The Curse
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Either be hot or be funny.
Thats the critique Asher gets from the focus group that HGTV presents with an early cut ofFlipanthropy.
If youre going to be a sidekick, pick a lane lover or jester.
The feedback is entirely eviscerating; its a miracle that any couple-cum-co-hosting duo survives the focus-group process.
Viewers dont mind Whit (miraculously), but her sustainable houses are too esoteric to really be aspirational.
EitherFlipanthropymakes it to air, or Whit may end up permanently recasting the sidekick role.
Whitney, I wager, wonders about they a lot.
She needs toimprovetheir situation, by which she always means impose herself on the situation.
Whitney cannot abide by any evidence of assimilation.
Whitney is more of an ideas person.
Unexpectedly, its Asher who now fears the magick is flowing.
Its been a long day for Asher and Whit.
Perhaps just call the doctor when your wife isnt on the medical table?
By the time the Siegels arrive home, everyone is tired.
Whitney, trying to unwind for the night, finds that shes physically stuck in her turtleneck shirt.
The zip wont unzip.
This is the realthem, you know?
Eating hot dogs without rice with their impoverished tenants and giggling in delight over their own PG antics.
Saving the world and having a laugh.
Shes planning to post the reenactment video on Instagram.
But like most things in this life, its not as funny the second time around.
The innuendos dont pop; the laughter feels canned; the turtleneck does not look believably stuck.
Whit accuses Asher of being racist when he insists he only misspoke.
He calls her nasty; she calls him small-minded.
Whitney doesnt stop screaming when Asher uses the couples therapist-designated safe word (which I think is validate).
I repeat: She does not stop.
So when does she finally calm down?
When Whitney realizes that shes accidentally left the camera rolling from the staged turtleneck episode.
The camera never lies.
In fact, its become her conscience; be theyouyoud like a focus group to watch back.
Whoever you are on-camera biting or boring is who you are in real life.
Thats what the internet will see, too.
Eight p.m. to 4 a.m. with his personal shotgun on his shoulder.
But this particular kind of carelessness, so far, is Whitneys M.O.
She bounds through Espanola doing reckless charity.
Saving the environment but killing the birds.
Attracting new businesses no local can afford.
Buying up homes and leaving them vacant in a town with a substantial unhoused population.
