YMMV / Cursed (2020)

• Anticlimax Boss: Father Carden is very easily dispatched when it comes down to it; Morgana teleports in front of him as he's about to kill Nimue, hands Nimue the Sword and Nimue swiftly decapitates him.
• Ass Pull:
  • It's revealed in the fifth episode that Uther's mother switched her stillborn son with a peasant's newborn baby to keep her hold on the throne, this baby being Uther himself; this plot twist had virtually no foreshadowing besides King Cumber - who we'd only just been introduced to in the same episode and know very little about - proclaiming he's the true Pendragon heir. To hear Merlin talk, people in the kingdom have spread this rumor for decades, yet this is the first time we hear of it. It does at least contribute to Uther's desire to get the Sword of Power and the need for him to ally with the Fey against Cumber and the Paladins.
  • Morgana killing and thus 'becoming' the Widow, allowing her to teleport to Nimue with the Sword to save her from Father Carden in the final episode. It happens very suddenly and is only vaguely explained at best after the fact. It isn't even shown onscreen how exactly Morgana was able to kill the Widow, seeing as she's an otherworldly being, nor was it ever established that killing her would give Morgana her powers. It all comes off as a bit Deus ex Machina.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Nimue. Fans of the character see her as a refreshing take on the Lady of the Lake, and find her to be a compelling and badass fantasy heroine. Other viewers are less keen; they criticize her for being excessively helpless and self-pitying, and feel she's a largely reactive protagonist whose actions tend to be dictated by other characters (especially men) or the Sword's power.
  • Arthur. Some viewers think he's an interesting take on a well-known character, and like his Character Development from a flawed outlaw running from responsibility to a selfless hero. Others find him to be a dull and cliched YA 'bad boy' love interest, whose only major contribution to the story is being Nimue's boyfriend. Some also disliked how little he resembles the legendary Arthur, to the point they think he should've just been a different character, greatly contributing to his divisive reception.
• Broken Base: The animated transition sequences. Some people find them cool-looking and feel they give the series a unique touch; others find them to be distracting and tonally-inconsistent with the rest of the show.
• Captain Obvious Reveal:
  • Near the end of the fifth episode, Nimue states her mother must've asked her to bring the sword to Merlin because "she knew him". It's treated like a big revelation, but it's blatantly obvious already and Nimue seems a bit daft for not thinking of this much sooner.
  • It's pretty easy to figure out that the Weeping Monk is actually Fey-kind long before The Reveal, given his uncanny ability to track Fey. The other reveal that he's Lancelot is far less predictable, though.
• Character Rerailment: Oddly enough, the show restores Nimue's and Morgana's morality to how it was originally in the stories. Originally, both were benevolent figures without any hint of villainy, Nimue being the one to give Arthur his sword and Morgana being the one to take him to Avalon to be healed when he died. Over time, they were inexplicably villainised, but the show cuts that out to portray them heroically.
• Cliché Storm: The show's main plot is extremely common in fantasy fiction: the protagonist doesn't fit in because of her special abilities, finds out she's The Chosen One, and after the bad guys destroy her village and kill her family she must fulfill her dying parent's last request to escape with a magic Plot Device that only she can wield; she subsequently uses said Plot Device to fight back. She also meets a charming rogue who starts out selfish but becomes heroic out of love for her and she turns out to have a Secret Legacy explaining the origin of her powers.
