The Curse is a satirical Black Comedy Psychological Thriller television series starring Emma Stone, Nathan Fielder, and Benny Safdie and created and written by Fielder and Safdie. The show focuses on Whitney Siegel (Stone) and Asher Siegel (Fielder), a married couple who host a problematic HGTV show. Their show Flipanthropy attempts to help a poor community by emphasizing eco-living, and Whitney and Asher take part in activism to help poor people of color. However, their show is not as selfless as they believe, as it is undermined by performative activism, virtue signaling, and promotion of gentrification. Their lives are further complicated by their attempts to conceive a child and what they believe to be a curse placed upon Asher by a little girl.
The series began airing on Showtime and Paramount+ on November 10, 2023, and concluded on 12th January, 2024.
Tropes:
- Affably Evil: Although evil might be an overstatement, Whitney's parents are described as slumlords and use exploitative practices. However, they are two of the most friendly characters in the show and are easy to get along with.
- The Alcoholic: Dougie is addicted to alcohol, as his wife died from an accident when he was driving drunk and he still gets drunk all the time. He even still drives drunk after the accident. Many viewers have described him as a realistic depiction of an addict in denial.
- Ambiguous Situation: Whitney can be seen contemplating as she watches him sing to her belly the night before Asher's gravity reverses, clearly indicating that she is still dissatisfied with him despite the improvements in both of their lives, and she gives him a brief look of disdain before the scene cuts to the next day, implying that she silently placed a curse on him that doomed him, rather than Nala or Dougie.
- Armor-Piercing Response: During a bitter argument between Dougie and Asher after Dougie tries to get Nala to curse him, Asher's response to Dougie about what makes him a bad person is "I don't know, ask your wife", as Dougie accidentally killed his wife in a drunk driving accident. This response had a huge effect on Dougie, sending him into Stunned Silence and leading him to curse Asher when he leaves.
- Aside Glance:
- At the end of the first episode, Asher looks directly into the camera.
- Similarly, Fernando looks into the camera at the end of episode 3.
- In Episode 5, a woman glances at the camera as Asher and Whitney have an argument outside her window.
- Attention Whore: Whitney is obsessed over how other people see her, and her activism exists to make herself look better. Even though her show was originally equally about her and Asher, she later decides to throw him under the bus and make herself into the main focus, portraying Asher as a pathetic loser.
- Aww Look They Really Do Love Each Other: Throughout the series, there are a few instances where it is evident that Asher and Whitney are in love and that their marriage had purpose. However, by the ninth episode, it is evident that Whitney's love for Asher has completely disappeared and that she is most likely only staying with him for the sake of the show.
- Baby Talk:
- Asher talks like a baby when Whitney jokes that he is like a baby to her gynecologist.
- Whitney mocks Asher by talking like a baby after he expresses his discomfort over her callousness over Fernando's mom.
- Became Their Own Antithesis: Despite claiming to be against gentrification and taking advantage of Española, Whitney is the exact type of spoiled rich kid who she claims to oppose, as her actions promote gentrification and she is constantly using the town's residents to make herself look good and feel better about herself. She eventually stops caring as much about helping the town and acts even more selfishly towards its residents.
- Beneath the Mask: Whitney puts on a facade of kindness and empathy, but she shows her true colors from time to time, especially in Episode 8 by cruelly mocking Asher for worrying about Fernando and his mother.
- Berserk Button: Although Asher is usually awkward and reserved, he easily can get furious whenever he feels he or Whitney are not respected. A supposed lack of respect will always make Asher angry.
- Bilingual Bonus: While fixing up Abshir's house, Whitney says that they are doing a mishegoss. Asher corrects her and says that the correct term is mitzvah, as mishegoss means something else. In Yiddish, mishegoss means senseless behavior while mitzvah means a good deed done from religious duty. This reflects how the seemingly selfless deeds done by Whitney and Asher are actually senseless, selfish acts that don't really help the community.
- Cara Duran sounds like “caradura”, a Spanish phrase literally translating to ‘hard face’ and colloquially used to mean “one without shame and who behaves inappropriately for a given situation.”
- Birth-Death Juxtaposition: In the finale, Whitney gives birth at the same time Asher dies from flying out of the atmosphere.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Despite acting outwardly friendly and helpful, Whitney is actually extremely spoiled and controlling, but seems to lack self-awareness of her behavior, even when directly called out on it.
