The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘The Curse’ Episode 2 Recap

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

Sean is joined by Joanna Robinson to break down the second episode of ‘The Curse.’ They discuss the surprisingly sparse use of comedy, the voyeuristic filmmaking style, and how the slowed pacing of the series heightens the discomfort in each scene. Along the way, they unpack how the show reveals Asher and Whitney’s ulterior motives as well as their strange relationship dynamic. Later, they react to Benny Safdie’s performance and his character’s arc so far. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Joanna Robinson Producer: Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Then set the scene with Hampton Bay string lights that bring it all together. Shop spring backyard days for seven days at the Home Depot. Now through May 6th, Exclusion supplies to homedipo.com slash price match for details. Hello and welcome to the Prestige TV podcast. I'm Sean Fennessee. I'm here with my master in curse recapping. Joanna Robinson, hi, Joe. Oh, wow.

I love this new title. How are you? I'm doing just dandy. You know, last week, Joanna, Bill Simmons and I spoke a bit about episode one of the curse, but really more about the state of streaming television and what it means to be a TV show. We got a little bit into the text of this fascinating new show from Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdi starring Emma Stone.

But we didn't talk. too much about what this show is, what it's doing. You and I have not really talked about it at all, and you're going to be a part of this recapping trilogy, trio, as we go through these 10 episodes. So what do you make of the curse so far? You have me at Emma Stone, and then it's only up to you to lose me, essentially.

That's how I feel about anything. And I like Nathan Fielder, and I like Benny Safdi as well. So, like, there's a lot going on here for me to enjoy. But they got me really quickly at the beginning of the first episode because they're essentially doing broadcast news, which is, you know, when, I know you know, but like when Nathan and Emerson's characters are interviewing these people and Betty Safi's character stops to put tears on this woman's face

and, like, put menthol underneath her nose to, like, make it look like she's crying. this is like very much taken directly from one of the best films of all time broadcast news, one of my favorite comedies. I was so glad that you mentioned Albert Brooks when you were talking to Bill, though you were talking about like Albert Brooks' weirder films. Broadcast news is a much more mainstream comedy. But I love, I love, love, love stories about the media and even, you know,

however when we cringe at it, reality TV is media of some kind. Media and its foibles is always interesting to me. referencing one of my favorite movies of all time will always get me. And then I just think what Emma Stone is doing in this. I mean, you and Bill talked about this, so I don't need to bang the drum too loudly, but I think she's just astonishing

in this. I think she's fantastic. So yeah, I'm in. They got me. You know, episode one to episode two is a significant shift. I think episode two is a fascinating challenge. We've seen shows like this push the first two or three episodes. You know, FX is known

for this for kind of pushing the first few episodes out of the gate. The mini binge. Yeah. I've never been personally a big fan of that strategy, but I do wonder if I'm not sure how it would have helped or hurt the curse in particular because this episode is less, there's less set up and it's making you sit in the discomfort of some of the characters.

As the episode opens, we learn via the image of a pregnancy test that Emma Stone's character is in fact pregnant. I guess after the sexual escapade that we witnessed in episode one, I'm not quite sure when that went down. Uh-huh. I love how, like, heavy that word escapade just sort of sat. I'm not sure if I have another word to describe what we saw there. Yeah.

With Stephen? Was that the vibrator's name? Sure was. We didn't see Stephen in this episode, unfortunately. But we did, we carried over, and I think even more deeply felt that sense of doom that I think kind of lingered over the first episode. The second episode, did you think it was? Funny? No.

I don't think I would say funny. I mean, like the most comedic escapade is trying to get the file off the computer, right? And the bit with the Gatorade, et cetera. So Asher and all of that, that's, but I'm just so tense and cringing. I mean, you guys talked about cringe and squirm and all of that, how it relates to this. I was just sort of buttle up and knots watching that. So I wasn't exactly laughing. I don't know. What did you think?

