The basic premise of the show is the affair between schoolteacher and struggling novelist Noah (Dominic West) and grieving waitress Alison (Wilson) during his family’s summer holiday in the Long Island resort town where she lives and works. As we see, the effects ripple out well into their extended families but the hook is that each episode is divided in two – each protagonist giving their version of the same events, giving their own different perspective on what actually happened.
And not only that, their accounts are being given from some unspecified point in the future to an investigating detective, adding in a further layer of complexity to the stories being told as clues and details come in thick and fast from both past and present, slowly unpeeling the mysteries at the heart of the story. The he said/she said nature is very well done, right down to him remembering her with luscious tumbling locks and full make-up on their first meeting and her recalling a scraped back ponytail and a face au naturel.