Summary
There’s plenty of meaning behind “Viral Curse” that centers on the burdens of single parenting.
OK, let’s set the scene for Terror Tuesday: Extreme Episode 8, “Viral Curse.” Ple, the mother, runs a laundrette. She’s under pressure to do loads of laundry—her life is all about making ends meet while looking after her daughter Kaew.
One evening, Ple listens to the Thai horror radio show, and someone calls in, clearly distressed. The story is about a single mother and her child. The child drowned at the Temple Fair after going missing, and no one tried to help. The mother in this story tried to jump in to save the child, but it was too late. The mother claimed the ghost took her child away and that before this event, they were acting strange: they smashed up the TV and claimed they were playing with their sister despite having no siblings.
Financial burden
“Viral Curse” spends most of its screen time highlighting Ple’s financial woes. She owes her landlord rent arrears, and the headmaster of the school she intends for her daughter to attend suggests that she enroll her daughter in a different school due to his intuition that she cannot afford the costs.
Temptation strikes Ple when she comes across an expensive gold necklace from one of her customers in the washing machine.
But this is where, for me, the story starts to flesh out its themes, which I explain at the end of this recap.
One evening, Ple attends a social gathering with her friends, leaving her daughter Kaew at home. Her friends sense she needs help with money and offer support, but she dismisses it. They even suggested she get a full-time job with her degree and send her daughter to a boarding school.
But, the episode leans towards pride; this mother wants to provide the best for Kaew. The sad part is that she can’t.
Ple’s daughter Kaew (Credit – Netflix)
The radio show mirrors reality
Eventually, the events Ple heard on the horror radio show manifest into reality. On the way home from the social gathering, she gets a strange, eerie call. Knowing Kaew could be in trouble, she rushes back home.
She sees what looks to be Kaew under the bedsheets, but it’s a grimy, dirty-looking figure resembling a horror figure from The Ring.
To her alarm, her daughter Kaew turns on the lights behind her, and the girl she saw in the bed has disappeared. However, the bedsheets are still stained and wet. Chillingly, Kaew tells her mother she was playing with her sister, just like the story we heard in the horror radio show.
Ple loses everything
By the end of the episode, Ple’s life turns into a horror. The finances she is responsible for are taking a toll. To compound matters, a customer accuses Ple of stealing her gold necklace, and she has to beg and plead that she will return the money to avoid police action.
A panicked Ple loses her daughter Kaew again. This time, she hears strange laughter, and a random hand appears at the front of one of the washing machines. Her house starts flooding with water, and her daughter’s drawings are scattered across the floor.
The bath is overflowing with water, and in tragic circumstances, Ple finds her daughter drowned. Whatever has haunted her has now completely destroyed Ple’s life.
By the end of “Viral Curse,” the landlord tells her niece not to feel sorry for Ple; she has been thrown out of her apartment, and her child is dead, but the landlord believes Ple will be happier without the responsibilities of being a parent, which is a harsh observation.
When the landlord visits the apartment, the radio show Terror Tuesdays plays on the TV. Ple has called into the show and is distressed, saying she has been followed. She blames the show for what has happened to her.
Ple’s life is destroyed by the end of ‘Terror Tuesday: Extreme’ Episode 8 – “Viral Curse” (Credit – Netflix)
Themes and Meaning
The episode suggests, at a surface level, a haunting that has followed certain parents; however, there’s another way of looking at it.
Ple’s life was already a horror; she was unable to parent effectively, her financial situation was dire, and there was no sense that she was living normally. You could argue that her daughter was neglected. She was willing to leave her six-year-old at home while she caught up with her friends at a social gathering. This is why the episode shows her daughter’s drawings scattered on the floor while the house was flooded; her mother forgot that her daughter needed her more than anything. Her daughter’s innocence is important.
The flooding of the house represents that her life was flooded with problems. Her repetitive cycle of being unable to find her daughter manifested itself into a more horrific scenario. While Ple had the best intentions, there’s an angle here to suggest that she created her and her daughter’s demise.
It’s telling that at the end of the episode, Ple blames the radio show. She is unable to come to terms with her circumstances and loses everything.
It’s possible that’s why the landlord believes Ple will feel better now that she’s lost her apartment and her daughter. Maybe the landlord sensed that Ple was feeling burdened by being a mother. She never detailed why she was a single mother or what led her to be a laundrette business owner in the first place.
In horror movies, two things can join up; while the horror Ple experienced did happen, it’s likely her demons manifested themselves.
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