I didn't think it was terribly funny, but I thought it was effective in communicating that this is not a laugh-a-minute series that you might expect from a Nathan Fielder show where, you know, the awkwardness and Nathan for you was often played for like a big like, holy shit, I can't believe they did that. This is something much more low-toned. In particular, I thought the dinner with the Kara character, this native artist that Whitney has befriended. and is attempting to really just use as a kind of signifier of her open-mindedness about the culture that she is kind of occupying and taking advantage of was fascinating. And I thought that the actress who played her, I think her name is Nizhounia Austin. I'm not sure if I got that correct, but she's extraordinary at communicating, like an accepting discomfort with the ways in which she is being used.

used. And you can almost feel her knowing that she needs to play this well to make it advantageous for her without necessarily sacrificing her ethics as these two HGTV Aspirant ghouls attempt to siphon her creativity from her. What did you think of that sequence at dinner? No, I love that. I think what she was showing there was like, was so subtle. It's so funny because you hear about her before you meet her because in the scene with

Whitney Emma Stone's character, meeting Gary Farmer is one of my favorite character actors who plays James Salito. And Gary Farmer is having a time right now. He's showing up on everything. He's in reservation dogs. He's in Our Flaggreens Death. He's in Rutherford Falls. Like he's just, he's busy.

He's working. He's booked. So you hear her talk to him about this woman. And I honestly, despite everything we already knew about Wendy, I kind of, I believe that they were actually friends. I was like, oh, she does have a friend who is an artist. blah, and then you get to meet her and see their dynamic, and you're like, oh, no, they're not even, it's not even a friend she's about to exploit. This is like a bad, like a grudging acquaintance,

you know what I mean, who sees some something advantageous in this relationship for herself, but also is putting boundaries around even that, even that, like, tiny sliver of what have you. And I mean, like, the, okay, I did laugh when she was like, can I get this food to go? Can you bring it to my house? Like all of that, like that wonderful. And her saying, her saying, my art is in your home, right? You're not using it to stage other homes.

And I thought the way, like, speaking about obvious versus unobvious comedy, the way that Emma Stone and Nathan Fielder play that reaction, because we've seen that reaction a million times in other comedies. Or it's like, no, no, of course not. Just the, it's just, it's like barely a murmur. These things are dialed all the way down to such a simmer on this show where what it rewards is you paying close attention. And also the way, I mean, not that we had any doubts about what assholes these people are, but like you have, you're not getting broadstroke comedy on anything. You're getting comedy of like tiny minute expressions.

And I think something that underscores that is the way it's shot. Because, I mean, you know so much more than I do about, I think, cinematic language. in general, but from my observation, we're seeing a lot of shots of scenes that aren't reality TV that are shot as if they are reality TV, right? We're outside of car, like very much like the way that the office was shot, right? We're outside of cars. We're sort of around a corner. We're at a distance. And so it's, you know, it gives you that you're slightly intruding or you have to pay close attention to the little details. The office is like this at its best, the office really rewarded you paying attention

to the facial expressions on people in the backgrounds of shots. And I think this show is doing something similar with the framing of our two main characters. I'm glad that you brought that up because there's a few different filmmaking styles that are being smashed together in this show that is really interesting.

There is exactly what you said. There's the classical reality TV into camera, phlepanthropy, typical discovery channel thing that you would see. That is obviously in stark contrast to what I would describe

as like a slowed down safty style. The movie, or this series doesn't have the same energy as the Safty Brothers movies,

which are very kinetic and fast-paced. And if they're not fast-cutting, they feel like they're fast-cutting. Their characters are in action. They're in motion. This is something of a show that's very static.

So what the show is doing is it's either capturing its characters at a great distance as though it was like, a Frederick Wiseman documentary, like they don't even know that there's a camera on them,

and so it feels like it's an odd angle or their backs are to the camera, things that you never see in TV. Yeah. Or the camera lingers on their faces and does these very slow, like, forgive the pretension of this comment, but like Tarkovsky-esque zooms,

like really, like punishing, like Russian cinema, like moving like 0.1 miles per hour closer and closer and closer onto Asher's face, which is just created. this sense of like everything is collapsing around these people and it's happening in slow motion and we're meant to feel the discomfort of their lives falling in on each other. It's an amazing cinematic trick. Sean, I'm so pleased that you know exactly what the people want, which is for you

to make a Tarkovsky reference. I'm not sure that that's true, honestly. I'm thrilled you delivered. I was wondering what you make in episode one, there is that a long sequence shot through a peephole of a door that I was expecting was the people of the room that they had just exited, but it wasn't, it was the room across the hall from them.

