In the Flesh: The Curse s1e09 'Young Hearts'

I’m cribbing from friend and fellow critic Sean T. Collins here, but one of the marks of truly great storytelling is to bring the audience to a conclusion that feels shocking in the moment and inevitable in hindsight. The Curse’s ninth episode delivers that feeling in spades, capping off one of the most intense scenes of protracted humiliation I’ve seen in years with a left field heater as Asher (Nathan Fielder), rather than exploding in rage as he has time and time again, takes his lumps, internalizes that his wife, Whitney (Emma Stone), more or less despises him down to his bones, and agrees with her, adopting a horrific kind of manic fawning affect as he pledges his eternal servitude and lavishes Whitney with praise and with promises to better himself. It’s electrifying, and the minute you realize he’s getting off on the idea of being insulted and read the riot act by his wife in front of millions of potential viewers, it all makes perfect sense. It’s the perfect trap for a sexually submissive cuckolding fetishist like Asher: a lifetime of servitude to a beautiful, demanding woman who loathes him inside and out.

And the show! My God, the show. We finally get our first real taste of Green Queen, the new series name Dougie (Benny Safdie) pitches to HGTV representative Martha (GiGi Erneta) for Fliplanthropy, and it’s every bit as putrid and ghastly as you could wish. Whitney’s fumbling land acknowledgement reads like the foundational prayer of some kind of feel-good neoliberal cult, and the show’s comparison of the Tewa people to native shrubs used in the couple’s decorative landscaping is so loathsome you have to laugh just to stave off tears. It’s a nightmarish jerkoff session for Whitney’s ego spiced with withering disdain and faux-personal confessionals meant to cast Asher as a millstone around her neck. That the network doesn’t want it, would prefer a positive spin on the couple’s marriage, almost makes it worse. All this emotional brutality for nothing, and of course no network objections to the racism, to the gentrification, to the grotesque exploitation of a deeply distressed community.

Equally grotesque is the about-face Whitney performs prior to showing the rough cut to Asher. When Dougie tells her there’s no show without her husband, she embarks on a relentless charm offensive to begin undoing the damage done during the period of time she believed she could keep Green Queen afloat without him. She takes him bowling, tolerates his attempts to come off as tough and principled in front of irate ex-coworker Bill (David DeLao) when he owns up to being the leaker who revealed Wind River Casino’s indifference to gambling addict welfare (a moment he’ll later relive as a sexual fantasy in which he browbeats Bill into fucking Whitney while he watches), and otherwise acts as though the previous weeks hadn’t happened at all. It’s a brutal chain yank right before their little viewing party opens the gates to Hell. The episode’s sole grace note, bittersweet though it is, comes when we see Cara (Nizhonniya Luxi Austin) pop up at a ritzy day spa Whitney visits for a massage, apparently having retired from the art scene after her horrible experience at the collector showing. At least someone here had the guts to stick to their principles, to turn their back on venal ugliness and stop feeding the ravenous machine. It’s not enough, but it’s something.