• Complete Monster: Father Carden is the leader of the Red Paladins, hoping to make a name for himself with the Pope by bringing the church into power in Camelot and wiping out the fey people. Carden is introduced having a fey boy taken to be killed, having wiped out twelve fey villages, including heroine Nimue's, which left few survivors. Carden has also taken and weaponized a young fey, Lancelot, into being the Paladins' top warrior for his ability to track other fey. Carden seeks out Nimue and the Sword of Power, having those who get in his way killed; notably, he has Nimue's friend Gawain tortured for information upon capture, and orders the torture of Nimue's child friend Squirrel when the latter tries to rescue Gawain, who dies of his injuries. Carden tries to play both sides of King Uther and Cumber's war, eventually siding with Cumber when Uther grants favour with the fey. As per their deal, Cumber's army is sent to massacre the fey refugees fleeing the kingdom, in return for the Paladins attacking Uther's camp, with Carden leading the latter attack. Carden then tries to personally execute Nimue when she's captured and brought before him.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Pym is largely a side character who quickly became popular with viewers for her funny, adorkable personality and her sweet romance with Viking raider Dof. A few viewers even admitted they found Pym's misadventures with the Red Spear more interesting than the other, more prominent storylines.
  • Dof, one of the Red Spear's warriors, is only in four episodes but is well-liked by viewers; he's a surprisingly nice guy for a raider, and he has lots of chemistry and heartwarming moments with Pym. Many viewers decried Dof being killed off before the first season ended, feeling They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character.
• Evil Is Cool: The Weeping Monk has a level of style and fighting skill that's sorely lacking in the other Red Paladins, making him far more fun to watch. This is even more so when he is revealed to be Lancelot, and a rare type of Fey called Ash Folk.
• Fandom Rivalry: Between fans of this show and fans of BBC's Merlin (2008), although there are some fans who enjoy both and/or encouraged Merlin fans to at least give Cursed a chance. Both are retellings of the Arthurian Legend that mix-up the tales to tell their own story and feature different, more youthful takes on the main characters. Fans of Merlin have been known to state that Merlin had better pacing and less padding, and more interesting characters; they criticize Cursed for relying too much on graphic violence and trying too hard to emulate Game of Thrones. Cursed fans have criticized Merlin for feeling too childish (in fairness, it was intentionally aimed at a younger demographic) and feel Cursed has better production design and special effects; they also criticize Merlin fans for treating their show like some Holy Grail of Arthurian adaptations that no other work can live up to. For what it's worth, several cast members of Cursed have stated they enjoyed watching Merlin growing up; Daniel Sharman is good friends with Bradley James in real life and Devon Terrell even said his performance was inspired by James' portrayal of Arthur.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Going by the sheer amount of shipping videos and fanfictions that popped up within months of the show's release, fans really like shipping Nimue with the Weeping Monk (who aren't just enemies, but don't even directly interact in the first season). Shippers cite an interest in the similarities between the two characters; both grew up being treated as monsters/outcasts and both have shoddy fathers. As of this writing, Archive of Our Own has more than double the amount of stories pairing Nimue and the Weeping Monk, compared to stories with the canon pairing of Nimue and Arthur.
• Fight Scene Failure: Nimue's fight with the wolves can be a bit awkward to watch, as the wolves appear to be utilizing Mook Chivalry; they rarely attack Nimue more than one at a time and only half-heartedly lunge at her when she's not facing them.
• Genius Bonus: Dof patronising Sigurd the dragon slayer, to the point of deification, is quite an odd choice given Sigurd isn't a Norse God and is rather obscure in terms of Nordic figures (particularly behind Thor, Odin, and more), but he makes perfect sense for this story when one realises the story of Sigurd mirrors the Arthurian legends. Sigurd is the wielder of Gram, which is more-or-less the Norse equivalent of Excalibur and likely descends from a shared root story.
• He's Just Hiding:
  • Combined with Like You Would Really Do It; very few viewers believe that Nimue was really killed off in the Season 1 finale, or that the character will stay dead at least, seeing as she's the main protagonist and the scene intentionally makes it ambigious. This is especially so if you've read the book, which has the lepers retrieving Nimue in the epilogue.
  • Some viewers believe that Gawain could still be alive or brought back, although his death seemed more certain; they theorize that Nimue could've unknowingly healed him when she covers his body in plants.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: The Weeping Monk quickly became this. He's been shipped with Gawain and Nimue primarily, but also with the Red Spear. And he's been the target of Crossover Ships, including being paired with Merlin's Morgana and Daisy Ridley's version of Ophelia.
