In its closing minutes, this week’s episode of “The Affair” shows us a vision of Montauk, N.Y., a few decades from now. It’s nothing short of post-apocalyptic. Gutted buildings, flooded parking lots, shattered streets in which nothing moves but salt water fish brought in by the tide.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

I reviewed this week’s episode of The Affair for the New York Times.

Resilience is a trait “The Affair” shares with its leading lady. The show spent four seasons chronicling the tumultous lives of Noah (Dominic West), Helen (Maura Tierney) and the other couple drawn into and destroyed by the series’s central affair, Alison Bailey (Ruth Wilson) and Cole Lockhart (Joshua Jackson). Then it weathered the departures of two of its four leads, first Wilson (her character was killed off) and then Jackson (his character’s fate is unclear), under circumstances about which the involved parties have been … less than forthcoming.

Other series might not be up to the task of continuing after so severe an alteration to their basic make-up. But it’s a challenge to which “The Affair” is uniquely well suited. The series’s co-creator and showrunner, Sarah Treem, who wrote this season’s premiere, has never been interested in the neatly plotted arcs many viewers demand of their TV dramas. (Try talking to an angry “Game of Thrones” fan about Daenerys Targaryen or Jaime Lannister if you don’t believe me.)

Rather, the messiness of “The Affair” has always been its greatest strength. Its defining theme is the messiness of adult life, and all the forces — including love, lust, money, class, race, gender, parenthood and divorce — capable of laying waste to our best-laid plans. Birth and death rank right up there, too, and it is with these topics that the premiere concerns itself, using the shifting, sometimes contradictory point-of-view structure that has always set the show apart.

I’m thrilled to be back covering The Affair, one of my favorite shows, for the New York Times this season, starting with my review of the season premiere.

I reviewed the season finale of Billions for the New York Times.

Chuck Rhoades has issued his own mission statement. “I myself will be doing my usual boogie,” he tells the gaggle of favor-trading power brokers he’s assembled to help him take down Jock Jeffcoat. “Inducing mistakes through temptation, misdirection, obfuscation and conflation-slash-corruption of the ideals that built this great nation.” A brief pause for breath follows, before he adds, “For a good and noble purpose, of course.”

The assembled bigwigs all nod in the affirmative and concur. Why wouldn’t they? For one thing, they’re all in on Chuck’s shady attempt to expose Jeffcoat’s even shadier collusion with a voting machine manufacturer to rig elections. That “good and noble purpose” is ostensibly one they share.

But you don’t need to be part of criminal conspiracy to recognize the underlying sentiment. Chuck’s merry men all agree that this self-admitted liar is telling them the truth, in the familiar manner of people who’ve decided to humor someone who’s full of it because disagreeing would be more trouble than it’s worth.

Fortunately, we here are under no such obligation.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Billions for the New York Times.

“All is quiet on New Year’s Day.” Fat chance, Bono.

U2’s wintry hit “New Year’s Day” may kick off the “Billions” episode it shares a title with, but Bono’s opening line certainly doesn’t describe it. Directed with verve and humor by Adam Bernstein and written by the series creators Brian Koppelman and David Levien — always a sign that the game is well and truly afoot — “New Year’s Day” has the feel of a turning point for the season. Nothing shocking or momentous takes place, but the air is electric.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Billions for the New York Times.

I can, and will, write quite a few words about “Billions” this week. For what really matters, however, five words are all it takes.

Dr. Gus is back, baby!

I reviewed this week’s episode of Billions for the New York Times.

This week, “Billions” staged a charity boxing match between its fake-tough traders. I’m surprised that it took this long for the show to get in the ring.

The mano a mano match between Dollar Bill and Mafee on behalf of their overlords, Bobby Axelrod and Taylor Mason, provides the show with a perfect symbol. On the surface the fight is an act of philanthropy, a way to turn competition between rival firms into something productive. And surface is all it is.

The perfunctory noblesse oblige of the match’s charitable component disguises the venal truth. Two rich men who can barely muster the strength to swing at each other enact an absurd grudge match while their colleagues gamble obscene amounts of money. The winning bet, it turns out, is on both competitors losing. On “Billions,” there’s always a way to make money off someone else’s misfortune.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Billions for the New York Times.

Wendy Rhoades really cares about her husband. In spite of his grasping ambition and her position in the crossfire during his now-ended war with her boss, and in spite of how Chuck outed them both as sadomasochists, she wants him to be happy. She hates that he has been made to suffer.

