Did Allison sleep with Scotty in The Affair?

Warning: The following recap contains major spoilers for The Affair‘s Season 2 finale. Read on at your own risk.

Ah, it seems like just yesterday that Helen was getting put in handcuffs for that wine-and-marijuana-induced fender bender.

In hindsight, she was really just getting warmed up for the main event — that is, mowing down Scotty Lockhart.

During Sunday’s sophomore finale of The Affair, it was revealed that Helen was indeed the one behind the wheel when Scotty was run over — but only because she wasn’t paying attention to the road when Alison pushed the Lockhart brother into it.

Before we get your thoughts on the season ender, a few highlights from the episode:

* From Noah’s perspective, Cole and Luisa’s long-teased wedding night goes down like this: After Alison gets misty-eyed during the vow exchange, Noah has a private conversation with her to figure out why she’s so rattled. She finally comes clean about sleeping with Cole years ago, confessing that she’s not exactly sure who Joanie’s father is. (Noah’s reaction, somewhat understandably? “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I never want to see you again.”)

* Noah spends the rest of the evening sharing a bottle of wine on the beach and frolicking in the ocean with Helen (who is attending the wedding as her mom’s date). Despite the fact that neither of them are in a state to drive, Noah gets behind the wheel to head home, before passing the baton to Helen when the streets of Montauk trigger too many awful memories for him to handle. But once Helen is in the driver’s seat, she gets distracted by Noah’s sudden decision to hold her hand — and when she spends a few too many seconds gazing into Noah’s eyes instead of looking at the road, she runs right over Scotty. Helen tries to convince herself she merely hit a deer, but when Noah gets out of the car to see the damage, it’s most definitely Cole’s brother… and Noah implores Helen, upon getting her home, that she must pretend like none of this ever happened.

* Naturally, that’s not exactly how it goes down from Alison’s point of view. In fact, Alison doesn’t spill the beans about Joanie’s real father until much later that night, while Scotty drunkenly performs “House of the Rising Sun” at the wedding reception. Barely speaking above a whisper, Alison bluntly tells Noah on the dance floor that he isn’t Joanie’s father, prompting her fiancee to walk out of The Lobster Roll without a word.

* Later that evening, Alison is walking along that fateful road by herself when she’s confronted by Scotty, who is even more inebriated than during his karaoke performance and begging to be brought in as a partner on Alison and Cole’s Lobster Roll ownership. Alison tries to brush him off, but when Scotty gets handsy, Alison pushes him — right into the street, where he’s immediately hit by Helen. Alison hides in the bushes until she sees Noah get out of the car, then manically whispers, “I pushed him. I pushed him.” And how do Alison and Noah decide to cope with the knowledge that they just killed a man? They return to the dance floor a little while later and exchange “I love you”s through panicked, frantic tears. Romantic, eh?

* Meanwhile, in the future at Noah’s murder trial — or is it present-day now? — Noah must decide whether to let Detective Jeffries take the stand — the only chance he has at being acquitted. But just as Jeffries prepares to enter the courtroom and say his piece, Noah chooses a different (and much more stupid) route: standing up, without his lawyer’s approval, and announcing to the judge that he is guilty of murdering Scotty. (It’s too bad we’ve already published our Dumbest TV Decisions of 2015, or else Noah’s impulsive “confession” would surely be on the list.)

OK, your turn. Your thoughts on The Affair‘s Season 2 finale? Drop ’em in the comments section below, after casting your vote in our poll.

*The following will swiftly and completely spoil last night's episode of The Affair—so if you haven't watched yet, look away.

Everything that's ever happened in The Affair was just prelude to the final minute of last night's episode, when we watched on a screen within a screen as the perpetually sinister Scotty Lockhart put his hands on Alison's stomach and said, "That's our baby." As the episode closed out, pro Montauk troublemaker Oscar, who claims to have witnessed the exchange when it went down outside the Lobster Roll, repeated the mind-numbing phrase over and over: "That's our baby. That's our baby."

And suddenly, a world you thought had already been shattered many times over was truly blown to smithereens. Scotty is the father of Alison's baby? If it's true, it's the most heartbreakingly brilliant move this show has ever made. It brings just about everyone into the category of People Who Hate Scotty/Might Have Had Something to Do With Scotty's Death. Think about it. Both Noah and Cole would be furious about him sleeping with Alison. The lovelorn Whitney might be driven crazy by this development. Scotty's own brothers would be disgusted with him. The long-enraged Oscar would figure that, with so many people after Scotty, this could be an ideal time to exact his revenge. And then, of course, there's Alison herself, who might feel enough fear and regret and confusion to ensure that a destructive person like Scotty never becomes part of her child's life.

Again, this is all if it's true. A major if, yes? I can't claim to always be 100 percent sure of how The Affair's dizzying timelines add up, but I really doubt that Alison experienced a long Scotty-sex-only window at some point in her life. At the least, we'll need paternity testing. There's the dark, depressing theory that Scotty could have forced himself on Alison—it feels within the realm of possibility for a character who is constantly lashing out in failed attempts to get control. And who will no doubt be looking to get Cole back for "stealing" Luisa from him. Finally, there's this twisted option: Maybe Scotty is flat-out making this up. That would be completely like him—and it would also set up an opportunity to find out just how much everyone around Alison trusts her.

When the credits rolled on this episode, I was shaking my head—how could you not be, at such a painful jaw-dropper? But I was also smiling. And not because I'm a sicko, I swear. Because this show rewards the patient with the profound. Yes, The Affair moves slowly, but it never feels (at least to me) like a slog to stick with. Not a word of dialogue is wasted, and even the smallest story line turn has many layers—plus, you've got all those perspective-discrepancy Easter eggs to look for. (Did anyone else catch Alison's shoes being brown in one scene and black in another during a chapter told from her point of view last night? Translation: Even she isn't sure what she knows these days.) But The Affair is most satisfying when it does what it did last night: After sowing seeds for endless stretches of plot, BAM—it hits you with a mic-drop twist that there's no coming back from. And last night's was certainly the biggest ever.

So what do I think is the most likely explanation behind Scotty's assertion of parenthood? If this was any other drama, I'd go with theory C: He's making it up, and we'll know it within 30 seconds of the next episode. After all, what show has the balls to put its most volatile character between its central couple?

Oh, right: The Affair does. It never backs down from a challenge, and it never lets you get comfortable. Here I was thinking that season two was mostly about the perils of fame and mommy issues, not to mention the nuances of the publishing industry. (Thank you, casting and writers, for making publicist Eden both dentally perfect and crazy insufferable.) Was I ever wrong. We know Alison has her baby—we've seen her stroll it through the courthouse. If we're to believe Cherry's eerie family lore, that child has to be Noah's, since "there will never be another Lockhart." But if there's one thing you can always count on on The Affair, it's this: neither logic nor magic is any match for its storytelling.

Is Scotty the father of Alison's baby?

Who does Allison have baby by in The Affair?

What happened to Scotty in The Affair?

Who killed Scotty Lockhart on The Affair?