This season starts in a new state, LA. From New York to Los Angeles it looks like Helen moved for Vik and his job and now Noah has moved out there too to be close to his younger children.

Like all past seasons, they split every episode in two. The first one was half Noah, half Helen.

Noah has moved across country for his kids, and it’s funny to see both the women in his life not talking to him. Noah is a piece of work so I’m not surprised by that. He’s now teaching high school kids English and it’s not going well. He can be so awkward.

We find out that his youngest son, Trevor may be gay and according to Helen she thinks Noah is going to make a big deal of it. That he’s not going to be accepting and blame himself for not spending enough time with him, which isn’t how sexuality works… which is what Helen’s therapist says.

We end the episode with Vik on the floor, oh dear.

When we get to Cole and Alison I have no idea what those two decided to go into business together. They want two completely different things, and they don’t even along.

Cole hates that he has to wear suits to get into this business adventure to save the lobster shack for who knows what reason, so corporate don’t get their hands on it?

Anyways, his wife Louisa obviously has a big problem with Cole working with his ex wife. The two have quite a few issues that they need to work out. Everything Cole worries about Louisa finds petty and stupid because she can’t get a good job and she never will because of her status in America.

Then we get Alison’s POV where she’s working to become a therapist, but right now she’s doing a co-op position helping people with PTSD. And while working here she meets Ben, who I think is cute and I like the way they meet and I think they are adorable.

Oh my god. Noah and Cole end up in car together because it seems Alison has gone missing so the two men are going to try and find her. Damn the exposition between them, when the third guy gets into the car to try and figure out how they are connected to her- it’s like a tennis match. First she was with him, then him, then back to the other. I love this show. What a hilarious scene.

Noah is really invested in being a teacher. The whole school stages a walk out and he goes against the media to talk on behalf, he’s such a smooth talker, I can see why women fawn over him.

Of course he’s been on the principal’s radar. When he picks out her son Anton, well he thinks she’s out to get him. Oh no, they end up making out… lord I knew this was coming. Everyone wants to have a piece of Noah. Ugh.

So it turns out that Vik has late stages of pancreatic cancer and he doesn’t want to do anything about it. Then there’s Helen who is obsessed with trying to figure things out. She goes so far as to tell his parents because she wants someone to do something to help him. All Vik wants is for her to not say anything, but she can’t even do that.

Vik as a doctor knows there is no cure, but Helen still persists. Man, what a situation to be in.

His last dying wish is to have a baby. That’s one helluva last wish. Helen has already had 4 kids, I honestly don’t think she wants anymore. That’s a lot to take in. But I think she’s going to do it.

So why does everything have to be connected on this show? So Cole takes this surfer kid to an AA meeting, I don’t know what he thought he was getting out of that, being a good person, like he barely knows this kid. Anyways, while he’s there he runs to Ben, Alison’s new boyfriend. He doesn’t know it just yet. It’s that meeting where we find out that Ben is married…

It isn’t until Alison brings Joni to Cole that Ben shows up and Cole goes, don’t I know you and gets mad at Ben for keeping his wife a secret.

Man, Cole has a lot of things he’s gotta work out. So his wife Louisa actually doesn’t have her green card so she’s only in the country because she’s married to him and this bothers her, as it should, but it doesn’t bother Cole, which is stupid. Instead what bothers Cole is the way Louisa bad mouths Alison and I can see Louisa’s point that she thinks Cole still loves Alison and isn’t putting her first, because he’s not. He talks to his mother about it and she tells him that he should go for a “walkabout” which is just going somewhere for a bit to really let him think about things and to do his own thing.

Louisa is actually all for it… my question was who’s going to look after Joni when Alison can’t, Louisa?

Alison on the other hand went to this PTSD seminar, where who does she run into? Ben. The two of them start to practice the techniques they learn and this is when Ben learns about her son, and how he died. The two end up alone on a boat where they make out. So what happened to the ‘5 months until I can date’? Clearly that’s out the window.

The show is expanding its POVs! We get a POV from Vik, which is the first time it isn’t from our main four characters. At first o wasn’t all that interested in his POV, but then it got kinda interesting and obviously went in the direction I thought it was going to go in.

So he and Helen go see the doctor about the whole baby thing and we find out that *shocker* Helen hasn’t been injecting the needles and that’s why their results aren’t as positive as they’d hoped. But she brings up a helluva good point, she tells him she wants him to be there for her and the baby. She doesn’t want to have a baby for him and he not be around. Turns out he wanted a baby for his parents, so they could have a grandchild. Woah, this so many levels of fucked up right here. Even his parents know that Helen is kinda too old to have a baby. So what does he do… buys a Lamborghini and sleeps with their 29 year old neighbour. Okay.

The we get Cole’s POV again. Again, the show is switching it up so as not to be predictable.

He goes to LA to find out why his father went there all those years ago. Well first he wants to know who made his father’s surfboard because he loved the damn thing. Turns out a woman named Nan made it… and the two were lovers. This leads Cole down the road of figuring out how to let go of Alison. They try everything that Nan thought worked on his father… turns out when Nan told his father to return the letters as a sign that he no longer lovers her, those letters came 2 years after he died… which means his mother probably found them.

