Review: The Curse, “Under the Big Tree” | Season 1, Episode 4
A scattered episode still features plenty of weirdness and laughs
Oof. In the week since I first watched this episode, I keep returning to that final excruciating scene. We don’t spend much time with Asher’s new corporate comedy class, but those first few minutes we do see suggest what a whole hour of it might look like. The students mostly seem good-natured, game to step outside their comfort zones and work through some natural shyness—and Doug Montoya’s brief naturalistic performance as instructor Jeff is enough to suggest a safe place where they can feel comfortable doing that.
But when they begin going around the circle for an easy nonverbal comedic exercise, the slowly panning camera starts to speed up, stopping to linger on Asher’s face awhile before it’s his turn to go. We see the anxiety on his face and know that whatever choice Asher is about to make in this very low-stakes icebreaker, it’s going to be a bad one—because Asher is someone who thinks of himself as a funny guy, and he…