Asher (Nathan Fielder), Whitney (Emma Stone) and Dougie (Benny Safdie) finally get some feedback on the Flipanthropy pilot, while Asher also buys a house, nearly gets in trouble with the police and comes face-to-face with Nala (Hikmah Warsame), the girl who put a curse on him.
Here's exactly what happened in The Curse episode 3, “Questa Lane.”
Asher's new home
At an auction for foreclosed homes, Asher purchases a new property for $62,500 on Questa Lane, even though he promised Whitney he wouldn't spend more than $40,000. Their plan is to knock it down and build a completely new home on the land. There's one problem, though. It already has a family living there. Asher has met them before, too.
Nala and her sister Hani (Dahabo Ahmed) are in that home when they hear a knock at the door. Having clearly been told by their father Abshir (Barkhad Abdi) not to answer the door when someone knocks, they're particularly startled when someone starts to drill through the lock.
Finally the door opens to reveal Asher. He immediately recognizes Nala and says he has the $100 he owes her. Scared, Nala and Hani run away. Asher chases after them. He tries to give Nala the money. But a local neighbor apprehends him, tells the girls to run and calls the police.
Asher explains to the police he actually owns the property. An officer tells him the family is squatting there, at which point Abshir returns. He insists he's been trying to pay rent for two years, with Asher admitting he was only able to buy it for so cheap because the previous owner had stopped paying taxes.
The officer tells Asher they can get the sheriff involved and Abshir, Nala and Hani will be out before the end of the day. But Asher says that's not necessary. They can stay for as long as they want.
Whitney wants to help
When Asher recalls all this to Whitney she's impressed by her husband's generosity, telling him it's out of character. For Asher, the family's presence in the home isn’t actually an inconvenience, at least for a year, as that's when Flipanthropy will have aired and the property will be worth much more.
Whitney is a little confused that Abshir, Nala and Hani are squatting in this home, though, as Asher previously told her they'd found transitional housing. Asher tries to cover up his lies, telling Whitney they don’t really know what they're talking about. He also adds they didn't even remember him giving them the $100, which he previously lied to her about.
Whitney insists she wants to help Abshir, Nala and Hani, willing to spend $6,000 to renovate the home now. Asher insists they shouldn't go above $1,000 as they're going to have to destroy it in the end anyway.
She and Asher go back to the property, making it more secure and repairing the windows, all while insisting they won't charge the family rent.
Whitney also uses this time to ask Nala about the curse she put on Asher. Nala reveals that it was just a TikTok trend, one where people threaten a person with a minor inconvenience. Nala recalls that when she told Asher she had put a curse on him she simultaneously wished that the chicken was taken from his dinner.
This freaks Asher out, because the meal that he ordered to his house on the day Nala cursed him arrived without chicken. Suddenly, Asher now believes in the curse more than Whitney. Asher even begins to watch various TikTok videos to see if any mention chicken, which they don't.
Flipanthropy feedback
Asher, Whitney and Dougie watch a focus group discuss Flipanthropy. None of the viewers are impressed by Asher. They insist he doesn’t have a personality, isn't funny or attractive and that he has no sexual tension with Whitney.
Previously confident HGTV was going to pick up the show, Dougie admits he's now skeptical they'll want more episodes, as they can point to the poor response of the focus group. Asher becomes much more intense, declaring that his entire livelihood is based on Flipanthropy becoming a series.
Back home and getting ready for bed, Whitney's shirt becomes stuck over her head. After some playful back and forth, Asher is finally able to pull it off, which leaves both of them in hysterics.
Remembering the focus group found Asher boring and humorless, Whitney says they should recreate the incident for Instagram to show just how funny and compatible they can be. But as they try to film it, they immediately lose the spark, spontaneity and humor of what made the original interaction so funny.
Asher is also still consumed with how Nala knew his food didn't have chicken in it that night. He wonders if she went through their trash. Whitney scolds Asher for thinking that people in poverty have nothing better to do than that. But Asher bites back. He says he could accuse Whitney of being racist because she believed Nala was capable of cursing them. Soon, the pair have a furious argument, which only stops when they realize Whitney's phone is still recording them.
In bed, Whitney deletes the video of the real argument between the pair, but keeps the fake playful interaction clip.
Barrier's closed
Another issue for Whitney and Asher is that Barrier Coffee, which they opened for filming and gave three months free rent to, has closed down without telling them. They call the manager, who explains the shop was losing money, and their deal was only to keep it open while Flipanthropy was filming.
Having promised a job at Barrier Coffee to Fernando (Christopher D. Calderon), Whitney calls and tells him it's now closed. Instead, she offers him a job as a security guard, working from 8 pm to 4 am, as that's "when the freaks come out." The episode ends with Fernando, armed with a gun, sitting in front of the closed Barrier Coffee, ready to protect it.
New episodes of The Curse release on Paramount Plus on Fridays, while airing on Showtime in the US Sundays at 10 pm ET/PT.
