Review: The Curse, “Green Queen” | Season 1, Episode 10
A daring finale goes places the show has never gone before
We were never due for a truly cathartic ending. That was clear from the first episode—from the first scene, even. Whitney and Asher Siegel, along with Dougie Schecter, are not people we root for to succeed, so it was always an open question what we would even want from the conclusion of their character journeys. Did we want the central trio to face the bleakest outcomes possible—marriage and friendship ruptured, TV show canceled, exiled by the community they tried so hard to make their own (heavy emphasis on the possessive “their own”)? Not necessarily. There’s certainly an element of schadenfreude in this show, like when we watch Asher get humiliated in a comedy class, but by and large it hasn’t been “fun” to watch any of these people suffer. They’re too pathetic not to pity.
Rather than offering a final confirmation of how we’re meant to feel about these characters, “Green Queen” boldly refuses to clear it up; it muddies the waters, if anything, though I don’t think I mean that in the negative sense. There’s little evidence that Whitney and Asher have grown all that much at their core, but this is still the least I’ve ever hated the couple—if only because they appear happy, and their behavior is far less abhorrent than what we’re used to. And then, well, there’s what happens halfway through the episode.
When I first got into reading episodic TV criticism, I found it tremendously useful in helping me figure out how I felt about a series, or a particular episode, or a specific moment in that episode. So when I later started watching advance screeners and writing about TV, I felt a slight panic at the idea of having to form my own opinions before I’d read what anyone else thought about a given series. What if my interpretation is wrong? What if I’m missing something obvious? Of course, writing about anything means accepting that other people will have different interpretations than you. But I have to admit that my first watch of “Green Queen” brought some of those anxieties roaring back. I immediately felt excited to write about this finale, sure. But I also wondered how the hell I was going to write about it. Not only was I unsure what I’d just watched, but I wasn’t sure what it represented on a thematic level—and I wasn’t even sure I totally liked it, though I was certainly captivated.