So we start the season three years later at Noah’s father’s funeral. Things are estranged with everyone. Now Noah was never close with his father so when the will comes in and he finds out that he gets his father’s house, everyone is surprised, especially JP, Nina’s (his sister) husband. He thinks that Nina should get it since she was there for their father more than Noah ever was.

His son, Martin really hates him, and he hasn’t seen his kids in three years, I guess since he went to prison for “murdering” Scotty. He’s free now so he’s teaching at a university part time, and man is he ever a hard ass, making a student cry. Things could get ugly.

He’s seeing things, and we find out that he thinks he’s seeing a prison guard following him. He also keeps hearing a train, I wonder what that means.

He meets a French professor who invites him to a small gathering at her house, clearly she’s into him, like everyone, ugh. While at the get together they have a very interesting conversation about consenting with sex. The girls are all about the consent and the guys can’t figure out why they have to consent. It’s a very interesting conversation that gets you thinking. I don’t want to get too much into my own opinion of the matter, but I think there should be consent within the two parties. I don’t think it should always be the guy asking the girl, but the girl asking the guy as well. I’m going to leave it at that because this blog isn’t about sexual consent.

After this he almost sleeps with the professor but he hears that damn train again so he leaves. He goes back to his new apartment where he gets stabbed in the neck?!?!

So Helen is now a realtor, and she’s still dating Dr. Oola, Vic, he’s living in her basement and paying rent to help pay for the house. Things are going great until they go to visit Whitney- who is dating this older photographer who has a weird name, something like cat? We find out that she’s no longer going to school, and things get heated, truths come out, like how Helen still goes to visit Noah, and now Vic is having lunch with some girl. They break up, or do they really?

We also find out that while in jail Noah is being beat up, and it has something to do with the guard.

Alison finds herself back in Montauk. We find out that she just left everything for 6 months and now she wants to see her daughter again, but Cole and Luisa are now looking after her. I wonder why she left. Alison has that problem where if she can’t face it she runs away.

So apparently Oscar is seeing someone named Jenny and they’re going to have a baby. Alison finds herself running into him and they actually have a conversation. This is where the truth comes out. Joanie was really sick, and Alison worried because she lost her son at that same age. She started to see things, see how she could lose Joanie, and she thought that if she stayed with her she would die, that’s when she gave Joanie to Cole, giving him custody, and she signed herself into an institution. Now Cole is keeping her from seeing her daughter. Oscar tells her all she needs is a good lawyer.

Cole finally agrees to let Alison see her daughter but he’s doing it for Joanie not Alison.

Okay she we have a new character point of view! Juliette, Noah’s new beau if you will, the professor of love- she really studies love. She’s been obsessed with him before she even met him. She is at the university to help translate and look for some lost pages in a book they have. She’s only staying until the end of the semester then she is to go back to France and to her husband and kid. At first we’re led to believe she’s cheating on her waiting husband, but then she gets a call from him, and he’s this old man who can’t live by himself.

Also in Juliette’s point of view, Audrey, the girl Noah made cry in her class, wants to fuck him. Completely two different perspectives here.

Juliette is the one to find Noah bleeding out on his kitchen floor.

While unconscious he flashes to being in prison and turns out that he used to know the guard, John Gunther, who’s been following him. They went to high school together. He says he’s been following his career; is this guy obsessed with Noah? Why is everyone so obsessed with this guy?

So apparently something happened 30 years ago and that’s why Nina won’t take their father’s house and sell it from Noah.

Noah thinks it was Gunther who attacked him, but now I’m wondering, what if this guy doesn’t even exist! What if it’s all in Noah’s head?

Man there is a big rift between Cole, Luisa, and Alison. Luisa doesn’t trust Alison with Joanie, but Cole is starting to see how good Alison is with her. Luisa does not care. So when Joanie falls off a pony at her party and he lets Alison take care of her instead of Luisa. Luisa thinks it’s this big competition. I feel bad for Cole because he’s just trying to keep the peace, but it’s very hard.

