The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘The Curse’ Episodes 3-5 Recap

Episode Date: December 9, 2023

Joanna is joined by Sean to recap Episode 3, 4, and 5 of ‘The Curse.’ They discuss their fandom of Emma Stone and her character’s moral decline, the Lynchian and reality TV–like characteristics of the filmmaking, and how Asher’s character is a reflection of Fielder’s past works. They take a look at Dougie’s story line in comparison to that of Asher’s, then react to the revelation of the curse being a TikTok trend on the show. Finally, they make forecasts about where the show is going and how it compares to recent film and television. Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Sean Fennessey Producer: Olivia Crerie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What would you do if everyone said they heard your trailer a hundred times? You'd probably make a new one. I'm Justin Sales, the host of The Wedding Scammer, the ringer's first ever true crime pod. We've been hunting a con man for a few weeks now, and our hunt is coming to an end. Schemes, Heartbreak, How to Put On a Wire. We've covered all this and more, but there are still a few surprises left. Binge the Wedding Scammer wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast feed.

I'm Gweta Robinson joining me today. Straight from his own, you know, mirror-walled exotic estate, it is Sean Fennessey. It's a passive home, but there's nothing passive about this podcast. This is an active conversation. An aggressive podcast. We're here to talk about, we're here, we're back. We heard you clamoring for it. We're here to talk about the curse.

We're talking about three episodes. of the curse. If you want to hear our previous coverage of episodes one and two, those are elsewhere in the prestige feed. Shawna Bill broke down in episode one. Sean and I talked about episode two. We're tackling episode three, Quest Elaine, episode four, under the big tree, and episode five.

It's a good day. All of those are covered on this podcast. So if you have not watched up through episode five, consider that your spoiler warning. Go watch that episode and then come back and listen to us talk about it. Also, just a flag for your attention. Elsewhere in the prestige feed, Rob Mahoney and I are covering Fargo.

This season is incredible. We are having an amazing time with it. It's one of my favorite things on TV this year. I'm having such a good time with it. And then in a little bit, I think a couple weeks from now or a week and a half or so, Amanda Dobbins and I will be covering the back half of the crown, wrapping up that entire series, the series finale of this long experiment known as the Crown on Netflix. So that is coming up for you.

Yes, Sean. I checked out on the crown in season two. How's it been going at the end here? Have you been digging it? It's wild because, you know, Amanda and I talk about this a lot. We've reached the point in history when we lived through it. So it's an entirely different experiment to, even more so than, you know, Diana in the 80s, I was technically alive, but I wasn't checked in.

But Diana in the 90s and then Will and Kate and all of the early odd stuff, that is bizarre to watch. And now, to be perfectly honest with you, it feels a little closer to like, Ryan Murphy American Crime Story, then it does, you know, the early seasons when we're in the 50s and 40s and 60s, et cetera. Yeah, I feared that that might be the case. That might be one of the reasons why

I kind of emotionally lost a little interest. I was like, so this is going to a place that I'm less interested. Did you check out at the end of season two? I did, I did, yeah. So you saw all the Claire Foy. Yeah.

I think that's the crown at its height. So you saw the best stuff. Interesting. Okay. But there's still, there's still, Grace off, Debicki. I know you love Debicki. Debicki is crushing and is staying in us.

She's so tall. Jesus. I know. And I agree. The tallest of the ladies. That's the only thing I can say about my appreciation for her, other than that she's a wonderful actor. Okay.

She is very talented and very tall. We're here to talk about a number of talented people, including the much shorter Emma Stone. I just saw poor things. I'm like so in my Emma Stone era right now. Did you like it? I thrilled. I loved it.

Oh, great. Yeah. Mahoney and I went to go see it and like we were the only ones laughing at a lot of parts. So that was really interesting experience. That's adorable. You guys went together? Yeah. I'm obsessed with that.

Okay. Great. Love to hear it. Bear a ring of pals, you know what I mean? Well, I love when podcasting partners meet in real life. That's always, that's always fantastic. Speaking of very tall, Rob Honie, tall person. Okay.

I'm going to start with Emma Stone. We're going to talk about three episodes. Sean has given me the reins. He might regret that decision. see. We're not necessarily going to go like episode by episode. I kind of want to go overarching beat by beat. And I want to start with Emma Stone because in this episode, the latest episode of episode five, we get this monumental mask drop from this character that we've been watching sort of edgily perform a role from the very beginning. When we first meet her

in episode one very early on, we're seeing her in an interview playing a heightened diversion of herself, but she's always doing that. She's always smiling and carefully choosing her words and doing something. And in this episode, we see her drop that, turn into the child of privilege that we already knew that she was. And again, there's not a real direct line between this show and poor things, except for the fact that I am just endlessly astonished with what Emma Stone can do. I think she's so endlessly talented. So fun to see, like, what, when you were watching this, this is not, episode five, is not a particularly, like, riotous, hilarious.

And we're going to talk about the humor of these groups of episodes in a, in a second. But, like, what did this moment watching this Stone performance do for you? I like that question. I think it's perfectly timed to the release of poor things, which is a story about a person determined, like figuring out their own agency and taking control of their own life and mind. And this show is in some ways, like, an inversion of. that. It's like the slow revelation that she does not have control and everything she does have was given to her. And the performance of her life is a sham. And there are obviously a series of

moments of sort of like showing her at low moments, the conversation with the couple in the car and her really losing her grip on what she thinks she's doing with the work that she's doing with these homes. But more specifically, the conversation with her parents or really more the lecture that she gives to her parents in the car when they attempt to insinuate them. into what she's doing with flippanthropy that is scary and funny and sad and kind of pathetic in a way that we very rarely see Emma Stone get. You know, this is a very uninspiring person. This is ultimately in some ways a kind of ugly person. And, you know, I think everybody in this show is kind of ugly in their own way, and that's a hallmark of fielder and saffty.