- Bizarre Dream Rationalization: As Asher is flying into the sky to his death, he yells to himself to wake up, hoping that this is all just a dream. Unfortunately for him, it isn't.
- Black Comedy: The series has a dark sense of humor that is often derived from the selfish actions of the protagonists and the misfortunes they face.
- Bumbling Sidekick: Dougie convinces Whitney that they should portray Asher as this in "Flipanthropy". Rather than Asher and Whitney being shown as on equal footing, he instead wants to turn him into the "village idiot" and the butt of the joke to make Whitney look better in comparison. The HGTV executive describes Whitney and Asher as the queen and her jester.
- Butt-Monkey: Asher is mistreated by basically everyone in the show. Everyone finds him uncharismatic and unfunny, no one wants to be his friend, and even his wife manipulates and takes advantage of him. She, after being convinced by Dougie, decides to use the show to make him look bad and treat him as a joke in order to make the show funnier and make herself look better in comparison. He is also constantly put into extremely uncomfortable and awkward situations.
- Can't Take Criticism: Asher doesn't handle criticism well, and he often gets angry easily when he or his wife are criticized.
- Cassandra Truth: Neither Dougie nor any of the firefighters believe Asher when he tells him that his gravity has been reversed and he'll die if he lets go of the tree and they assume he's just having a breakdown. Dougie think's this is caused by his fears of being a father, as Whitney is about to give birth. Despite him begging a firefighter to use a net and rope to lower him off the tree, one uses a chainsaw to cut off the branch, leading him to float away and die.
- Celebrity Cameo:
- Dan Cortese briefly plays himself as the host of the show Love in the Third Degree.
- Rachael Ray appears as herself in the finale when she interviews Whitney and Asher on her show. Vincent Pastore also appears.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Whitney's dad Paul is a rather strange person, as he has a long discussion with Asher about their small penises, pees in his tomatoes to make them grow better, and urinates in front of Asher and shows him his penis.
- Color Motif: There is a recurring motif of red and blue. In the first episode, there are two very prominently parked red and blue cars in front of their interview. In that same shot, there's a sign behind them that is red and blue with the text "Saints and Sinners". When the Nala was in the classroom the teacher asks "what happens when we mix red and blue?" and in the scene with the two sweaters, the first one was red and the second was blue.
- Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: Asher contrasts Nathan Fielder as portrayed in both Nathan for You and The Rehearsal. While Asher is on the surface quite similar to the two Nathans as an awkward and inexpressive man comedically out of his depth as the host of a reality television series, he is far more emotive than either of them and shows genuine happiness, anger, and frustration where appropriate. He is also a married man struggling to uphold a Happy Marriage Charade with his wife whereas both of the Nathans were very lonely and implicitly using their respective series as an excuse to force others to spend time with them.
- Contrived Coincidence: Nala, the little girl who Asher gave the $100 bill to and took it back, and her family just happen to be living in a house that Asher buys.
- Cosmic Plaything: Not only is Asher mistreated by everyone around him, but the universe itself seems out to get him as he is killed by a supernatural force out of nowhere in the finale.
- Creepy Child: Asher sees Nala as creepy and is freaked out by her after she places a curse on him and the curse comes true. However, Nala is really just a normal girl.
- Cringe Comedy: Many of the comedic aspects of the show come from the incredibly uncomfortable situations the characters find themselves in, most often Asher due to his awkwardness or Whitney due to her self-centered "activism."
- Crocodile Tears: In the first scene, Dougie tries to make an old woman fake cry to get a better reaction image for the show when Whitney and Asher tell her that they got her son a job.
- Curse: Nala places a curse upon Asher for taking away the hundred dollar bill he gave her (even if it was only to get change for a twenty). According to her it was to take the chicken out of his dinner, and that night it was missing. The curse becomes a major plot point throughout the show, with Asher becoming obsessed over the possibility that the curse was real and that Nala has supernatural abilities. The curse may or may not be the cause of the strange supernatural event in the final episode, in which Asher's gravity is reversed and he dies from flying out of the atmosphere.
- Diabolus ex Machina: Things are going well for Asher and Whitney in the finale, only for gravity to reverse out of nowhere for Asher and lead to him dying from flying out of the atmosphere.
