyfriend Vik (Omar Metwally)? The same ex who cheated on Helen with their hot, younger neighbor Sierra (Emily Browning)? And who had a baby through said hookup before he died? Turns out that baby grew up to be EJ. So Joanie is the daughter of Cole and Alison, the woman for which Noah left his wife Helen. And Helen was cheated on by two other people who went on to have a kid who would have an affair with the daughter of the woman Helen's husband Noah originally left her for. It's all confusing and weirdly gross. Joanie seemed to agree and left Montauk to return to her family.

So after a complicated affair of her own, Joanie discovered her mother was murdered, decided to move on from that revelation, and returned to her family. That's generational growth.

Who Knows About Alison's Murder?

Obviously Ben and Joanie know. Ben committed the crime and Joanie confronted him about it. But after the finale both EJ and Noah learn what actually happened to Alison that night. For all of his flowery language about loving Alison and valuing her for being one of the few people able to change, Noah seemed to take the news about her murder in stride. There's truly not much a white-haired old man in a seafood shack could do about a murder that happened decades ago, but a little bit more anger would have been nice.

What Happened with Noah's Sexual Abuse Scandal?

Not much. After the Vanity Fair article was published, Noah's family distanced themselves from him. The Affair never tells us the names of all five of the women who spoke out against him nor does it reveal the professional aftermath of the scandal. But Noah's family seems to begrudgingly forgive him, so that's important.

So How Does The Affair End?

After convincing Joanie that her mother was a good person and to go back to her family, Noah returned to his wife / ex-wife / possible wife again's grave. He read Helen a chapter of a book one of their children wrote about them. But it's The Affair's final moments that will be discussed the most.

Noah, old and covered in questionable prosthetics, climbed up a cliff in Montauk. Naturally when he reached the top he started dancing the same flash mob dance he taught to Whitney's wedding party over 30 years ago. We told you it'd come back!

It's very silly and cheesy and more than a little dumb. But there's also an underlying sweetness to the moment. The Affair has tried for so long to convince us that Noah wasn't actually a bad man. He was bored, misunderstood, selfish, and more than a little dumb. And in this moment, while he's silently dancing to a ridiculous set of moves, he's not bad. He's someone who loved his family and that his family loved in return. For all of Noah's brooding complexity, The Affair notes that his story was fairly simple all along.

Watch The Affair on Showtime

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Does Helen Move Back to Ny in Season 5 of the Affair

Source: https://decider.com/2019/11/03/the-affair-ending-explained-showtime/

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