Warning: This article contains major spoilers for The Affair season 4 episode 8.
Note: The following article contains discussion of suicide that some readers may find upsetting.
A major character in The Affair was killed off in the most recent episode.
Viewers were devastated after they and characters Cole (Josh Jackson) and Noah (Dominic West) learned that Alison Bailey, played by Ruth Wilson, drowned and died by suicide.
Showrunner Sarah Treem explained the decision to kill Alison, saying that death "was always a possibility" for the character.
"When I was coming up with Alison, I was thinking of this character we were going to meet right after her child died," she told The Hollywood Reporter.
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"As any parent would ask themselves in that terrible situation, even hypothetically as you do sometimes, would you be able to survive it?
"So that was always a question that I had for the Alison character as a kind of an existential question. How does a parent survive it? And would this character ultimately be able to? That is a question that she was asking herself when we first met her, before she met Noah.
"And in so many ways, the impetus for the affair from Alison's perspective was trying to outrun that pain. It was always a possibility for Alison somewhere in my mind that she wouldn't ultimately survive."
Treem added that Wilson had asked to leave the show, and so the character's death had been planned for a while.
"Actually, we shot all of her work first. Her whole storyline was shot before we shot anything else," the showrunner revealed.
Last month, Showtime confirmed that the show will be back for a fifth – and final – season.
The Affair airs on Showtime in the US and on Sky Atlantic in the UK.
We would encourage anyone who identifies with the topics raised in this article to reach out. Organisations who can offer support include Samaritans on 116 123 (www.samaritans.org), and Mind on 0300 123 3393 (www.mind.org.uk). Readers in the US are encouraged to contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1-800-273-8255 or visit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
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