- Disappeared Dad: Dougie's father abandoned him when he was young, which he projects onto Asher after seeing him stuck in a tree in the final episode due to Whitney giving birth at the same time.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Asher gets cursed for taking his 100 dollars back from Nala to change it for a 20, which he would have given her instead. Not only is it not the worst thing he does in the series, but he also makes an effort to get them the 20 dollars, even if it ends up being in vain because they left before he could give it to them due to his hesitation to give a Hispanic man his pin to the ATM (him not wanting to give up his pin to a stranger is reasonable). Assuming the curse was actually real, the end result of it is him dying a horrible death by falling upwards until he exits the atmosphere and suffocates in the vacuum of space.
- Distant Finale: The final episode takes place at least nine months after the events of the previous episode, due to Whitney being pregnant and giving birth.
- Doing in the Scientist: While most of the series keeps it ambiguous over whether the curse is real, the final episode reveals the existence of supernatural events, as Asher randomly has his gravity reversed and flies upwards.
- Domestic Abuse: Whitney's treatment towards Asher becomes emotionally abusive throughout the season, with her constantly mocking, belittling, and manipulating him.
- Downer Ending: It initially appears the series will end on an upbeat note, with Green Queen being renewed for a second season and Whitney and Asher about to become parents. Instead, an unknown supernatural force (possibly the titular curse) causes Asher to fall upwards out of Earth's atmosphere and into space. If taken at face value, this means that Green Queen is over and Whitney's son will have to grow up without a father. Overlaps with Sudden Downer Ending due to this coming completely out of nowhere.
- Dramedy: The series combines comedic and dramatic elements.
- Emasculated Cuckold: Asher is regularly mocked by other characters both behind his back and to his face about being a pathetic, weak-willed loser undeserving of his marriage to Whitney. Asher himself has severe self-esteem issues stemming from both this bullying and his micropenis, to the point where in the very first episode we see him and Whitney acting out a cuckolding fantasy wherein a vibrator is another man satisfying Whitney while Asher asks it for permission to masturbate off to the side. When Whitney asks Asher to take the vibrator's place, Asher refuses, suggesting that it's him rather than Whitney who is primarily getting off to the thought of another man having sex with her. As their marriage becomes strained and Asher starts acting out against Whitney in later episodes, she overhears him masturbating to a fantasy of allowing a man even more pathetic and ugly than himself to have sex with her, showing that even when he's living out a power fantasy, he's so full of self-loathing that he can only feel aroused by watching someone other than himself having sex.
- Establishing Character Moment: The Cold Open of the first episode starts on an interview where Asher kneejerk blasphemes and immediately worries about it needing to be cut, showing him as impulsive with an anxious streak. Dougie manipulates a shot to get the reaction he wants, showing him as uncaring to others' personal needs and the truth. Whitney hides behind faux concern and only reveals her true self when the camera is off. Showing her as image-obsessed, selfish and bulling towards Asher.
- Executive Meddling: Happens In-Universe. Whitney and Dougie wanted to make the show into the story of Whitney breaking free from an unhappy marriage with Asher, but the HGTV executives made Whitney and Asher staying married a requirement for the show. They wanted to downplay the marital strife and instead merely use Asher's awkwardness as comic relief. They also made other changes to the original cut of the first episode, such as shortening the speech from the Pueblo governor and using less anti-colonial language.
- Fan Disservice:
- Seeing Emma Stone writhe in sexual ecstasy is one thing; seeing her writhe in ecstasy from a vibrator her husband is operating to simulate another man's penis for a cuckold fantasy while he masturbates is quite another.
- Asher and Paul's Teeny Weenies are shown in two separate urination scenes in episode 1, and Asher's penis is shown again during another urination scene in episode 6.
- Firemen Are Hot: Whitney flirts with an attractive fireman for the show.
- Foolish Husband, Responsible Wife: Deconstructed. Asher is the more awkward, impulsive, and neurotic of the duo, with Whitney being a voice of reason in multiple moments, yet Whitney clearly isn't very responsible herself and is a heavily flawed person. In later episodes, it becomes clear that Whitney is actually even worse than Asher, she's just better at "appearing" responsible.
- Foreshadowing:
- In Episode 9, Asher tells Whitney that if she didn't want to be with him, he would feel it and disappear. In the finale, Asher flies into the sky and dies, and Whitney seems happier after this.
- Nala tries to curse a girl into falling, and later a supernatural force causes Asher to fall upwards.
- Freeze-Frame Ending: Episode 3 ends with the screen freezing as Fernando looks directly at the camera.