So, but for her, we haven't really seen the shield get pierced. yet until today. And this episode in particular was like an accumulation of a series of strokes. Like this is someone who has experienced some really difficult things. You know, this is someone who has lost a pregnancy. This is someone who is attempting to disassociate themselves with their parents who, it sounds like are monsters, like slumlords. It's someone who is kind of embarrassed by their relationship, their kind of their partnership, but feels like she needs them. So like we have empathy for her, but she's a pretty nasty piece of work, too. And so kind of figuring out how Emma Stone keeps us engaged with her character while also showing what's really going on with

her character is a really, is a tightrope. And there's a rare kind of performer who I think can pull that off. She really does it. I mean, she's, you know, I'm on the record. Like, this is my favorite under 40 performer, like, in America. Like, I think there's, like, nothing she can't do. So for her to be doing these two, these inverted roles on the biggest stages at the same time and the two media, that you and I cover. It's super exciting. I think it does portend a very complicated second half of this season, though, now that the real Whitney has been presented to us.

What did you think? Yeah, I think it's interesting because you mentioned, you know, we're watching terrible people. That's sort of the premise of this show. But in this group of terrible people, Whitney, Asher, and Dougie, like, she was the best want, you know, the one we were sort of like, maybe there's a shred of something kind there. But I think one of the most telling things in this encounter with her parents that we see in episode five is, this is mine.

This is supposed to be mine. And so it becomes this question of like ownership, right? That like not only these houses that she's building, but these people, all of this is something that she thinks of as like something to own, which is, you know, the prospect of land ownership in the first place. But it, it casts this much more insidious tone over some of the things we've seen, even as recently as episode four. I really love the part in episode four when she learns from someone in the neighborhood that, you know, one of their new implant residence is accusing the neighbors of stealing packages. And we watch her go to her car and say, no, I'm going to take a

and walk over there and greet everyone by name. And there's something, there's supposed to be something charming and homie and neighborhood. Even as it's like so obviously performed, you could still interpret it as like, she wants connection. She wants community. She's trying.

But now I see it as like, you know, the lady of the manor sort of, you know, greeting her serfs is sort of more what it feels after you get this conversation in episode five. And again, we always kind of knew that that was at the core of her. And I mean, I didn't necessarily think anyone genuinely great was married to Asher in the first place. But I think that's a really interesting. I hate the word likeability when it comes to characters in general, and especially when it

comes to like women and especially when it comes to TV characters where you're spending so much time with them. Like, I don't think that question of likeability is that interesting. So it's not likeability that I look for, but there is, I don't know, compelling, I guess, is a word you can use. And I've never seen Emma Stone be anything but compelling. Root forable in a way that that I think of as distinct from likable. So if someone is reprehensible, is there a path towards their own enlightenment that I can root for them to have, something like that. I don't know that these are, that Benny Safdi and Nathan Fielder are interested in a story of redemption for any of these characters. That seems unlike their brand. So I don't think that's something

we should have our eye on. So I think I'm just going to have to settle for compelling, which when it comes to these performers doesn't feel much like settling at all. I'm glad you wanted to start the conversation this way, because I think that this is the core theme, particularly of episode five and in some ways of this entire series, which is think about how this episode ends. It ends with Dean Cain, well-known conservative actor who once portrayed Superman on network television and slowly had his career kind of,

I would say disassembled in part because of very strong outspoken political views and also because maybe he's just not a great actor, who knows. Nevertheless, this very kind of savvy prodding casting of him in the role of Mark, who is a guy who drives a pickup truck with a Blue Lives Matter sticker on it, and who Whitney perceives as the problem of the world, the problem of our country, the problem of these communities. We're looking for a more progressive way to build out a community, to not gentrify, but meaningfully evolve. And Asher, who doesn't come from the same means as Whitney, and we're led to believe, and sees these equations as ultimately more financial in nature.

wants Mark to come into the equation because Mark is a guy who likes these homes and wants to buy one. And Dean Kane's character comes to visit the house late at night. Whitney is very uncomfortable with him and there. But what we see is over time, this revelation that this Mark character that Dean Kane is playing, there are some things about him that are kind of loud and uncomfortable and weird and he uses the bathroom in front of them in a way that is really awkward and kind of of gross, but also he has empathy for the native people in this community. And in fact, his great grandmother was Apache. And he's a little bit more thoughtful about things than you would expect,

but then there may be other things that you don't really agree with. And like, ultimately, no one is bad and no one is good, right? Everyone is complicated. And everyone has bad things about them and everyone has good things about them. And Whitney's crisis at the end of this episode is that she's become so unmoored by this binary way that she views the world, that there are the bad people who do bad things and they're the good people who do good things. And I'm trying to go towards the good people who do good things, get away from my past, get away from the way that my parents raised me and make a TV show on HGTV go that shows how the world can be good when I sell houses. And of course, she's wrong. Like, it's a folly. The whole premise is ridiculous.