And that was just one of those choices that, like, initially, what TV or cinema language has taught us to expect is that it's being shot through people because, say, Benny Safi's character is watching them through the people

or something like that. But we're watching them through the people, and then the door opens behind them, and that's where Benning Safi is. And so it was just like, different people across the hall. And I was like, that's a, what a fascinating choice. And so then it just feels like, then everything just feels voyeuristic,

which is a nice sort of layering of, you know, we're inside a thing that is voyeuristic in his own right, in that the characters, you know, Dougie, Betty Safi's character is trying to surreptitiously capture Asher when he's talking to a journalist in episode one, you know, like leave his mic on, we want to capture this. So that like that idea of surveillance and God, is baked into the premise of the show,

but then there's also, feels like there's just like one layer extra of some sort of like god figure or whatever who's also watching through peopoles and around corners this little story play out, you know? Yeah, the same is true. I think for most of Asher's storyline in this episode, which is that as he attempts to wrangle more information

for the reporter to then bury their terrible interview that they had as they prepared to launch their show in the community, he needs to get more information, more hard data from the casino where he used to work, which then lets the camera and the show go into a casino, which we don't usually see in this way. We don't usually see. Maybe we'll see a casino sequence in a movie, but there's no, like, reality show about working in a casino. Cameras are prohibited in those spaces. And so there's something really ominous about what they're doing in there.

And also what Nathan Fielder's doing as a performer where he's basically just trying to crack the angle so that he can get, behind the curtain of this building so that he can get in and get the information that he needs as he's on this quest. You know, it's a very slow-moving quest. It's a very weird. We don't even totally understand what it is he's trying to acquire, but he's got a friend who used to work there. He's trying to work this guy. He has one visit to the casino. He can't quite, you know, pierce the barrier walls there. He has to arrange another meeting to have to pitch an idea to, you know, presumably the, you know, the president of the casino with whom he used to work who clearly despises him, loathes him.

Yeah. And I guess he's pitching like a full-time kid zone daycare inside of a casino, which honestly not the worst idea as a gambler with a toddler. Are you? Okay. All right. I don't know that I knew that much about your gambling habits, Sean. Would you respond well to a bracelet that you just had to like scan and it would detect credits

from you and you didn't have to get up and sort of get more chips? It's a beautifully blade-runnery and idea. I'm not that kind of gambler because I don't play fast games. I only play poker. So if you play Blackjack, that's a nightmare. That is Julie Haggerty from another Albert Brooks movie Lost in America, just like dumping her fortune onto the roulette table. You take a slower, more like Tarkovsky-esque approach to gambling.

Thank you for understanding the way I would like to be filmed, waltzed, playing poker quietly. But I thought there was a beautiful, horrifying sequence where they're like, we've employed your idea and we watch this old man at the slots just like, bloop his life savings away, you know, one after another. And it's just, it's dystopian. It's horrifying. It's also a great character note about what a demon Ashra is. All of his ideas are about bilking people and taking advantage of them, which is, of course, like something we're supposed to understand about him from watching the show that he's making in this very tenuous relationship. he has with his partner, who seems nicer, but is not, is really not nicer.

But I don't know how much she's been tested yet. You know what I mean? Like, what do you mean by that? I mean, I know that you've seen more than I have. I've only seen the first two episodes, so I don't want to like push you into guessing anything or whatever. But she seems like, well, this show has already zoomed away from my expectations a couple times, but she seems like the kind of character who, like, yes, she has good intentions.

Like, genuinely, I do believe in her good intentions. But I don't think, I think we, I would expect us to watch her good intentions tested. How much do her good intentions weigh against this other thing she wants? And I think we saw it already with the interview. Like, she's serious when she says, go find that little girl and give her the money, whether or not, you know, go, go find that little girl. little girl, give her the $100. Like, that is either a cursed superstition thing or a well-intentioned thing.

