The Ending Of Showtime's The Curse Explained
Contains spoilers for "The Curse"
The Showtime series "The Curse" takes audiences on a weird and winding journey, one that never goes quite where you expect it to. Whitney (Emma Stone) and Asher Siegel (Nathan Fielder) are a married couple trying to make a reality TV series about flipping houses. With the help of Asher's friend Dougie (Benny Safdie), HGTV greenlights their show, which should be good news. However, something ominous looms over them, and it may be rooted in a curse.
From the minds of Fielder and Safdie comes a series that is equal parts comedy, thriller, and marriage drama. Whitney and Asher struggle to figure out the tone of their show, bouncing around from highlighting the people of the neighborhood to focusing on the eco-friendly nature of their project. With notes from the network and ideas in hand, Whitney and Dougie try to add some humanity by including the Siegels' relationship issues and Whitney's doubts in Asher.
A tale that can't be boiled down to just one thing, "The Curse" hits a ton of talking points before it comes to a close. If you aren't quite sure what to make of the ending, you aren't cursed. Here is everything you need to know about how Whitney and Asher's story ends.
What you need to remember about the plot of The Curse
"The Curse" follows Whitney and Asher Siegel, a couple trying to get a show about their passive home company off the ground. Their series, originally titled "Fliplanthropy," gets picked up by HGTV. However, with that success comes sacrifices in the show and their personal lives as a couple, especially after Asher believes a young girl curses him in a parking lot while filming the pilot.
Troubles appear from the start. From a lack of interested buyers in their homes to the focus group finding nothing appealing about Asher, the team tries new directions, some of which upset the network. While Whitney tries to fit in with the local Indigenous art community and make a name for herself as an ally, Asher's paranoia surrounding the curse continues to grow, and the couple's impact on the community sours.
The Siegels run short on cash, forcing Whitney to ask her slumlord parents for help. Though she tries to distance herself from them in the media, it doesn't always work in her favor. Their cash flow issues, along with their struggle to conceive, continue to drive a wedge between the two and force Whitney to consider what her life could look like without Asher.
Alongside the couple is Dougie, one of Asher's best friends. He's producing the series while working through his own demons after the death of his wife in a car accident he caused.
What happened at the end of The Curse
The final episode treats viewers to a time jump. In what is likely eight to nine months later, Whitney is heavily pregnant and the couple seem happy. They appear on an episode of the "Rachael Ray Show" to promote their series, now titled "Green Queen," but the interview doesn't go well. Rachael Ray is dismissive of their efforts and leaves them hanging as she interacts more with the other guest, actor Vincent Pastore.
After an uncomfortable Shabbat dinner and an awkward encounter giving Abshir (Barkhad Abdi), a renter, his own home, everything seems relatively normal. But when they wake up the next morning, Asher is stuck to the ceiling. The two think there is an issue with the air pressure in the home, but opening windows and doors to "equalize" it does nothing for Asher's predicament. If that isn't enough to deal with, Whitney goes into labor, adding more stress to the day.
While Whitney heads to the hospital with her doula Moses (Elliot Berlin), Dougie comes to watch over Asher, who is stuck in a tree after a failed attempt by Moses to pull him out of the air. The fire department arrives and, despite Asher's warnings, cuts the branch he clings to, causing him to fly into space. Whitney goes through a C-section that results in a healthy baby boy with no knowledge of Asher's fate.
Why is Asher on the ceiling?
At the end of Episode 9, Asher makes a declaration that hints at his predicament. "And if you didn't want to be with me, and I actually truly felt that, I'd be gone. You wouldn't have to say it. I would feel it, and I would disappear," he claims. This line is the key to understanding what happens in the final episode.
While they lay in bed after visiting Abshir, Asher sings to Whitney's belly. He casually says, "There's a little me inside you," but Whitney's face says it all. During the scene, her face is stony, but after Asher says that, she shifts into a soft smile, looking between her belly and Asher. At that moment, Whitney realizes she doesn't need Asher anymore.
She has a "little Asher" to mold and create. Someone to teach her values to, who won't just do things to make her happy. Someone who will be cute and lovable on camera for the second season. Asher thinks Whitney has a connection to the universe, and she does. She decides she's done with Asher, and so the universe hurtles him away. Whitney doesn't have to say it — he just disappears.
