Cursed Review: The Start of a Legend

Warning this review contains spoilers for the entirety of Cursed Season 1.

There is a story lost to the mists of time, of The Sword of Power and the young woman who wielded it. They called her a demon, Sorceress, Savior. Before Arthur the King, The Sword of Power chose a Queen.

Netflix’s latest series, Cursed, takes you on an epic adventure in a new world filled with magic, Fey, kings, paladins, and knights. It’s a wonderful escape.

The series takes its time telling the tale of Nimue and the sword. Cursed treats Nimue’s story as a means to introduce us to a much larger world. While Nimue’s quest is certainly the main tale of the season, we spend quite a bit of time with other characters, some who have yet to cross Nimue’s path.

There’s a significant focus on worldbuilding, which is both good and bad.

By the end of the season, you truly feel as if you understand this world and are familiar with a lot of the moving parts, even if you can’t always recall someone’s name. It’s fascinating to see the different types of Fey and get a glimpse at the political turmoil and the Church’s influence.

However, not everyone’s storyline is completely engaging, especially not as Nimue’s story picks up. There are quite a few moments where you’d much rather spend time with her than with Merlin or Cumber the Ice King — Merlin’s storyline is not interesting for the first part of the season, let’s be honest.

Switching between storylines causes the momentum that one storyline picks up to falter, and so it really isn’t until the finale that you get a  thrilling hour of television that keeps you on the edge of your seat. The rest of the season has moments of intensity, but they are rarely sustained for the majority of the hour.

Spending time in all these separate, sometimes less compelling, storylines is a sacrifice you have to make in order to build such a grand world, and it’s up to you to decide whether or not the trade-off is worth it.

The emphasis on worldbuilding and introducing us to all these characters that we know play a larger role in Arthurian legend causes Cursed Season 1 to feel like the prologue to a longer tale. Nimue and her quest isn’t the focal point; it’s the starting off point.

The Red Spear, for instance, is one of those characters/groups of characters that will clearly be of more importance in future seasons, assuming the series is renewed.

Aside from the events of Cursed Season 1 Episode 10, “The Sacrifice,” the Red Spear is tangentially connected to Nimue and her quest. They are just a moving part in this world, and we spend a little bit of time with them through Pym, but we don’t truly spend enough to really to get know the Captain or her crew.

However, it appears that Arthur is forging an alliance with the Red Spear at the end of “The Sacrifice,” setting up the Red Spear to be a much bigger part in this tale.

Perhaps, if there are future seasons, Season 1 can be appreciated more for all the legwork it does in setting up such an epic tale. For now, however, you have to admit that as a standalone story, the worldbuilding emphasis does harm Season 1 a bit.

Certain storylines get dropped or aren’t fully fleshed out because we are jumping from so many different storylines. The main example that comes to mind is the effects of the sword on its wielder.

Squirrel: You’re the ugliest of them all, inside and out. Kill me. Fine. But you’ll still be you forever, and that’s a worse hell than anything I can think of.
Brother Salt: The tongue first, I think.
Squirrel: Go on. Take it. I’ll still keep talking. I’ll be in your nightmares talking, telling you how ugly you are. When you try to wake up, your eyes won’t open because you sewed them up like a bloody idiot!

Merlin references the toll the blade can take. We see it in his flashbacks, and we also see the sword’s influence on Nimue, but it is there one minute and gone the next.

Nimue does take a much more vengeful approach to certain dealings. She also comments on being comforted by the scream’s the sword contains and even draws the sword on Arthur at one point, without realizing that is what she’s doing.

But then, all of a sudden, she’s fine. She is suddenly just Nimue again, much more levelheaded, and there’s never a doubt about who is speaking, Nimue or the sword.

There’s not a scene where Nimue explains how she overcame the sword’s hold or one where she asks the sword to ease up on the violent thoughts –she talks to the sword; this wouldn’t be too much of a stretch.

The dangers of the sword are built up over the course of many episodes, and so it is too important to be abruptly dismissed or forgotten about. Since we don’t see any kind of payoff to this storyline, there really isn’t a point to all the worrying and warning we endured throughout the season.

What it feels like must have happened is focus had to shift because time was running out, and there were other things the series had to accomplish. There were a lot of storylines that had to come together (or drift apart).

Seeing as how this is the sword that, presumably, Arthur will one day wield, it would have been nice to get some answers as far as how to manage the negative, violent side effects. Hopefully, if there is a Season 2, this will be further explored.

Cursed is full of some fantastic characters, but there are two, in particular, I’d like to spend some time discussing. One of them is Arthur due to his pretty spectacular character arc.

Despite his charming first impression, we soon learn that Arthur is obsessed with winning back his honor and running away from a challenge or noble calling. Over the rest of the season, we slowly see Arthur turn into someone who would make a good king.

It’s a slow process, and he definitely still has a way to go, but his development feels earned. It isn’t as if one day he turns into a good guy because he has to be in order to eventually be King Arthur.

His relationship and scenes with Gawain, in particular, really showcase his transformation. Arthur comes off as more understanding, clear-headed, and accepting as opposed to Gawain, especially during Cursed Season 1 Episode 6, “Festa and Moreii.”

Arthur: Wait! Before we do this, I must know. Do you love her?

Gawain: What?

Arthur: Nimue! Do you?

Gawain: We’ll be dead in six minutes. What do you care?

It’s also really amusing to watch the two of them bicker and eventually end up as friends. We could have had an epic bromance here.

The other character that we have to talk about is Iris.

Out of all the villains, she is the worst of them, and it’s safe to say that she’s the one everyone hated. The unexpectedness of the extent of her villainry is why she is more hated than Father Carden.

It’s expected that Father Carden is a bad guy. He’s an old white man who is burning Fey villages in the name of the lord. He believes what he is doing is right, and I doubt anyone goes into Cursed dismissing him or hoping he changes his mind.

No one expects Iris to be the villain.

As Celia says, there’s this hope that Iris is simply misguided; she’s a young girl, after all. She doesn’t know everything, and she has lived a very sheltered, religious life so far. It wouldn’t have been surprising if after spending time with the Fey and receiving some of their kindness that Iris was swayed and was able to see reason. 

Cursed could have easily made Father Carden the main villain. There wouldn’t have been anything wrong with that decision, but instead, the show takes the unexpected route and gives us a truly fantastic villain.

It’s safe to say we all have strong feelings towards her, starting the moment she snitched on Nimue on Cursed Season 1 Episode 3, “Alone.”  There’s no ambivalence like there is towards Father Carden — he isn’t anything particularly exciting in my book.

By becoming part of the trinity at the end of “The Sacrifice,” I fear the worst is yet to come with her.

Stray Thoughts

• This show is bloodier than expected.
• We don’t deserve Squirrel. His trash-talking is unparalleled.
• The Weeping Monk/Lancelot (!!) is a super dramatic fighter.
• The transitions are stunning and add a bit of a storytelling element to the series.
• Do we ship Arthur and Nimue? I’m ambivalent.
• You really can’t come between the Widow and her summons; you can’t beat death.
• But we all think Nimue’s totally still alive, right?
• The fact that the finale is titled “The Sacrifice” hurts.
• Dof is way too pretty to have died.
• The Cailleach is built up to be this huge thing and all it does it allow Morgana to see the Widow in order to kill her/become her.
• I hope we explore Morgana’s new widow powers in Season 2.

What did you think of Cursed Season 1? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Cursed Season 1 is now streaming on Netflix.

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