I don't know that I agree. I think there's a third option there. This is not informed by anything I've seen on the show. Okay. I think the third option is, I don't want this to come back on us that you took a $100 bill away from a little girl and that there is a self-preservation, a reputational issue that she's concerned about. Because that is how she really sees herself through the world, is to make sure that

she is seen as a good actor, that she is seen as a thoughtful, progressive person in society. You're totally right. And I think that goes hand in hand with what I was going to say about her coming out of that interview and being like, when you Google my name, my parents, the slum lords, do not show up. And I need to like maintain that internet space between my name and theirs. And that's why we're, you know, in the back offices of a casino dumping power rate on people

because like we're trying to keep this story suppressed. So, yeah, her image is, her image is more important to her. and then her actual good deeds. And when she's tested, she's tested in episode two by the comments on her Instagram about how she ripped off the design for her house, right? And she's just deleting those comments,

and then she's asking this artist to confirm what is not true. I mean, she stole someone's design and idea and is passing it off as her own, and it's very important to her that on something like social media on Instagram, like no perception of, like, tainted perception

shows up and we hear her talking about like should we do a mosaic instead that's different what if we did a mosaic instead no one's ever seen that before that's different right so it is that is that perception that is so important her i think there is i think if she were never tested in her life she could go through her life doing good ds but when those good ds bump up against something that challenges that need to defend a reputation i think she's going to choose her reputation the perception over the reality of the good dean anytime. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I see it a little bit differently,

but I think for the most part you're right. I think there's an original sin of the decision that her parents have made. You know, what we've come to understand is that they're slumlords, that they've been taking advantage of these communities for a long time to build a fortune owning property, and that it has defined her outlook of what kind of person she needs to be, but it can't change the fact that she was also raised by those people, with their values. And so these two things

are kind of in contrast and even frankly choosing a partner like Asher, somebody who is on the one hand this kind of like sensitive, you know,

classical kind of beta male, you know, that we have that moment where when she reveals that she is pregnant and that there's also something kind of tender and she's concerned about

he's just like, oh, baby, baby, baby. You know, like he's performing this sensitivity to her, but also that he's this really callow kind of callous, you know, climber, you know, like a person who's just like desperate to just

like win and be successful, the fact that she's attracted to that or at least imagines that that's a good fit for her, I think is revealing. You know, like, these are really flawed people that are telling themselves stories about what they need to be to the community versus who they need to be to themselves. And I think that the show is like a big, is a study of that. It's a study of like contemporary 35 to 45 year olds who are like, I'm a good person. and right, but they're not. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I see myself in this image and I don't like it. I mean, same, of course.

That's why it's a great show. It is. But I think that, to go back to that original, it's an idea, it's not merely that she's raised by them what her father played again, as you and Bill lingered on by the great Corbynman-Bernson says, like, I've loaned you millions of dollars. So it's not just

like, conceptually raised by them, but like all of their money is seed money from this guy. So, you know, her whole, their whole posturing in the interview of we have nothing to do with them. Like, we have nothing to do with them. This is our thing. How dare you bring this up? It was funny enough to then see them at family dinner just a few scenes later, like, very convivially. Like, she's not cut ties with them. She's very close to them, in fact. And then to find out that all their money comes from him, too, is just sort of like, okay, so there's nothing, nothing that you've built, actually, that is your own.

And then as for the beta male idea of what Asher is doing, I loved that sequence when he finds that she's pregnant. And he's like, when did you find out? She says, yesterday. And he so clearly wants to say, why didn't you tell me yesterday? But he knows that that's like a dickish thing to say. So he's like, oh, so you were, you knew, but you didn't want to, you know, that, oh, baby baby is also couched in him, like, trying to say, why the fuck didn't you tell me yesterday,

but like trying not to say it at the same time, it's genuinely hilarious. That was great. I think that also, you know, he knows that in some ways, in many ways, she is his meal ticket, you know, not just that her parents have money,

but she's also like, say what you will, like she's played by Emma Stone. You know what I mean? She's not just beautiful, but she's clearly like incredibly charismatic and the kind of person who could front an HGTV show.

Yeah. And the show will, you know, in the future will explore, like how Nathan's character fits into that equation in terms of hosting a TV show, but you understand why he acts the way that he does,

why he doesn't ask that question. I felt that same tension that you did. And the show is just really good at identifying what this relationship is and what it represents to both of them, who has the power and when and why. Yeah. You know, in the arc of their relationship, too,

like eventually they do go to this exhibit from the character, hilarious sequence where they are confronted. Well, one, they look at the work and they talk to someone at the museum about the work and then basically flaunt the fact that they own some of the work, which is just some of the most tone-deaf communication waltz in a museum that you could possibly have.