After the party the cops then show up, asking him about his whereabouts the day Noah was stabbed. Luisa lies for him to say he was home with him, but he wasn’t.

Great this is turning into who killed Scotty situation, except it’s who stabbed Noah.

He shows up at Alison’s house to yell at her and tell her that he’s ruining her life, and then he kisses her. A bit unexpected. 

Then in Alison’s point of view Joanie’s Birthday is a little different; the pony is a horse, and Joanie still falls off, only this time Joanie doesn’t want to ride it, Luisa and Cole push her to go and she falls, it’s Luisa that goes to her and Alison is frozen in time. 

Luisa even gives the cake that Alison made back, but then it gets better, she just rails on her for not being there for her. The hostility between  the two of them is insane.

Alison builds Joanie a dollhouse, holy crap! It’s beautiful.

The next morning she’s riding when she passes Noah… driving Juliette’s car. What is he doing in Montauk? Apparently going to see her. I thought he was over her, now he wants to see her.

Also are they going to make him become addicted to Vicodin?

Alison just wants a divorce but Noah doesn’t want to give up just yet. He tells her to go to block Island with him, and then he’ll sign them? But will he? He’s so happy and Alison is so bitter. He keeps trying to convince himself he still loves her, but she knows that they both don’t love each other, but they used each other.

They get caught in someone else’s hot tub and then miss the last ferry back home. That’s when Noah decides he’s going to sign the divorce papers.

While they are stuck on the island they share secrets about each other. We find out Alison’s mother left her when she was Joanie’s age for 6 months. We also learn what happened between Noah and his sister Nina all those years ago. He hasn’t been back to the house because his mother died in that house. He was the only one who took care of her when she was sick, his dad left, and after high school Nina left (and that’s why Nina feels bad). But Noah got a scholarship to a really good school, and he knew he couldn’t go because of his mother; but when she finds out, she tells him she wants to die. And so she pretty much died so that he could live. It’s a very intimate night. 

He’s leaving town when he sees the Gunther again. He rear ends Juliette’s car, and I swear he’s imagining it all. Another car comes out of nowhere and Noah crashes the car.

Helen is now wondering about Noah since he missed a parent teach interview for Martin. She goes to visit Nina and they get into a very big argument. Nina thinks that it’s all Helen’s fault for everything Noah has gone through, I also believe she knows that it was Helen who killed Scotty.

We also learn that her parents are seeing each other, ha.

So after her tuff with Nina she goes to visit Max of all people. That’s where she finds out he’s going to get married. But she ends sleeping together and then she asks him if Noah was fucked up before he met her and if he ever cheated on her, that’s when tells her to leave, yet another tuff. She gets home and starts a fight with Vic, she’s just on a role.

She was worried about where Martin was and he tells her he went to visit his dad in Pennsylvania. That leaves the question what was he doing there. So Helen goes to find him, and we do, in the water screaming. 

When we get to Noah’s point of view he’s returning the car back to Juliette and they talk about sleeping together, but Noah turns her down. I don’t think he’s ever done that before. That’s when he takes a bus to Pennsylvania to his father’s house. The house that was left for him.

It’s a little eerie to see that nothing in his mother’s room has been touched. He ends up cleaning and throwing away most of everything in the house.

He runs into a friend from his childhood who invites him to dinner. Later Martin shows up and Noah almost smashes him with a bat. That’s when the two start to actually maybe get along. Martin reveals that he hates school and wants to join the army, to be like his grandfather.

When he goes to dinner he starts to run into everyone from his past. He asks them if they remember John  Gunther, and they know of him, but don’t know him. So he’s a real person.

After an incredibly awkward dinner Noah finds himself in this weird trance and then he passes out. It’s possible he has an infection. It’s Martin who finds him. I like how they’re getting somewhat closer.

