Do Noah And Alison Even Like Each Other?

Is Helen having an affair with Max?

If women all really do want someone like their dads, then Max fits the bill a lot better than Noah does: Max is a rich, successful dick who knows how to wear a sport coat. And while it seems, in the scene, like Whitney is just trying to deflect attention from her own bad behaviour by throwing accusations around, the nature of the show is such that we've only seen Helen in relation to Noah or Alison, so she totally could be fucking around on Noah. And if she is having an affair with Max, I for one don't blame her. I get Noah's appeal, in a vacuum: he's got a kind of swagger and he definitely acts like he's good at sex. But he's also craggy as shit. Max looks like he's no stranger to Kiehl's face products, and I applaud him for it. (I've also thought that guy was a fox since Sarah Braverman stupidly broke up with him -- the way she STUPIDLY BREAKS UP WITH EVERYONE -- on Parenthood.)

Was I the only one who thought that Noah was going to try to get more money out of Max?

Not that I thought Noah was punishing Max because he believed Whitney's story about Helen's affair -- Noah hardly regards Helen as a woman at all anymore, it seems -- but because Oscar's blackmail demand presented a potential way for Noah to weasel out of his life. Instead of Oscar's $10,000, I thought he'd ask Max for, like, $50,000: that way he'd get seed money to lam it with Alison, and if Oscar went ahead and told Helen everything, he wouldn't need to care because he'd already be gone. When that didn't happen, it was a little sobering for me to face the fact that I have more of a criminal mind than the guy I've spent 2/3 of a TV season sneaking around on his wife.

If Helen's not fucking Max, can she start?

As far as Helen knows, Noah has no stress: he's practically left her a single parent, from what we've seen (even in his own recollection), and no one even expects him to contribute to the household finances. So when he keels over with what turns out to be a panic attack, she'd be within her rights to ask what he's even stressed about...though even a C- wife like me knows the time to ask probably wouldn't be when he's still lying in a hospital bed. But still, for her to assess the situation and take all the blame for Noah's health problems on herself is much kinder than his actual situation merits -- and I guess he realizes that and finally decides the right time to tell her about his affair is when he appears weak, and they're in a busy, crowded public place where Helen won't try to murder him with her bare hands. Helen deserves better and I want her to get it.

Am I the only one bored by the murder investigation?

Don't care who did it. Don't care if it was Noah or Alison. Don't care if Noah's novel lays out his whole If I Did It scheme. Don't care.

Do Noah and Alison even like each other?

'Caaaaaause, when Alison shows up at Jane's place in Brooklyn for the weekend, she seems to smile a lot more than she ever does when she's around Noah. I get that Alison feels trapped by her life -- the rotting porch at the ranch was not the subtlest of symbols -- and tortured by memories of how things used to be before the death of her son. So I feel like Noah is still just one of many possible exit paths that she could take out of her marriage to Cole; getting a waitress job and a studio apartment in Fort Greene would be another. And Noah doesn't seem to miss Alison at all, since he's so overcome with guilt that it's blotted out everything else. In an episode in which they hardly have any contact with each other at all, it seems like neither of them is really suffering about it.

Why shouldn't Cole and Alison have another baby?

Jk, worst idea ever.