And then later they experienced one of these real-time exhibits that the character is performing, which is like itself a wonderful satire of contemporary art where she's slicing turkey on a deli slicer and handing it to them, which I guess is meant to be something about a modern reinterpretation of Thanksgiving and what has been taken from them versus what been given to them. I'm just reading a little deeply into this to try to understand it, followed by like a primal scream

in the face of the person who has come to experience the art. And it was kind of a, it's kind of a magnificent and deeply weird way to spend 15 minutes of a quote unquote prestige television show in 2023. But I love that they're willing to take this show to that. that place. What did you make of the entire museum experience? Oh yeah, I love I love that. Again, I love, Gary Farmer is so good at this sort of like really gentle, relaxed, like, bemusement in general. And I just like, I really love his, that vibe up against the agitation of the Whitney character. Like earlier when she maneuvers him into that photo where she's like,

don't take a photo of us. We're just talking. And then, you know, he's like, and he's just so unbothered, and she's just sweating to try to make the, you know, to get the photo off that she wants. And I love her,

her, you know, the instruction over and over again is like, don't talk about your experience. Then she's like, don't eat, you're not supposed to eat, I think you're not supposed to eat the turkey. Like, don't eat them either, like, whatever. It's just like, yeah, the tone of this show is so, I just think it's unlike.

anything. It's unlike anything even that Nathan has done himself. And you and Bill were talking, or you were talking about at the top of this episode, but also you and Bill were talking about this idea of like, who's going to watch this? Is this the right platform from this? And I don't need to get into the weeds of like platforms and streaming wars or anything like that. But I think any Nathan Fielder show has done well purely from word of mouth and critical support. Right? I don't think, I don't think any Nathan Fielder show has sold itself on the back of its promo. And so I think Certainly that was true of the rehearsal

I think that's also true of Nathan for you It's my experience anyway And so I think it's only I think the best hope this show has I think because the tone is so unsettling And so cringy in a sort of delicious But uncomfortable way I think the best hope it has is sort of like

Colt status And But I do think it's going to grab that partially just because of the star wadage of Emma Stone and partially because I think there's something really special going on it and it rewards close watching, close attention. You know what's funny though? I think you're 100% right about all of that.

I don't think that any of his shows have been like conversation commanding kinds of shows. But if you are on its wavelength, to me they are the most, I think he's the most rewarding kind of forward thinking. I hate the word disruptor, but kind of a a decentralizeder of our expectations

around what TV can be. And I have just noticed this series of stories that are being told this year that are in the mold of this. Like jury duty is kind of in the mold of this. How to with John Wilson concluding its third season, its third and final season.

Such a great show. Even like Astrid City to some extent. There are a couple of other films and TV shows that are about the kind of like unreal reality, you know, the kind of constructed realities of our life and the way that we understand, the way that we are kind of like hyper-processing media at all times,

and we have like, if you watch The Bachelor now, a show that's in like its 30th season, you know the beats. You know when a character emerges as the villain. You know when a character emerges as the like the underdog that could, you know, pull it out at the end of the season. Like we have been trained over years and years. I'm a loyal survivor watcher.

I love Survivor. and Survivor to me is as meaningful as like following the NFL. Like I'm just into it. I watch it when it's on. And I know all the beats. I know all the character archetypes. I know most of the twists that are coming or at least like when they happen, I can understand them.

But they keep you coming back. And what Nathan is doing like with these shows now is attempting to kind of take our expectations of them and like explode them in real time. Make fun of them, yes. But he obviously has some like admiration for them too because he understands them so well. Yeah. This is a scripted show, but it's a scripted show that is premised upon somebody wanting to make a reality show, which is that cool inversion that Bill and I talked about a little bit last week.

