The Affair 2×01: Divorce Is the Ultimate He-Said She-Said

When The Affair premiered last fall, it was one of the best shows I had ever seen. The Rashomon-style format was the gimmick, along with the wildly misleading posters of Dominic West and Ruth Wilson getting sexy in a pool, but the execution was anything but gimmicky, as the first few episodes utilized the premise to its full potential. Every subtle yet glaring discrepancy within the emotionally charged memories was attributable to a cannily observed limitation of individual perception, whether the result of personality traits, class, gender, etc. The result was an incisive, often devastating exploration of human frailty, cognitive dissonance, and self-deception.

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Juliette Barnes and the Tyranny of Motherhood

Near the end of the third and most recent season of Nashville, Hayden Panettiere’s spoiled country-pop star character, Juliette Barnes, gives birth to a child and with wanton cruelty names her “Cadence.” And it’s all downhill from there, in terms of parenting quality. From the moment she leaves the hospital with her newborn, Juliette approaches her with the gritted-teeth, grimacing smile of a terrified woman, and refuses in ever more flamboyant ways to inhabit the persona of mother at all. Continue reading →