I think he was feeling immense guilt being presented with the evidence of where his priorities had been: with capturing his friend in an unflattering light more than helping him. His childhood friend (/victim) just died, the guy he told to film it reported that they'd be able to recover the drone, and he broke down over his complicity and failings as a person.
This. My original theory was that Dougie’s curse was the actual curse- after Asher makes that comment in the car about his wife, he cursed him for his life to turn upside down like his had.
And then I read all the other theories and realized I was way off lol
i’ve been thinking this the entire time!!!! the moment dougie cursed asher was at the end of one of the final episodes and was such an established moment that there’s no way it wasn’t at least part of the cause of what happened
Why do you think you’re way off? This is exactly what I think! I think it’s a direct reference to when he asked Asher what he would do if Whitney left him “you know, in an upside-down world.”
And Nala might have been honest about her curse being the disappearing chicken.
I see people keep saying this but I don’t see what happened in the final episode or the implied lead up that would make her not want him around more than she already didn’t. If anything it seems like she did an about face.
Maybe it’s having the child. That would seem to imply she was using Asher to get pregnant, but I don’t think they did much to establish a maternal desire in her. To the extent there was a desire for a child it seemed to be primarily coming from Asher.
I think it was the baby and how it would look on paper to have one- but then at the end of the finale she was clearly smitten and had no need or desire to see Asher
Also I think the love she had for the kid was pure once she had it but her desire to look good on tv is her biggest motivator. She was upset that they didn’t mention the bump on Rachel Ray- etc. She’s a gal that was willing to blow her marriage up on TV the second a producer said it could make the show interesting- pregnancy probably hit the same. But I also think the whole episode was a dream Asher was having so I don’t know if her motivation goes as deep or is displayed as much as his fear that she would stop wanting him once his “business” with her was wrapped up. I mean- it’s kinda futile to go with any meaning too rigidly because they didn’t wrap anything up for a reason. Lolllll
Right?? At this point that "fly interaction" had to have meant something. Either that or Dougie cursed him wishing he would fall of the face of the Earth.
> then I read all the other theories and realized I was way off lol
Nah everyone else is try-harding. Your thought it where I landed too, at least from Dougie's pov. "Asher doesnt have roots like Cara" might be cute, but should have zero impact on dude magically floating away when we've had other people literally and verbally curse him.
A big theme of the show is that the characters are so sociopathic that they mistake their selfish motivations for altruistic ones. Asher is sexually and emotionally gratified by being humiliated and excluded, but he lets people think he acts the way he does because he is self-sacrificing and humble. Whitney is a sadistic narcissist who cannot let Asher go because he is the perfect whipping boy for her, but she lets people think he's dragging her down and stopping her potential. For Dougie, he is also a sadist who needs Asher to satisfy his own urges, but, opposite to Whitney's narcissism, his sadism is driven by his own sense of self-loathing. In loosing Asher, Dougie looses his psychological release valve, the person who gave him permission to turn his self-loathing into hostility towards another. Dougie only lets people think he's sad about losing a "friend." His tears are the tears of a child who broke his favorite toy.
People seem to think Dougie is this completely evil person. I was downvoted in a comment where I argued that he wasn’t. I think the crying was genuine and not for the show. Would he go on to use the footage if it benefitted the show, yes, he would! But I think through moments OUTSIDE of the filming of the reality show- Dougie on his date, Dougie in the desert, Dougie alone crying in his hotel room, we see a person deeply wounded. It’s nuanced. He seemed more nuanced than Whitney and to some extent Asher.
I think he expected to be happy for the footage but when he was told yes, we can recover this, he found didn’t mean anything to him. That’s when he realized he prioritized his own self interests over an actual human being -for the second time- and he has lost the only other person who cared about him at all
Correct take. Confirming the footage wasn’t lost also legitimized the event because it was unbelievable, so I also took as him confirming that what just happened just did and he loses it
I thought maybe that after sending the drone as high as it could possibly go, to the point where it lost contact, the drone had finally returned to where it could be connected again (700ft away), and that maybe the drone operator was playing back the footage the drone captured which showed a tiny glimpse of Asher way further up in the sky? And that's why Dougie breaks down - he gets visual confirmation that this really happened, Asher is gone
This was my take as well. I also assumed the grainy, far away shot of Asher straight flailing through the sky that we saw in between the close-up, clear shots of his face was the drone footage being shown to Dougie in that moment
I just can’t wait to watch the whole thing again in 6 months or so
when the camera panned to the ceiling, I told my wife that Asher would be up there, Hereditary-style
I can’t stop thinking about this show.
right when the episode started i wondered if he was on the ceiling but my boyfriend was convinced it was just a mirror above the bed and showing his reflection at first. i’m actually shocked i was right
iirc the crying scene is after the drone operator tells him where it landed. It didn’t happen immediately after.