• Love to Hate: Sister Iris, an obnoxiously fanatical and Ax-Crazy teenage nun, has quickly gained this status; many viewers find Emily Coates's performance delightfully loathsome. She's even drawn comparisons to Joffrey as a petulant yet dangerous fantasy villain.
• Older Than They Think: A retelling of the Arthurian Legend that places a previously villainous/morally ambiguous woman as the protagonist and features pagan cultures being persecuted as witches by the big bad Catholic Church (even though they're a few centuries early). A lot of it is reminiscent of The Mists of Avalon (first published in 1983), only without the incest and other creepy/questionable sexual stuff (and in this case it stars Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, as opposed to Morgan le Fay).
• One True Pairing: Many viewers agree that Pym and Dof are adorable together even with the minimal screentime spent on their relationship; these viewers express great disappointment that Dof's death put an end to their romance just as it was getting off the ground.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Nimulot, for Nimue and the Weeping Monk, whose real name is revealed to be Lancelot.
• Realism-Induced Horror: Though Anachronism Stew and Artistic License – Religion are invoked heavily, the Red Paladins stand out as a considerably scarier threat than other forces on the show in large part because they're more-or-less a hate group committing violent hate crimes against an ethnic minority, as well as the fact they're an extremist religious group who commit atrocities while deluding themselves on the belief they're justified by God. As this is something that is unfortunately all too real, even in recent times, it makes their actions even scarier because of how familiar it is for people who've suffered at the hands of such groups.
• Ship Mates: Many Nimue/Weeping Monk shippers also like the idea of Arthur being paired with the Red Spear (as opposed to Nimue/Arthur). The pair have a moment in the finale where they save each other's lives and gain a mutual respect for one another; not to mention the book reveals the Red Spear is Guinevere, Arthur's legendary love interest.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The story moves very slowly in the first half of the season; after the first episode the plot mostly consists of Nimue running/hiding from the Paladins and Merlin's extended quest to steal Fey Fire, with it taking ages for anything significant to happen. However, the pace picks up after the fifth episode, with things getting a lot more exciting after Nimue begins leading the Fey resistance and it's revealed Merlin is Nimue's father, among other things.
• So Okay, It's Average: The general opinion among both critics and audiences. Many viewers feel the show's quality is dragged down by clichés, slow pacing, too many side plots and taking too long to explain things, but that the overarching story and characters are interesting enough to be a passably-decent teen fantasy series.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • Most of the special effects are good or decent, but the CGI wolves in the first episode aren't terribly convincing, more so in close-ups. To give them credit, furry creatures are more difficult and more expensive to animate (one of the reasons that the direwolves appeared less and less in Game of Thrones).
  • In the final episode, Merlin is run through by several swords courtesy of Uther's men, with the first blade very visibly stabbing him through the back. When he's then dragged out of the room, we clearly see his completely unharmed back, without so much as a hole in his leather coat.
• Strangled by the Red String: Arthur and Nimue's romance has been criticized for coming across as contrived and bland. Although they flirt a lot in the first episode, Nimue subsequently spends half the season distrusting Arthur for stealing (then losing) the Sword of Power entrusted to her by her dying mother - which she seems to forget rather quickly - and Arthur was willing to steal from Nimue when she was at her most vulnerable for selfish reasons (then victim-blamed her over it), despite supposedly having a crush on her. They barely spend any quality time together before getting a Relationship Upgrade in the fifth episode. On top of this, some viewers felt they lacked romantic chemistry and have little in common; the only reason they seem to get together is because 'the script says so'.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Morgana's girlfriend Celia first appears in the third episode and the only characterization she gets is being nice and in a Secret Relationship with Morgana...before being killed off in the next episode in a rather contrived manner; we don't even get confirmation she died until a few episodes later. We find out little else about Celia as a person and why Morgana loves her. She gets some posthumous appearances later, but it's unclear if it's really her or the Cailleach borrowing her form to manipulate Morgana, so the third and fourth episodes could be Celia's only appearances. Celia's only role in the series is to die to push Morgana into being more ruthless, which many viewers found to be a stale and overdone plotline. The fact it involves two women rather than a heterosexual couple doesn't really improve things, as it's been pointed out it plays Bury Your Gays straight with one of the only two gay characters on the show, which is another trope viewers have long tired of. 
