Let’s be real here: this list could go on forever, so Eliza Janssen had to cap it at a top 50, written out in chronological order. Read on if you’re a glutton for punishment, keen to remember the worst bits of The Curse.
Sold to us as a horror-comedy series from cringe kings Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie, The Curse delivered moments of butthole-clenching social awkwardness—plus some legit horrifying surprises as the miniseries came to its jaw-dropping conclusion.
With Emma Stone delivering one of the finest performances of her career as home-flipping sociopath Whitney, the limited series kept us in fits of hysterics, confusion, and awe, cutting to the heart of white guilt, gentrification, and reality TV’s sinister manipulative powers. There are big spoilers ahead for the madness of The Curse, including the completely unpredictable finale—scroll away if you need a post-show rundown of the series’ top 50 most wince-inducing moments.
The Curse: Miniseries
1. Dougie applies fake tears to a local’s stony face
Right from the first scene, The Curse had us screaming “no no nO NO NO” at its morally bankrupt reality TV manipulations. When out-of-work Española local Fernando (Christopher Calderon) and his mother weren’t quite reactive enough to the news that he’d been “gifted” a job at Whitney and Asher’s bougie coffee shop, their asshole producer buddy Dougie (Benny Safdie) jumped at the opportunity to drip water into the poor woman’s eyes for the perfect shot. Would Dougie be the real ringleader of the show’s evils, with a well-meaning Asher and Whitney merely along for the ride?…
2. Asher flips out at a reporter
…in short, hell no. We were completely taken aback at Nathan Fielder’s uncomfortable acting chops in his first scripted role, his unhinged over-emoting working as a perfect foil to Stone’s technical mastery. Here we first saw the Ashman let out of his cage, angrily rebutting a reporter’s insinuations about Whitney’s slumlord parents and ultimately snapping his fingers in her face: “Look at me when I’m talking to you, okay?”
3. Asher earnestly tells Whitney “you give me the strength to do anything”
Somehow, whenever Asher is trying to be a genuinely romantic, adoring husband, it gives us the chills almost as much as his totally implausible TV presenter charisma. Or lack thereof.
4. Asher snatches back his hundred dollar bill from Nana, setting the titular hex in motion
Whether you believe the kid’s (Hikmah Warsame) verbal curse had come true, magical power to it or not, this was obviously a bad move for Asher that had at least some impact on all of the series’ consequent disasters. Even if it did just turn out to be a TikTok trend that Nala was briefly into.
5. A nervous Asher refuses to let a local know his ATM pin
What’s your PIN? #TheCurse is now streaming on the @ParamountPlus with SHOWTIME plan. pic.twitter.com/mpIzrE5wSa
— SHOWTIME (@Showtime) November 11, 2023
6. Close-up shot of Asher’s micro-penis
Wow. Thanks a lot, show, for following up some confusing jokes about baby carrots with a clear-as-day shot of Asher’s micro-penis pissing at Whitney’s family home. Time code is 32:47 in case you missed it.
7. Whitney’s father Paul recruits Asher to the club of “cherry tomato boys”
Paul (Corbin Bernsen) isn’t ashamed of his undersized junk, and in a nightmare chat with his in-law, Asher is encouraged to joke about his own biological insecurity. The small-dick energy was powerful in this episode, and we’re not done yet.
Cherry tomato boys. #TheCurse pic.twitter.com/Lj8wZHYSbT
— SHOWTIME (@Showtime) November 15, 2023
8. That sex scene
In the show’s only intimate scene between newlyweds Whitney and Asher, we learn that they both get off by pretending that a vibrator named “Stephen” is cucking Asher. Let’s swiftly move on.
9. Love to the Third Degree
Dougie proudly shows the Siegels a former reality TV project, a The Bachelor-style dating series with a burn victim as its leading hunk. This show looks so agonisingly legit, and its cruelty is bolstered by Dougie admitting that he was merely “having a little fun” while making it.
