Nathan Fielder’s ‘The Curse’ Freakout Was Unlike Anything on TV

I think Nathan Fielder will forgive me for never thinking much of him as an actor. This isn’t to say that I don’t think he is an impressive performer. Part of what I love about him is how well he’s honed the character of “Nathan Fielder,” which he has almost always played throughout his career. But when The Curse premiered, where he performs his first dramatic role, I was skeptical of his ability to be more than that— someone other than the socially awkward, affect-less guy we love from Nathan For You and The Rehearsal.

Fielder has slowly proven me wrong throughout the show, whose penultimate episode aired Sunday. With The Curse, which has been fantastically off-putting, endlessly fascinating, and increasingly unpredictable, he’s co-created, written, and directed himself a perfectly wily role. And in that role—as Asher, the paranoid and narcissistic wife guy to Emma Stone’s two-faced, self-important Whitney—he’s shown himself to be as riveting to watch as he is every time he plays “Nathan Fielder.” But in Episode 9, he took things to the next level, delivering his all-time best acting while also crafting the most disturbing scene of any show airing this season.

Unspeakable amounts of tension have been mounting throughout The Curse’s entire 10-episode season. Asher is convinced that he is suffering under a petty curse that inexplicably has left his marriage and career deteriorating around him. Meanwhile, Whitney’s desire to remake herself in the image of a culturally aware and eco-conscious white savior has put her at tacit odds with her husband. This comes to a head in Episode 9’s final scene, when Whitney insists that Asher watch previously deleted footage from their in-development HGTV show. Whitney had filmed a bunch of confessionals in which she opens up about how pathetic she finds Asher to be. He is obsessed with an image of her, she says, Stone’s wide eyes communicating how much of Whitney’s saying is meant to play up another image she’s crafting of herself. And that image, she explains, is not really her.

It is horrible to watch Asher watch this unfold. Cringeworthy and obnoxious as they both are, Asher had become something of a sympathetic character in the show’s latter half. In his confessionals, he admits that he’d have “nothing” without his wife, and that she’s perfect and pure—all after she’s just mocked his affection for her in a horrific baby voice that I still hear in my nightmares. Fielder has always had a knack for making himself seem put-upon, even in situations where he’s had the upper hand. It’s why the scene in Nathan For You where he directs an actress to keep telling him that she loves him until he cries is as sweet as it is disturbing. He’s so good at selling himself as so lonely, even when he wields authority and power.

But it is more horrible to watch how Asher reacts, once the tape ends. Asher hustles out of the room and slams the door, before returning one minute later. It’s then that he gets right into Whitney’s face and unleashes every mixed-up, confusing, pathetic thought he’s been harboring since Episode 1.

“It all makes sense now,” Asher tells Whitney, hyperventilating. “I thought it was some stupid fucking curse, but it was me.” She stares back at him, the camera holding tightly on her face, which is betraying her confusion.

“I know you,” Asher tells her, insistently, as he shakes and struggles to catch his breath. He throws his cell phone across the room with extreme force, to prove that he doesn’t need the device, like Whitney casually claimed that he did in her damning confessional. It’s a shockingly aggressive motion that puts everyone on further edge, including us watching.

Asher has fully snapped, and Fielder’s body language conveys it brilliantly. We’ve seen this before, if not experienced it ourselves: He can’t stop himself, his mouth miles behind his thoughts, fighting to articulate how emphatically he believes that he and Whitney can actually “make this work” from here. It’s a masterful and scary performance of unhinged delusion at its finest—and fiercest.

What makes it so disturbing is that Fielder goes off for a full two minutes, hardly interrupted, inflicting a shocking level of emotional terrorism with his manic breakdown. “I’ve let my personal shortcomings get in the way of truly making all the sacrifices, making every sacrifice that I need to,” Asher says insistently, as he leans squarely into Whitney’s face. He’s a liar. He’s a bad person. He is, he announces, the real curse.

The moment that struck me most was when Asher finally returns to reality, if but for a brief second. Fielder captures this so well: His hand is shaking wildly, he’s hyperventilating and spitting: “I’m not moving,” he says, looking at his hand. “I don’t know what I’m saying.” It’s an abrupt grounding that comes off completely naturally, not as a climactic moment of self-realization—because it isn’t. Asher continues to tell Whitney how he’s so certain she loves him back, that he’s a better person, that he is “all in” on her.

All the while, his face is inches from hers, and we see Whitney’s lips quiver and eyes well up with tears. Is Asher right? Does she want to stay in this marriage, despite heavily implying that she’s ready to walk out? He does, after all, still want to be with her after watching her speak so cruelly about him. But there’s no room for her to make that call, because Asher is hogging up all the air. It’s a remarkable moment that, much like The Curse in general, leaves its interpretation up to the viewer.

I firmly believe Stone deserves every possible award for her work on the show (and in Poor Things—what a year this woman has had), creating a completely believable, nuanced villain with her portrayal of Whitney. But Fielder deserves a mountain of praise for his undaunted work in this scene—a small fraction of The Curse’s runtime, but a gigantic step toward twisting the series from a satirical, beguiling dramedy into a psychologically abusive horror show. And all just in time for the final episode.