And we're made to understand that because she's making the show with someone like Dougie, that she's married to someone like Asher, that she's making a show to make money on a community. But that someone like Mark is really the thing that disrupts her point of view. That's really the thing that has her breaking fully from her feelings about all of this because that's a guy that she wouldn't want to spend time with, but that actually is interested in what she believes to be the correct pursuit creatively, emotionally, financially. And he's just one example of a person who would buy a house like that. Well, it seems almost even more authentically connected to the community than she does, right? That he, he's just.

is actually better at the thing that she is so desperate to be good at and how shocking and upsetting that is to her. It's a fascinating decision for this show. The show, which is doing such a good job of skewering well-intentioned, white liberalism, you know, the Dean Kane casting choice, I was a huge Lois and Clark fan, by the way. So like, growing up loved Dean Cane on that. And then definitely, yeah, went through the emotional experience of confronting that when an actor you grew up loving has what you consider to be, I don't know, reprehensible, honestly, political views. But I'm unclear at the, I think actually, it's okay that I don't have clarity on this

because I think bottom line, this decision, and I'm so curious how they sold this to Dean Kane, but this decision is meant to make us feel uncomfortable. no matter, like it doesn't really matter. The question I wanted to ask is like, what are they trying to say with this? But I think all they're trying to do is provoke. And not necessarily in a terrible prankster comedy kind of way, but just sort of, I think that's the prevailing feeling

that I'm getting from the show is discomfort. I think especially when we think of something like the opening of four, when Dougie is like looking for his car keys and we get this like almost Lynchian David Lynchian like opening sequence where we have no idea what's going on. We're completely unmoored. But that's something that David Lynch did so well or does so well, especially on television is inside of something we think we understand, which is like parody of reality television, parody of white liberalism, blah, blah. there's also these stretches of just trying to really unsettle you. And I wanted to ask you, I'm so glad you brought up Dean Kaine, but I wanted to ask you more largely, you sort of teased when you were talking to Bill about episode one, we were like, you think

this is wild. The show gets even wilder or darker or more surreal. My question is like, I know you haven't watched all the way through the end, but you've watched a little bit more than I have. Here we are at the halfway mark of the season, episode five. on sort of like a scale of one to ten of how intense or how surreal or however the show is getting, where would you say we are versus where you've seen us heading? We still have a deeper realm of surreality to explore for sure.

I don't think that it necessarily has, it's not as grave as I felt like three, four, and five were. Like three, four, and five represent to me these characters, full. becoming unglued from their hopes. And, you know, we see in, in episode three, when Nathan's character, Asher, like, acquires the home that actually Barcad Obdi's character and the two little girls who actually live in, the concept of the curse, like, starts to congeal, right? It's not just that this is not just something that was said to him in a parking lot. It's that there might actually be something to this.

And so I've been thinking about that lynching. The chicken out of the spaghetti, yes, out of the pasta. And so that as Whitney becomes more comfortable with this idea that maybe it's not happening, Asher is getting more uncomfortable with the confirmation that in fact he was cursed. And then maybe their family was cursed, maybe their show was cursed, maybe this is all a big curse. The show in that way and the way that it's shot and the sound design and the score are deeply Lynchian. And Lynch makes movies that are dreamlike and metaphorical and that can be easily interpreted. but are unconfirmed as experiences. The difference between them is that this show is like Lynch in all those ways,

but the way it's not like Lynch is that the way that it's filmed is as if it's like surveillance footage. It's everything is at a distance. Everything is far away through windows, you know, from overhead shots inside of kitchens and in living rooms. And unless we're seeing the performance of a reality TV show, it is shot like Big Brother. I was going to say Big Brother. Yeah, we're like peering into something that we shouldn't be seeing. We're seeing all of these uncomfortable conversations. We're seeing all these realizations of wild discomfort.

And we still get like critical moments, like the conclusion of episode four, where Asher is asked to, you know, goes to a comedy class to learn how to be funny on camera. And we see that, you know, camera go around the room. And we see all these people perform wordlessly an act of comedy to make people laugh in the room. and what Nathan's character does is like grotesque and unsettling. And what he does is like seeing Robert Blake and Lost Highway. It's like it's so odd. And we think we can get inside of his head, but also he doesn't know what he's doing.

And he's such a, he's a person going through like a crisis of faith, a loss of confidence, all of these things that are clearly happening to Asher. And so it is this surreal show, but it is so grounded in this formal reality, literal and kind of figurative TV reality that to me that's the accomplishment of the show is there's never been like this collision like this and when you say like what is the show about or like what is it doing it is making us completely

uncomfortable but the way that it's making us uncomfortable the text that it's using feels very new to me I couldn't really think of too many things that were like this there are aspects of like heaven knows what the Saftees movie that are like this but heaven knows what is not funny you know like Good Time is pretty funny and Uncutt Jams is funny,

but that's a, heaven knows what is like deeply unsettling as a movie. And so to use that frame with Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone is like, is kind of a remarkable achievement to me. I'm fascinated by this show.

