'The Affair' Series Finale: 7 Burning Questions Answered (PHOTOS)
Did Whitney forgive her father?
Yes. After learning that Noah planned almost her entire wedding, Whitney and the other kids left the reception to find him. “You will have plenty of opportunities to be angry in your life,” her grandfather told her. “You have less chance to love people though, so you want to be careful how many of those opportunities you squander.”
Did Ben pay for murdering Alison?
No. Though Joanie was ready to get her own kind of justice — using a shotgun, EJ stopped her (and also clued her in on the complicated history between everyone, including their six degrees of separation).
How did Fiona Apple’s music bookend the series?
Apple’s “Container” is the series’ theme song, and the artist’s cover of “The Whole of the Moon” ended the series.
Can Joanie find peace and move forward?
Joanie went to The Lobster Roll, where she met an older Noah — and told him her mother had been killed. After she learned who he was, he told her about her parents and revealed some things she didn’t know, like Alison’s fight to get her back. “Our children have to finish [our journeys] for us,” Noah told Joanie, who didn’t think she could go home. But she could and she did, returning home to her family.
How did the story end for Noah?
As the series finale came to an end, Noah visited Helen’s grave and read aloud a passage about them from Stacey’s novel, Montauk. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” he promised before leaving. He then headed to the cliffs, where he did the dance he’d choreographed for the family for Whitney’s wedding.
Did Noah and Helen get back together?
Yes. The series began with their marriage falling apart, but the two found their way back together in the present timeline in the series finale. She left Whitney’s wedding to join him in a motel room, where she admitted, “I still love you.”
Did Joshua Jackson or Ruth Wilson return?
No. Though both remain important parts of the series and the final season followed their daughter, neither made one final appearance. “There wouldn’t have been enough for” a return from Jackson, despite Noah telling Joanie about Cole, executive producer Sarah Treem told TVLine.
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the series finale of The Affair.]
The Affair began with Noah (Dominic West) and it ended with Noah.
The Showtime drama ended its five-year run on Sunday, and it provided closure for a few storylines, in both the present and future timelines. Could there be a happy ending for these characters for whom misery was such a big part of their lives? Would there be a family reunion in time for a big event?
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The final episode provided answers to those questions and more as Noah and Helen's (Maura Tierney) daughter got married and Joanie (Anna Paquin) got a blast from her parents' — Alison (Ruth Wilson) and Cole (Joshua Jackson) — past.
Click through the gallery above as we recap the major questions answered in The Affair series finale.