It’s what’s on the inside that counts. #LoveToTheThirdDegree is now streaming. pic.twitter.com/OTmw3rX93I
— SHOWTIME (@Showtime) November 14, 2023
10. Whitney desperately tries to buddy up to Cara at dinner
Absolutely hated hearing Asher offer to “fatten [Cara] up”. Absolutely loved seeing that Whitney is just as desperate, wrong-headed, and uncomfortable as her husband was shown to be in the pilot. She defends her homes as “art” to the legit artist Cara (Nizhonniya Luxi Austin), before Cara tellingly dips from the meeting at the first opportunity.
11. Dougie’s awful date
After an Asher-centric first episode, we saw more of Whitney and Dougie’s dark sides in episode two, learning more about the slimy, ring-clad bro’s dead wife…who died in a drunk-driving accident…that he seemingly refuses to take accountability for. When he blows over the limit as he drives his poor, agreeable date home, they’re forced to walk along the highway. Ick personified.
12. Asher gets naked in his old work friend’s office to pull off a video heist
Are you afraid to get a little wet?????? pic.twitter.com/ONXMpEZGtB
— Benny safdie (@benny_safdie) November 27, 2023
13. Whitney tries and fails to hang out with Cara and her cool friends
14. The focus group calls Asher unfunny and “very off-putting”
15. Asher breaks into Nala’s family home and chases her down the street
16. Asher says “waa waa, baby cry cry, nappy time” while Whitney is getting checked out after her miscarriage
17. Whitney and Asher recreate their cute spontaneous jumper moment for social media
18. Dougie proudly teaches some kids a lesson by buying them beer and stealing their cars
19. Asher tries to be funny at a comedy class
This moment takes the cake for me. The glee on Asher’s face before he pulls a lunatic expression and makes an incredibly annoying noise, the ensuing silence in the room, his shameful head shake after. I hate how relatable this moment is, and how committed Fielder is to being so atomically unappealing as Asher.
Nathan Fielder's character on The Curse does a goofy face/outburst at a comedy class at the end of episode 4 and I'm still laughing about it.
— Will (@SilentDawnLB) January 14, 2024
20. Asher angrily defends Whitney to a pair of potential buyers
“You do have to watch your fucking language though!…Fucking bitch!”
21. Whitney scouts locals to act in Fliplanthropy, not seeming like a human trafficker at all
22. Whitney tries to force two of the randoms into pretending to be a couple, and then backtracks when they point out how bizarre that is
23. Whitney flips out at her parents for taking an interest in the properties they bought for her
“You treat me like a child and I’m a grown up! I’m a grown-up woman!…Española is mine!”
24. A fake home-buyer busts into a soulful rendition of Stand By Me, and Whitney places a hand over her heart at how beautiful it is
25. Whitney refuses to talk to Asher when the buyer they need to sell to is a “Blue Lives Matter” Republican
In an ingenious bit of casting, actual conservative has-been Dean Cain got cast as this buyer, who Whitney was unable to reject once he revealed his secretly lefty views on Indigenous landrights.
26. Whitney pitches a new, self-serving name for Fliplanthropy: “Green Queen”
27. Whitney and Asher record a super stilted intro for the show
“No way.” “Way!”
28. Dougie encourages the Española firemen to get shirtless to create romantic tension between Whitney and Asher
29. Whitney flirts with a sexy fireman right in front of Asher’s face
He’s too caught up in the mysterious reappearance of Nala’s cursed chicken, of course.