I think when you say how it is and isn't Lynchian and my greater, the text, the lynch text that I've studied, the closest is Twin Peaks, is television. And that is an expert,

in discomfort and seriality inside the tropes of a mystery TV show, right? So he's taking the trappings of a whodunit of a dead girl at the beginning. And it baked into that is all this, you know, rot at the core of suburbia, you know, classic lynch stuff. And so it makes sense to me to, for Nathan Fielder, who has, through Nathan for you, through the rehearsal, even through producing how to with John Wilson made it his career to study reality TV and the inherent discomfort of that, the inherent blur between reality and performance. And it's funny, we were talking about this a lot when we talked about the WJ strike that disrupted and I support them. The majority of this year, we were looking back to the previous writer's strike and how that really was the

birth of reality television. So really considering all the things that that spawn, not just the institutions that persist. I know you're like a survivor head or whatever, but real bizarre flash in the pan reality when they were just like really scraping the bottom of the barrel. The jail millionaires of the world. Yeah. Exactly what I was thinking of. And so to think of that as this sort of like seismic with the benefit of distance, to think of that writer's era as this seismic shift in our storytelling culture and what we've retained from it and what we let go that felt like emergency. This all happening under the shadow of I'm not inside Bachelor Nation so I don't know how truly controversial it is, but peripherally controversial golden Bachelor revelation that are, you know, the nation's most beloved senior citizen might have been lying about certain things, you know, at the heart of this season of the Bachelor that a lot of people. people cared about, you know? Like the taint of the Golden Bachelor as it as it pertains to the

curse is really interesting to me. And so it makes sense to me. I agree with you that we've never seen anything like this, but what it feels like is just taking a long form Lynchian approach to the kind of stuff that Nathan has tried. I feel like Nathan Fielder is trying to understand for himself something about the nature of reality television and what that kind of storytelling does to us, does to our perception of reality. I mean, one of my favorite moments in these three episodes is when Whitney and Asher have that genuine moment of connection when he's trying to get the sweater off of her head. And then they try to recreate it for social media.

And, you know, it's terrible and it's forced and it doesn't work and all this sort of stuff. But it's just sort of like it's bringing in this other layer of, performance that is a sickness to a certain degree in our culture of how we perform for social media, let alone how reality television alters our perception of how we present ourselves. Yeah. Well, I think what people, of course there are like edge lords and trolls in the world, but in general, the rise of social media is about the desperate need for positive attention from people. Yeah.

And that sequence that you just cited, which I thought was so genius. and I had a hard time with watching a second time. The second time, because the first time you're watching it, you're like, where is this going? How will this go wrong? It's very curb your enthusiasm in some ways. And then the second time I was like, this is a grotesque.

Like, this is one of the saddest things I've ever seen. And it is this wonderful microcosm of a sickness that a lot of people have, frankly, that I display at times. You know, like, it's not, no one is immune to this. You know, it's like, you get on social media, you read one bad thing. You're like, God, that just fucked up my lunch. You read one positive.

thing, you're like, that person doesn't understand I suck. Like, you know, this like endless cycle that people feel who are on the internet with these. And Whitney is meant to be an example of this. Someone who's desperately trying to present positively. We saw earlier her looking at deleting comments on Instagram about her homes and how she was ripping off Doug Aiken. Like, she's consumed by this stuff. That I find really interesting in general. But then there's like another layer that is around what you have put your finger on with the reality stuff that seems to be really interesting to Nathan, which is like, why do people like

the show Fixer Upper with Chip and Joanna Gaines? Like, what is it? Because the fifth episode goes to great pains to show you how a lot of those shows are made, which is that producers go to public places and they scout casting, and they talk to strangers, and they say,

would you like to participate in this show? You know, it's well known that many of the sort of like home buying shows are cast by people who have already picked the show, and then they're shown homes that they could potentially like. but ultimately they end up with the show that they were always going, the house that they were always going to buy. So there's a lot of kind of trickery that goes into the production of these shows.

And Nathan and Benny Sappy seem very interested in this. I liked how that fifth episode was like a kind of disquisition on how this can happen and how the way that a couple looks is as important as what the hosts do in the episode. And that there is like everyone is kind of desperate for attention that the act, the sort of like stand in who is cast ultimately performing a rendition of stand by me for the cameras in this completely surreal way, this like wildly uncomfortable and yet oddly charismatic way is yet another example of just how weird you have to be to want to devote your career and life to doing this kind of work. It is a sick compulsion to want to get positive attention for hosting a show like this. it's obviously wildly, can be wildly financially beneficial.

And for Asher, I think that matters. But for Whitney, like, there's something even deeper inside her, this need for, like, a positive approval that seems to be what the last few episodes have been trying to reveal to us. And that the fifth episode ending in this way where she's completely, she just is deeply depressed, it seems like, you know, by the direction that the show has taken, her marriage has taken, her understanding of herself and her relationship to her parents. parents, it's pretty deep, you know, and I think it will evolve in future episodes. This isn't just going to be about the sadness of the Whitney character, but that does feel

like where it was really driving to. And Nathan is on this, like, weird ethereal quest to figure out whether or not he's been cursed by these people who live in a home he bought. And she is going to be forced to reexamine what really matters to her. And using these very obvious tools of modern media is so smart. It's just such a smart way to do it. I don't know. I mean, I don't watch Fixer Upper. I don't watch a lot of shows like that. I do love Survivor. I do love, I like a couple. My wife has watched The Bachelor for years. Those are competition shows. The sort of like the competition of getting things for my life is a different kind of show. It's a different breed. Like I know like David Shoemaker at the Ringer really likes these shows. He's really familiar with them. You know, I know that a handful of people on our staff like really dig these shows. But it's interesting to me to be coming to it with like a pop cultural anthropology perspective, but not a lot of expertise. They can get away with a lot more too, me as if you were. I love how you were like, it's a truth universally acknowledged they do this

on fixer-upper. I was like, news to me. I don't know anything about this. So I will endeavor before we cover the next batch of episodes to learn a bit more about the life of Chip and Joanna Gaines. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight. who also have weight related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. Zepound contains terseptide and should not be used with other terseptide containing products

or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it. Or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia if you're nursing pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonelioria or insulin may cause