This was eye opening for Cole though because he now knows he’s still in love with Alison, but he needs to let Louisa go because he’s not in love with her and she needs to be set free.

Ugh, the scene where he’s trying to forget Alison with the rocks is so heart wrenching, but I loved it.

So, Noah is just a home wrecker… but we already knew this. He’s so dead set on helping Anton get into Princeton… and getting together with his mom… the school’s principal. There’s a lot of conflict with going to a prestigious school because Anton’s father is all about boycotting that because when he was at Harvard he thought all people saw were the colour of his skin and he didn’t feel comfortable and he doesn’t want that for his son… which I don’t think would be the case.

We end Noah’s POV with him picking Alison up from jail.

Then we flip to Alison’s POV. It’s starts with her mother hiding her father. She meets her father after all these years and of course it’s because he’s dying. As soon as they said, he’s not doing so well, my first thought was he needs a liver or a kidney… I was right, he needs a kidney. I think that may be a lot to ask of someone you don’t know, even if you are related. Alison gets mad at her mother for not telling her he wanted to be a part of her life… that’s when we find out that her father raped her mother. This freaks Alison out and she runs to Ben. Only she doesn’t find Ben… she finds his wife… what a mess. So she uses the gift card Noah gave her to fly to LA.

And again, that doesn’t go well at all. She gets seated next to this redneck who comes on to her, and as much as Alison wants to get out of there, she accidentally knocks an elderly lady over and when she tries to claim that he touched her, he denies and everyone obviously believes the man, so they detain her.

That’s how she ended up in jail. She tries to explain it to Noah and even Noah tells her, that sometimes she can’t tell what is reality and what isn’t, and maybe that was one of those times. Great, thanks Noah, that’s hella helpful. When Alison has a panic attack Noah brings her over to Helen and Vik because he doesn’t know what else to do.

That’s when Alison and Helen have a honest conversation about how Alison perceives herself, she thinks that men think they can do whatever they want with her, and Helen tells her it’s her life she has the right to do what she wants and take control.

So Helen decides to go to Joshua tree with their neighbour after rudely saying no before. The new moon is about to rise so it’s like this big cleansing party. This allows Helen to be free, and she actually has some good advice for the young girls who attended, which was really good to see.

Obviously Helen ends up sleeping with their neighbour, the same girl that Vik slept with, but Helen has no idea. It’s also during this ceremony that Helen really realizes that she doesn’t want Vik to die, so she tells him that. Vik is hella sour about it, but at the same time doesn’t want to do anything about it. I get that he’s a doctor and he knows nothing will work, or only make him feel worse, but making the people around you miserable isn’t the way to do this either.

We get back to Noah’s POV and first he finds out about Vik and the cancer so he’s going to be less mean and more forgiving to Vik for taking all this time with his kids.

Then Anton shows up at his house saying he wants to join the marines because that won’t disappoint his parents like going to a big college will. That’s when Noah takes him back to his parents and that’s a showdown. Noah thinks it’s only fair for Anton to see Princeton before deciding to go there. It gets decided that Noah is going to take him. But, before he does that he obviously sleeps with Anton’s mother, his boss… we all knew it was coming.

On route to New York there is a delay and they’re stuck. It’s funny because just around this time I was wondering what happened to Alison. She was supposed to be staying with Vik and Helen but she’s not there anymore. Noah gets a call from Cole saying he’s worried about her… so Cole picks Noah and Anton up from the airport, and that’s how the three of them got together from the earlier clips.

Woah, holy crap a lot needs to be unpacked. So we’re back in Cole’s POV and the three men are desperate to find Alison. They are reaching out to everyone they can think of. That’s when Alison’s mother mentions her father. Cole is pissed to know that her father has been so close all her life, so they find the address and go pay him a visit.

Obviously they have to take a break and they try to get a motel room somewhere. That’s when Cole and Noah pretend to be a married couple and Anton is their son. When Anton gets with the motel owner’s daughter, who is homophobic, and he finds his daughter with their “son” they get kicked out. I do have to say it was some quick thinking and some witty writing.

They do eventually make it to Alison’s father. Obviously Cole loses his cool, but that’s when her father gets a call… Alison is dead. I honestly couldn’t believe it. So now the trio have to go and identify the body. Cole is so dead-set on doing it, but when it comes down to it, he just couldn’t. So Noah goes and confirms it. She drowned herself and they are calling it a suicide.

Cole just doesn’t want to believe it. He thinks it was the new guy Ben. So they go and talk to Ben. Ben doesn’t like what they’re accusing him of.

He tells them it wasn’t anything he said to her because she was already broken when they met, that it had to have been something either one of them said to her to make her kill herself. That hits deep because it’s true. As much as Cole wants to blame others, he can’t really blame anyone but himself for how things went down.

We get a brief like 10 minutes in Noah’s POV and I get why we get this short snippet, it’s to show this finally hitting Noah. So we get Noah where he’s sitting in a restaurant and the waiter, who’s got a uniform just like Alison’s when they met, and once she walks away Noah just breaks down because he can’t believe she’s gone. I still can’t believe she’s gone.