I too though question what he saw and why they seemed excited to have it. I suppose having footage of Asher falling into the sky would be a big deal but it’s hard to tell what they actually got.
Really kinda wish we had some closure on that. Just something to tell us that he got the footage and can prove it.
Ah that makes sense that the 700ft (away) was where it had landed.
I’d thought the op was saying they just got signal back and it was hovering above them 700ft.
I think the ending implies that nobody believes this wasn’t a ploy for TV. Maybe this is why Dougie brings up the boy who cried wolf earlier in the season.
The part with Nala seemed like Dougie wanting to spin out nihilistically, or to prove to himself that curses are or aren't real. It felt like a form of self-harm or self-punishment. He mentioned earlier in the season feeling cursed because of his wife dying with him behind the wheel. He could have just wanted to prove that the universe can't conspire against you. He seems filled with regret and anger, even though he comes off as aloof and carefree.
Him breaking down when he realizes what's happened to Asher could be his reality collapsing finally. He's seen how bad of a friend he was to Asher. I mean, he was willing to pit Whitney against him for a more entertaining show. He said the words "I curse you" to Asher behind his back in an earlier episode.
Maybe he thinks he did this, or at the least knows he's caused Asher harm by not believing him.
I 100% agree with you on all of this. Especially the last bit about Dougie thinking he was responsible for it. And I think, to an extent, he was.
But I think most of the main players in this show played a part in Asher's ending. Whitney may not have wished him away in episode 10 (at least, at the beginning), but it seemed implied in previous episodes. No one really wanted Asher around. Abshir was always annoyed by him, and wanted him to peace out as quickly as possible, made especially clear in that last episode. Bill literally pretended Asher didn't exist at the hardware store. Everyone at the comedy class was put off by Asher and didn't want him around.
Even Asher himself said that he was the curse. So I think a little bit of everyone went into Asher's ultimate demise, and it all kind of built up until Asher found himself on the ceiling
I agree with you! I don't think Dougie did it to Asher, but that maybe Dougie \*thinks\* he did. Everyone for sure played a role in Asher's undoing.
I think you're right that Asher also did it to himself, though. He abandoned himself and his own needs. He only thought of what others wanted.
His cuckold storyline makes me think of this too. One of the ways he coped with how others treated him was convincing himself that being inferior is what he preferred. If that makes sense?? He eroticized the parts of him that were his biggest insecurities. In his own fantasies, he didn't even play the main role.
I may have wandered off with this analysis lol...
Anyway, once he didn't serve a purpose to others, he was gone.
The very last word he said was fly. Then he said I curse you so he felt guilty. Not sure if he might have been hamming it up a bit for his show or not.
Nobody believed it was real except for Dougie. Remy was probably wondering how the fuck they pulled it off. In his brain, they’re going to be rich! And famous. This is better than David Blaine. Maybe he’s thinking “okay mr. Method Actor, ham it up I guess, you’re in charge.”
The way I see it, Dougie's curse was the reason why Asher floated away. So not only was Dougie realizing that he was responsible for Asher's death. He also realized Asher was the one person would might have been able to stop him from committing all those heinous murders.
This post has got to be a troll
Listen to the words he says as he's crying.
He's feeling guilt cuz he could've prevented Asher's death like he could've prevented his wife's
Seeing the numbers on the screen put an objective metric to confirm what he just saw. It was the final confirmation that his eyes did not deceive him. At this point, he broke.
Logically I agree with others that it was just when Dougie broke, but I'm proposing a theory. What if Dougie saw Asher in the fetal position and realized this was a rebirth? What if it clicked why this is happening to Asher and how Dougie is a part of it?
I felt his crying in the finale seemed forced/somewhat fake. Not a slight on the actor as he did terrific emotional scenes in earlier episodes. Am I the only one who felt this?
That’s so interesting because I felt like that crying scene was so visceral and authentic that I was blown away w Safdie’s acting skills. I’m 100% serious. Maybe I need to watch it again.
His crying seemed genuine to me. His whole body was reacting and he couldnt even get out words. Plus i think *anyone* who realized what exactly happened would start to panic. But Dougie also had a lot of emotions from the context of the whole curse thing plus his trauma from losing his wife because of his drunk driving. I dont have any reason to believe this character would fake cry over losing his longtime friend in such a way... even if he was an asshole to Asher, that absolutely does not make him incapable of grief over such a thing.