low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99 or visit zepbounce.lily.com. I think something that's really interesting to me because you could look at Benny Safdi playing Dougie and say this is an opportunity for a filmmaker to talk about some of the ugly realities and, et cetera, of being a filmmaker. And Emma Stone is our, like, our leading lady, our actress, our host or whatever. And then with Nathan Fielder, I feel like something that's really interesting because you mentioned this comedy class is, how much of this do you think is an exploration of the feedback that

he has metabolized about his unsettling brand of humor? That Nathan Fielder, people are either like in on Nathan Fielder or they're out on Nathan Fielder, right? So like Nathan for you and the rehearsal, the, you know, two main Nathan Fielder properties that come before this are shows that like, you know, you and Bill talked about this in the first episode. Like some people just like love and they're just like, this is my guy. And the thing that he's doing here is just the absolute best. And then plenty of people are like, what the fuck is this? And I don't understand it. I don't, frankly, I don't like it. Right. That is definitely a response that people have had to the things that Nathan Fielder has created. And so I'm so.

curious when he is giving us scenes about like feedback from network on Asher's sense of humor or this idea of going to comedy school as if it could be taught and all this sort of stuff. I'm wondering like how much do you think this is him processing, you know, the, I wouldn't say challenges because like obviously his career is going smashingly. He's got like three high profile shows and et cetera, et cetera. Like he's he's enormously successful. But he's controversial. he's not exactly palatable. And so I'm just wondering, like, that palatibility, do you think that's something he's, like, working through this character?

I think that's really smart. I hadn't thought about it that way. Looking back on the comedy class now and the sort of what is funny of Nathan Fielder is an interesting conceit. I think that in many ways he has landed on, even though Asher is not Nathan Fielder, he has landed on a kind of character that is about the unlawful, love ability of Nathan Fielder, right?

The kind of like the deep, the deep sadness and pathetic nature of Nathan Fielder. And every great comic star needs a persona, right? Like there's an Albert Brooks documentary out right now. We talked about him earlier in the season. He has a comic persona. Larry David has a comic persona. You know, Johnny Carson had a comic persona. Like Robin Williams had a comic persona.

It doesn't mean that everything that person does represents that persona, but he is evolving it in real time with like we said, the tools of reality TV to some extent. I think it's been interesting to note and I don't know if you've seen much of this stuff, but they're doing a lot of FYC events now for this show. They're doing a lot of promotion for the show because the strengths have ended. And so

you're seeing a lot of interviews with Benny Safdi, Nathan Fielder, and Emma Stone, or Benny and Nathan, or various combinations. And very few of the clips that I've seen, and I haven't attended any of these events, but very few of them are like thoughtful discussions

of the themes of the show. Yeah. The things that are going viral are Nathan doing crowdwork or doing bits and undermining something that Benny is saying. And Benny is kind of vacillating between doing bits and trying to have a thoughtful perspective on the filmmaking that has been put into the show. Part of the reason why I'm being pointy-headed about the filmmaking is because I'm like, nobody's going to talk about this because everybody's like, oh, this show is so cringeworthy and that's all they want to say about it. But I think even the creators are having a hard time focusing their energies on that. and Nathan it feels like is deflecting.

And like to me, Nathan is not just the funniest dude who I love, but I think he's like a great artist. I think his project is fascinating. But I get the impression that he doesn't really like talking about that very much. It might not even be like. I have seen some of it. It's almost like Andy Kaufman-esque sort of approach to these conversations where you're sometimes it's so obviously a bit.

Sometimes you don't know. Aubrey Plaza does this too, actually, a lot in an interview. where you're just sort of like you don't know the nature of the answer you're getting. I don't even know if it's like I don't like talking about it. It might even be something closer to let the mystery be sort of like the more you talk about this, the less funny or the less interesting it is or the less you're interpreting it for yourself. Lynch, you know, as you mentioned, this is Lynch's approach to, no, I'm not going to tell you what the end of Twin Peaks means.

Why would I ever do that? That's a you problem, not a me problem. me know what he means. So if like if if if Nathan Fielder would rather his art speak for itself or be interpreted as it is and he's like so in order to promote the show I'm going to just do weird comedy bits, I can see that being the case. You're giving me sort of contemplative I don't agree with you face. No, no, no, I don't know. I don't know. I think I don't know. And I think that's part of what is, is fun about it is maybe he's not thinking about Frederick Wiseman and and the Maisel's brothers and David Lynch.

And, you know, maybe he is only like, oh, I like, I like these reality TV shows. And I think it would be funny if we did this. You know, like, people, people know when they get it. Like, sometimes when you podcast with me, you apologize for being pointy-headed. And, like, what you forget is that, like, I feel like we're constantly in a conversation. to outpointy head each other. So that's all this conversation was ever going to be. Well, I like doing shows with you for that reason.

And I feel like I'm not going to be assaulted for sharing something like that. But I think it's tricky because what I don't want is for anybody who's listening to this right now to think that like there's an over, overexamination of a cringe comedy on Paramount Plus. You know, like, but I do think it's worthy of it because there's a lot of layers to the show. And the show is kind of slow rolling us a little bit. Like, it's a very oddly plotted show. I was trying to think, there's a moment where I think it's in the fifth episode. Nathan goes into, maybe the fourth episode, Nathan goes into the fridge, and he opens a pasta that has been sealed. Yeah, this is a fourth episode.