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • For much of her life Nimue has been bullied and ostracized by the Sky Folk for her powers; the only people who seem to accept and defend her are her mother, Pym and Squirrel, and some of the Sky Folk can come across as just as hateful and bigoted as the Red Paladins in their treatment of her (if not quite as murderous). One might think they could explore Nimue having more mixed feelings about her role in saving the Fey because of this, perhaps initially not seeing it as her fight because they never treated her as one of them. However, Nimue has no qualms whatsoever about fighting for the Fey, seemingly forgetting her lifelong persecution, and any parallels between the Fey and the Paladins are ignored. The Fey are also quick to accept Nimue as their leader despite her supposedly being cursed, though this can be explained by how few who knew her beforehand survived.
  • The concept of an Arthurian prequel revolving around the Lady of the Lake and her connection to Excalibur before King Arthur's time is an interesting one; they could have also have explored the Lady's side of the story around things like her relationship with Merlin in a similar manner to perspective flips centered on Morgan le Fay. However, Cursed doesn't have much to do with the Arthurian mythos at all besides sharing a setting and some character names; telling an original story is not a bad thing, but it's disappointing for some viewers who were hoping for a story more closely tied to the legends. Some have opined that it might've been better if they'd completely dropped the connections to the Arthurian legend to let the story stand on its own, as people would inevitably compare them.
  • Many of the Fey distrust humans at best, especially now a particular faction of humans is hunting them down, and yet their chosen queen has a human lover. This seems like it would potentially cause some problems for Nimue's leadership and her romance with Arthur, but it's completely ignored, and any problems between Nimue and her subjects is limited to the Tusk tribe's far more aggressive nature.
  • Arthur and Uther being Unrelated in the Adaptation results in some missed opportunities for intriguing storylines. Arthur's growing sympathy for the Fey coincides with him taking more personal responsibility and standing up for something bigger than himself, which could have even more weight if he's the heir to throne. Arthur feeling torn between his affection for Nimue or taking the Sword for himself could be expanded into him wanting the Sword out of loyalty and desire to impress his father, who desperately wants to claim the Sword (Arthur gets a bit of this with his uncle, but it's not touched upon much after "The Red Lake"). It would also give Uther's conflict with the Fey a more personal angle, if his son and heir were running around with the Fey Queen (potentially putting him in the line of fire from the Red Paladins, and further straining things between Uther and Father Carden).
• Trapped by Mountain Lions:
  • The entire subplot involving King Rugen and the lepers, which takes up a lot of screentime in the first three episodes. Although Merlin's goal is stealing Fey Fire in Rugen's possession to destroy the Sword, it never comes up again as a plot device after the midway point and has no impact on anything else that happens. Even them sending the Fisherman after Merlin adds nothing, as the mortal wound he inflicts on Merlin has little effect upon his interactions with the characters and is made redundant when Uther's men deliver far more severe wounds on him. The Fisherman's only impact is murdering the family of the midwife, something she's not even made aware of happening. The book ends with a badly wounded Nimue being rescued from the lake by lepers, but as this isn't included in the show, the subplot feels superfluous.
  • Until she meets back up with Nimue, Pym's subplot with her falling in with the Viking raiders under the Red Spear's command, and the Red Spear's rebellion/war against Cumber, really doesn't tie in with anything else going on, and once she does reunite with Nimue the Raiders disappear from the plot entirely save for them randomly turning up on the beach in time to aid the Fey in the finale. Fortunately, this is one of the better received subplots in the show.