He doesn't add value to her life, and now that she has a child, she can create the future she wants and still have someone beside her. She comes off looking like a sad widow when she is the reason Asher is floating in space.
Does Nala have supernatural abilities?
Nala (Hikmah Warsame), the girl who curses Asher, keeps appearing in the Siegels' life. From the parking lot to being an inhabitant of the supposedly abandoned house they buy on Questa Lane, she is always there. She tells Asher the tiny curse is a TikTok trend, but there seems to be more to it.
She curses Asher's next dinner so it will be missing chicken. Asher lets this consume him, thinking she's somehow snooping through their trash. But when she correctly guesses the number of nails Asher hides during Episode 6, and then "curses" her bully to fall on the playground, it's clear Nala and the universe are connected.
The premise of many movies about hauntings is that children have a connection to the supernatural because their minds are innocent and unguarded. Maybe that's what's happening here. Nala is spiritually attuned to the universe because she's open to it, especially with her interest in the tiny curse trend. The chicken issue repeatedly pops up, and it's always linked back to Nala. She makes one tiny curse, but because of her abilities, it becomes so much more.
There's also the chance that, because of Nala's age, she is conflating correlation with causation. As a child, you make connections others might not because of the experience you've had in the world so far. Nala may be correlating these events together and convincing herself she has powers when in actuality there's nothing there.
Performative activism always reveals itself
Whitney the Green Queen collects friends of color, claiming she's best friends with Cara (Nizhonniya Austin), an Indigenous artist, and trying to win over any person of color she meets. Cara doesn't see their friendship this way, making fun of the woman to her friends. She can see Whitney for who she is, especially when she's asked to play into it for the cameras, and doesn't hesitate to subtly call her out.
Though touting passive homes, Whitney and Asher add a non-passive room onto their house for the baby. When they think the home is why Asher is on the ceiling, they pledge to never return. Whitney acts high and mighty when one of their buyers alters the home so much that it loses a passive home certification, but has no shame in doing it herself. Rather than helping the local community in her quest to make Española better for everyone, Whitney is actively gentrifying the area for a cause she doesn't hold herself to.
Whitney goes to so much effort to look progressive, but ultimately doesn't care about the causes she claims to fight for. As soon as something is inconvenient for her, she changes her mind. She throws her money around, buying Native art and telling anyone who will listen, but that doesn't change that at her core, Whitney doesn't care.
You can't outrun your history
Whitney is doing everything she can to distance herself from her parents Paul (Corbin Bernsen) and Elizabeth (Constance Shulman). They own several apartment complexes that house lower-income populations. However, they are slumlords, with buildings in disrepair and enough negative press that Whitney wants her name as detached from them as possible.
While wanting to do better as a landlord or housing developer than her parents is great, she ultimately relies on the money they make taking advantage of their tenants to start her business. And, when they haven't sold a house, she goes back to them for more cash. She shoos them away when they show up while she and Asher are filming, but immediately crawls back when she needs help.
Her goals are admirable, but when it's all built off the back of greed, how can she ever fully distance herself? It could come out at any time that her parents' money funded her business, even though she asks them for cash and not traceable bank transfers. There are pictures of her online at one of their complexes, forever connecting her to them. At any point, especially now that she's in the public eye with her show, someone could connect the dots. Whitney can't outrun that forever. And when it eventually happens, it could cause the company she built to come crumbling down.
You can't center your world around a single person
Outside of Whitney, Asher's world is small. We hear next to nothing about his family and the only true friend we know he has is Dougie. He interacts with people from his old job in passing. Whitney is his entire world.
If Whitney does wish Asher away, it's an important reminder that you can't center your life around a single person. Asher has nothing else going on in his life other than his wife. Everything he does is in service to her, to make her happy, to impress her, and to prove he has a valuable place in her life. Whitney doesn't see it that way.
She talks in her on-camera confessional that how Asher sees her erases who she really is, but it's actually the opposite. Asher erases anything unique about himself, including his sexual preferences, to fit Whitney's mold of the perfect husband. What do we know about him that isn't connected to Whitney? He likes bowling, which we know because Whitney says she'll finally go with him. He's Jewish, which we know because Whitney converts when they marry. He's best friends with Dougie, who he called to produce the show Whitney dreamed up.