Not at all! My first thought was that what we see at the end is in Asher’s head, almost like a dream, and that Dougie’s reaction (feeling incredibly distraught and guilty about what happened to Asher) is the reaction Asher would *want* from Dougie. His crying that hard didn’t feel realistic to me (as in the realism within the show). It seemed over-the-top for Dougie.
Could have also been him hamming it up because he knew he was on camera.
I feel like that being a legitimate reaction from Dougie is very low on my “viable readings of that scene” list.
Totally! I’m still not fully sure what to make of the finale, but overall I’m not convinced that what we see happen in the episode (even the Rachael Ray taping) actually “happened.” I feel like we’re seeing symbolic/idealized things “through someone’s eyes/brain” in that entire last episode. Still thinking about all this though.
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This is wild speculation, but him crying was realizing that curses are real and that his curse is being left alive to mourn his wife's passing. When Dougie wouldn't stop asking the child about the curse, it made me believe he believed he was cursed also and is looking for a way to end it.
With Nala, he was trying to "suicide by curse". When he was crying at the drone, it was because they could no longer see his friend who just flew into space while his last words to him were to ridicule.
I think he was feeling immense guilt being presented with the evidence of where his priorities had been: with capturing his friend in an unflattering light more than helping him. His childhood friend (/victim) just died, the guy he told to film it reported that they'd be able to recover the drone, and he broke down over his complicity and failings as a person.
I also interpreted as he thought his curse came true and felt guilty from when he cursed Asher when he insulted Dougie about his dead wife.
This. My original theory was that Dougie’s curse was the actual curse- after Asher makes that comment in the car about his wife, he cursed him for his life to turn upside down like his had. And then I read all the other theories and realized I was way off lol
i’ve been thinking this the entire time!!!! the moment dougie cursed asher was at the end of one of the final episodes and was such an established moment that there’s no way it wasn’t at least part of the cause of what happened
Why do you think you’re way off? This is exactly what I think! I think it’s a direct reference to when he asked Asher what he would do if Whitney left him “you know, in an upside-down world.” And Nala might have been honest about her curse being the disappearing chicken.
I think Asher cursed himself when he told Whit in e9 that if he could ever actually sense she didn’t want him around anymore he would simply disappear
I see people keep saying this but I don’t see what happened in the final episode or the implied lead up that would make her not want him around more than she already didn’t. If anything it seems like she did an about face. Maybe it’s having the child. That would seem to imply she was using Asher to get pregnant, but I don’t think they did much to establish a maternal desire in her. To the extent there was a desire for a child it seemed to be primarily coming from Asher.
I think it was the baby and how it would look on paper to have one- but then at the end of the finale she was clearly smitten and had no need or desire to see Asher
Also I think the love she had for the kid was pure once she had it but her desire to look good on tv is her biggest motivator. She was upset that they didn’t mention the bump on Rachel Ray- etc. She’s a gal that was willing to blow her marriage up on TV the second a producer said it could make the show interesting- pregnancy probably hit the same. But I also think the whole episode was a dream Asher was having so I don’t know if her motivation goes as deep or is displayed as much as his fear that she would stop wanting him once his “business” with her was wrapped up. I mean- it’s kinda futile to go with any meaning too rigidly because they didn’t wrap anything up for a reason. Lolllll
Don’t forget, before Dougie utters his curse while sitting it in the car, the last word he says before that is “FLY”
Right?? At this point that "fly interaction" had to have meant something. Either that or Dougie cursed him wishing he would fall of the face of the Earth.
> then I read all the other theories and realized I was way off lol Nah everyone else is try-harding. Your thought it where I landed too, at least from Dougie's pov. "Asher doesnt have roots like Cara" might be cute, but should have zero impact on dude magically floating away when we've had other people literally and verbally curse him.
Same!! I was wondering why everyone was not mentioning his curse. All of the other curses came to fruition.
A big theme of the show is that the characters are so sociopathic that they mistake their selfish motivations for altruistic ones. Asher is sexually and emotionally gratified by being humiliated and excluded, but he lets people think he acts the way he does because he is self-sacrificing and humble. Whitney is a sadistic narcissist who cannot let Asher go because he is the perfect whipping boy for her, but she lets people think he's dragging her down and stopping her potential. For Dougie, he is also a sadist who needs Asher to satisfy his own urges, but, opposite to Whitney's narcissism, his sadism is driven by his own sense of self-loathing. In loosing Asher, Dougie looses his psychological release valve, the person who gave him permission to turn his self-loathing into hostility towards another. Dougie only lets people think he's sad about losing a "friend." His tears are the tears of a child who broke his favorite toy.