- Friendship Bribe: Whitney desires to be friends with Cara, but Cara is annoyed by her and wants nothing to do with her unless she's getting money out of it. This leads Whitney to hire Cara as an advisor to her show, basically paying her to be her friend.
- The Gadfly: Dougie constantly makes jokes at the expense of others, with his most common target being Asher. His jokes and pranks range from being harmless to legitimately cruel.
- Gainax Ending: Months after the ending of the penultimate episode, Green Queen has finished it's first season and has been picked up for a second. Whitney is pregnant, with the baby expected any day. Then, at the same time Whitney's contractions start, Asher wakes up to find that gravity has mysteriously reversed, only for him. Initially, the two blame the house, but after trying to leave, Asher falls upwards and catches himself on a tree branch. As Whitney gives birth, firefighters, thinking Asher is having a mental breakdown, cut the branch of the tree to try and get him down. Asher falls into the sky and seemingly dies in space, as Whitney gives birth.
- Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: A strange supernatural event, possibly caused by the curse, causes gravity to be reversed only for Asher, leading to his death from flying out of the atmosphere.
- Heel Realization: Asher comes to the realization that he is a bad person who is only dragging Whitney down after she shows him the early cut of "Flipanthropy", which portrays Whitney's true feelings towards him: that he is a selfish person who holds her back. He declares that he will grow as a person to become even more supportive to Whitney. However, this moment isn't a positive development like most examples of this trope, and is instead Asher having a breakdown after Whitney destroys his already low self-esteem and shows him desperately trying to hold onto his failing marriage by changing who he is.
- His Own Worst Enemy:
- The main protagonists are the cause of most of the problems they face. For instance, Whitney's activism usually makes everything worse and causes people to dislike her more than before, even though she desires positive attention from everyone. Her attempts to push Asher away and sabotage their relationship end up only drawing him closer to her.
- Dougie is extremely self-destructive and most of the problems in his life are self-afflicted. The death of his wife was his fault because he was driving drunk, and he is still an alcoholic. He is lonely and desires friendship and companionship from others, yet his weird and creepy behavior pushes people away. This culminates in Dougie begging Nala to curse him.
- Holding in Laughter: When Brett acts like a stereotypical Native American to Whitney, Cara struggles to hide her laughter by covering her mouth. When he puts on the same act later to Whitney, Brett has to turn around after giving a ridiculous speech in Tonto Talk to hide his laughter.
- Hollywood Natives: Whitney bought a stereotypical and offensive statue of a Native American from a mini golf course to give to Cara as a joke, which she didn't find funny.
- Home and Garden: The Show Within a Show Flipanthropy, which Whitney and Asher are the stars of, is an HGTV home renevation show that is described as "problematic".
- Happy Marriage Charade: While the state of Asher and Whitney's marriage prior to the series is unclear, by the series proper Whitney is far more concerned with how it comes across to others than in how it actually is. Particularly emphasized when the two share a genuinely cute moment in private only for Whitney to then force Asher to try and recreate it for Instagram as a PR stunt to show the public how loving their relationship is only for it to descend into an argument.
- Hourglass Plot:
- In the first episode, Whitney finds Asher selfish and is disturbed by some of his actions, as she is very invested in improving the town and helping its residents. As the show goes on, Whitney stoops to such lows that Asher is disturbed by her selfishness and shows more sympathy to people than she does.
- When Asher tells Whitney about the curse in the first episode, he doesn't take it seriously at first but Whitney believes it is real. Later on, Whitney no longer cares about the curse while Asher becomes extremely paranoid about it and constantly thinks about it.
- Hypocritical Humor: Whitney tells Asher that she doesn't want some rich kids getting homes bought by their parents. Asher laughs before realizing she isn't making a joke, as everything she has was given to her by her rich parents.
- Hypocrite:
- Whitney is a massive hypocrite who claims to help her town and neighborhood even though she makes things worse for everyone. Despite claiming to be different from her parents who are exploitative real estate developers, she is just as exploitative, merely veiled under progressive language.
- Whitney accuses Asher of being a bad person cosplaying as a good person, despite this statement more accurately describing herself.
- Asher claims to have been very disturbed by a number of exploitative practices he witnessed at the casino while working there, enough to throw them under the bus to bury a bad interview. A conversation with one of his former coworkers reveals he helped implement a number of these practices. Later, the stolen security footage seems to show him taking advantage of a problem gambler or at least not taking her problem seriously.
