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Would ‘The Affair’ Be Easier To Watch If The Kids Weren’t Such Brats? [Spoilers]

By Amy Feinstein
Published on: 07:37 PST, Oct 26, 2015

The Showtime series The Affair is a gripping drama with the complicated lives of a New York couple with four children whose marriage is unravelling. Normally, viewers would feel badly for the children, but Noah and Helen Holloway’s children are monsters who need some serious parenting that they obviously have never had. It seems to be a case of too much money combined with self-interested parents. Whatever it is, society will have four more jerks thrust upon the world.

According to the Inquisitr, the second season of The Affair is even darker than the first. Initially, the show seemed purely about an affair and those who are left behind. But thanks to the Holloway’s oldest child, Whitney, a horrifying side effect of the entanglement are the legal issues that Noah Solloway is now facing. It seems the tart in training of about 16 got involved with a thirty-something man over the summer and now finds herself pregnant with the loser drug dealer’s baby. Of all of the people on the island, Whitney found the dregs of society to associate with.

For Season 2 of The Affair, the main focus seems to be divorce. Currently, Helen wants sole custody, and Noah is striving for joint custody. According to the Wall Street Journal, neither seems competent to have full custody of the four children, as both parents are too distracted to handle four children.

“But you know who’s suffering a lot more than these two self-absorbed Solloways? Their four young children. Right, remember them, guys? We already got a taste of Whitney’s damage last week; she bailed early in tonight’s episode to serve as Margaret’s paid companion at her 50th Bryn Mawr reunion.”

Suffering, yes, but it’s hard to recall any children depicted on television with less discipline. Helen seems to think it is normal that her mother has to pay Whitney to accompany her. The monster of a 17-year-old seems to have a passion for dropping bombs and walking away laughing. After Margaret and Whitney depart, Helen’s life spirals down, as she starts day-drinking, and then she self-medicates with a marijuana chaser and forgets her kids at camp.

“While Helen is off getting drunk and high and Noah is too busy running away from his responsibilities, both fail to notice their complete and utter neglect of Martin, Trevor and Stacey.”

The Daily Beast refers to the character of Whitney as a “shrill teenage chainsaw.” It’s fitting, and she is taking pleasure in playing her parents against each other to see what’s in it for her. She has no regard at all for her younger siblings because she was raised to believe it’s all about her.

“But one thing all Affair devotees can agree on is what an unbearable, awful brat Noah’s daughter Whitney (Julia Goldani Telles) is, and how a good dunking in the water at the end of Noah (Dominic West) and Alison’s (Ruth Wilson) bucolic riverside dock would benefit her and make us all cheer as one.”

But these children were not raised in a vacuum — they were brought to life by these flawed, self-absorbed adults who seem to shake their heads and wonder how the kids are turning out so poorly. For a writer, Noah Solloway is incredibly un-self-aware.

Are you watching The Affair? What do you think of the kids?

[Photo courtesy of Showtime]

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