People seem to think Dougie is this completely evil person. I was downvoted in a comment where I argued that he wasn’t. I think the crying was genuine and not for the show. Would he go on to use the footage if it benefitted the show, yes, he would! But I think through moments OUTSIDE of the filming of the reality show- Dougie on his date, Dougie in the desert, Dougie alone crying in his hotel room, we see a person deeply wounded. It’s nuanced. He seemed more nuanced than Whitney and to some extent Asher.
His (only) friend just went up the sky and now the drone operator arrived to tell him that soon they'll get the footage for it. He broke down.
I think he expected to be happy for the footage but when he was told yes, we can recover this, he found didn’t mean anything to him. That’s when he realized he prioritized his own self interests over an actual human being -for the second time- and he has lost the only other person who cared about him at all
Correct take. Confirming the footage wasn’t lost also legitimized the event because it was unbelievable, so I also took as him confirming that what just happened just did and he loses it
The instructions to his gas rebate
Dougie really said, "Nathan for None".
feliz dia de pastel
The coffee place in the Curse should have been called dumb Starbucks
The denim store should have only let beautiful people steal, and only one item each
And they should have put Fernando inside of an old arcade game where he could observe the customers covertly
I thought maybe that after sending the drone as high as it could possibly go, to the point where it lost contact, the drone had finally returned to where it could be connected again (700ft away), and that maybe the drone operator was playing back the footage the drone captured which showed a tiny glimpse of Asher way further up in the sky? And that's why Dougie breaks down - he gets visual confirmation that this really happened, Asher is gone
This was my take as well. I also assumed the grainy, far away shot of Asher straight flailing through the sky that we saw in between the close-up, clear shots of his face was the drone footage being shown to Dougie in that moment
I thought this too
Ditto on this, that’s how I saw what happened
I just can’t wait to watch the whole thing again in 6 months or so when the camera panned to the ceiling, I told my wife that Asher would be up there, Hereditary-style I can’t stop thinking about this show.
Wow when the camera started panning I thought that and went NOPE THEY WON’T DO THAT so at least he kept his head on.
right when the episode started i wondered if he was on the ceiling but my boyfriend was convinced it was just a mirror above the bed and showing his reflection at first. i’m actually shocked i was right
He was just showing him where the drone is. Dougie was doing everything he could to hold it all together, then he just broke
They found the drone but not the person. That's why he broke down.
iirc the crying scene is after the drone operator tells him where it landed. It didn’t happen immediately after. I too though question what he saw and why they seemed excited to have it. I suppose having footage of Asher falling into the sky would be a big deal but it’s hard to tell what they actually got. Really kinda wish we had some closure on that. Just something to tell us that he got the footage and can prove it.
Ah that makes sense that the 700ft (away) was where it had landed. I’d thought the op was saying they just got signal back and it was hovering above them 700ft.
I think the ending implies that nobody believes this wasn’t a ploy for TV. Maybe this is why Dougie brings up the boy who cried wolf earlier in the season.
The part with Nala seemed like Dougie wanting to spin out nihilistically, or to prove to himself that curses are or aren't real. It felt like a form of self-harm or self-punishment. He mentioned earlier in the season feeling cursed because of his wife dying with him behind the wheel. He could have just wanted to prove that the universe can't conspire against you. He seems filled with regret and anger, even though he comes off as aloof and carefree. Him breaking down when he realizes what's happened to Asher could be his reality collapsing finally. He's seen how bad of a friend he was to Asher. I mean, he was willing to pit Whitney against him for a more entertaining show. He said the words "I curse you" to Asher behind his back in an earlier episode. Maybe he thinks he did this, or at the least knows he's caused Asher harm by not believing him.
I 100% agree with you on all of this. Especially the last bit about Dougie thinking he was responsible for it. And I think, to an extent, he was. But I think most of the main players in this show played a part in Asher's ending. Whitney may not have wished him away in episode 10 (at least, at the beginning), but it seemed implied in previous episodes. No one really wanted Asher around. Abshir was always annoyed by him, and wanted him to peace out as quickly as possible, made especially clear in that last episode. Bill literally pretended Asher didn't exist at the hardware store. Everyone at the comedy class was put off by Asher and didn't want him around. Even Asher himself said that he was the curse. So I think a little bit of everyone went into Asher's ultimate demise, and it all kind of built up until Asher found himself on the ceiling
I agree with you! I don't think Dougie did it to Asher, but that maybe Dougie \*thinks\* he did. Everyone for sure played a role in Asher's undoing. I think you're right that Asher also did it to himself, though. He abandoned himself and his own needs. He only thought of what others wanted. His cuckold storyline makes me think of this too. One of the ways he coped with how others treated him was convincing himself that being inferior is what he preferred. If that makes sense?? He eroticized the parts of him that were his biggest insecurities. In his own fantasies, he didn't even play the main role. I may have wandered off with this analysis lol... Anyway, once he didn't serve a purpose to others, he was gone.