Wow, this show, just wow. I thought we had a lot to unpack after finding out Alison died… oh no I was wrong.

So we get an episode in Alison’s POV, which I’m thankful for because I wanted to know what actually happened. Of course we’re jerked around first, obviously we can’t just know what happened, that would be too easy.

So the episode starts on her POV where Ben comes over, he tells her about his wife, he tells her that he’s left her and that he loves Alison. And I’m sitting here like, dude y’all have known each other how many weeks and you love her? Okay. He goes into his kids, and the war and what he carries around. Obviously this speaks to Alison’s heart. At first I was so proud of her for telling him he had to leave. He lied and he cheated and she shouldn’t go down that road again… BUT THEN SHE TELLS HIM SHE’LL MAKE HIM SOMETHING TO EAT, UGH ALSION! This leaves him staying longer and talking longer and they end up sleeping together. This had me hella confused because it didn’t match up with what Ben told Cole had happened. Then Alison is back at the sink and it’s raining… it wasn’t raining before and Ben is pounding at the door. It’s Alison’s POV for part two as well!

She lets him in and they talk, he claims he’s not married when she asks and he thinks Cole has told her something. He has no children, he lives alone. He flies into a rage when Alison doesn’t want to be with him. He starts to drink and fly more off the handle. He talks about the war, and what he carries around. She still tells him he should leave He can’t believe she’s doing this to him. My god!

She’s tries with all her might to get him to leave and what does he do, he throws her around. When she tells him she knows about his wife, that she met her, he utterly loses it. He smacks her around. She gets a cut in her head that knocks her out. If that didn’t kill her, he dumps her body into the ocean. My god Cole was right, it was Ben. Damn!

What Alison says though, that whatever he does to her isn’t anything she’s already done or thought of doing to herself a thousand times. She’s not afraid to die because she lived with so much pain. Geez.

The season ends with Alison’s funeral. We start off in Cole’s POV where he’s back and all he wants to do is get through the funeral. It’s on the beach and he was planning on burying Alison, but her mother went ahead and cremated her. This infuriates Cole to no end; so much so he takes her ashes and leaves. He ends up at their son’s grave where he just breaks down.

His mother is the one who goes to comfort him and make sure he’s okay. They talk about Cole’s father, and how his mother did know about Nan. It’s an open and honest conversation.

That’s when he goes back to Louisa to tell her that they aren’t working. I have to say this is the first time he’s actually done something for her. He tells her they’ll stay married on paper so that she can get her green card and she can have joint custody of Joni. Like it was the most civil conversation ever.

His story ends for the season, with him and Joni taking a road trip because the poor girl is 6, she has no idea what’s happening, she doesn’t know her mother is dead. It’ll be good for the two of them to have time together.

Then we flash to Noah. He’s on the Princeton campus with Anton. Anton is loving it. He sits in on a class, a class Noah’s friend teaches. Clearly the two haven’t seen each other in years because she knows absolutely nothing of Noah’s life. We learn that she pined for Noah… and at this point I’m like who hasn’t? Noah seems to be this sex god that walks around. I just don’t get it.

The students are asked to write about an important figure in their lives and of course Anton writes about Noah, but this just makes Noah angry. Anton obviously is dumbfounded because he thought Noah would love it. But he does excuse him because he knows how much pain Noah is in at that moment.

I do like these two as friends/mentor/student, Noah’s really good for Anton.

I’m so glad we got a third part because I’m like we can’t not check in with Helen and that side of the story. W-O-W. talk about drama!

So Vik has a very big scare that causes surgery. At this point Helen is so worried he’s going to go any minute. Vik’s parents show up and when they find out his doctor is his ex girlfriend, they know he’s in good hands and think Helen should go home and rest. Wow.

So Helen does go home, and guess who’s waiting for her, non other than her daughter Whitney. Lord, she’s a force. Whitney wants to spend Thanksgiving together… since apparently it’s Thanksgiving, and Helen tries to explain that Vik is in the hospital not at the hospital working and that he has cancer.

Whitney then throws a fit about how her mother is a bitch for keeping that from her. She blames Helen for her life being miserable, it’s a train wreck… oh but it gets worse. Their neighbour, their really friendly neighbour shows up to give them a flower, I guess it’s a peace offering because she was about to drop some big news, but she gets interrupted and Helen gets called back to the hospital. So the neighbour goes with, only she gets sick… because guess what she’s pregnant… with Vik’s baby! Surprise!

Helen just loses it, but she’s not totally mad because, well, she slept with her too. When she tells Noah that he goes “and I wasn’t there”. I like that these two can be friends, even after everything that has happened. Noah talks her down because she starts to freak out that Vik should have had someone love him more than her and Noah tells her he’d want no one else on his by his side on his deathbed. So she goes back to Vik and she makes their neighbour tell Vik about the baby.

The season ends with a lot of open endings so I’m curious to see where the show will go from here. Just how last season ended I was hella curious about that and they managed to pull off a really good season. I thoroughly enjoyed this season because this show is always written so well, and with so much raw emotion.