Yeah, he's kind of examining it. And at that point, I started thinking about whether or not, like, how many days have gone by through the first five episodes of this season? Is that still the same delivery that got, that we saw them on pack? 48 hours? Like how long has, I feel like we've been living inside this world in a very deep and contemplative way. And if you told me it's been six weeks since they got word back, the Philanthropy was picked up, I'd be like, okay, that makes sense. And if you told me it's been four days and the anxiety has been running in an all time high as they wait to hear back, I also would accept that. And that is also something else that the show is doing is that it is kind of dispensing with our concept of time. You know, that like, and that is also very lynchian. You know, it is very, like, we don't really know where we are in the calendar.

They're in this kind of desert locale where like it's between 80 and 110 degrees every day. Yeah. You know, when the couple at the beginning of episode five comes to visit, there's a, you know, the gimmick of like the guy sweating in the house. And then they have to explain that in the passive home, the doors and windows have to be closed so that it can equalize to come to the perfect temperature, which I love. But it's like, is it the middle of July? Is it December? I have no idea. Like we're in this, this otherworldly place where all of this is happening to.

or at least that is how Whitney and Asher live inside of this community that is not their own. They are the foreign invaders in a lot of ways. And the show keeps circling back to that too. So I find that part interesting. I don't know. When do you think this is happening? Is this even 2023? I guess it is.

Yes. I definitely think it's 2023 or 2022 thereabouts. And I definitely think that was, didn't necessarily have to be the same delivery because I think his whole examination was can a package like. This is a weekly meal delivery service they use or something like that. Can a package like this? Could she have broken and stolen the chicken and resealed it in a way that I never would have noticed? You know what I mean? So that was my interpretation of that sequence.

But I would only say it's been a couple weeks is I think the max of what we've seen here. But I wouldn't say 48 hours or something like that. But I want to talk to you about what you think is going on with Dougie's storyline. this repeated return to the drug driving incident and his ability to or to not take responsibility for it. Interesting to think a little bit more about how that doves tales into this idea of the curse, which is, first of all, I just need to say that the revelation that the curse is a TikTok trend and it's, it was like tiny curse, right?

It's not like, so to make it so small and kind of innocent and funny and for it to have this devastating black cloud over these people's lives is, I have never been to comedy school, but that is just inherently hilarious to me. But Dougie, as someone, all the curse does, the titular curse does, is allow you to not take responsibility for the bad things that happen in your life. if bad things are coming my way, it's not because I am like reaping my own world one.

It's because some little girl cursed me and there are supernatural forces at play and I have no, then I have no responsibility for what's going on. And that's similar to Dougie's approach to this drunk driving incident that he is obviously obsessed with and yet in denial about

and in the mis of processing. I'm curious like what you, is this. working for you and what do you think it's doing in the larger context of the show? It feels like it's in a slightly different register, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I also think Benny Safdi is a different kind of performer, plays more broad in general. And this is a show where we're watching Nathan Fielder become an excellent actor. And I already think Benny is a really good actor.

But that character, the way he's styled, is ridiculous. he's a prankster. He's often pitching these ridiculous things. He's kind of like he's a kind of a hound dog. He's like kind of a, he's kind of always going up. We see him going after Kara in episode five. Yes. He's already made a pass at Whitney.

Like he is, he's just a little bit more ridiculous in general. And so, but I liked using him especially in episode four, kind of as Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texas, you know, like kind of wandering around in the desert, trying to figure out what he's doing there. And we as the viewer are baffled as to what is

going on. And honestly, even by the end of the episode, I don't totally understand what happened. Or at least I can surmise that, you know, he bought beer for a bunch of teenagers, but then commandeered their keys and parked their car in the, hell, had them parked their car in the desert and bury the keys so they wouldn't drive drunk. How did they get like, how did they get on? I don't know. How did they get anywhere? I have no idea. Exactly. It's very confusing. Yeah. But I liked that, again, like, you could probably in a pretentious way read into that sequence as this like we're all just trying to find our way in the desert of life kind of like broad that's like not really what they're going for but it kind of is like the show being said in this

community in this part of the country is not a mistake like there's the kind of like the vast openness or at least what white people perceive to be the vast unconquered territories here that they're constantly trying to invade or it's just like this is a goofball jerk tv producer who keeps getting into trouble because he's kind of an alcoholic and an egomaniac and has a gambling problem and also just like feeds on human vanity and ego to make these bad TV

shows like it's basically both right it feels like something high-minded and low-toned and Benny is a kind of performer who can bring that like he can bring this kind of insidious pranksterism but also when he's in peril in the desert you're like

God like is he going to die in this episode like there is a It feels like it is higher stakes at times, too. It's a really interesting character. I think the show doesn't work without the character, but I also don't, I want to be with Asher and Whitney more when I'm watching the show. Correct. There's a really interesting, to your point about,

is this guy a clown or is this guy, you know, a sad clown? Episode three, and also to your point about the filmmaking or the timing and the shot composition choices, There's the sequence in episode three where he calls up Asher to see if he wants to hang out. And Asher's like, no, I can't. And then he's just laying there and he's devastated. We're outside his room looking in through the window and he's devastated. And there's just like a slow, long push in on him. And he's crying.