• Uncertain Audience: Cursed never really seemed sure who its main target audience was. It was marketed as a Feminist Fantasy retelling of the Arthurian Legend but in practice it has little to do with the Arthurian mythology, merely using it as set dressing for a completely different story (nor does it work as a prequel). The show was also aimed towards teenagers with youthful protagonists, goofy comic relief and young adult-esque drama, yet simultaneously seemed to be trying to appeal to adults (especially Game of Thrones fans) with graphic violence, semi-explicit sexual content and grim subjects like genocide; subsequently, the series came off as tonally inconsistent.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • It's extremely hard to feel bad for Nimue's village being slaughtered, and see revenge for it as a worthy motivation for her, due to our hardly ever seeing them do anything but horribly bully her because they're just as bigoted as the Red Paladins.
  • Wroth, the leader of the Tusks. His eventual death is treated as a tragedy, but it's hard to care much seeing as he spends most of his episodes being a bigoted asshole. He defends some of his people beating an innocent human to death as them being riled up by the crimes of the Red Paladins (the man in question wasn't a Paladin or necessarily a supporter; he had a red cross on his door, but as Nimue points out most of Gramaire painted these crosses to avoid being persecuted by the Paladins). When Nimue cuts the hands off one Tusk who showed no remorse and laughed about the murder (but otherwise spared him) Wroth's response is to sulk over it and declare that Nimue isn't his queen. He's a jerk to Arthur purely because he's human even though he treats him with respect and risks his life to help the Fey. Wroth is even prepared to lead his people to their deaths fighting out of pride, rather than doing all he can to save them.
  • Lenore can come off as insensitive towards her daughter's struggles in the first episode and arguably made things worse for Nimue by hiding the truth of her origins from her. Lenore doesn't do much to help Nimue get control of her powers despite them causing her extreme distress and endangering others. She also tells Nimue that she does little to help the Sky Folk accept her, even though Nimue never does anything to them unless she's provoked (and even then its her powers acting of their own accord) and the reason she's reluctant to integrate with them because almost everyone treats her horribly (given Pym, Squirrel and Gawain have no problem with her, the issue seems to lie with the Sky Folk rather than Nimue). That she never explains to Nimue the reason for her abilities is because Merlin is her father only worsens matters; it's understandable Lenore wouldn't want to make it public knowledge, but she could've at least let Nimue know so she could understand her abilities better (rather than just letting her think she was a freak).
• Unpopular Popular Character:
  • Within the story, the Weeping Monk is a villain (albeit a sympathetic one) who is feared and hated by most of the characters, and even members of his own faction such as Father Carden mistreat him. The only characters who display anything resembling positive regard for him are Gawain (who mostly pities him) and Squirrel. The fans, on the other hand, adore him and he's frequently cited by viewers as being their favorite character, especially with The Reveal he's Lancelot.
  • Merlin is disliked or at least distrusted by nearly every faction in the story. Most audience members find Gustaf Skarsgard's take on the character enjoyable and think his arc is one of the show's more compelling ones.
• What the Hell, Costuming Department?: While the costumes aren't generally thought to be badly designed, some reviewers and audience members have questioned how everyone, even the peasants and Fey refugees, are frequently wearing clothes that look brand new. The style of the attire also seems to be an inconsistent mix between fashion that is a few centuries too late (the tunics and dresses appear to be 11th-14th century in style while the show seems to set around the 8th-10th centuries, although the Arthurian Legends traditionally take place even earlier in the 5th or 6th centuries), to outright pure fantasy and Hollywood History (e.g. the Viking raiders' fashion look more like modern popular perception of Vikings as being dirty, gritty warriors; in actual fact Vikings were quite well-groomed and liked to wear clean, simple attire); it's not too much of a big deal when the show is swinging towards being a fantasy series, but it stands out after they start talking about Rome, the Pope, the Celts, the Byzantium Empire etc, and remind viewers this is apparently meant to be set somewhere in the Early Middle Ages.

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