Without Whitney, we know nothing about Asher, because there is nothing. He let himself disappear in service of her, and all that got him an eternity of floating in space. He gains nothing by erasing himself.
Behind the reality TV curtain
When Asher and Whitney struggle to find buyers for their passive homes, they decide to bring in fake buyers for the show. Pascal and Janice are a very real couple, but they're not in the market for a passive home — they just want their five seconds of fame. They'll recite anything Whitney tells them to, though they do go off-script when Pascal starts singing "Stand By Me."
But Whitney doesn't want them. She tries to create a fake couple with Pascal and an Asian American woman to make her homes look appealing to all types of people, not just the white men she's sold to. She wants them to be family homes, but so far hasn't sold to one. If she can build her ideal fake family, it will get her message across.
Most already know, but it is a great reminder that despite the name, reality TV is anything but real. Everything is carefully curated to portray a particular image. For Whitney, it's that a passive home is for anyone, even though no one is showing interest. If the homes look desirable, then people will want them and her business will do well, even if that's far from the truth.
What was the curse?
Is Asher really cursed? If you believe in the supernatural and that Nala has powers, then yes. The curse rooted in missing chicken may be the reason Asher is in space, especially if it spiraled into more because of Nala's powers.
It's more likely that, even if Asher is cursed, the series itself is the curse. There is a man in Abshir's home, while Whitney and Asher tell him he's the owner now. Who is that and what is he doing? Cara's career takes off because she quit art, but where is she now? What happened to Fernando (Christopher D. Calderon) after he quit the coffee shop job the Siegels set up for him? Because Whitney drops these people from her life, they are no longer relevant to the story and we don't find out, which only makes us ask more questions.
Just like how Asher can't put the tiny curse to rest, we can't stop thinking about everything in "The Curse." The strange ending, all of the odd occurrences and camera framing, the eerie feeling the theme music causes — all of it is something that doesn't leave the mind right away. The show puts the audience in an offputting position while giving very little information, which may be the titular curse. Audiences like to have all the answers, and more than most shows, "The Curse" provides few answers.
Or maybe there isn't a curse after all
"The Curse" is based on an experience Nathan Fielder had when he first moved to Los Angeles. When he didn't have change for a homeless woman, she said, "I curse you." Though he kept walking, he couldn't shake how it made him feel, so he took $20 out of an ATM, went back, gave it to her, and she lifted the curse. But how would Fielder feel if she hadn't been there? That is the entire premise of the show.
"Sometimes if someone says something to you, even conversationally, where you feel like you messed up something, it can linger in your mind and grow and consume you," Fielder shared in an interview with IndieWire. "Then we just started riffing on that idea, like, 'Wouldn't it be interesting if that vibe was hanging over an entire show?'" With that in mind, there may have never been a curse at work — it all may have been Asher's paranoia over the interaction.
"They're projecting things that may or may not exist onto everyone around them, and everyone is sort of doing that to each other," Fielder continued. "That idea of what's actually real or what matters in a situation is a lot of what the show is exploring and reveling in." This suggests that Asher is projecting the idea of a curse onto his life and that it was never really there.
What the end of The Curse means for the series
"The Curse" ending isn't for everyone, though it puts a confusing bow on its story. While there are plenty of things happening, the series ultimately is a contained story for Whitney and Asher. A second season could show Whitney with the baby and what the series turns into now that Asher is gone, but it isn't necessary. Part of the journey audiences go on is Whitney coming to terms with what she wants in life, and now she has it.
However, there is plenty to say about Dougie. Viewers see bits and pieces of Dougie's story, understanding that he has a drinking problem but also a victim complex, and he is now utterly alone. With the death of his wife and now the vanishing of his best friend, Dougie is in a pretty low place. A second season of the series could explore how Dougie handles his continued loss while filming the next season of "Green Queen."
Co-creator Benny Safdie agrees there's potential. "There's a lot more fun to be had in this world. It's not off the table," he shared in an interview with Variety. "There are ideas, but it's definitely too premature to put them out into the world." He doesn't hint at who a second season could follow, but there's a chance fans of "The Curse" could see another season in the future.