And he's crying. And he's covering his, what I wrote in my notes is he's crying into a handful of the duchiest rings you ever seen, right? Like he's wearing all these rings. It's a very honest, pure, not comedy seeming, crying performance into the trappings of this clown character that he's playing. And so that fascinates me with like what we're trying to accomplish with Dougie here. Because to your point about this show is getting layers and layers of surreality or things

are, I think archetypes are breaking apart, right? Like you think you meet Dougie in the first couple episodes and you're like, I think I know what this character is and what his limits are and what is like function he serves in the story. But then you see something like that or then an episode for the, you know, digging for the under the tree, under the big tree, but it's the littlest tree sequence. And you're like, oh, no, there's something absolutely else going on here that I don't fully have my arms around yet. And that's a good place to be midseason of a 10 episode season. in, you know.

Yeah. So where do you think we're going here? You know, I feel like you're the one who cured me of this. Oh. Which is like, I feel like, I feel like this is, that was like a loser's game. I was always playing with you when we were like talking about succession. And I lost so badly for like two seasons on that like, where are we going question that like maybe I don't want to ask that question anymore. Wow.

My impact is profound. I know. Your influence. But because I would ask you and you're like, I don't like to play that. game Joanna, but now, I mean, I know you know more than I do, so... But not enough. That's what I can say is. I don't know. I... Okay, so here's a better way to frame it. Is the curse real? I think it's a better story if it's not real. Right. These are the things we tell ourselves

Yes. To justify the consequences of our bad actions. Yes. And maybe that's too tidy an idea for Nathan Fielder ultimately, but it does feel like the show is constantly reminding us of that. It really cracked me up when Barhead Opti's character, when he's trying to talk to him about the curse about superstition, and he's like, oh, no, no, no, we don't talk about that. I had that literal experience at a, I was at a restaurant recently, and I was with some friends who might have been a couple beverages in and might enjoy talking about the supernatural in a way that I don't really subscribe to, but it's always interesting and entertaining. And then they tried to involve our waiter in the conversation. And he said, I think it's best to never talk about that. And we were like,

oh, immediately I was like, is, is that guy maybe Mormon or Christian or like something like that where this kind of conversation is just like is off the table. We don't even entertain it as a joke. We don't joke about this at all. And so that in itself is its own like superstition. But like that was just like, I was like, wow, I literally just lived this moment recently. I think it's better if like the girls are just thinking I took the chicken out of your spaghetti. I mean, phenomenal. I think it's, yeah, I think it's just a joke on them.

I mean, obviously, like, a big part of casting Barthampti and the two young girls who are both really good performers, by the way, they're great. They're great. They're great. They're great. Is to, like, once again, underline this, like, obvious crypto racism that comes with people like this in these worlds where they're like, oh, my God, a person of color from not the country that I'm from, their crazy rituals and beliefs. And then obviously the revelation that it's a TikTok trend is meant to completely undermine that and make them seem ridiculous,

as is the moment when Obdi's character, when Obde's character, when Obshear is like, I'm from Minnesota, you know, like I'm, which is, which is just a super funny delivery too from him. And constantly like their buffoonery, Asher and Whitney's buffoonery is what's been skewered.

I do think that the show could ultimately have really diminishing returns if it can't get past that. Like if it can't, like it has to go to a place. that is even more absurd and kind of like emotionally confounding because like we got the joke now. That's kind of how I feel at the end of episode five. I'm like, we got the joke.

These people suck. What they're doing is Vanglorious and it's real. There are certainly people in the world who are doing this kind of thing. But we have to go to another level in the story for it to actually feel valuable. You know what I mean? I do. So we're, as I said, exactly. halfway through the season. And I know you've only watched, like, two more episodes.

I've seen through seven, yeah. Six and seven. And you really like six and seven and you think they're really funny. And that is helping me understand how we get to a 10 episode season, because here we are in episode five. I'm like, how is this only half of the story? Right. How is there so much more story left? And I think if, I mean, I'm curious to see what you responded to in six and seven, but I think it's interesting that Benny Safdi said, that this started out as a 30-minute comedy show and turned into an hour-long drama-d comedy show. And so you can definitely see an almost sort of like arrested development version of this show,

the 30-minute comedy. And so it's that I swear I'm not doing the where are we going here, a question that I just really recently swore off in front of you. But it's perhaps the payoff of the drama. that is the most shielded from me in all, like how dark are we going to go? You mentioned like before we see Whitney's mask fully drop in episode five, there is a sequence in three when she's undergoing this medical procedure

as a result of this pregnancy that's not going to come to term. And there are these just very like, similar to that slow pushing on Benny Softie through the window, there's just like a, but without the hilarity of the do she rings, there's just Emma Stone being deadly serious about this very consequential thing that is happening to this woman. And what's so interesting about that sequence is that like they're discussing it and you don't even know that Asher's in the room until they're talking about him and then he responds to something. And then all of a sudden the tone changes because Nathan Fielder is like playing a different,

it's almost like he wandered into a different show and then it becomes like a different, the whole tone changes of the conversation they're having. So I guess the thing to look out for going forward with five more episodes to go is that blend of comedy and drama. You say six and seven or you thought were really funny. But like if they if they infused a 30 minute comedy show with an extra half hours worth of drama, how is that parceled out in the episodes going forward and how does that balance feel, you know? Yeah, I don't want to reveal the ways in which I'm not asking you.

I will say I do not believe there is anything conventional about the comedy in the next couple of episodes. That is a testimony, I think, or a testament to fielders, creativity and facility with tone. But the one other thing I wanted to mention, this show, like, I think very clearly in four and five became a show about class. and the sequence that we didn't really talk about too much was the Whitney giving her credit card to her employee at the jeans store. Yes. The jeans were stolen where it's kind of revealed that like Whitney doesn't care about money at all. Like she doesn't think about money really in any way and that she would much rather have her kind of do goodery, white liberalism, you know, understood and celebrated, like at least identified rather than worry about $200 or $5,000. which says a lot about the way that she grew up and was raised and how comfortable she feels in the world, right?

