The Curse recap: This is unlike anything else on television right now

There is something so revealing about Whitney Siegel (Emma Stone) casually deleting Instagram comments that accuse her of, quite rightly, aping the design of her reflective home from artist Doug Aitken only for her to then complain that such attacks bear no weight given that she’s trying to reflect community while Aiken only reflected nature. She at once understands the critique and yet regurgitates it in a way that’s self-deprecating and self-deflecting. She’s no artist, she insists. But she’s also not not an artist. She may be inspired by Aiken but she’s totally doing something wholly different. If maybe kind of the same. That this all happens during a dinner with an up and coming Native artist (Nizhonniya Luxi Austin’s Cara Durand), who she intends to hire as a cultural consultant for Flipanthopy to better launder her reputation as they deal with checkerboard land that’ll require her to deal with the local Native tribes, is…well, just perfect.

Perfect as in perfectly capturing the cluelessness of affluent, privileged white folk who think they’re doing a good thing (that they’re good people, really) even as they so carelessly condescend to those they think they’re helping. Add in Stone’s careful blend of Whitney’s self-awareness and self-delusion (she’s always straddling the line between the two, often catching herself as she’s seen from the outside and calibrating her posture accordingly) and you have the kind of scene that shows why The Curse is unlike anything else on television right now. With lofty ambitions beyond the gimmicky plot its title and logline would suggest, this discomforting riff on home makeover shows has already tackled micropenises and gentrification and now sets its sights on Native exploitation and artistic appropriation. It’s a thrill to watch. And maybe only a little uncomfortable to do so. But that’s part of the point.

It’s been two weeks since the Siegels arrived in La Española to shoot their HGTV pilot and found themselves in a verbal tiff with a local reporter. Asher (co-creator Nathan Fielder) has tried to kill the story by offering up a juicier one involving the local Native casino but so far he hasn’t quite delivered on his promise on actual tangible evidence that the owners are all but gladly exploiting gambling addicts. The reporter is fed up (I would be too if I had to keep meeting Asher at gas stations where he remains as wooden in his emotional response as ever).

This leads Asher down a truly bonkers rabbit hole where he has to ingratiate himself back with his former co-workers to gain access to their computer where he knows he stored the security cam that will seal the deal. His plan is, at first, simple: go, make small talk, and…I guess he hadn’t thought that much further down. So when he returns, having marveled at how so many of his ideas to optimize gambling were being used (lights, bracelets, all very high tech ways of keeping folks glued to the slots), he pitches his former boss on a new endeavor which gets swiftly shot down. It’s then he has to think on his feet: a viral video of a jogger, a bombshell of a revelation (more on that in a second), and a bottle of Gatorade end up doing the trick. He has enough time alone with the computer he needs to transfer himself the requisite files—all while mostly coming off as a socially inept guy. (Watching Asher pour Gatorade all over himself after intentionally doing so on his former co-worker after failing to accidentally soak him enough to push him out of his office plays as insane as it sounds.)

The revelation, of course, is that Whitney is pregnant. That’s the image that first opens this episode: You’ve never seen a pregnancy test reveal its results in such an eerie way (and you’d be forgiven for thinking this was going the way of Rosemary’s Baby). That’s obviously one of the reasons she was so emotional while out during her dinner with Cara. Maybe it was also the way she was angling for a specific kind of outcome at said dinner. Namely getting Cara to agree to be a consultant for the show and to give the Siegels kind of Native cred—the kind Whitney was also searching in Gary Farmer’s Governor of the San Pedro Pueblo. Insulting and tone deaf? Probably. But again, her pregnancy news cloud over such concerns.

The couple is thrilled, of course (and are both a bit surprised?). That is, until they go in for a regular check up and learn that Whitney has an ectopic pregnancy. A non-viable pregnancy is not what either wanted to hear (especially coming on the heels of questions about Whitney’s past abortion, which Asher may have not known about). But they’ll be able to try again in six weeks time. Asher’s going to put it in the calendar. And, I mean, they’ve gone longer. Six weeks will fly by. In the meantime they have local reporters to bribe with stories, Native American artists whose work are in dire need of being misunderstood, and an entire community to be well-served by ideas and concepts and projects they maybe never needed to begin with.

Stray observations

• Do we think the birds crashing into the mirrored house are what first gave Whitney the idea to maybe opt for a mosaic next or is she truly that eager to separate her work from Aitken’s?
• Any thoughts on what Cara’s performance piece? (She in a teepee, carving turkey slices for guests one at time, with some screaming peppered in to disorient those attending, not before asking those leaving to not discuss what happens therein.) Also: Whitney’s reaction (fear in having done something wrong, then clearly forgoing the directive and telling all who’d listen what had happened) was on point, as was the Governor’s who was clearly dismayed that this is what passes for self-conscious Native art in the twenty-first century.
• I was so focused on Asher and Whitney’s awkward interfacing with Indigenous folks throughout this episode that I didn’t even mention Dougie’s deranged first date where he spent much of it explaining how best to pass a breathalyzer test—which he’s overly conscious about now ever since…well, that one thing that happened that might have caused the death of his girlfriend? Yeah. Dark stuff. On a side note: If your date has a breathalyzer in his glove compartment, let that be a red flag—though, you have to give it to his date for turning that into a green flag: He did get off the road as soon as he knew his levels were above legal.
• “Who is Doug Aitken?” better be the most Googled question the moment this episode aired.
• Only other acceptable online query: “Who are David Zellner and Nathan Zellner (a.k.a. the episode’s directors)?” Which should hopefully direct you to catch films like Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter and Damsel.
• I can’t decide what was creepier, Asher caressing Whitney’s foot while at the doctor (in a zoom in close-up that was shot like some horror B-roll moment) or Asher saying “Let us fatten you up!” at Cara during their dinner. No one has the charm vacuum presence Fielder brings to the small screen and his Asher is all the more unsettling for it.
• “I’m just sorry it took us 400 years to beat them.” Sometimes a pan to a great prop piece (like this framed comic strip about Indigenous casino owners reveling in the broke customers they’re serving every day) is the blunt instrument you need to drive your message home.

Stream The Curse now on Paramount+