Even Christopher Nolan was gagged by The Curse‘s finale
In a new interview, Nathan Fielder revealed that the Oppenheimer director was as mind-blown by that insane ending as the rest of us
Aux News The Curse
Note: this article contains spoilers for The Curse’s final episode, “Green Queen.”
Even with the introduction of True Detective: Night Country and Shōgun in recent months, January still gave us TV’s most WTF sequence of the year in the final 30 minutes of The Curse, Nathan Fielder, Benny Safdie, and Emma Stone’s itchy satire of HGTV and white liberalism. For those that haven’t seen it already (you’ve been warned), the season one finale ends with Fielder’s Asher floating off into the atmosphere after randomly waking up on the ceiling of his eco-friendly, passive house one morning. While all of that is happening, his wife, Whitney (Stone), also goes into labor. It’s an unbelievably jarring sequence, one that The A.V. Club’s Saloni Gajjar wrote about still needing time to process a full two weeks after it aired.
She wasn’t the only one. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Fielder revealed that Christopher Nolan—the king of practical effects—texted Safdie after watching the episode “and was like, ‘How did you guys do that?’”
Luckily for the Oppenheimer director (and for us), those details aren’t a proprietary trade secret. “You can’t tell that, for a lot of it, Emma is actually on the ceiling, strapped to it,” Fielder explained. While Stone’s character remains bound by the laws of gravity in the narrative, she is lifted up multiple times as she tries to bring her husband back down to Earth. “I’m upside down,” Stone said, adding, “It was the most intense stunts I’ve ever done.”
Fielder continued: “[I]t drags her head back. They were saying she can’t be up there for more than a minute, or she’ll get spine issues.” “[O]ur stunt guy was like, ‘We can’t let Nathan stay up there for more than four minutes because the blood is rushing to his head so much that he’s going to pass out.’ But you were there for seven minutes at a time. You were purple. It was so incredible,” Stone added.
This isn’t the first time Nolan has praised the Showtime series. The director actually moderated a panel featuring Fielder and Safdie back in January, during which he called it “an incredible show” that’s “unlike anything I’ve ever seen on television before.” “There are so few shows that come along that have genuinely no precedence,” he continued. “You’re going back to things like Twin Peaks, or The Prisoner, or Dennis Potter’s Singing Detective and things like that, so you’re in an amazing space, and I can’t wait to catch up with the climax.”
Fielder and Stone’s THR interview also provided some surprising good news (or maybe unwelcome news if you’re still processing all that stress) for fans of the series. There “could be” a second season, the duo revealed, specifying that “right now we’re all doing other things” but “from the start, we had it mapped out beyond the first season.” Will Asher, who presumably died in space, somehow reappear? “I don’t want to spoil it,” Fielder said. It seems unlikely, but if anyone could pull it off, it’s this intrepid team.
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Very weird and unique and funny show. I probably had to pause a dozen scenes by season’s end, just to take a breath and deal with the heretofore-unseen levels of cringe and second-hand embarrassment. Worth it!
I’m thinking more of an anthology approach would be appropriate to move forward with a second season, but that’s partly because I don’t know how they’d continue with the original cast.
Asher reborn as the baby, with a time jump, easy peasy
Have Nathan return playing Asher’s older brother, Gad.
Even Christopher Nolan was gagged by The Curse’s finale“Gagged”? Is this some sort of Gen Z lingo?
It is. I hate it almost as much as “it’s giving.”
My problem with the “it’s giving” phrase is it would just make sense if you added a single word…vibes. “It’s giving ___ vibes” entirely makes sense, “it’s giving ___” does not. I hate that type of slang.
Next thing you know, “Gag me with a spoon” will make a comeback.
For sure. Like, totally.
Yeah, it’s language and slang that originated with gay/drag/POC communities and has been appropriated by w*ite people. Once you see it in this context, it’s officially time to stop using it, ironically or otherwise.
