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Normally, one should never judge a show based on its opening credits, but when watching the intro of Cursed, Netflix subscribers might assume it’s an off-shoot of another teen heroine series, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
Therein lies one of the biggest struggles the streaming service faced with its foray into Arthurian legend starring 13 Reasons Why’s Katherine Langford: The tone of the series speaks to a Gen Z and Millennial audience that’s perpetually hungry for gritty, female “chosen one” adventures. It’s an audience devoted to Buffy, Sabrina, Katniss Everdeen, and Tris, but, I would argue, has little emotional connection to King Arthur, the Knights of the Roundtable, and all of the various men that wield swords in those tales.
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When done well, Arthurian stories have found a place in all genres, between the animated The Sword in the Stone, the comedic musical gem Spamalot, and the BBC’s beloved coming-of-age saga Merlin. By centering this new story on the ever-mysterious Lady of the Lake, Cursed could have been the next great female-centric fantasy adventure, adding something fresh to a vast mystical canon. That is, if it didn’t rely so heavily on poorly executed winks and nudges to the original mythos.
Frank Miller and Tom Wheeler’s Cursed, based on the pair’s original novel, follows Nimue (Langford), a young Fey sorceress, on a tragic mission of destiny. After her entire tribe is brutally murdered by the Red Paladins (pretty much just the Faith Militant from Game of Thrones), she is sent to save her people by delivering a precious sword to the infamous Merlin (Gustaf Skarsgård). (Yes, the audience probably knows the sword is Excalibur, but they’re just going to call it “The Sword of Power” the entire time for a bit of mystique.)
Unfortunately, much of the excitement in the first season—especially a major identity reveal in the finale—relies on a familiarity with the lore in the audience. As one such viewer, I was definitely intrigued by Nimue’s journey, but was disappointed by many of the main players. King Uther (Sebastian Armesto) and Nimue’s “cutthroat” accomplice, Arthur (Devon Terrell), are all slightly dull and underdeveloped throughout the season. Still, while this is far from Skarsgård’s best performance, he’s able to infuse much-needed energy into somewhat trite material and bring a bit more depth to the legendary wizard than you may have seen before.
We’re meant to be entertained by the twists to the mythos—instead of a great would-be king, Arthur is simply an attractive rogue, grasping at straws to gain honor. Merlin is at his lowest, a drunken disgrace, and, perhaps, even a traitor. However, with the show’s mostly one-dimensional performances and lack of nuance, if I were unfamiliar with these characters I suspect I would have been utterly, mind-numbingly bored.
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Perhaps this is an egregious overgeneralization. Maybe I’m offbase and most of Cursed’s viewers will be fascinated by medieval lore or at least have dads like mine who discuss Lancelot’s trysts as if they were historical fact akin to his extensive knowledge on World War II and the Battle of Normandy. Either way, Cursed is messy. The show feels overproduced—the colors too bright, the makeup and gruesome effects not quite right. The pacing is clunky at best—at random points throughout the season, there are multiple comic-like illustrated transitions between scenes that feel like a random place holder for lack of a better way to progress to the next point.
These elements suggest a level of camp similar, coincidentally, to Merlin, but with material that takes itself far more seriously. Nimue is repeatedly abused by her own tribe (making it slightly hard as a viewer to care about avenging them), then victimized some more by random scavengers and hunted by the grotesque Paladins. Even with attempted comedic levity in scenes between the hapless King Uther and inebriated Merlin, the series is mostly weighed down in woe.
All this to say, Cursed has some highlights with its characters, like the sweet and funny Pym (Lily Newmark) and the sapphic love story between Igrain (Shalom Brune-Franklin) and a fellow nun—though that relationship ultimately falls into a harmful trope the story could have done without. Still, Cursed’s greatest weakness is that it doesn’t bring anything new to the table, even beyond mythology. Netflix’s latest adaptation is likely doomed to be forgotten much quicker than the characters it sought to magnify.