- I Fell for Hours: The gravity anomaly causes Asher to fall upwards for seemingly forever, as the last shot of him is his corpse continuing to float out of the atmosphere.
- It's All My Fault: Dougie seems to blame himself for Asher's death, likely because of the curse he placed on him. He breaks down after realizing what happened.
- Karma Houdini:
- Although Asher dies a terrifying death, Whitney faces no real consequences for her actions. At best, there might be offscreen consequences, such as her having to raise her child alone, be left figure out the housing situation with Ashir by herself since Asher will no longer be around to deal with the contracts in her place, as well as have to face the potential cancellation of her show, but the audience won't get to see any of this happen.
- Dougie will have to live with the guilt of having accidentally killed his best friend and his wife, but he won't suffer any real consequences for anything he did throughout the series otherwise.
- Left Hanging: Most of the storylines in the show are not given closure due to the sudden supernatural event that kills Asher.
- The Lost Lenore: Dougie tells his date in episode 2 that his wife died in a car accident when he was driving drunk. He is clearly still affected by this.
- Loving a Shadow: Asher adores Whitney, but his perception of her as a perfect angel is a far cry from the real Whitney. He is unable to notice a lot of Whitney's selfish and unsympathetic qualities. In the unused cut of "Flipanthropy", Whitney cites Asher's adoration blinding him from her true self being a reason that their relationship is so strained.
- Magical Native American: Brett acts like a wise Native American shaman who prays over his taco and gives speeches about his ancestors and his connection to nature in order to make fun of Whitney's stereotypical understanding of Native Americans.
- Manipulative Bastard:
- Dougie constantly manipulates Asher and Whitney in order to create the show he wants.
- Whitney is also manipulative, and not even just to Asher. In episode 7, in order to get Cara to let her use her art in the show after she initially refuses her, she guilts her into both letting her use her art and becoming a consultant on the show by reminding her of their friendship and dumping about her unhappy marriage to Asher because he is stifling her creatively, which Cara ends up sympathizing with.
- Manchild: Dougie is extremely immature, acting like an overgrown teenager who makes inappropriate jokes, constantly plays pranks, and bullies people around him just as he did as a kid. This is exemplified when he parties with a group of drunk teenagers.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Is the titular curse that Nala puts on Asher real or not? The "tiny curse" has no supernatural origins, as the sisters reveal to Whitney that it was a innocuous TikTok trend in which the curser wishes for something small and annoying to happen to the person being cursed, which for Nala was to take the chicken out of Asher's dinner. That same evening, Asher ordered chicken penne, which only came with pasta and no chicken, suggesting that the curse either worked or it was a wild coincidence given that Nala doesn't even know what penne is and specifically wished for his chicken to disappear out of his spaghetti. Other coincidences involving Nala begin to happen as well, such as when she curses her bully to fall during gym, which doesn’t work, but the bully falls into a wall later after tripping, and when Nala correctly guesses the number of nails Asher is holding the first two times, but can’t guess the third time because he starts bleeding before Asher can confirm if she’s truly a psychic or if they were just a lucky guesses. Even Nala begins to question if she truly has magical abilities after Asher puts into her head that her curse may have actually worked.
- The final episode reveals that *something* supernatural is happening, although it is extremely unclear how (or even if) it's related at all to Nala's or Dougie's curses.
- Meaningful Name: Asher's name means "happy" or "blessing" in Hebrew, and the biblical Asher was known for being blessed. The opposite of a blessing is a curse, and Asher Siegel certainly isn't blessed.
- Mistaken for Pedophile: A man restrains Asher and calls the cops on him after he chases down Nala and Hani to give them the $100.
- Native American Casino: Asher tells the reporter that he witnessed some shady dealings at a Pueblo-run casino. In the second episode, Asher visits the casino to try to find proof of this to give the reporter. We find out that Asher is responsible for some of their exploitative practices.
- Never My Fault:
- Jeff, the teacher at the comedy class, goads Asher into making a joke about his small penis despite this obviously making him and everyone else uncomfortable. This makes some other members of the class angry at Jeff for continuing to push these uncomfortable jokes instead of letting it go, and they were all clearly on Asher’s side after sensing his discomfort as well. However, rather than apologizing, he blames Asher for making the joke and offending everyone even though Jeff forced him to, even saying that Asher shouldn’t come back to the class.
