Nathan For You

I was a few eps behind and watched 3 in a row to get caught up today. Put me in a weird headspace, but I like this show and think it’s good and interesting. Can totally get not liking it, I think I’d be hesitant to recommend it to most, but it’s compelling to me ymmv.

I had to pause this after episode 5, think I’ll wait until I can watch the remaining episodes in (relatively) quick succession. Watching them week by week just left me feeling “so what?” after each one, like the mains are just repeating the same character beats over & over & over again.

The last ep I watched was when she walked over to the neighbors house to talk about amazon package theft, and iirc we are shown her entire stroll over there in real time and idk, after so many hours of scenes like that overlaid with ominous synth music it started to feel like wheel-spinning. the characters are well-constructed and the performances are good but it might just fundamentally be too long for me.

I think there's been enough movement but it's a slow build for sure - also it didn't help that it's been impossible to figure out what any build that's building might be building to! I've been enjoying it.

Despite liking it ("enjoying" is the wrong word), based on where the show is now I still can't really justify the number of episodes. This probably would have worked as well with, say, six episodes. Then again, they would have probably had to cut down all those really slow, long scenes of, like, people standing there in shock, just staring in silence.

I loooove all the slow push-ins. Someone compared the camerawork to Tarkovsky, which is somehow both lol and otm

There are definitely some experiments with pacing. That sequence at the beginning of one episode with Dougie looking for something lasts for about 10 minutes. Then I think episode 6 is just over 30 minutes long.

The ending of episode 9 reminded me of the intensity of something like Scenes from a Marriage, albeit with vastly different character emotions.

Is next week the last episode?

Yes, episode 10.

ok, halfway through e8 and there have been ten minutes of solid jokes

the native artist’s friend hamming it up was killing me

We'll see how it ends but in general I've been wondering how much of Emma's character is a broad parody of what would happen if rich, extremely online liberals tried to put their vision of the world to practice with as much nuance as the tweets and retweets that shaped it (with the best of intentions by all means but really ill-equipped when managing expectations) or if it's primarily just about a particular character that is especially delusional and lacking self awareness?

^ Not a dig at liberal beliefs or anything just a observation about the caricature the show feels like it's conveying through her imo

a friend who has watched a lot of reality shows, although more the Bravo-style ones than the HGTV ones, is checking out The Curse now. I'll see what they think.

i cant believe i'm only just now remembering that IRL i used to know an eerily similar couple who briefly had a HGTV home-flipping show like this, even down to the fact that their whole thing was funded by massive family wealth that they worked hard to keep secret. idk how The Curse will turn out but in this case the marriage did not survive the show

spoilers!

I just rewatched the last 3 eps with my gf to get her all caught up for the finale. I think my new favorite scene is the one where Whitney and Asher have just come home from bowling, and Whitney overhears Asher pleasuring himself(?) while having an imaginary conversation with his former coworker, the way it just drags on and on, it's so good. And then the last line I hadn't previously caught until we watched with captions on: "That's whose wife you want to fuck. The whistleblower's wife."

OH SHIT I was totally unable to make out the dialogue, it was so quiet, thank you for explaining this to me

I ended up rewinding a bit and turning captions on too.

I say this after nearly episode to my partner, but: goddamn, Emma Stone. That scene is my favorite as well--all those micro changes in her expression as she overhears Asher in the bathroom. And she has so many exquisite forms of "performative enthusiasm" that seem so cringy in Whitney's "off camera" interactions, but you can see why they make her look like a pro in the HGTV clips. Excited for and dreading the finale--Whitney looked a bit terrified in the final scene when Asher says "good girl".

I'm glad she won the Golden Globe for Poor Things, which I loved, but I think I might like this performance a bit more.

I love how "that's beautiful" or "that was beautiful" has just become the ultimate recurring signifier of empty, meaningless praise on this show, culminating in Dougie saying it after Asher had his meltdown in the hotel room.

also: does Asher even have that small of a dick? I guess the implication here is that's where his cuckold fetish comes from. seems more likely someone just told him that he had a micropenis and he just believed it.

I dunno, I think it's supposed to be pretty small. But that's also the contrast between him and his fellow little weiner father in law. Is alpha father in law embraces it, but Asher (it's implied) can't get beyond it, because his alpha aspirations are so weak and insincere. He's constantly struggling where his wife is striving.