The first season was one of the best arguments for weekly drops as opposed to the “dropping it all at once” model IMO, because it not only let so many viewers get on board, I was genuinely anticipating the final episode, days out. And then for that last half of the episode to just… go there. *chef’s kiss*Brilliant, brilliant show. Even if it wasn’t your cuppa, or you flat out hated it, it was a bold swing for the fences that I wish we could see more of. More chances on weird, original programming please.
I didn’t watch it until all the episodes had dropped, but also found that I could only watch one episode at a time anyway. I don’t think I could have binged it if I had wanted to.
Lynchian experimental stuff, really fascinating
This show was so painfully awkward at times, I really can’t imagine even wanting to binge it. I enjoyed it overall but getting it in smaller doses definitely helped.
Brilliant show. I never wanted this to end, even if it made me feel uncomfortable. Nathan Fielder is genius at this. I love all the work he has put out so far in his career. I was also glad for the weekly drops. Each episode was so heavy that one was all I could take.
as someone who really felt let down by that ending – pure wtf isn’t always a good thing – i’d welcome a second season if it gave them a chance to walk it back and maybe explain away the finale as a metaphor or dream or something.
Nah — some things can just end. No Season 2. No explanations (and definitely no walking back the finale). Just let it be what it was and be done. The critical and commercial success, however, will push them to run it back for a second go. It *could* work, but I remain doubtful.
Fuck no
well no the series is creepy and surreal and experimental. maybe not for you
FWIW I read the ending as a metaphor, and kinda’ worry that a second season would make it harder to do so unless it follows a completely different group of characters.
They should recast Fielder as Stone’s son. It would track.
I legitimately thought the baby was gonna pop out with his face.
It was hardly “pure WTF,” in my opinion. Asher clearly curses himself to his fate, at the end of the penultimate episode, when he tells Whitney that when she has no more use for him, he’ll feel it, she won’t even need to say it, and he’ll be gone. The show establishes that she needed him for a new last name, a new ethnic identity, and a baby, and once she has those things … he goes.
And pay attention to the show’s camerawork, which is consistently voyeuristic. The voyeuristic camera is us, the audience (à la Candid Camera). Then the floating camera of the last long shot is Asher, who did come back down, as he cursed himself to do, but … for what? When he repeatedly screamed, “If I come back down, I’ll … ,” he couldn’t come up with one goddamn thing. So, he’s back, but as a completely passive ghost voyeuristically watching his wife, the ultimate enactment of his cuckolding fetish, but he’s also joined us, the audience, who are voyeuristic ghosts, bearing witness to someone else’s life.
Christopher Nolan watches TV? Who would have thought?
Texting too.
Maybe he should be paying more attention to the sound mixing of his films instead.
That’s why I had to watch Tenet at home – no ear plugs, closed caption on. He’s being a real dick about that. Dialogue shouldn’t be a sound effect.
Dialogue can be a valid sound effect when the purpose is set the mood of a scene, or to establish something about a character’s inner life, but never when the dialogue is furthering the plot.
this is a tired trend, I’m 56 and I can hear everything fine… as Nolan says streaming changes things that is why he works so hard on his projects and constantly says to get the DVD/BR format for the true intent… blame streaming the correct place for your hate…
Nope. Saw Tenet in a state-of-the-art cinema (where I have seen many films… in fact Dune 2 just two days ago – and the sound is amazing because Weta put a lot of money into this particular cinema) and the sound in Tenet was shit. Not an issue of streaming or compression or whatever, it was shit and it wasn’t just me.
Sucks to be you, I’ve never had a problem… maybe you where shitting your diaper during the talky parts…
You fucking weirdo, why are you choosing this to get defensive about?
Fun fact: Nolan’s a huge fan of the Bachelor franchise.
Most likely watches TV on an IMAX screen.
I genuinely thought Whitney was going to give birth to a chicken in the finale.