‘The Curse’ Episode 2: A Pregnancy Scare and a Heist to Remember
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This post contains spoilers for this week’s episode of The Curse, now streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime.
Having introduced the characters, the world, and the unnerving tone in The Curse series premiere, Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie go for a more eventful — and more uncomfortable — second episode, with “Pressure’s Looking Good So Far.” We’ve got perhaps the clumsiest on-screen heist of all time. We’ve got pregnancy news that starts out happy for one partner and awkward for the other, and that ends sadly for both of them. We’ve got Dougie backstory, Whitney attempting to make inroads with local Native communities, and a very odd piece of performance art.
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Mostly, though, we have our three central characters repeatedly lying to themselves and one another, alternately acting aware that all of this is fake and sometimes trying to bury their heads in these falsehoods.
The main event is Whitney’s pregnancy, which is over practically as soon as it began. When she tells Asher the news, he’s both surprised and overjoyed. He acknowledges that she wanted to wait and have kids, and it’s obvious that this is yet another aspect of their marriage where he has completely yielded to her. The scene is easily the most expressive, and convincing, emotional note Fielder’s ever had to play as an actor, and says so much about the complicated nature of this man and this marriage. And Emma Stone is just as good playing the more nuanced half of the scene. Whitney does not seem to want this pregnancy — nor, honestly, does she seem to want Asher. She likes him, and seems happy that she’s made him happy, but it all seems to be pulling her deeper into a situation about which she has great ambivalence. Even Asher can sense this, asking her, “You still love me, right?” She’s surprised by the question — perhaps because she thought she was better at hiding her true feelings — but insists that she does.
The pregnancy news provides an added bonus for Asher when it’s time to break into the casino computers and get the information he needs in order to get the local reporter off his back. You can view it as either disgusting or clever that he’s willing to use such a personal detail — at such an early stage of a pregnancy that most people won’t even tell people about it — to gain access to his old co-worker Bill’s office and computer. That Asher used to work at this place certainly doesn’t speak well of him. We see that the casino now offers bracelets that allow patrons to keep gambling indefinitely without keeping track of how much money they’re losing. And later, he pitches his former boss on the idea of setting up a daycare center that would encourage parents to both come more often and stay longer. It’s all monstrous, and while Asher acts with the reporter like he’s troubled by the casino’s behavior, we can see that he’s just saying that as a means to an end.
As for the computer heist itself, if you were able to get through that whole sequence in one sitting without pausing to take a walk around the block and think about puppies, you’re a braver person than this recapper. A man like Asher is obviously not going to be Assane Diop from Lupin when it comes to thieving, but there’s not being slick and there’s blatantly spilling Gatorade on the target of the scam because you can’t think of a better way to get him out of his office for a few minutes. It’s very true to character, but a tough sit.
Whitney, meanwhile, gets accused of a different kind of theft, as she finds her social media full of people pointing out that her passive house designs are copying the work of Doug Aitken. Because Whitney fancies herself an artist as much as a philanthropist, a real estate mogul, etc., she is both offended and surprised by this, and assumes her Native artist friend Cara Durand will take her side on the subject. But then, we realize quickly that this is a one-sided friendship, where Whitney considers herself tight with Cara, while Cara views Whitney as a casual acquaintance at best — and as someone who’s using Cara for credibility as both an artist and as a guardian of local communities. Both Cara and local Pueblo official James Toledo (played the great Indigenous character actor Gary Farmer) are mostly polite with Whitney, even as they recognize her white savior routine for what it is. Whitney feels like it’s Asher’s subpar social skills that make Cara so reluctant to be a “cultural consultant” on their potential HGTV show, but she’s just as transparently thirsty, even if her thirst comes in a more polished package. And at Cara’s art show — which includes guests entering a tent where Cara offers them a slice of ham, then screams when someone like Whitney eats it — it’s Whitney who seems more out of place, while Asher largely acts at ease.
Is this just a move to convince her of his own diligence? A part of his own denial about his culpability in his wife’s death? A form of self-flagellation?
With the HGTV pilot filmed already, Dougie would seem to have no reason to stick around New Mexico, yet he’s in no hurry to leave. He gambles at the casino, and tries to get Asher to go out drinking with him. And in the midst of this, we see him on a date, telling a woman the story of how his wife died in a car accident where he was driving drunk. He has turned himself into a self-styled expert on breathalyzer technology and blood alcohol levels, insisting that even though he was slightly over the limit, the crash was not his fault. His date is not scared off by all this, perhaps because anyone willing to go out with Dougie is going to have loose standards to begin with. But as he drives her home, he blows a 0.1 on the breathalyzer he of course keeps in his glove compartment, and insists on pulling over and walking the rest of the way. Is this just a move to convince her of his own diligence? A part of his own denial about his culpability in his wife’s death? A form of self-flagellation? However much weight you give to each notion, this is not a healthy individual here.
The episode ends with the Seigels getting the news that Whitney’s pregnancy is ectopic, and that there will be no baby this time. Asher is despondent, while Whitney attempts to look on the bright side by listing all the things they can do while kicking the parenting can down the road a ways. Asher acts like Whitney is doing this to cheer him up, even as we know she’s at least somewhat relieved, and genuinely looking forward to all she can do now that she doesn’t have to worry about being pregnant. In that conversation, we get some glimpses of the reasons why Whitney likes Asher, even if she probably doesn’t love him, as he gets into the idea of what they can do next. She says she likes how he fights for both of them. And once again, Asher’s Spidey-sense about what his wife is really feeling goes off. He wants to know that she feels like she can tell him anything — all but giving her permission to admit how she really feels about the pregnancy, and possibly about him — but she retreats into her usual placid smiles.
This last scene plays out as we look at the couple through a dirty windshield. Earlier, we see Whitney’s funhouse reflection in the polished glass exterior of one of her Aitken wannabe houses. Her face is hidden by a tree branch, while a bird flies right into one of the walls and dies — a not unusual occurrence, it seems. In so many circumstances, the filmmakers (this one directed by David and Nathan Zellner) are presenting us with obscured or distorted views of their subjects, as if they’re trying to hide what Whitney, Asher, and Dougie are really about as much as the three of them try to hide from one another. But many of their motivations come through as clearly as if Asher’s car had been freshly Windexed.
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