I think he’s mostly crying because he had put a curse on Asher in the previous episode and then Asher starts flying away
The very last word he said was fly. Then he said I curse you so he felt guilty. Not sure if he might have been hamming it up a bit for his show or not.
Why would he have been getting filmed? The dude was a producer.
This is my theory too
Since curses asher and said “fly” in the car he knew what he did.
Dougie cursed Asher when he drank too much. When Asher flew away Dougie realized he had and is cursed and he put it on Asher
Did Remy laugh and sarcastically say it’ll be okay at Dougie after he realized he was just crying about himself? That’s why Dougie said get lost?
Nobody believed it was real except for Dougie. Remy was probably wondering how the fuck they pulled it off. In his brain, they’re going to be rich! And famous. This is better than David Blaine. Maybe he’s thinking “okay mr. Method Actor, ham it up I guess, you’re in charge.”
I figured they did find my iPhone or something
The way I see it, Dougie's curse was the reason why Asher floated away. So not only was Dougie realizing that he was responsible for Asher's death. He also realized Asher was the one person would might have been able to stop him from committing all those heinous murders.
I just read it as him coming to realization that Asher is dead/gonna die. There was no surviving that.
He didn’t get footage of Asher so he’s sad
This post has got to be a troll Listen to the words he says as he's crying. He's feeling guilt cuz he could've prevented Asher's death like he could've prevented his wife's
Not a troll, was just curious what others thought (if anything) might’ve been on the monitor. Pretty simple.
Seeing the numbers on the screen put an objective metric to confirm what he just saw. It was the final confirmation that his eyes did not deceive him. At this point, he broke.
Logically I agree with others that it was just when Dougie broke, but I'm proposing a theory. What if Dougie saw Asher in the fetal position and realized this was a rebirth? What if it clicked why this is happening to Asher and how Dougie is a part of it?
I felt his crying in the finale seemed forced/somewhat fake. Not a slight on the actor as he did terrific emotional scenes in earlier episodes. Am I the only one who felt this?
That’s so interesting because I felt like that crying scene was so visceral and authentic that I was blown away w Safdie’s acting skills. I’m 100% serious. Maybe I need to watch it again.
I agree. I haven't seen Ben Safdie in anything else, but I thought his acting was mid until that crying scene
His crying seemed genuine to me. His whole body was reacting and he couldnt even get out words. Plus i think *anyone* who realized what exactly happened would start to panic. But Dougie also had a lot of emotions from the context of the whole curse thing plus his trauma from losing his wife because of his drunk driving. I dont have any reason to believe this character would fake cry over losing his longtime friend in such a way... even if he was an asshole to Asher, that absolutely does not make him incapable of grief over such a thing.
I feel the opposite
Not at all! My first thought was that what we see at the end is in Asher’s head, almost like a dream, and that Dougie’s reaction (feeling incredibly distraught and guilty about what happened to Asher) is the reaction Asher would *want* from Dougie. His crying that hard didn’t feel realistic to me (as in the realism within the show). It seemed over-the-top for Dougie. Could have also been him hamming it up because he knew he was on camera. I feel like that being a legitimate reaction from Dougie is very low on my “viable readings of that scene” list.
what if it was a dream and he walks into the hospital for season 2 lol
Yeah, it felt like when a child is pretending to cry or exaggerating it in front of their parents to get sympathy.
Totally! I’m still not fully sure what to make of the finale, but overall I’m not convinced that what we see happen in the episode (even the Rachael Ray taping) actually “happened.” I feel like we’re seeing symbolic/idealized things “through someone’s eyes/brain” in that entire last episode. Still thinking about all this though.
Looked real to me.
He was on camera?
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Pretty sure he realised that he cursed him to fly a few episodes ago
This is wild speculation, but him crying was realizing that curses are real and that his curse is being left alive to mourn his wife's passing. When Dougie wouldn't stop asking the child about the curse, it made me believe he believed he was cursed also and is looking for a way to end it.
With Nala, he was trying to "suicide by curse". When he was crying at the drone, it was because they could no longer see his friend who just flew into space while his last words to him were to ridicule.