You can only satire, like, truly satirize something that you know and love. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's what Christopher Guest is so good. Like, this gives me Christopher Guest sometimes, and I think that's what he's so good. Like, Christopher Guest, I think loves regional theater and can also be fun of regional theater. Also, the awards race, like, whatever it is. I don't know about dog shows, but he did a great show. great job of it. But like, I think, I have two things I want to say that. One, my Survivor

journey is so strange and unusual in that I watched like the second season when it aired and then hadn't watched any of it since. Then I started working with your pal and my Mallory Rubin and she would talk about Survivor all the time. And so I was like, well, should I watch Survivor? And so earlier this year, I started dipped into the seasons that were on Netflix, which are a random smattering of seasons. And I sort of bopped around. And it was fast. fascinating to me to watch, you know, the early seasons are their own gameplay. And then later seasons, you have people who understand the game better. And then even later, you have a generation of kids who were, like, brought up watching Survivor, who are now Survivor Players.

So they've studied it in and out, like game theory almost. And it's just like, it's a fascinating extra layer to it, which I think is really incredible. And then I also am curious what you make of the rehearsal was such an interesting project to watch the reaction to. As with all things that Nathan Fielder does, the reaction is polarized. And there was certainly that I can't tell if it was in good faith at all, that sort of reaction to the rehearsal of like, is this inherently exploitative, this concept? A, what did you think of that reaction? B, do you think there's anything to it? And C, then do you think that informs what he wants to do with this project?

One, your read on Survivor is completely correct, and the show has become self-aware, and the contestants have become self-aware, which I don't think has actually meaningfully hurt the show. It's fascinating, honestly. It is, and it's related to what we're talking about with Nathan in a lot of ways. I think the difference between Nathan and Christopher Guest is that Nathan, honestly, has a little bit of a mean streak that I don't think Christopher Guest has. Yeah. And I like a mean streak. I think that it's okay to sometimes deeply skewer. Now, whether or not that tips over into exploitation is something that obviously, like you said, people have, they circled that in the rehearsal.

Like, I know Andy Greenwald talked a little bit about watching the show and just feeling not just some discomfort with the comedy, but like some discomfort with the premise and the pursuit of the premise. I don't want to put any words in his mouth, but I think that there was like a lot of kids were used in the creation of that show. And that's kind of a moral gray area. Personally, I didn't find that it like crossed an emotional. threshold for me, but man, it gets right up to the edge of it and it kind of rubs your nose in it and says, like, can you believe I'm doing this? Can you believe I've constructed this reality in which this kid has to communicate with me in a loving fashion? And like, maybe this kid doesn't actually have a father in real life. That was a really audacious show. This show is different because

the stakes feel different because it's scripted. And with the rehearsal, we never really knew what was going on. There's no, like, great work of journalism unpacking the making of the rehearsal. kind of closed rank and stopped doing classical interviews for this sort of thing and stopped like talking about his process. Yeah. Which a lot of creators do. And Bill and I talked about how like he can't really make shows like that anymore because of his level of notoriety.

He was on Jimmy Kimmel Live just last night with Emma Stone performing a kind of character. Yeah. And unrevealing. You know, he's in a little, he's in a Sasha Baron Cohen zone, which is a very challenging place to be. And when we saw Sasha Baron Cohen after the huge success. of Borat and then Bruno kind of struggling went to the dictator to say like maybe I can just fully script my experience and there's a challenge in the transition there. He's not doing things

at the same level of visibility that Sasha Baron Cohen was, but I think there's a part of me that wants to say I don't care about the exploitation that like it's not like I don't, it's not my job to moralize about whether or not Nathan Fielder who in all likelihood because this is on like a major streaming network, like, got all the paperwork and is, like, doing things within the rules of the law. Artistically, I don't really, I don't have a vector that moves in that direction, you know, like, I can't really see it that way. But I do understand when people, especially when people see kids on a show, feeling, like,

discomfort with the way that he pursues some of those things. But this show does feel different, don't you agree? Well, I'm less interested in deciding whether or not the rehearsal was morally, you know, correct than I am in wondering if he's responding at all. It's hard to suss the timeline because the rehearsal comes out in 2020. Like basically the rehearsal comes out summer of last year and they start filming this at the end of summer last year, the curse. So I don't know how accurate is to say this could possibly be reactive to the reaction to the rehearsal. But like if I were Nathan Fielder and I was accused of expert,

exploitating children or whoever around my last project. And then I was making a project about reality television exploitation. That would be on my mind. And I would be trying to interact with that in some way. So like I'm, I don't want to, well, I always want to read too much into things. But like I don't want to inaccurately read into things again because that timelines a little like so tight for me. The turnover would have to be. But at the very least this is on that idea of exploitation is on his mind.

