Alison and Noah are remembering events from what must be a year previous as they’re being interrogated by a detective. Their different versions can be explained by who they were then, where they were in their lives. Alison’s lens is clouded by a powerful grief. Noah, attractive, charismatic and virile sees himself as irresistible to women. He’s sexually frustrated in his marriage due to the pressures of fatherhood and disappointed with his income.
I think the fairly graphic sex scenes in the first episode are
there to attract viewers, something many shows do. Despite the fine acting and beautiful setting the characters’ backstories are so obvious—the man falling short of his professional aspirations and not getting enough sex, the sad but beautiful young waitress with an insensitive husband—we get it, a great set-up for infidelity. That being said, there is a mystery here and there’s enough to make for an intriguing story.

Yup I agree with the review. I watched the first episode and thought it’s going to be a really good show, because the unique way of showing 2 different perspectives of the same events was interesting. But then I watched the second episode and after Noah’s part and at the end they start cheating (that escalated fast!) I couldn’t be bothered to watch it all again from Alison’s perspective. A show about two people cheating on each other doesn’t give me a very good feeling. I mean, Noah is just that typical privileged white guy with a loving wife and 3 kids. He has no reason to cheat, other than the fact that sometimes they have no time for sex. But there was that time when she wanted to join him in the shower and he was just jacking off to the image of Alison. Then at the end when they just randomly started kissing after he said he wouldn’t cheat I was like wth this is getting retarded now. If the two people have a legitimate, good reason to cheat. Or at least a strong reason even if it’s not right, then fine. But so far they don’t. And I just don’t feel like watching any more. The narrative is apparently leading up to someone dying and then he said it’s an accident blah blah it’s the same thing in every show like Devious Housemaids and stuff. Another thing, the show seems to lack subtlety. The differences in their two perspectives on events are just too much. I can’t tell what’s going on and it just feels like I’m wasting my time watching both perspectives when at least one of them is obviously lying, or what happened is somewhere in between which would make it feel like I’d need a third point of view to see what’s going on. It’s a nice idea for a narrative, but for me it’s going to get frustrating if every episode is like this.