In a show full of amazing vignettes it's possible their attempt to replay the sweater-pulling moment is my very favorite, good god

they show him peeing in the first episode, guys

he's just an insecure guy who has some hang-ups that other people are not doing anything to disabuse him of. makes that breakdown at the end of the most recent episode even more glaring, in that instead of taking responsibility for his shortcomings (social and relationship, not... you know) he's capitulating to being whatever Whiney wants him to be. a strong Jester, if you will

Which is a weird swerve for this show/character to take so close to the end. And on that note, Benny made some comment about not ruling out a second season, so my hopes for any sort of closure are dimming. I've liked this show, but its memorable peaks have admittedly been relatively few and far between. Dynamic it is not.

his alpha aspirations

i didn't really get this vibe from the character. to me, "alpha" necessarily implies a particular toxic masculinity which i don't really see asher aspiring to. the father-in-law, on the other hand, would fit that definition but it's clear that asher is uncomfortable with him. i think if he were truly aspiring to be an alpha male, he'd be sucking up to the father-in-law whether whitney liked it or not

he's got some serious anger/inadequacy/dependency issues and he+whitney are terrible for each other. but i read the scenes where he's trying to stand up for himself as a deeply insecure guy sincerely attempting to fake-it-until-you-make-it with self-confidence

something is setting off alarms in me about nathan always putting uncomfortable sex stuff in his shows (the sex box with the kid and the pants coming off in front of the kids in nfy and now this cuck stuff in curse) it's so offputting lol. he's definitely trying to tell us something.

Not sure where people are getting cuck stuff from, clearly his kink is hotwifing

lol

Well holy shit

what the hell

That was unreal.

I guess you could say the curse was lifted.

Wow

Wild

With “The Curse” ending on Jan. 12, Safdie isn’t sure about a second season. “There’s a lot more fun to be had in this world. It’s not off the table,” he says. “There are ideas, but it’s definitely too premature to put them out into the world.”

Well that was a very satisfying on-screen translation of something that I've spent large amounts of idle time imagining throughout my life.

Uh

I knew there was no way I could guess what was going to happen this episode and I was right.

I just don’t even know how to react to it. I’m trying to decide if it was all just a big troll.

My interpretation

a curse was placed on Whitney at some point due to her and her parents being slum lords. That curse is lifted when she agrees to give away a house for no charge — even paying the property taxes — as Asher’s “gift” to her. Asher unwittingly seals his fate here though as he is Whitney’s curse. So as the physical manifestation of that curse, once it’s lifted he is physically removed as well.

hmmm...I like this interpretation.

God DAMN this was good.

I'm ... at a loss.

the scene regarding the “gift” was great, though. is this wanted? is it actually a burden and not a gift? the recipient seemed to understand a lot more about the implications and it answered the question about whether Whitney and Asher ever understood anything about what housing means as a basic need and the struggles people face. they don’t!

pretty funny after finding out that Whitney tried to shrug off her parents having an actual problem tenant. the way to not be a slumlord is to just let people do whatever and eat the cost and that makes you good. keep paying for those pants

the scene regarding the “gift” was great, though. is this wanted? is it actually a burden and not a gift?

I think the point is that it is an act of aggression from Asher, him telling her he knows this is what she would want when he knows it's NOT AT ALL what she wants but it's what she has to assert that she wants lest her entire concept-edifice break down; but she fights back, not letting the edifice break down, not breaking character and acting the part of the person who wants to give the house away, COLLABORATING with Abshir in denying Asher the whatever-it-is he's going for

oh I was referring to the man receiving the house as the gift receiver. from Asher to Whitney, it’s definitely him doing what she’s telegraphed but her moral compass doesn’t actually point anywhere because she just does something other than what she thinks is wrong

which means a different, also wrong thing

Per that hidden text up there, I think Asher was, or may have been, her curse, but the curse is (literally) lifted because Dougie (re)curses Asher, sucking him up to space. Granted, that (re)curse happened months before this final episode, and I'm totally stumped at what the unseen dynamics of the previous many months (after Asher's meltdown) might have been like, or even where their relationship stands at the start of this one. And the show was apparently a success? Kinda unclear. Of course, if the show were not called The Curse I'm not sure how much we're supposed to be seriously considering the curse stuff at all. For sure I was not expecting the explicit turn to magic realism, though I'm not at all sure what it's supposed to mean. I guess in the best way.

in the moment, she can’t come up with a reason why gifting Abshir the house is wrong. but Abshir makes it clear that it’s not ideal and she definitely feels vindicated. it’s Asher’s pants moment

well that was weirdly moving, cathartic even

I think there has to be some significance from Asher getting pulled away at that particular moment, right after giving away the house. If there is a curse that is lifted by that specific act, I don't think the recipient has to be grateful under the terms of the curse. It just has to be a major action that they receive zero benefit from, not even the feeling of satisfaction of the recipient being grateful.

I don't think Dougie has the ability(?) to curse Asher. Him believing he did is meant to compound the guilt and torture he already lives with.

Also, I think Judaism factors in to what happens but I don’t know enough to theorize.