And so this idea that he's playing like a parody of his own self, the worst version of himself. Here's the worst version of what a guy who did the rehearsal could be. And I'm not Asher. I'm not him. I'm something else. Or am I him? Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigued, ask your doctor about zebbound, terseptite. The first and only FDA approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea,

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Any time. Book today on the Verbo app. If you know, you Verbo. Terms apply. Seeverbo.com slash trust for details. The show's been in development for a long time, and some listeners pointed out to me that, you know, this was an A24 project that was eventually sold to Paramount

because Bill and I were kind of speculating about the origin and nature of it. I'm sure it has evolved quite a bit since they started making it. And I'm sure that he sees it. I'm sure he sees all of his work as sort of like a corresponding follow-up to what he had done before in some ways. Like even within Nathan for you, he eventually got to the Finding Francis place where, you know, he was evolving what the purpose of the show was. And that was an example of a much more earnest effort in that show. And then the rehearsal became something where there was a lot of this effort to show like a kind of self-hatred and like a delusional nature about the self seemed to be a big part of the rehearsal. And then this show is leaning even further into that

with how unlikable Asher is, like how in many ways he's almost the villain of the show, except maybe only behind Dougie Schecter, Benny's character, who gets like a fascinating arc in this episode that is much more sympathetic and slightly confusing. And he's the same guy, like defensive and aggressive, but also really sad when he tells the story of, I guess, effectively lost his wife in a car accident

in which he tested over the legal limit for alcohol, but that he claims that the issue at hand was that he was hit by a car, that the accident wasn't his fault, but he happened to be over the legal limit. And he's telling this story while on, I guess, like a Tinder date, yeah,

while staying in New Mexico when they're preparing to make this series. And again, the way that the scene is shot is very strange. It feels almost like closed circuit cameras or something, you know? It feels like security footage. somehow.

Voyeuristic. It's all. Very voyeuristic. Yeah. That was, I had a slightly different read. I mean, my read on that scene, that dinner scene, and especially as underlined by what happens later, is that he is in, like, deep denial about his responsibility for the death of his wife and the loss of, like, all of his friends, right?

Yes. Agree. Agree. That is what's underlining it. Right. And so then, like, what I thought was frankly astonished is he, like, you know, forced This is maybe she's wrong. We're strong arms.

This woman into the car with him. And she's like, are you sure you can drive? He's like, I'm fine. And then when he like blows, he's blowing while driving. Like his and then pulls over and he's like, okay, well, walk the next mile. And she's like, she's trying to throw a parade for him. She's like, most other men wouldn't pull over. They would just keep going.

And I was like, why do we get in the car in the first place? Why do we blow before we got in the car? Like, you know, obviously, obviously. But like, that's the comedy of this, of this scenario is that she's like, you know, he's in such deep denial she's heaping praise on him we just saw him at the end of episode one blatantly trying to make a pass

and Emma Stone and also the idea of him still being there like Asher's like oh you're still here while we're waiting I guess why are you here why are you still in town is the vibe when they see him in the casino so yeah very interesting figure

great wig work from Benny Safty I love that you and Bill were talking about Benny's foray into the world of acting he is a he is an SBF King obviously in Oppenheimer but I do want to shout out he was in Are You There God is Me Margaret

a movie that I think got like wildly overlooked that I thought was just like a really beautiful film and he just like has a very sweet role in that film like he's just like he gets to play the dad in a Judy Blume movie what a wild thing for Benny Safdi to do but yeah I again

I haven't I haven't seen as much as you have, and so I am being informed by just what the Safty brothers in general kick up of me, which is you described as sort of, it is like a sort of cokey, antic agitation that I get around a Safty Brothers project. And so just seeing Benny anywhere, even though he hasn't done anything truly terrible yet, makes me apprehensive, especially in that wig. So, yeah. Anybody who's listening that wants to see more of Benny, Of course, I agree with