- Despite knowing that his wife's death was his fault because he was driving drunk, Dougie often downplays what happened to other people such as telling a teenager that his wife was the one driving drunk and telling Asher that the only reason she died was because he was cursed. This seems to be a coping mechanism for the guilt he feels over her death.
- Outside-Context Problem: The series sets up a number of potential catalysts for Asher and Whitney's downfall, from tensions over a shoplifting crisis that the two inadvertently cause to issues with the casino Asher acted as a whistleblower for. None of these come up in the final episode, which centers around gravity switching for just Asher, causing him to fall upwards and seemingly die in outer space. For a series that had been very cagey about whether or not anything explicitly supernatural was going on, the sudden confirmation is especially shocking.
- Perpetual Frowner: Hani is the grumpier of the two sister, coming off as perpetually serious and irritable despite her young age.
- Pet the Dog: Despite usually being greedy, Asher gives $100 to a homeless woman with a baby after he is unable to find Nala to give her the money. This is even though no one would know what he did.
- Prison Rape: A possible buyer of one of the houses tells Asher to not drop the soap due to them joking that the house is like a prison.
- Rich Kid Turned Social Activist: Deconstructed Trope. Whitney's parents are wealthy and run an exploitative real estate business. With Whitney's show Flipanthropy, she claims to take part in activism to help poor people of color get the houses they need and improve their lives in general, yet the show is also portrayed as exploitative. Whitney's activism exists as a form of surface level relief for her white guilt.
- Riddle for the Ages: Although the finale reveals the existence of supernatural events, we never find out if Nala's curse was real or whether it or Dougie's curse were the cause for the gravity anomaly. The finale never reveals the cause of the anomaly.
- Rule of Three: In-Universe. Asher's phone notes of jokes for the show mention to remember the rule of three.
- Sad Clown: Despite acting carefree and making jokes all the time, Dougie is deep down a broken and lonely person who hasn't recovered from the death of his wife caused by his drunk driving.
- Satire: This series clearly satirizes HGTV shows for being exploitative to its subjects, engaging in performative activism, and promoting gentrification.
- Self-Deprecation: Asher's comedy class teacher tells the class that self-deprecating humor is one of the most important and effective forms of humor, and he tries to force Asher to make a self-deprecating joke about his small penis against his will.
- Sexless Marriage: Whitney and Asher were not having much sex at the start of the show, although they start having sex again in the first episode.
- Shiksa Goddess: Asher is Jewish but his wife Whitney is not. However, she seems much more interested in following Jewish customs than him.
- Shout-Out:
- Dougie says that people used to compare Asher to Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation when they were younger.
- The title of a show Dougie produced is called "Love in the Third Degree" after the Bananarama song.
- A member of the focus group compares Flipanthropy to Property Brothers.
- Nala talks to Hani about a new Roblox update.
- Vic wears a Seinfeld t-shirt in episode 4.
- Dougie jokes that Whitney needs to call his name three times like Beetlejuice if she wants his help.
- Asher uses The Producers as an example of how Jews used humor to confront their feelings about the Holocaust.
- Show Within a Show:
- Asher and Whitney star in an HGTV show called Flipanthropy (later renamed Green Queen).
- Dougie shows Asher and Whitney a show he worked on that wasn't picked up by the network called Love in the Third Degree which is a dating show where women date a man in a mask, not knowing that his face has severe burns.
- Soapbox Sadie: Whitney is dedicated to progressive social causes and attempts to promote them on her show. However, her activism is undermined by her selfish nature, as she mainly engages in activism to make herself look better.
- Spoiled Brat: Whitney was raised by wealthy slumlord parents, and everything in her life was given to her by her parents. She is incredibly spoiled and self-absorbed, still getting her parents to give her money and help her avoid any consequences for her selfish actions while downplaying their involvement.
- Stunned Silence:
- Asher is shocked and hurt when Whitney insults him by speaking in baby talk for looking out for the wellbeing of Fernando and his mother, leaving him speechless.
- During an argument between Asher and Dougie, Dougie asks Asher why he thinks he's a bad person, to which Asher replies "I don't know, ask your wife". As Dougie's wife died in a car accident while he was driving, he is shocked into silence to this Armor-Piercing Response and Asher instantly regrets saying it.