While cleaning the place, he finds his mother’s suicide note, that he wrote; that’s when he tells Martin that he helped her die. It’s sweet to see them get along instead of fight.

When he wakes up in the morning and finds Martin gone, he’s happy to think he’s gone to school. That is until he thinks he sees him walking into the water. Noah tries to stop him but when the figure turns around it’s a younger version of himself.

That’s where Helen finds him and brings him home. Wanting to keep him a secret, but that doesn’t last long. She tells Vic because that’s the right thing to do, obviously he’s pissed.

Vic examines his wound and you can tell he’s addicted to Vicodin, but Helen doesn’t want to accept that. Vic can’t understand why she can’t just let him go, and obviously she can’t tell him why, or she could and be honest to the poor guy for once. 

Then Whitney finds out, only because her boyfriend bearcat, bercat, whatever his name is gets into a fight. His name is Furkat. Whitney almost tells her mother about the night at that party, but she doesn’t instead she leaves. I think Helen is just oblivious to everything happening around her. She doesn’t want to see how bad things are around her so she keeps pretending everything is fine.

Vic leaves Helen because he can’t deal with it all anymore, and who can blame him? Noah asks if it’s because of him, and she tells him she forgives him for everything and asks if they can start again. But why though?

In Noah’s point of view he stops at Gunther’s shop, the shop his parents own, to find out more about him, and to buy a knife. Apparently he’s married 16 years.

Also Noah’s point of view Helen looks so cleaned up and put together, and everyone acts more civil. Vic still hates him, and quite frankly is meaner. We find out that when Noah asks if “he’s gone” he means Gunther because he’s seeing Gunther again and this time he attacks him. I swear if Gunther has actually been following him and he’s not hallucinating, I’m going to be mad. So Helen keeps giving him pills to get information from him. Then they sleep together although Noah is very dominating. 

Alison has to go to court yet again in the battle of her daughter. Luisa takes the stand and we’re to think that this is going to go horribly when in fact it goes even better than anyone thought. She suggests having joint custody and the court say that it’s not even on the table, but they work it out and now she has joint custody of Joanie.

Afterwards she gets a call from the place she stayed in, they want Alison to come in and talk to this girl because she also lost a child and is on suicide watch. She tries to make everything a little bit better. Her doctor, Dr. Perry tells her that she might be able to make a career out of helping people, being. A grieve councillor. She goes to tell Cole and he is not happy for her at all. He tells her that she doesn’t think about anyone but herself, and that she has to think of Joanie.

At the end of the day she goes to the bar and runs into of all people, Helen. And they have a drink together. I have to say the glasses they put on Helen are so big and bulky, ugh they don’t match her face at all. But all ends rather abruptly when Alison brings up the night Scotty died.

The day doesn’t end yet, she gets a knock on her door where a cop is telling her that Cole’s alibi doesn’t check out for the night Noah was stabbed. Oh boy.

Then in Cole’s point of view, we find out that the construction project he’s been working on has been shut down. He doesn’t care and continues the work, that’s when Oscar shows up to tell him he needs to stop. They actually bond and it’s a little odd to see, but Oscar has changed, and I kinda like that.

Luisa tells him he wants to start a family, and at first Cole is a little off put by it, but then he changes his mind and now it’s Luisa’s turn to be off by it. That’s when the cops show up, and arrest him since he gets physical with the cops. He doesn’t want to tell the cops where he was that night because the truth is he went to see Alison’s doctor, Dr. Perry to get her opinion on how Alison is. Alison goes to see him in jail and he tells her this. He doesn’t want anyone to know this because he doesn’t want everyone to know he still cares, misses, needs  and loves Alison. 

Once he’s out of jail, he goes to see Alison once more. He’s thinking of leaving Luisa, god. I think Luisa can see him pulling away too.

Now that Vic is gone Helen doesn’t know what to do, so she goes to visit her parents with the kids. Well who are these parents of hers? They are so lovely dovey and forgiving and they believe they did her wrong for her upbringing. It’s very strange.

