Mark Schafer/SHOWTIMEThat's one way to return with a bang!
The Affair, one of our favorite new shows of last season, returning for its second season tonight, and continued to ongoing he-said-she-said saga. Except now it's double the drama as the Showtime series finally introduced two more POVs into the mix: Helen's (Maura Tierney) and Cole (Joshua Jackson). And while we'll have to until episode two for Cole's, the premiere only gave us Noah (Dominic West) and Helen's sides of the stories this episode...which included full-frontal male nudity.
Welcome back to The Affair, people!
No, it wasn't Noah or Cole who bared all in the premiere, but Max (Josh Stamberg)—Noah's troublemaking BFF who is now hooking up with Helen! The second half of the episode, which introduced Helen's POV, kicked off with a bang—literally—as Helen was in bed with Max. That's one way to handle your divorce proceedings!
"Nothing surprises me, everything surprises me and therefor nothing," West said of Helen's point-of-view, jokingly calling her "a baller." (Though we did have to explain to him what "a baller" actually is first.)
"Do you know how they shot that? It's f--king funny," West said with a laugh of the actual full-frontal scene, continuing to laugh his way through trying to explain the filming of the scene. "I don't know why they decided they wanted a full-frontal male, but I thought it was so funny. He gets up out of bed, with his ass to camera and he crosses the camera...and then the stand-in just steps in. This completely different guy who had to have his d--k inspected. [Laughs.]"
As for Tierney, she admitted "that sex scene" surprised her the most about getting to finally play Helen's POV. "I was like, 'Are you kidding?!' I was cringing."
She also revealed that the full-frontal nudity "wasn't in the script," telling us that executive producer Jeff Reiner "really wanted there to be full-frontal nudity. He fought for it, more than [executive producer] Sarah Treem."
And while the scene made her cringe, Tierney said she "liked" it because "it's a big jump ahead for the character. What's she doing—does it have a revenge element to it or is this person really just a comfort to her and has clearly loved her for a long time? I like that they skipped right to that sex, so you don't really know what's going on."
But we can't wait to find out.
The Affair airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on Showtime.