- Symbolic Glass House: The "passive homes" that Whitney and Asher build have mirrored walls to remain environmentally friendly. There's a lot of emphasis on the hypocrisy of their vapid narcissism despite their ostensibly good intentions around social justice.
- Tonto Talk: Brett talks like a stereotypical Native American when speaking to Whitney to mock her, which flies over her head.
- Teeny Weenie: Asher and Paul's are discussed at length and shown onscreen.
- True Art Is Incomprehensible: Cara's artworks are extremely strange, abstract, and confusing. Whitney and Asher have trouble understanding what they're supposed to represent, although they act like they understand it.
- Too Dumb to Live: Justified in the finale given the shows otherwise mundane setting. Asher's gravity has been reversed, and no one knows or understands why, assuming it is due to the house's pressure setting. He then tries to go outside to bring himself back down to earth and go to the hospital with Whitney to help her deliver the baby, but his situation worsens when their friend tries to pull him down and gets him stuck in the tree, which turns out to be a fatal mistake when the firefighter cuts the branch he was clinging to and sends him flying upwards to his death. While the smart thing to do would be to stay inside and demonstrate to the fire department that he was actually falling in reverse, no one would know how to react in this high-stress situation, especially since this isn't something that happens to ordinary people.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Whitney starts the show still being a flawed person but mostly appearing well-meaning and friendly. However, this facade crumbles throughout the show as she becomes increasingly rude and unforgiving towards the people around her. It's outright shown that she doesn't really care about the well-being of the community by mocking Asher for being worried about Fernando's mom.
- Took a Level in Kindness: While Asher starts out as a petty and greedy asshole, he shows more sympathetic qualities throughout the show. By the finale, he has become a much more sympathetic person who even chooses to give Abshir his house. It is unknown whether he has truly become a better person or if he merely learned how to act nicer in an attempt to impress Whitney.
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Asher is an awkward and uncharismatic man married to the conventionally beautiful and superficially charming Whitney. This imbalance serves as a source of conflict in both the production of "Flipanthropy" (as Asher's lack of appeal is one of the main things test audiences criticize about the pilot) and in their relationship (as Asher is clearly frustrated by how often others passive-aggressively suggest that Whitney is too good for him).
- Ungrateful Townsfolk: Deconstructed. Whitney and Asher try to help the town's residents and expect to be loved and welcomed, only for the residents to react with distrust and annoyance towards them. The townsfolk are rightfully uncomfortable with Whitney and Asher's misguided efforts at improving the town, being that they're actually hurting it more than helping.
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Neither Whitney, Asher, nor Dougie are sympathetic people. All three of the main characters are incredibly selfish, and everything they do hurts the people around them.
- Unusual Euphemism: Paul uses "cherry tomatoes" to describe small penises.
- Unwanted Spouse: Whitney is unhappy with Asher, and they have very little chemistry. Whitney is perfectly fine putting down her husband for her own self interest and is embarrassed by him frequently. Dougie, sensing drama that could make for better television, implores her to lean into this on "Flipanthropy."
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Assuming the titular curse that Nala put on Asher is actually real, Dougie forcing Asher into buying something from Nala is what gets Asher cursed in the first place and leads to his death at the end of the series.
- Villain Protagonist: The three protagonists are clearly depicted as the villains of the show, with them being portrayed like a curse on Española.
- Villainous Gentrification: The show takes a negative view of gentrification.
- Wealthy Philanthropist: Flipanthropy depicts Whitney and Asher as philanthropists who do anything they can to help their community and poor people of color, when they really just virtue signal and do the bare minimum to affirm that they are good people.
- Wham Shot: Midway through the finale, we see Whitney lying in bed without Asher. The camera pans up to reveal that Asher is on the ceiling and it only gets weirder from there.
- What Does She See in Him?: Invoked and deconstructed. The test audiences are baffled by Whitney's marriage to the awkward Asher, and Dougie and Whitney both want to make "Flipanthropy" the story of Whitney breaking free from Asher. However, as time goes by, it becomes increasingly clear that Whitney is a Narcissist whose treatment of Asher is borderline abusive.
- White Man's Burden: Flipanthropy portrays Asher and Whitney as helping people of color out of the goodness of their heart, although the purported activism of the show is actually rather exploitative and performative. They come off as hypocritical elitist liberals who engage in virtue-signaling to make themselves look good and feel better about themselves while being uncomfortable around the people of color they claim to help and gentrifying a poor town with a large Hispanic population.
