The Curse

Young Hearts Season 1 Episode 9 Editor’s Rating 3 stars ***

The Curse

Young Hearts Season 1 Episode 9 Editor’s Rating 3 stars ***

Like many a penultimate episode, “Young Hearts” works hard (and too visibly) to get story lines and characters into position for an eruptive ending, doing so without enough connective tissue to make it truly satisfying as a stand-alone hour of TV. What was this episode about? It was about reminding you of every theme and conflict raised across episodes one through eight, saving the most important for last.

So let’s Tarantino it and start with what’s bound to matter most. “Young Hearts” closes with an emotional, impassioned speech from Asher about how he’s changed as a man across the last few weeks, how the curse he previously believed was imposed by a tweenage girl was actually self-inflicted. Asher was a bad person in love with a good person, he tells his teary wife. He sees that now. And he’s finally ready to redouble his efforts to become the man Whitney deserves, the partner who can embrace her values and co-pilot their TV show to fame. The declaration, while heartfelt, is uncomfortable — not least because Dougie and a random TV editor are sitting in the same shitty little Comfort Inn hotel room as Asher makes it. And the declaration, while sincere, isn’t exactly spontaneous.

HGTV hates the version of the show that Dougie and Whitney have been cooking up — the one that centers on a Green Queen who one day realizes she’s chosen the wrong king to help her sod roofs and plant succulents. But Whitney insists that Dougie show that cut, in which she discusses her doubts about her marriage, to Asher anyway. It’s not necessarily to hurt him, I don’t think. She seems genuinely unable to speak directly and candidly to Asher about the pent-up dissatisfaction she feels. Listening to her confessional interviews, what I found most surprising was Whitney’s guilt at her own unhappiness rather than the depth of her unhappiness. Asher “worships” Whitney. She knows it; he knows it; the camera knows it. What kind of icy bitch can’t just love the man back? I’m not sure why Dougie thought this edgy cut would work as an HGTV reno show, but as a really mean way of announcing you’re contemplating divorce, it deserves an Emmy.

It’s an interesting and open question why Whitney cries as Asher makes his prolonged pledge to be the good man she’s always tried to make him. Earlier in the episode, when Asher confesses to his former colleague Bill that he’s the one who leaked the damning casino footage to the local news, we see evidence that he’s serious about this transformation. Is Whit crying because she’s inspired by his personal revolution? Is she crying because she knows she’s stuck with this man if she really wants Green Queen to make it to air? Or is she crying because what she said to the camera, while wicked harsh, really only scratches the surface of her problems with her husband? Even if Asher suddenly starts giving a shit about Indigenous pottery, for example, Whitney will still be allergic to his (overbearing) physical touch.

And she can’t bring herself to confess that she overheard the disturbing pep talk Asher gave himself after their bowling-alley confrontation with Bill. For over a minute, she listens through the bathroom door as Asher stares at himself in the mirror and tells an imagined Bill that he’s ugly and also that he’d like to watch ugly Bill fuck his hot wife — an echo of the dark request that ended Asher’s previous relationship. Emma Stone is stunning in this scene, sitting on the bed and allowing her face to collapse into the painful shape of disbelief.

But what’s a woman to do? Reject the love of a decent man because he’s a weirdo and she has no respect for him? Give up her career aspirations just because she doesn’t share her husband’s cuckold fantasies? Well, probably! But, as Martha tells her, every TV reno queen needs her jester. Asher brings almost nothing to the table, but without him, Whitney doesn’t get to pull up a chair, either.

As a side note, a lot of the most recent cut of Green Queen feels eminently watchable to me! I’m digging the Grand Designs–style graphics, and Pascal and Janice are pitch-perfect as the new kids (who are not really) on the block. Plus, the show within a show really sings with comic touches, like the fact that the digital family in the renovation graphics contains both an interracial marriage and a kid in a wheelchair. The spectacularly long land acknowledgment that the Spiegels recite before breaking ground on each house made me immediately wish I could have been at Asher and Whitney’s wedding. Did they bring in James, the governor of the nearby Pueblo, to give their union a special blessing? Did guests sign a pledge about roadway easements alongside the RSVP card? “Chicken or Fish or Tribal Sovereignty Now.”