I don’t understand why they go to the lobster roll for lunch, like is that the only restaurant in town? You’d think they wouldn’t want to be around them, but no. Cherry, Cole and Scotty’s mother is now making pies to keep busy. Helen feels really bad for so at dinner she confesses that she was the one to kill Scotty not Noah. She wants to go over to the Lockhart’s to confess to them. And that’s when her parents are back, they tell her that is a very bad idea, that she could get arrested they could sue. They lock her in this panic room they have, but she escapes and makes it to the bar, where she runs into Alison. They chat, but then they talk about the night Scotty died. Helen tells her it was her, and Alison tells her she knows, and that she was there and it was just as much her fault. Helen is completely baffled. But she doesn’t end up saying anything to Cherry. She even goes to the hospital and tells Vic everything, he obviously has to process it all, but maybe they’ll get back together.

Holy fuck is Noah insane! So he goes out to find where John Gunther lives, scares his wife and son, and John says he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I was waiting for him to tell him that he doesn’t even know who is is, but John knows who Noah is, but I think Noah is just going crazy. He falls asleep on the train home and we get this flashback almost (and probably is) dream where John is torturing him about why he’s in jail. He admits to killing a man, but then changes it to say he had an affair and he thought he could save her, like he couldn’t save his mother. It kinda all goes back to killing his mother that ruined his life.

Holy fuck! Okay so he gets back home and pretty much remembers everything! We get a flashback where his father finds out what he did, and that is why his father hated him, or well just another reason the two don’t get along. It was his subconscious who was John, so I was partly right. John was there at the prison but he barely spoke to Noah, it was all in Noah’s head. Instead of John attacking him, he was attacking himself, he was the one to stab him, he stabbed himself- he wanted to kill himself for killing his mother, he couldn’t live the lie anymore. 

I feel like Noah and Helen are at the same points in their life. Interesting.

In the season finale Noah finds himself in France with Juliette. She doesn’t want to be seen with him because she’s still technically married and she has to go and see her husband and daughter. Her daughter is so happy to see her father remembering things, but it only lasts for a little bit, as Alzheimer’s is very unpredictable. So we find out that her husband was a professor at the same university as Juliette and now that she has to tell them he can’t work anymore. They tell her they don’t know where she stands as a professor on her own without him, I guess since he did most of the work. Harsh conversation but I guess it had to be said.

While having dinner with Noah, her husband dies. That was dramatic. Her daughter is obviously pissed because she totally knows about Noah “the American”. But I think they start to forgive each other. Especially since she knows her daughter needs her, and Noah’s daughter needs him.

Then in Noah’s point of view Juliette wants to be seen with him in public and is a different person. Of course.

While Noah’s roaming the streets of Paris, he sees Furkat’s poster and goes to find him. Furkat invites him to a showcase that night telling him he’s sure Whitney would love to see her father. Does he really know Whitney?

That’s when Noah goes out of his way to track down Whitney and of course she doesn’t want to see him.

So Noah does to go the showcase, but he stays outside watching. He witnesses Whitney and Furkat arguing because she wants more and Furkat just wants to fuck her, that’s when he slaps her and Noah rushes to her rescue. That’s when Noah and Whitney start to somewhat bond. I like that they have a real conversation, that she gets everything she’s feeling out, and that he tells her that he knows he should be better, but he tells her that she’s better and she shouldn’t put up with Furkat.

The two head back to New York together. We get a glimpse in the window and we see that Vic is back, so all must be forgiven there. But what’s really forgiven is his children. Whitney has finally forgiven him, and Martin invites him sledding on Christmas. It’s actually kinda beautiful.

The finale scene is in the taxi where the driver asks Noah where he wants to go and he has no idea, because who knows where this next season is going to go.

As much as I love that they give Juliette a backstory, we’ve just veered so far off from the original plot of this show. I’m not really sure where it’s going. I know there is going to be a season 4, I’m curious as to what is to come.