‘The Curse’ Episode 3: Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone Fight Like Hell
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This post contains spoilers for the third episode of The Curse, “Questa Lane,” which is now streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime.
Early in “Questa Lane,” Whitney and Asher have to suffer through the mortifying experience that is any Hollywood focus group, where the harsh opinions of a dozen random people can be treated as gospel by a network or studio. Whitney doesn’t come off terribly, though there’s a lot of skepticism about the concept of passive homes, including one person who’s an outright climate change denier. Asher, on the other hand, has to endure hearing these strangers pick apart every aspect of himself. They don’t think he’s funny — or that he has a personality at all. The group doesn’t see much chemistry between the Seigels, but all of the blame for that goes to him, as the sidekick who’s just there. One of them suggests that there’s zero sexual tension between the spouses. The only one who seems to like Asher even a little is the climate change denier!
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It’s a brutal takedown, but is it a wildly inaccurate one? Asher is socially clumsy in the extreme, while Whitney dominates interactions where they’re both present. He’s not funny — he’s a stiff even compared to the fictionalized Nathan Fielder from Nathan for You and The Rehearsal. And whatever sexual tension exists in the marriage comes from both parties imagining that Whitney is sleeping with someone else.
Sandwiched around the focus group sequence is the plot that gives “Questa Lane” its title. Asher bids on a distressed property, as part of his and Whitney’s plan to use the show to make a killing in local real estate. (Whatever reservations the focus group may have had about Whitney’s houses, there is a tendency for people to badly want the things they see on television.)
Meanwhile, we catch up with Nala, the girl who put a curse on Asher when he took back the $100 bill in the series premiere. She seems to be having a hard time in elementary school. Some of the other girls laugh at her. And the tone of the teacher’s conversation about whether Nala is ready to rejoin the rest of the class implies that this is not an isolated occurrence. At home, her bickering with her sister about a coveted basketball eraser is interrupted by the sound of a power screwdriver dismantling the front door locks. And of course it’s Asher Seigel entering the place and terrifying these little kids, because this is the property he just bought at auction. One adult’s boring sidekick is another girl’s monster, you know.
Asher, still feeling guilty about stiffing Nala — or, at least, still freaked out about the idea that this girl from a culture Asher knows nothing about(*) has placed a curse on him — decides to let the girls and their father Abshir remain in the property for the time being.
(*) Nor does Whitney, whose attempts at inclusivity and empathy once again come across as patronizing. She assumes, for instance, that Abshir is cooking ethnic food for the girls, but it’s just hot dogs.
When Whitney later hears about the coincidence, she insists, “That must mean something.” And there does, in fact, seem to be something more than coincidence going on here. When Asher asks Nala about the specific nature of the curse, she explains that she wanted the chicken to disappear from his dinner — which is exactly what happened recently with his penne with(out) chicken.
s the curse real? Is any of it real? The focus group can detect something phony in the Seigel marriage, and of course there’s abundant fakery in the world of reality TV.
Is the curse real? Is any of it real? The focus group can detect something phony in the Seigel marriage, and of course there’s abundant fakery in the world of reality TV. The chain stores featured in the HGTV pilot have closed for the time being, robbing Fernando of the coffee shop job Whitney promised him. The company explains that their arrangement was only that the place had to be open while the show was in production. And it’s clear that they don’t really share in Whitney’s vision for this particular neighborhood in Española. She tries to make it up to Fernando by offering him what feels like a pointless job guarding the strip mall overnight, but Fernando takes it so seriously that he brings a rifle with him for the job.
When the Seigels get home from Questa Lane, they share a genuine moment where Asher struggles to get Whitney’s sweater off of her. They laugh and joke, and this feels real enough that Whitney wants to recreate it and film it for her Insta. The problem is that you can’t fake spontaneity. As they fail to recapture the extremely minor charm of the original sweater incident, Asher begins to vent about how Whitney doesn’t believe him about Nala (not even his ridiculous theory that Nala went through their trash and found the chicken-less dish), and that he feels like she never gives him the benefit of the doubt. The tension mounts, and soon husband and wife are having an ugly, petty fight. Even the de-escalating phrase their marriage counselor taught them doesn’t seem to help.
Like the fake sweater videos, this has all been recorded on Whitney’s phone. After, she deletes the video of the fight itself, but keeps studying the earlier ones, hoping to find something she can put up on her social media. But the fight is the truth of their relationship. Even the real bit with the sweater seems more of an anomaly for them than how things usually go between them. But she wants no part of the real thing. It’s bad for business, and bad for the illusion Whitney has crafted for herself about her life. Focus groups are ridiculous in general, but they’re not always wrong.
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