The Curse continues its second and third week with episodes that will make you cringe at the most basic of situations. After the super-uncomfortable premier episode that introduced us to Ash and Whitney trying to be good people by literally forcing themselves to be socially relevant while being unaware of their wrongs, the show puts them through more tests as they are leading towards a certain failure of their show not being picked by the network. The following article will run through the happening of episodes 2 & 3 of The Curse in detail; if you still haven’t watched the episodes, don’t let these spoilers ruin your experience.
The Curse (Season 1), Episode 2 “Pressure’s Looking Good So Far” Recap:
Flipanthropy, the show that Ash and Whitney have been making and Doguie is helping them create, has not received any word from the network. Meanwhile, Ash, who brought himself into a muddled mess with Monica, the interviewer he lashed out at, is still waiting for some concrete proof about the Casino that partakes in malicious activities to reel in the gamblers. Since she needs hard evidence that Ash has failed to give till now, she offers him an ultimatum, or she runs his story.
This leads Ash to connect with Bill, his ex-colleague at the Casino, in order to get the dirt that he thinks is present in the Casino’s system. We do learn that Ash is not as dumb as we thought, especially after the mess he made in the premiere episode. He had actually done a couple of things that the Casino is thankful about, but he can’t help but be a really unlikable personality, especially with his odd sense of humor, that only we, the audience, would find funny.
Anyway, on his second visit to the Casino, Ash meets up with his old boss and pitches the idea of a gaming zone for kids inside the Casino, also promising to oversee the entire project. However, when the boss is not interested in having him around the workplace anymore, Ash shifts to a second, sorrier plan. He insists Bill takes him to his office computer, where he wants to show him a viral video. He tries to spill some Gatorade on Bill so that he goes out, but to make his prank look genuine, he also spills it on himself. A heist of sorts that gets aggressively odd with the growing minute ensues as Bill goes out to help clean the floor, himself, and Ash from the Gatorade shower. Ash takes it upon himself and narrowly copies something out of Bill’s computer just in the nick of time.
While leaving the Casino, we see a brief meeting between Ash and Doguie, and this is the first time we realize that Doguie isn’t the asshole we saw in the first episode. He is, in fact, very lonely – lonely to the extent that he wants to hang out with Ash. Anyway, Ash refuses as he has to take care of a few things.
Later, we learn about Doguie’s sadness when he is out on a date. He was drunk driving when he crashed his car head-on, leading to his wife’s death. Also, just when we are convinced that Doguie is one of those people who blames it on everyone else except himself, the show humanizes him with the guilt that he carries within. The perversive nature of this entire incident is not about humanizing Doguie, though, as when he is still drunk and driving his date home, he takes a breathalyzer test and stops his car to walk with the date. It’s just a mere instance of more realization of how modern relationships and meetings pan out.
Additionally, the episode is more focused on Whitney, who we know as pregnant, with two strips showing red on the test. However, she waits an entire day to tell Ash about it. The reasons are obvious – she has to meet up with the governor of the San Pueblo tribe to offer him her two pieces about the show she is working on and also invite him to a show that Cara Durant – a local artist that Whitney insists is a ‘close friend,’ is organizing. In fact, the show really gets under Whitney’s skin when we see that the only reason she wants to have native Indian friends is because she wants to be seen and feel relevant in the time without having to understand anything. In a way, Whitney is the representation of the Gen Z without her actually belonging to that age – making it all the more awful.
Take Cara’s show, for example. Whitney is so unaware of why she is there but still wants to participate that when she fails to be completely aware of one of Cara’s pieces, which includes her offering turkey to people and then screaming, she wants to learn about other people’s experiences almost immediately. The only reason she wants to be there is to be called an ‘artist’ for what she is doing with her passive home projects. We see her fuming when people call her a copycat for ripping off Dough Aitken’s project, which feels quite similar to hers.
