‘The Affair’ Puts Anna Paquin As Joanie In A Sexual Sideshow Too Perverse For Primetime

Showtime’s The Affair, now in its fifth and final season, has come full circle, at least as far as extramarital activities are concerned. The addition of Anna Paquin, who was cast as a grown-up Joanie Lockhart, has lent a much further dimension to this typically troublesome tale that tends to play mind games with the characters as well as with the audience.

When The Affair resumed its storyline on September 1, one of the least drawn-out aspects of the show at the beginning of Season 5 was about what Joanie “did and said.”

“She delved into the future by revisiting her father’s home in Montauk, the Long Island, New York, tourist spot in which her mom started having an affair with a stranger named Noah Solloway (Dominic West) many years ago,” stated The Inquisitr.

“Although Joanie went to her childhood hometown under the guise of a business trip, the environmental agency field worker seemed to have other things on her mind. After she arrived in town… she surveyed a completely desolate scene before going home to what appeared to be an abandoned house. To break in, Joanie used the back end of her flashlight to break a window so she could make her way inside the crumbling structure.”

This week, heading into Season 5’s fourth episode, Joanie’s part in The Affair will likely continue to be trouble. She already tried to commit suicide. However, she spat out her mouth full of life-ending pills into the toilet after the fact.

However, that wasn’t the most chilling moment so far for this confused character. After surveying her dad’s deserted domicile, Joanie went to a dreary bar with the obvious intention of getting laid. She found the right person to satisfy that craving but their private encounter went far beyond being simply sexual.

In fact, from the moment they met, Joanie took on a personality unlike the one she showed the world on a daily basis. For starters, when the guy making the drinks noticed she had been looking at pictures of kids, he asked if they were hers. Although they were, she swiftly denied the actual fact, saying that they were refugees and that she did not have any children.

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Nat, the bartender, admitted to Joanie that there wasn’t much to do at his place of employment because he worked in a ghost town. After saying that, he soon found something else to do. Although the previews of their consensual sex scene indicated violence, those actions via The Affair previews also led the viewer to believe the man involved was the one dishing out the threatening acts.

That was not the case. In fact, it was Joanie who insisted that her temporary sexual partner get her off in such a way as to possibly kill her. To heighten her experience, she demanded that he choke her. And he did, but not enough for her satisfaction.

“It’s not working for me,” she uttered after he closed his hands around her neck.

“Tighter,” she demanded.

He did what he was told, and the scene played out as Joanie turned purple and lifeless following Nat’s attempt to satisfy her. She finally told her counterpart to stop, but not until she almost died from her lustful urges.

“You are one sick bitch,” Nat told her, which seemed to be the truth.

That said, whatever happens next to Joanie Lockhart on The Affair will likely continue to be given out in small doses. That should occur as Anna Paquin continues to explore a character who is, by far, not your run-of-the-mill, working housewife looking for a little bit of extra love — not at all.

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