S5:E1 501

"...the messiness of The Affair has always been its greatest strength. Its defining theme is the messiness of adult life, and all the forces — including love, lust, money, class, race, gender, parenthood and divorce — capable of laying waste to our best-laid plans. Birth and death rank right up there, too, and it is with these topics that the premiere concerns itself, using the shifting, sometimes contradictory point-of-view structure that has always set the show apart."

"...I want to give The Affair credit where credit is due. I was (the only one) in the room with my mother when she died—like Vik, after a long illness—and the show nailed it."