But Wendy is suffering, too, which is one reason she wants to sell their home. When Chuck responded by divulging a story of emotional abuse from his childhood — in which the lesson from his mercurial father was that all women crave domination — Wendy was horrified, of course. She isn’t out to compound Chuck’s anguish by destabilizing his home. She is selling the house not to punish him, but to move beyond her own painful memories. And she’s probably doing it for his sake, as well.

But Wendy’s thoughtfulness does not extend to everyone. Indeed, her mind can be a pretty dark place.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Billions for the New York Times.

It’s funny that “Billions” has moved Chuck and Wendy’s sadomasochism to the forefront of the story. Even though a depiction of that aspect of their relationship opened the entire series, I don’t think I ever appreciated what an effective analogy it is for the behavior of, well, pretty much everyone on the show. No one here seems fulfilled unless they’re giving or taking a beating.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Billions for the New York Times.

This week on “Billions,” revenge is the order of the day. All right, fine: Every week on “Billions,” revenge is the order of the day.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Billions for the New York Times.

When “Billions” is at its best, as it certainly was tonight, recapping is a dicey proposition. Focus on one element and you inevitably give short shrift to another equally entertaining aspect.

And more than any other show currently airing, “Billions” deploys a whole lot of very different ways to entertain you: a satire of extreme wealth and power as well as an alluring recreation of it; a financial and political thriller, tag-teamed with a comedy of manners; a parade of terrific character actors knocking around crisp, reference-heavy dialogue like a badminton shuttlecock; a sensitive and idiosyncratic depiction of a gender-nonbinary character, mixed with a humanizing and nonjudgmental depiction of sadomasochism within the context of a loving relationship.

This week’s episode was all that and more, and it forced a dramatic shift upon the entire series.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Billions for the New York Times.

“I used to try and pretend I was dreaming all of the pain, but don’t you kid yourself: Some things have to be endured. And that’s what makes the pleasures so sweet.”

Whether as shorthand for their feelings, metaphors for their predicaments, or models for their aspired-to lifestyles, characters on “Billions” simply love dropping pop-culture quotes on one another. In fact this week’s episode, “Chickentown,” takes its name from a bowdlerized version of the famous “Forget it, Jake …” conclusion to “Chinatown,” referenced when Bobby Axelrod and Wags Wagner stop their mad-dog lieutenant Bill Stearn, known as Dollar Bill (Kelly AuCoin, delightfully amoral), from salvaging an insider-trading scheme by wiping out a poultry farm. (It’s a long story.)

Still, to the best of my recollection, no one on this quotation-happy show has yet referenced Clive Barker’s sadomasochistic horror film “Hellraiser,” whose undead antagonist Frank Cotton I’ve quoted above. No, not even Chuck and Wendy Rhoades, who can at least attest to the veracity of Cotton’s claim about pleasure and pain as a sexual matter.

Yet after watching “Chickentown” I want to set up a “Hellraiser” screening in Bobby Axelrod’s home theater just to make everyone wake up and smell the suffering. Axe, Chuck, Taylor Mason, even the lovably loathsome Dollar Bill — they all seem to require intense adversity to be at their best, whether they realize it or not.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Billions for the New York Times.

Zugzwang is a delightful word for a dispiriting concept. In chess, zugzwang occurs when it’s your move, but your opponent has cannily set you up to dig yourself deeper into defeat. It’s a useful concept for anyone who needs to outmaneuver an enemy without staging a frontal assault. And as Taylor Mason’s ruthless new right-hand woman, Sara Hammon (Samantha Mathis), realizes in this week’s episode of “Billions,” zugzwang is the name of the game for every player on the board right now.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Billions for the New York Times.

“You win some, lose some, it’s all the same to me,” howls Lemmy Kilmister, the raspy singer-bassist of the heavy metal band Motörhead in their signature song, “Ace of Spades.” As he explains over warp-speed riffing, when it comes to gambling, “the pleasure is to play.”

The metal fandom of the hedge-fund billionaire Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis) has been a key trait of that character from the start. It is equal parts enjoyment and self-aggrandizing, bad-boy image-making. But rarely had it been deployed as astutely as when he made his first onscreen appearance this week, in the Season 4 premiere of Showtime’s ruthlessly entertaining financial thriller, “Billions.” As “Ace of Spades” powers the soundtrack, we’re reminded that no matter what game they’re playing, men like Axe aren’t happy unless they go all-in on every hand.

