season 1, episode 3, “Questa Lane”

Can a grift be socially conscious and ecologically sustainable? And if it is those latter things, can it really be called a grift at all?

These are the mental acrobatics you’d expect Asher and Whitney Siegel (Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone) to be grappling with as their plan to artificially inflate the real estate market in La Española through their not-yet-picked-up-to-series HGTV “passive home” reno show depends on the idea that they’re giving back to the community. Yet the moral quandary over their callous ways (like buying up properties in auction they will then hope to upsell in a year or so) don’t quite bother them as much as pettier things (like the fact that a test audience doesn’t really care for them as would-be hosts). But it’s in that disparity that Showtime’s The Curse mines much of its dark comedy and its biting social commentary. Asher and Whitney are textbook white saviors who, by definition, can’t think of themselves as such. Which is why they make for such fallible protagonists.

When we catch up with them this week, Asher is sealing the deal on yet another property for their budding portfolio; sure, he spent over $20k more than he’d hoped for but their foolproof plan is, well, foolproof, right? We’ll see. At least he’ll find one surprising aspect of this new property: It’ll bring him into contact again with Nala (Hikmah Warsame), the young Black girl who cursed him at the start of the show. For Nala, her sister, and their father (Abshir, played by Barkhad Abdi) all live there, even though they haven’t paid rent in quite some time. And they had no idea their place was being sold off after its owner had stopped paying taxes on it.

Asher finds out all of this in the most Asher way possible: He drills his way into their door, scares the two girls, runs after them, and then follows them up on the street where he hopes to yet again offer them a hundred dollar bill. Which rightly raises suspicion from a nearby neighbor who forcefully gets him to sit still while he calls the cops. Faced with a cop hoping to evict Abshir and his daughters, Asher forces himself to do what any guilt-ridden person would do: offer them free lodging and maybe even a handful of renos to improve their home (which Abshir rightly wants in writing!). This may well be another way to reverse the curse, right?

Which begs the question: Is the curse real?

Asher seems to be more and more convinced that it is. Especially when Nala, despite admitting she was just following a TikTok trend, gives away the fact that she cursed Asher to lose the chicken in his dinner which…is a very specific thing to curse someone with but also one we’ve already seen play out. Is this what’s slowly leading to Asher and Whitney’s lives to unravel?

They’re already dealing with an ectopic pregnancy (which leads to an immensely awkward doctor’s visit where Asher proves yet again he has no social skills whatsoever) and now one of their joint investors (Barrier Coffee) has pulled the business in La Española, at least while cameras aren’t rolling. Not great PR for the couple considering so much of their mission is to give back to the likes of Fernando, who they’d promised a full time job at the now shuttered coffee shop. In covering their tracks, Whitney tries to do as much as she can to save face. (This involves offering Fernando a security gig and apologizing profusely.)

It’s there that the line that gives shape to this entire episode comes into focus: “I thought it was just for the show,” Fernando tells Whitney. There’s a resignation to his voice but also a no-nonsense approach to the entire situation. Why would their good deed be anything more than self-serving promotion? Which, of course, it was. But Whitney can’t live with that.

What else she can’t live with: the notion that the focus group HGTV sent Dougie has so much contempt for Asher, thinking both hosts (but he in particular) very boring: “passive homes, passive hosts,” as one says. (The entire sequence was hilarious; I particularly enjoyed the lady who didn’t quite like the show but then did so out of principle when a white guy began to object to very notion of climate change.) And so, in the middle of an absurd moment where the two laugh off her inability to take off a turtleneck sweater (lots of pushing and pulling and even some awkward flirty banter in between), she comes up with a brilliant idea: Why not recreate said moment and post it on their socials? That would endear them to audiences and HGTV execs, no?

As someone who just read that sentence aloud you can probably imagine how that goes. Though, maybe not. I mean, it is embarrassing and it’s clear neither are good at such rehearsed/improvised moments. (Asher remains as wooden as ever, in front of a camera as he is without any in sight; at least Whitney tries to commit to the bit.) But if you anticipated this small bit devolving into some therapy-laden fight over how Asher feels unsupported by Whitney (a conversation that hinges on how each kind of see the other as low-key racist, even if they know neither are…not really!) then you saw something coming I didn’t. Though I perhaps did anticipate that a line like “I’d say the exact same thing if they were white” would be uttered at some point by one of them. I’m surprised it took this long for them to begin lobbing such accusations at each other.

That it was all caught on camera by Whitney’s iPhone, allowing her to relive it later while getting ready for bed just adds to the sense that one of the main things this couple will be navigating as they move forward is the way each see the other, and how blind they are to how they’re perceived by those outside their isolated bubble.

It’s quite a bleak note to end on but we’re still so early in the show’s run that you know things are going to get darker ahead. Now that Fernando is doing overnight security duty at the (deserted) plaza…how long do we think it’ll take for a violent tragedy to strike? Or am I just being miscued by the eerie music and the encroaching ominous vibe we end the episode on?

Stray observations

“Either be hot or be funny” is a perfect distillation of audience-vetted requirements for home-reno shows. And it’s obvious Asher doesn’t quite fit either. What’s worse: He thinks he’s funny, as he tells Whitney, which results in easily one of Stone’s most deliciously subtle reaction shots that’s equal parts bemused, exasperated, and yet knowing she can’t quite tell him what she really thinks of him, brushing it all off with a noncommittal giggle. Truly, what she’s doing with Whitney is nothing short of extraordinary. I thought Nathan Fielder talking about cherry tomatoes would be the thing that would haunt my dreams…and yet here he goes saying “Wah wah cry cry!” in a babyish voice, giving me nightmares of a full-grown Fielder-sized baby trying to be funny and absolutely nailing said terrifying vision.Did you notice Asher and Whitney taking their shoes off at Abshir’s house? That and Whitney being taken aback by Nala knowing her name are small details that show us exactly why the Siegels bring all of this on themselves.Best line delivery: “Is that TikTok? I love that.”What to say about Dougie (Benny Safdie), who is driven to tears when Asher and Whitney refuse to spend any more time with him than is absolutely necessary?

Stream The Curse now on Paramount+.