Second season of 'The Affair' brings in different perspectives

While an affair impacts two people most directly, others can have their own perspectives on it.

That's the approach taken by Season 2 of "The Affair," the Showtime drama series that resumes Sunday, Oct. 4, by incorporating the viewpoints of others besides Noah and Alison (played by Dominic West and Ruth Wilson, winner of a Golden Globe Award for the first season, as was the entire show). Their passionate link has destroyed their respective marriages to Helen and Cole (Maura Tierney, Joshua Jackson), whose own stories get sharper focus in the saga's sophomore round while the initial affair is tested in new ways.

Series creator and executive producer Sarah Treem maintains that even with the viewpoint sliced four ways instead of two now, "Every viewer who sees this show is going to interpret the truth differently. I think the truth is basically in the conversation between the two POVs - that neither side is right and neither side is wrong, but somewhere in that conversation lies the truth. Then the viewer also brings their own reality and their own prejudice to what they're watching, so they kind of provide a third point of the triangle. I think that everybody's truth about this show is specific and unique, and that's what makes it kind of fascinating."

West concurs, having expressed concerns to Treem about how unlikable Noah can appear at times. "She says, 'It's not your point of view,' so that makes it interesting," the actor notes, "because you get to play two extremes of your character and almost two different characters. And I really relish that this season. With the extra perspectives, that becomes more pronounced ... especially when those perspectives are from characters who are not falling in love, as we were last season, but who are breaking apart."

While some "Affair" cast members like not to know too far in advance what happens next, "Dawson's Creek" alum Jackson - whose Cole gets a new love interest played by Catalina Sandino Moreno - operates otherwise. "I think it's easier to have a longer time to chew on the ideas," he says. "And we're dealing with pretty big stuff here, so I'd rather have a month to think about how to grapple with a scenario than 10 days when the script comes out. But it's different strokes for different folks. I've seen it done a variety of different ways, but I prefer to have a general game plan going in."

A veteran of Netflix's "House of Cards" and HBO's "In Treatment," Treem is pleased to expand upon the established framework of "The Affair" for Season 2, allowing that in the first year, "We were sort of stretching to see how far this idea could take us, and we learned some lessons, in terms of hitting up against the parameters of the idea. The idea is quite big. And then, we kind of found our show."