What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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T10 WHATS UP! August 25 - 31, 2019 es alive, but the flashforwards reveal early on that things never get back to normal for the jilted spouses. Fans are in for some major changes this season, but be- fore I tell you about the losses, let me tell you what the show has gained. Yet another deco- rated actor from film and tele- vision has joined the cast: Anna Paquin ("True Blood") plays the grown-up version of Alison and Cole's daughter, Joanie. Now to the losses. The aforementioned cliffhanger was about as big as they get for a television show: Alison was found dead after an apparently successful suicide, but in the penultimate episode of the season, it was revealed that she had actually been mur- dered. The sad details of Ali- son's life and death are sure to affect all of the characters in a big way in Season 5, but a grown-up Joanie will be espe- cially interesting to watch. Whether the crime will be solved remains to be seen. Killing off a lead character is obviously a huge risk for a show to take, but in this par- ticular case, it was unavoid- able: Wilson asked to leave the show, so the writers were forced to find a way for Alison to disappear. Thanks to the myriad of questionable and self-destructive decisions the character has made over the course of the series, there were likely a lot of options. Wilson has been diplomati- cally (or strategically?) coy about her exact reasons for departing. The issue of pay parity has come up in several interviews, but in subsequent comments she clarified that she never discussed the mat- ter of compensation with the show's producers. In an inter- view with the New York Times, Wilson said, "It isn't about pay parity, and it wasn't about other jobs. But I'm not really allowed to talk about it. There is a much bigger story." A mystery, it seems. The mystery deepened when it was announced earlier this year that Jackson would not be returning to the show, either. His reasons are even more mysterious — Jackson hasn't commented at all on his departure, and some fans sus- pect it was an act of solidarity with Wilson. Whatever the se- cret reasons for the pair's exit, there's no disputing that Sea- son 5 of "The Affair" will be a significantly different show. The forecast for Season 5 isn't all about losses, though. Paquin's arrival is welcome news for fans, and her charac- ter's story arc adds a new gam- bit to "The Affair's" bag of tricks. With two absent par- ents and significant trauma in her past, Joanie is sure to be a fascinating character. It's a shame we'll only get one sea- son to get to know her. The timeline-twisting narrative devices the series uses will continue, and fans will get to keep speculating about which character's experiences come closest to the truth. It isn't al- ways easy for a longstanding series to introduce a major new character this late into its lifespan, but many are predict- ing Paquin will carry the last season's ups and downs with- out a hitch. Maura Tierney stars in "The Affair" continued from page T2 Loved and lost: 'The Affair' resolves the departure of a major character in its final season TV FEATURE