‘The Curse’ Season 1, Episode 2 Recap: Alone Together

Season 1, Episode 2: ‘Pressure’s Looking Good So Far’

There are multiple moments in the second episode of “The Curse” when the camera lingers on the desperation behind a character’s eyes. While last week’s premiere established that these people are often despicable, the follow up plunges deeper into their loneliness and sadness.

The most striking example comes when Dougie is out with a woman at a Chinese restaurant. Dougie has so far been presented as a smooth operator, a kind of central-casting jerk. He is almost a parody of a reality TV show producer, with his hunger for conflict and propensity for massaging reality to suit his purposes.

But eating opposite this woman, another facet of his persona emerges. We arrive in media res, and it takes a beat to understand that Dougie is talking about breathalyzer tests and blood alcohol levels. Slowly it becomes clear he was involved in a horrific crash, and while he says he bears no responsibility for it — he just happened to be intoxicated over the legal limit — he obviously feels guilt. Then comes the gruesome reveal: His wife was killed in the accident.

Dougie is cast in a new light, his brashness now tinged with sorrow. It’s grimly funny when he offers to drive his date home — she is reluctant, naturally — but then there’s a deadness to his gaze as he stares at the road ahead of him. His invitation seemed to imply he had learned nothing from his previous crash, a realization that has just seemed to dawn on him. When he administers a breathalyzer on himself and realizes he’s, once again, drunk behind the wheel, he pulls over and suggests they walk the mile home. He tries to spin the situation, saying he likes to walk in a new city, but it’s a tragic stroll.

It is hard to see Dougie the same after this sequence. He has no one in the world, a detail which becomes even clearer when Asher finds him at the Whistling River casino playing blackjack. Asher is surprised he is still in town — there’s nothing for him to do while they wait for the network’s response. But Dougie has nowhere else to go.

Whitney may have Asher and people she thinks are friends, but she is just as isolated. And as with Dougie, that’s at least partly her own fault. Emma Stone plays Whitney as a woman so anxious to make a good impression, she’s oblivious to how off-putting she is. She brags about her friendship with the Native artist Cara Durand (Nizhonniya Luxi Austin) to James Toledo (Gary Farmer), governor of the San Pedro Pueblo, as a way to demonstrate her Indigenous ally credibility. But when we see her actually with Cara, it is clear the fondness is one-sided.