Are You There Goddess Me, Margaret? One of my favorites of the year as well. But he's in this Claire DeNean movie called Stars at Noon in 2022, in which he plays a character named CIA man who shows up about an hour and a half into the movie and is so ominous in this movie. And using his kind of like smiling, uneasy charm

that is happening in this series too. The Dougie character has some of this. But he has, and it's weird because I've met Benny a bunch of times and he's so nice. So nice. And it's very amusing to watch him use the way that he looks and engages. And this was true in Lickrish Pizza, too. I mean, the character who plays in Likersh Pizza,

a kind of like a very well-meaning but somehow quietly insidious politician, as all politicians are, in my opinion. Anyhow, Benny is wonderful. That characters will be interesting to watch over the rest of the season. You know, this episode ends on a, like a deeply depressing note that we learn that Whitney's pregnancy is ectopic and that they're going to lose the baby

and so she's had a miscarriage that are these very forceful questions asked by the technician about has she had a miscarriage before, has she had an abortion before? There are insinuations that there's information that Whitney has that Asher does not,

that is not fully explored. They have this very intense conversation in the car at the end of the episode where Asher is, again, trying to do the thing you identified, which is, like, not ask the wrong question, but get as much out of his partner as he can. And the episode ends, again, with this air of doom. It's really a bold stroke.

I noted with interest that the episode is directed by the Zellner Brothers, who directed a couple of movies in the 2010s, Kumiko the Treasure Hunter, Mia Vashikowska movie named Damsel, that Robert Pattinson is in as well. and that made a lot of sense because their filmmaking style too which has this kind of like as you said voyeuristic

patient willing to observe the uncomfortable moments they feel like a good partner in the execution of this series what do you make of the decision to kind of end this episode with this information

and the way that it was told shout out Camico the Treasure Hunter a genuinely delightful film I really love that film but yeah that film is like content to have you sit and watch someone make ramen for, you know, longer than you thought you wanted to watch someone make ramen. I'm fascinated by one of the lines that we got, I think it was in episode one. Yeah, yeah, it was in the disaster interview where she says,

we've been married only a year, right? And Asher has a real reaction to like, only a year. Like, it didn't mean, it meant how ephemeral and fragile their relationship was. And I think that you know, we're seeing that. We see them as, you know, they, they are, they want to present this sort of Chip and Joanna Gaines. Like, we are, we are the picture of white success and additionally do goodery and all this sort of stuff like that. And we are, we are a duo. We are a team. And we are already seeing how deep the cracks run in this team. And like, I can only anticipate that we're going to continue to see that. I don't think they're the kind of people who will cleave to each other as things get tough around them.

I only see this going, forcing them further and further apart. We'll have to wait and see. We will be back next week with episode three of the curse. Joanna, you're feeling good about the show. You're going to stick with it. Yeah, I'll be here. Emma Stone, like, you and I were not going to talk in depth about it, obviously, but, like, you and I have already talked on the side about poor things,

and this is an extraordinary Emma Stone year, And I love that these two projects are coming out sort of together. And to Bill's point about sort of the choices that Emma Stone has made in her career, it reminds me a lot of Daniel Radcliffe, where it's just sort of like it really just feels like someone who just knows they can do anything and oftentimes decides to do the weirdest thing. And I love those people. Pattinson too, Robert Patton too.

Yeah, I like people who get insane success before 30 and then use that success to make bold choices. That's always really exciting. and all three of those actors are great examples of that. Joe, this was fun. It was nice. Thank you for letting me say the word Tarkovsky on a podcast. I appreciate that. Always welcome.

Thanks so much to our producer, Kai Grady. Please stay tuned to the Prestige TV podcast. Joanna, you and Amanda are covering the Crown? Yeah. What else is getting recapped around here these days? You know better than I do. Oh, we don't know yet. We've got some ideas in the back burner,

but nothing else is confirmed yet. So it's the curse in the Crown right now. Okay. Please stay tuned and we'll see you next time on the Prestige TV podcast. This episode is brought to you by Netflix's remarkably bright creatures. What if a Pacific octopus held the key to a mystery that could heal your heart? Well, that's Tova's reality. An elderly widow working at an aquarium.

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