I reviewed the season premiere of Billions for the New York Times. Please note that I’m playing catch-up on posting links to these reviews, so my descriptions will be pretty bare-bones. I hope you enjoy the reviews!

I wrote about 28 Weeks Later… in the context of Bird Box and A Quiet Place and survival-horror films with children at the center for the New York Times’ free Watching newsletter, which you can subscribe to here!

I don’t think I’ve seen “Naked” more than three times. And yet, “Naked” is one of my favorite films. How can both statements be true? Because like Johnny, the human vortex of misanthropy at the heart of this scathing, haunting film from Mike Leigh, “Naked” arrives unexpectedly and does enough psychic damage to mark you for life.

Played by David Thewlis in his breakout role, Johnny is a shuffling, shaggy-haired native of Manchester, now down-and-out in London after fleeing the consequences of the sexual assault that opens the film. (The merciless tone is established from the start.) With his cruel intelligence, dizzying monologues and trademark black trench coat, he upends the lives of old friends, acquaintances and total strangers alike.

The film’s devastating final shot casts Johnny as a sad-sack Satan wandering the world, unwilling to accept either punishment or forgiveness for his sins. When FilmStruck vanishes from the internet, it will take this unforgettable portrait of humanity as a failed state with it for now — but the film will remain lodged in my mind forever.

I wrote about Mike Leigh’s brilliant film Naked for the New York Times’ tribute to the late great streaming service FilmStruck, alongside a murderers’ row of other critics.

And since it’s been a while, I’ll note that I still contribute movie recommendations to the Times’ free streaming-advice newsletter Watching. I think I’ve covered The Love Witch and Eyes Wide Shut since last time. Click and subscribe for free!

I wrote about Jonathan Glazer’s incredible British gangster movie Sexy Beast for today’s edition of the New York Times’ “Watching” newsletter, which features recommendations for streaming shows and films three times a week. If you sign up for it today (it’s free) you can read what I wrote. Enjoy!

SPOILER WARNING

“Everybody’s so crazy,” says Helen Solloway in the final minutes of the final episode of the extraordinary fourth season of “The Affair.” O.K., she employs an uncouth adjective unfit for this publication when she says it, but you get the idea.

And why wouldn’t she think so? The woman her ex-husband Noah left her for has (they all believe) committed suicide, just days after Helen gave her what seemed like a life-changing pep talk. Noah, who attended the funeral, has just told Helen that Alison’s other ex-husband, Cole Lockhart, disrupted the service by stealing her ashes and running away with them.

Helen and Noah are having this conversation outside the hospital where her partner Vik is dying after refusing to seek treatment for his pancreatic cancer, a decision he now regrets. At that very moment he’s being told by their neighbor Sierra that he’s the father of her unborn baby. Helen, whose attempts to have a baby with Vik herself were prevented by the onset of menopause, is less mad about this than you’d think, since she also slept with Sierra. And oh, Vik’s helicopter parents are up there too, excited because the oncologist treating him is a woman he used to date in med school. When it rains, it pours.

Though it’s broken into three different segments — the first from Noah’s perspective, the second from Cole’s and the third from Helen’s — this maddening messiness of adult life is the episode’s unifying thread. Speaking plainly, I adore it.

I reviewed the moving season finale of The Affair for the New York Times. It’s been such a pleasure writing about this show for this publication this season. I remain convinced it’s doing work about actual adulthood few if any other shows have ever dared try.

SPOILER WARNING

I have a confession to make. Why not, right? Confessions are in the air tonight.

My confession is this: “The Affair” just aired the most conceptually ambitious, emotionally painful episode of its entire run, and at the moment of truth it went someplace I could not bring myself to follow.

I was so riveted that when I look over my notes for this episode — a showcase for Ruth Wilson and Ramon Rodriguez, the only two people on camera for the entire hour — they read less like jotted-down thoughts and more like a fully annotated transcript. But when the truth is revealed and the worst case scenario happens, you won’t find that in my notes at all. Ben’s attack on Alison, her collision with the wall, the blood pouring from her head, the light going out in her eyes — it’s just a blank space in the document. Words and words and words, and in the middle, a rupture.

I reviewed tonight’s episode of The Affair for the New York Times. It knocked me flat.