Right. And now I'm going to ask you like a very, one of the most dangerous questions in podcasting 2023. Have you seen the film Saltburn? Yes. So there's like a thing happening in our popular culture now where it's like class is the battlefield of the easygoing like middle of the road drama comedy. You know, like we saw this a lot last year. The Knives Out sequel, the menu, triangle sadness. salt burned.

This like, and I'm not saying that these things are alike or equal in, in very specific ways. But it's a very, there's something very pop about saying, like, and I'm not even saying I disagree with this, but there's something very pop about saying, you know who sucks is like, ignorant, upper middle class white people because they don't know anything. And that in many cases it is true, but it has now become like the most obvious target in the universe.

And so in a way, and I think it's very funny that Emma Stone would choose to portray one of these people. But in a way, it's like so 101 pop culture right now that I choose to believe that this show is like attempting to stride past that. Like it knows it needs to reveal this, but has it has somewhere else to go. I think that has to be true. What I do think is fascinating about this trend you've identified is it is obviously being made by the strata of people that is most. infected by that type and it almost stands as this sort of I mean you know like I'm familiar with Ryan

I know Ryan Johnson I like him so I'm not like that's my only example of these creators that I like know I wouldn't accuse him of this but there is there is a way in which you could make that story in order to inoculate yourself from the criticism I'm not I'm not like those

rich white liberal people right you know like aren't they the worst that's not me but there is just something about, you know, because these aren't like scrappy up and comers making these stories, you know what I mean? And these aren't, you know, disenfranchised in their own communities people making these stories, you know? It's like Emerald Fenella for Oscar when is making this story, you know, like that's who these people are. Emma Stone heading for her second Oscar is making this story. And so on the one hand, I do think that they are able to see

the ridiculousness of the people they're parading, just as you and I are. making this podcast, there's that added layer of discomfort of like, but how close is this to who we who we are on our worst days? You know what I mean? Absolutely. Should I do a worst, should we do a worst day show a worst day? And I'm having your worst day and we just show people what it's really like. And by worst day we mean like our worst selves, like who we are at our worst selves. Yeah. I'll think about it. Yeah. Yeah. Let me know when we want to just like burn our reputations to the ground and we can go ahead and do that. One might think I've already done that. Yours is sterling, but mine is in question at all times.

Shit heal hour. All right, I think that is pretty much what I wanted to talk about in these three episodes. I guess I don't know how interesting this is to you or not, but what's your sense of the larger... Is this show hitting with people? Is this something that you're hearing people talk about? Is this something that feels like it's expanding

outside of a small circle of media people talking about it? It feels like what I suspected. it would be, which is despite the presence of Emma Stone, it is a degree or two above cult. And that's mostly what the fielder stuff is. This feels like a show that could and should get a pretty big bump on streaming over the holidays because there's not a lot out there at that time. And this is a very, it's a very marketable show. I just think it's a show that when people get through the first three episodes,

they're going to be like, this is annoying to me. or I'm uncomfortable or I don't know what I'm supposed to think about it. It's not a hand-holding show. And it's also- But isn't that, that's Nathan Fielder, right? Yeah, but Nathan for you is 22 minutes and had like laugh moments that were in extraordinary. And the rehearsal, candidly, was on HBO. And so it was like, this is an important show.

And Paramount Plus doesn't have quite the same valence. So I think that might be working against it to some extent. But I think if you like Nathan Fielder and you know about this, you're watching it all the way through, right? I mean, I have heard from some people that they have dropped off. That is true. Interesting. I don't know the full production story behind this, but I'm wondering if the reason this is on Paramount Plus and Showtime and not on Max is because it is scuring the foundation of the new Max brand. It's very possible that that was a factor.

I think the deal was set before that merger. Okay. Because the 824 produced and sold it. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the development of the show started like three or four years ago, but Yeah, yeah.

I don't think that WB discovery would have, it would have been a very self-aware note to make this show and to promote it alongside all of their programming. And that kind of would have made it even better, I think, if they had, if they had done that. I completely agree. The ultimate act of self-reflexivity. Pull a Mattel. Do it. All right.

That is it for us on this segment. We'll be back. We're still trying to figure out how we're. we're going to like sort of parcel out the rest of the season. We're not going week by week. Probably our next episode covering the curse will come the first week of the new year is sort of what we're thinking right now. So like, um, you can still tweet at us as you have been doing. Where is the goddamn Prestige TV curse episode?

But I'm just here to tell you now, set your expectations that we're going to do it in like little chunks like this for the rest of the season. And what a delight, Sean. In the meantime, let's plan out, I don't know, a full season of shit heal out. or is it just like one episode? You can't believe how much material I have for that show. I mean, I'm not devoted. Just as soon as I get the Green Life and Bill,

the shitheel hour, we are going to cook. I think it should be rotating everyone at the ringer gets their shitheel hour. We have so many demons. Are you kidding? So many demons to share with the audience. Wait until we show CR's shitheel hour. Oh my God. People are going to be devastated.

Ian, the real one is Mallory Rubin. When the curtain comes down, I'm just kidding. She's an angel. All right. That is it for us. This episode was produced by Olivia Query. And as I mentioned, we'll be back with Fargo coverage with the crown coverage. And Sean, I'll see you in the new year.

Or no. I'll see you on another show. Thanks, Joe. See you soon. Bye.