30. Abshir gets a painful chiropractic session
This was the peak of the series’ horror influence, with low-income single dad Abshir (Burkhad Abdi) appearing to have basically died after Whitney and Asher’s chiropractor doesn’t listen to his pleas of pain at all. Agonising close-ups of Abdi’s face conveyed the violence of the Siegel’s colonisation of Española, where hurt to locals (and people of colour in particular) is steamrolled in the name of performative progress.
the chiropractor scene in THE CURSE made me want to die pic.twitter.com/m6ggAV3ZQ6
— augus (@sxspiria) January 3, 2024
31. Asher stabs himself in the palm while playing a mystical guessing game with Nala
32. Whitney leaves a racist Native American sculpture on Cara’s doorstep as a gag
33. Whitney tries to buy Cara’s friendship by hiring her as the show’s cultural consultant
34. Asher’s micropenis is raised as an example of self-deprecating humour in his comedy class
“Well, there’s one thing I’d like to stretch a little bit…my penis.” We’re totally on board with the stranger in the class who shuts it all down by saying: “I’m asking myself why am I paying to watch you workshop a masturbation joke. I just wanna move on.”
35. Whitney admits to Dougie in a confessional for the show that she’s uncertain whether her marriage will last
36. Dougie snaps at Asher for never inviting him to Shabbat dinner
37. Asher flips out at former employee Fernando, claiming he’s “ready to take a bullet” for Whitney
38. Whitney mocks Asher like a schoolyard bully
“Oh, Ashy. Oh you’re so sweet. You care about people so much, you’re an angel…Good! You better quit it, mister! There’ll be consequences!”
this clip of emma stone in the curse makes me want to crawl out of my skin, i don’t remember the last time i cringed so hard pic.twitter.com/JgeGZsoQHT
— bethany (@fiImgal) January 3, 2024
39. Dougie asks Asher about his cuck fetish in confessionals for the show
40. Asher raps “Hell Yeah” by Dead Prez while driving with Dougie
At least he’s thoughtful enough to literally say “N-word” instead of using the N-word.
41. Dougie pleads with Nala to curse him, crying at the side of the poor kid’s bed
42. Asher brings up the death of Dougie’s wife as proof that they’re both “cosplaying as good men”
Oof. True, but oof.
43. Whitney manipulates Cara into praising her houses as art, indirectly causing Cara to quit the art world entirely
44. Whitney refuses to tell Asher she loves him after inviting him to go bowling
45. Whitney overhears Asher jerking off while fantasising about his workmate having sex with her
“You see how hot my wife is? She’s so fucking hot and you’re so fucking ugly.”
46. Whitney shows up for a massage: Cara is her masseuse
47. Asher finally sees a cut of Green Queen, in which Whitney reveals that she doesn’t believe in him or their marriage
48. He storms out of the room…and then back in, agreeing that he’s worthless and that he’s “the curse”
“I lied, I’m a liar, I’m a terrible person!…I’m all in on Whitney.”
49. The now-pregnant Siegels silently grin from the background of The Rachel Ray show, where they’re barely interviewed or included
50. Everything from 28:14 onwards in the finale
The reveal of Asher stuck impossibly, permanently on the mirror home’s ceiling literally flipped The Curse upside down, providing an entirely different sense of tension than the petty social fumbles we’d been subjected to so far.
Suddenly, the show’s finale went from uncomfortable to utterly nail-biting, with gravity yanking our hateable hero away from the marriage and comfy life he’d worked so hard to earn. You can believe that Asher’s Kafkaesque fate was caused by Dougie’s curse from episode eight, the dreamcatcher a tradie gifted to the Siegels earlier in the finale, or Asher’s explicit promise to Whitney in episode nine (“If you didn’t want to be with me, and I actually truly felt that, I’d be gone. You wouldn’t have to say it. I’d feel that, and I would disappear”).
Regardless of reason, the extended falling-in-reverse finale was more difficult to watch than anything else The Curse offered up, ending in tragedy and forcing us to watch each skyward leap from between our fingers.
If you told us that Safdie and Fielder’s show would end with a seeming reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey’s galaxy baby, we never would’ve believed you. And yet here we are, floating in oblivion with our jaws dropped and our brains exploded. Congrats to Whitney on the baby tho.
