Nathan Fielder, The Awkward Court Jester, Goes Dark with The Curse

Three episodes into Showtime’s The Curse and it’s clear that the awkward and befuddled Nathan Fielder we’ve come to expect from time spent with him in his shows Nathan for You or The Rehearsal has left the building. Each new episode is a masterclass in restrained tension, as we witness, in horror, the large and small follies of clueless white saviors Asher (Fielder) and Whitney Siegel (Emma Stone). The cringe laughs that have become the hallmark of Fielder’s anthropological experiments with everyday people in the “reality” TV format are still present, but they play out with a very different vibe that’s chilling yet impossible to look away from. The Curse is the Frankenstein-ed love child of every sinister subtext that Fielder and co-creator Benny Safdie have been toying with for the last decade, becoming the “What is this?” and “Why am I watching this?” series of 2023.

If you’ve hung with The Curse to date, it’s been a hoot taking in the melange of bizarreness that Fielder, Safdie, and Stone have been serving up. Fielder and Stone’s comedy chops and ability to change tone on a dime work in lockstep with Safdie’s gift for ratcheting up the squirm levels until we, and the characters, can’t take it anymore. The trio are masters at milking an uncomfortable scene beyond its acceptable limit, and then goosing it to go even longer. In just three episodes, we’ve got the staggering examples of Asher’s harassment of young Nala (Hikmah Warsame) to get his reality TV “philanthropy” donation back; Whitney’s “spontaneous” Instagram live sweater wrestle with Asher, and Dougie’s (Safdie) twisted first date that is chock-full of unwanted confessions. So far, the series is a tumbleweed of sequences that are relentless in churning up the ugly underbellies of these people. 

Perhaps the most creatively freeing aspect of The Curse for Fielder is that it’s scripted, which allows him to take the awkward imp character he’s honed for over a decade and twist it into the ever so tightly wound Asher. For years across multiple projects, Fielder has used his non-threatening looks and accommodating countenance to lull his marks (and his audiences) into accepting him as an innocuous, yet off-kilter Master of Ceremonies for his “studies” of human behavior. There’s always been a hint of something “not right” bubbling under the surface of Fielder’s schtick. But it’s never gotten in the way of luring his subjects into being open and candid with Fielder in ways that have made his previous shows such interesting and funny exposés on the oddities of our species. 

Now, Fielder’s turning our trust in that persona against us in The Curse. There are similarities to what he did before in the DNA of Asher, drafting him as a seemingly average and inconsequential person on our planet. But Asher’s almost pathological need to please his driven but deeply misguided eco-crusader wife is what also makes him wholly unmoored and terrifying.

In the pilot, when he unleashes on the news reporter who dares to ask about Whitney’s slumlord parents and their contributions to the economic problems in Española, Fielder reveals the swirling rage that is barely contained underneath Asher’s pasty white skin. Not only does the moment deserve applause for exposing Fielder’s previously unexplored range, but it also sets the table for the menace that defines just how tar-thick the black comedy is going to be in this series. 

Even though The Curse features plenty “theater of the absurd” moments throughout—some earning big laughs, like the focus group scene that opens “Questa Lane”—what’s become most apparent is that Fielder, Safdie, and Stone are framing the idiocies, frailties, and terrible choices of these characters as a horror show. The voyeurism that permeates the lives of the Siegels in making the Flipanthrophy pilot is carried through into the framing of the entire series. There’s an omniscient camera that exists beyond Dougie’s crew that is constantly revealing to us the most intimate moments and off-camera conversations that we shouldn’t be seeing. The Curse is so disconcerting and disturbing at times because it might as well be a live-feed ported into our devices that the Siegels don’t know exists to turn off. It’s a horror show of exposure and unfettered access which briefly showcases the funny inanities of life, but really leans into the ugly souls that these characters desperately don’t want anyone to see. 

In terms of television experiments, The Curse won me over from my first wince at witnessing these idiots swanning through Española without a shred of self-reflection or authenticity. Stone is particularly great at conveying the empty vessel that Whitney is, and ever shall be, while Safdie is the personification of the rot that burrows into the soul when producing vacuous reality TV. However, Fielder is the biggest surprise of this endeavor. Asher is both that familiar, befuddled chump led around by the invisible strings of their partner, but he’s also a frightening wild card that doesn’t know the limitations of his seething rage, which we feel certain is going to show its face at some point in this reality TV train wreck waiting to happen. The Curse is that show that after every new episode, you might find yourself chuckling over the craziest bits. But then you sweat worrying about what horror is coming next week. 

New The Curse episodes drop Sundays on Showtime.

Tara Bennett is a Los Angeles-based writer covering film, television and pop culture for publications such as SFX Magazine, Total Film, SYFY Wire and more. She’s also written books on Sons of Anarchy, Outlander, Fringe, The Story of Marvel Studios and The Art of Avatar: The Way of Water. You can follow her on Twitter @TaraDBennett or Instagram @TaraDBen