For Whitney, “Young Hearts” is mostly a series of combustible dustups and awkward skirmishes with the people in her life, culminating in the confrontation with Asher. When she turns up to the local spa for her appointment, for example, the masseuse she’s been assigned is her “bestie” Cara. It’s hard to know exactly what to do when Cara insists the situation doesn’t bother her, but I think Whitney makes the right call to cancel the treatment. She leaves Cara a giant tip, too. It can’t make things more normal between them, but at least it’s kind.

And at work, a guy on the camera crew hastily scribbles “SLUMLORD” on a piece of paper and leaves it on Whitney’s windshield. Whitney insists the fired employee be given his job back, but Patrick doesn’t want the job back — he doesn’t want to be part of an operation to “whitewash” the Rhodes family name, given the state of the low-income housing units Paul owns. It turns out Patrick’s outburst is the result of another crew member’s uncle’s recent eviction, but when Whitney drives out to Bookends — the crummy tenement complex that keeps the Green Queen afloat — the situation turns out to be slightly more complicated. The evicted uncle was stripping his apartments of appliances, selling them, and then insisting that the landlord replace them.

But the details of who is right aren’t important anyway. We’ve seen this scene before — the one in which the idealistic rich kid confronts the mommy and daddy whose craven money-grabbing funds the lives of all involved. And this one follows the script predictably. Among the piles of discarded furniture and the barks of menacing dogs, Whitney explains that she would never evict a tenant who was so down on their luck. In return, her parents taunt her that for every house she turns into an aspirational eco-palace, another Native family ends up checking in at Bookends. Whitney accuses Paul and Elizabeth of destroying Native American artifacts to sidestep title disputes; her parents remind her that “it’s easy to give away land when you’re not the one who paid for it.”

The Rhodeses seem to finally understand that their daughter is ashamed of them; that’s why she’s embraced a new last name with a clean Google history and a religion they never practiced. (It’s probably worth noting the quick insinuation that Whitney’s parents are erstwhile disciples of Yogi Bhajan who fell away when the guru made a play for Constance Shulman.)

Elsewhere in the episode, there’s a small disagreement with the HGTV exec Martha about just how “holistic” the series should be in its approach: Whitney would like to do more to highlight how “bleak” the impoverished parts of Española are, while Martha would like her to stay laser-focused on environmentally conscious design in particular.

Whitney’s even at odds with Dougie, her recent partner in crime, this week. Whitney, finally understanding that everything is material, wonders aloud if there’s a way to incorporate Asher’s laughable tough-guy routine from the previous episode into Green Queen. But Dougie has to confess he made a mistake. HGTV doesn’t want another case of the fighting El Moussas; they want to find the next Gainses. They want Whitney bopping Asher on the nose with pastry; they want her failing to shimmy up his skinny jeans when they go shopping. They want “xeriscaped” backyards, whatever those are, and playful ribbing, however cheesy. They want newlywed energy. Martha is even so bold to suggest that it wouldn’t hurt Whitney and Asher’s audience scores to start popping out some Green princes and princesses soon.

But these are the themes the show has been consistently hitting all season. The eco-flipper from slumlord stock. The unhappy bride and her foolish husband. The tension inherent to remaking a community at the same time you’re trying to become a part of it.

There is only one new lens on the situation offered by “Young Hearts.” In the episode’s cold open, someone watches as Whitney walks out her front door and starts heading toward the strip mall where Española Passive Homes has their offices. The car stalks her up the road a bit before passing her by. Maybe the driver is learning her patterns? It’s a scene from a different TV show filmed in a different vernacular. We see Whitney as the driver does, over the top of the steering wheel through the mud- and bug-splattered windshield. Who could it be? The aggrieved and aggressive Fernando comes to mind.

We linger with the driver, who is wearing gloves, as he turns right on South Riverside Drive. What does it mean?

Then, he pulls into the same strip mall where Whitney, Asher, and Dougie all work. Do they know him?

The peculiar and foreboding moment is never resolved or repeated or recalled, but it’s hard to imagine that whoever is behind the wheel won’t play a role in the series finale, as Whitney and Asher and maybe even Dougie each struggle to put to rights the various curses they’ve brought on themselves.

The Curse Recap: It’s a Small World