We begin this week’s episode of The Curse the same way we ended last week’s: with Nala (Hikmah Warsame). After Asher (Nathan Fielder) bothers her about proving whether her tiny curse was real, we find poor Nala getting bullied in gym class. When she goes to tell her teacher, he tells her to get over it.
More on that later. For now, we cut to Whitney (Emma Stone) who ventures out to a mini golf place. There, she finds the offensive Native American statue that Cara (Nizhonniya Austin) told Dougie (Benny Safdie) she hated. Whitney buys it and takes it with her. Is this an act of kindness? A peace offering? A way to impress Cara? Whitney is pleased with herself and bops along to “Dancing On My Own” on the way back to Española, as if she were in an episode of Girls.
Whitney reveals her intentions with the statue when she shows up at Cara’s house with it. As a joke, she leaves the statue on Cara’s porch, knocks on her door, and then ducks out of sight. Cara is appalled. When she threatens to call the police, Whitney makes herself known and reveals she brought the statue as a gift. She thought Cara could reclaim the statue in her art, and Cara immediately offers to sign it and sell it right back to Whitney. Oh, Cara. Never change.
Cara is quick to give out her autograph on this statue, but she’s hesitant to offer her signature on Whitney’s art release forms needed for the show. Cara is unsure about having her art appear in the show, especially after finding out what Whitney’s parents do: “They take advantage of poor people,” Cara says, when Whitney plays dumb.
Whitney spirals out of control in an attempt to win Cara over. She thanks Cara for her honesty, saying this is a learning moment, and that she hasn’t had much time to look inward—as there’s been a lot she’s been hiding from her “friend.”
She’s been unhappy in her marriage, Whitney tells Cara, in an effort to be (or seem) vulnerable. Asher is holding her back. All he cares about are “the financials,” she says. But Whitney claims that, for her, this show is as more about doing good and doing art than anything else—which is why Whitney has been wanting to offer Cara the role of Native American consultant, which would bring in a $20,000 payday for Cara.
Okay, now Cara is interested. But could she be an anonymous contributor? Whitney isn’t so sure about that—the point is that viewers know an actual Indigenous person worked on the show. Cara will think about it, but for now, she still doesn’t really want her art involved.
While Whitney works on a relationship she actually takes interest in, her husband tries to develop a sense of humor. Asher is back in comedy class, where the group is learning about self-deprecation, self-awareness, and exaggeration. One woman workshops a joke: “I’m not a mother, I’m a smother,” she quips about being a helicopter parent.
The teacher, Jeff (Doug Montoya), wants her to lean in more. What about this? “I’m afraid I might be arrested for first-degree smothering.” No one laughs. Who hired this guy?
Then, Jeff calls on Asher, who is uncertain about his jokes. He’d rather keep his self-deprecating trait private, but the teacher challenges him to stretch the truth, so Asher squeaks out a joke: “There’s one thing I’d like to stretch a little bit. My penis!”
At Jeff’s insistence, Asher tries to workshop the joke, bringing a banana into the picture, but the class pipes up about being offended by the “masturbation” joke. The humor here is so nuanced, Jeff argues—the joke wasn’t about masturbating. It was about penis size. But these are all unfunny people picking the bad joke apart, which makes the scene even funnier. Either way, Asher wants it all to stop right along with the class, but Jeff keeps pushing him to come up with something funny about his penis, much to everyone’s annoyance.
After class, Asher confronts his teacher about making him feel uncomfortable, but Jeff turns it around on him and says he was the one who took things too far—even though Asher never wanted to talk about his micropenis in the first place. Jeff tells Asher he can try taking classes with a new group later this year, but he can’t come back to this class. Enough! Asher blows up at the guy—if he were actually funny, he’d be on YouTube, not teaching class at a legion hall.
Infuriated, Asher runs over his meal delivery box on the way home. Those kits have to be cursed. Inside, Whitney completely ignores Asher and leaves the room when he shows up, escaping to the bedroom while he relaxes in the living room. She left the news on, and Asher rewinds it to see Monica’s (Tessa Mentus) report about the casino he used to work at, which has finally made it to air.
Like Asher told her, the casino has been enabling gambling addicts by not escorting them out before they’re ready to cash in their earnings, despite being legally required by the control board to stop these folks from playing in the first place. In one clip, we see a casino employee laughing at a gambling addict who’s spending all her money—beside him, also giggling, stands Asher. Asher was complacent until he needed the casino story to save his ass.
Whitney, having seen the report, is irate. She accuses him of being part of the story, not just an innocent witness—but Asher swears he tried to get the problem to stop. Whitney takes credit for forcing him to bring the issue to Monica. Bitter and tired of Asher, Whitney pushes him away with the final word in the argument: “You wouldn’t do anything if I didn’t force you to.”
Asher attempts to fire back with a question about the hundreds of dollars spent on jeans charged to their account. Duh: Whitney gave her credit card info to the cashier so she can charge Whit’s card anytime a shoplifter “steals” jeans. Major business hack.
The next day, on set, Dougie brings Whitney in for a confessional. While speaking about her relationship with Asher, she tells Dougie that every couple keeps secrets. After a few years with someone, you should feel like you really know them—but is that real? Or is that just a projection of your idea of them? Dougie asks Whitney if she thinks their marriage is going to “survive” after this TV show, and she moves onto the next question.
Later, we learn the duo spent so much time talking about Asher that, when it actually comes time for him to record his confessionals, it’s time to wrap for the day. Asher is concerned. What are they saying without him there? It doesn’t help that Whitney made plans when they were supposed to have shabbat dinner, and Dougie uses the extra time to berate Asher for never inviting him to it.
Whitney meets up with her dad, who is grabbing her a small allowance of $20,000 from the bank. He offers her $40,000 instead so that she doesn’t have to bug him twice, which she accepts, insisting that this will be the last time she asks for money. Actually, she’ll pay this back. It’s a loan.
Immediately, the money changes hands—it’s now in Cara’s freezer. With that, Cara is the show’s official Native American consultant—a role that Whitney may have completely made up to win Cara over, hence the under-the-table payment. Whitney then presses her one last time about including her art on the show, and once Cara confirms that none of the people on Fliplanthropy will actually say her name, she finally obliges. What a win. The pair celebrate with a stilted game of Horse, like two girls forced to befriend each other because their parents said so.
We check in with Asher one more time, where we see that he’s recorded his argument with Whitney to take notes on later. He’s still trying to following the conversational diagramming guidance the marriage counselor gave them, which we saw him reference the last time they had a big fight. But maybe Whitney needs to tell Asher that she’s unhappy in the marriage instead of just Cara.
Then, The Curse has one last reveal: It’s back to Nala. The girl who was bullying her at the start of the episode has been mysteriously injured. Asher, you’re not alone anymore.
