Aftershocks: What Happens When The Curse Is Over?

A 15-year-old boy named Sam watched his girlfriend Melody's life fall apart after she received a cheap Zen garden from a thrift store. Within months, her grandparents announced they were selling the family's house to buy an RV, her father lost his job, her mother admitted to cheating, and both parents became alcoholics. Melody became convinced the Zen garden was cursed. When Sam smashed it with a cement block, bright sparkler-like lights shot up from the wreckage, danced in mid-air, then whooshed back down into a blinding flash. For a year, things improved. Then her father found heroin, and Melody became a hardcore party girl who cheated on Sam constantly. The question the episode raises is whether the curse returned, or whether the damage it had already done was simply too deep to undo.

The Mechanics of Cursed Objects

The episode distinguishes between two kinds of curses. Some are attached to an entity — a demon or spirit bound to a physical vessel. In that case, removing the item removes the entity with it. Destroying the item, however, carries risk. If the entity is tightly bound to the object, destruction might send it back where it came from. But if the entity was merely housed in the object, destroying the vessel could release it, unbound and free to roam.