Among many other things, the ending of Episode 2 of The Curse is able to establish just how badly Whitney wants to be noticed. When their pregnancy turns to be ectopic – meaning a sort of miscarriage that wouldn’t let the fetus form into a human, we see Ash and Whitney in the car discussing what they can do for their show to work. The obsession to be noticed is so ingrained that the wreckage that we can feel in the couple’s relationship is just waiting to erupt at any moment.
The Curse (Season 1), Episode 3 “Questa Lane” Recap:
Episode 3 of The Curse opens at the Questa Lane auction when Ash buys a dilapidated house so that he can re-do it and sell it later for a value that is higher than what it is now. However, when he drills through the front door, Nala and Hani – the two girls we saw in the first episode and who cursed Ash are inside. It becomes obvious that the family, which also includes the father (played by Barkhad Abdi) and simply named Abshir because Ash(er) apparently thought he was introducing himself when talking to him for the first time – has been squatting there for a long time.
The whole sequence of Ash drilling his way into the home and the girls running away from him is not only played for laughs as a bulky man restraints Ash but also structures how Ash looks here, chasing two small black girls. It feels like he has messed up yet again just for being himself. However, when the police arrive, he is able to take the higher ground – simply by showing the property papers that he has just acquired. But, instead of throwing them out, Ash decides to let them stay there. We are left with the question of whether he is doing this out of genuine empathy or trying to somehow rid himself of the curse that Whitney wanted him to, and it is still valid since he did not return the 100$ bill to Nala (the girl who cursed him). Of course, it’s the later, and Whitney also pouces up to this idea of doing good for this family but even goes further by deciding to fix the entire thing for property damage without even taking into consideration if the family wants it.
When Ash proposes the idea of doing this to Whitney, he also refers to charging them rent in the future. While that idea populates, we can see through the prejudice that the couple holds, in spite of trying their best to do the more profound thing in every instance. When Whitney and Ash come down to the house later, we can see the prejudice – especially that of Whitney, in spite of her doing her best to be helpful to the poor folks.
More cringe ensues as Whitney tries to befriend the two little girls. This is where we also learn that Nala’s curse on Ash was nothing but a part of a TikTok trend called ‘tiny curse,’ which is about cursing the person you feel is your enemy by having a little bit of inconvenience in their day. This puts Whitney in some sort of relief that the curse is not real. However, when Nala reveals the details of the curse, which basically involved Ash not having any chicken in his dinner, more specifically, him not having any chicken in the spaghetti he will eat, Ash is taken aback by the exactness of the curse.
The Curse (Season 1), Episode 3 “Questa Lane” Ending Explained:
Will the curse take hold of Ash and Whitney’s life?
For the first time in the entirety of The Curse so far, we see the real side of Ash and Whitney. When the two of them return home, we can clearly see that Ash cannot take it out of his mind that Nala knew what they were going to have for dinner the day she cursed him. However, at this point, Whitney is trying to create a moment that feels cute for her Instagram and makes them instantly likable for the network to pick their show up. An argument erupts out of Ash’s frustration that Whitney doesn’t validate him when he is always doing it for her. Consequently, the version of being a perfect couple that they have been projecting shatters when Whitney realizes that their argument has been recorded on her phone.
When Whitney replays the argument on her phone before deleting it, we can see how she feels about reality finally dawning on them. From what I can make, both of them have been living this fake version of their life and have been lying to each other about who they are and what they actually feel for each other. In sight of making themselves look perfect for the TV Show they are making, their real selves have taken such a backseat that when it actually comes up, she is unable to understand it.
The ending of The Curse Episode 3 finds Fernando – who was earlier fired from his ‘fake job’ at the coffee shop that Whitney and Ash promised to take up the security job for the lot that they have been using for shooting the show. The end signifies that Ash and Whitney have unknowingly brought Fernando and Abshir’s family under the chopping board when they have been doing perfectly okay without them being in orbit. The Curse is finally taking hold of Whitney and Ash, but will it also take these innocent people along? We have to wait and find out. Also, I worry for Dougie, seeing how he is completely alone in Santa Fe and no one is there to truly see him.
