It’s the ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ finale, which means the premier of the Seinfeld Reunion, and Larry quits directing it to take on a new role: Larry David, wood detective.
After wrongly being accused of putting a glass on Julia Louise Dreyfus’ coffee table rather than using a coaster during a Jason Alexander’s book party, Larry spends the remainder of the episode trying to figure out the culprit. While Jerry and Larry both insult Jason’s book, Acting without Acting, Larry refers to it as a pamphlet and Jerry implies that the title is nonsensical- all is forgiven when Jerry uses the phrase “that being said”. Read the rest of this entry »
Work on the Seinfeld episode is in full swing, with rehearsals taking place this week. As Julia Louis Dreyfus asserts, it’s as though nothing’s changed: the set is exactly the same, as are the characters and the chemistry between them. Larry incorporates into the reunion episode events that have actually happened to him in earlier seasons of Curb, such as picking up a working woman to use the carpool lane and giving a friend’s daughter’s doll a haircut. The only problem seems to be with the cast accepting Cheryl as a serious actress.
The table read itself goes well, but is marred by other incidents that take place before and during. Funkhouser shows up unexpectedly, loading up on refreshments put out for the cast and crew. Oddly, Larry refers to him as a friend when trying to convince Jerry to get rid of him; however, Jerry takes a liking to Funkhouser after Funkhouser tells him a strange joke. One of the crew members tells Larry that she may be back from lunch late because she has to take her nine year old daughter to the doctor for a rash in a rather uncomfortable place. During the reading, Larry is distracted by Jason Alexander, who is using the pen he borrowed from Larry to pick and scratch nearly every orifice in his body (except his rear end). Too bad Larry didn’t have Jerry’s advice earlier- “Never let Jason borrow anything that can be inserted”.
Things get worse as the actual rehearsal begins. Michael Richards finds out he may have Grout’s Syndrome, something Larry has encountered in a previous season, and Larry gets bombarded with text messages from his aforementioned crew member’s daughter. Larry ends up offending his new young friend when he sends her a text in all caps (text etiquette calls anything in all caps YELLING.) In an effort to apologize to the little girl he offended through his breach of text etiquette, he takes her and her mother to a restaurant he frequently goes to. Although Larry usually give the host twenty dollars to be seated immediately, this time he doesn’t because the host grabbed twenty dollars from his hand the previous day when he saw Larry on the street. This offense results in a delay in service, and although all is forgiven and Larry squeamishly gives the girl a hug before all but pushing her away. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s here- the highly anticipated audition for the Seinfeld reunion!
Cheryl and her friend Virginia are both reading for the part of George’s wife, and although Larry has had his heart set on Cheryl, he agrees to Jerry’s decision to give Virginia the role. Cheryl winds up getting the part by default when Virginia winds up in a neck brace. According to Larry, there are only two ways for a person to hurt one’s neck. One is from a car accident and the other one is from an R-rated website – which we are not.
We haven’t seen much of Suzie lately, but this week she returns and is more furious than ever. This week’s episode opens with her in the car with Jeff, who makes the mistake of asking her to find something in the glove box. While going through it, she discovers a pair of women’s underwear. As he’s done so many times before, Jeff uses Larry as the scapegoat, saying that he finds comfort in wearing panties. A bit of a stretch, but considering that in a previous season Suzie caught Larry “mincing around” in her bra, it might just work. Read the rest of this entry »
If you thought Larry went too far last week with the Jesus painting incident, you were probably completely appalled by this week’s episode.
Over the course of half an hour, Larry managed to commit two murders. The first murder occured after Larry’s spew of anger towards Norm, the slowest golfer at the country club. Unknown to Larry, Norm has high blood pressure, and being yelled at by Larry causes him to suffer a fatal heart attack. This tragedy could have been avoided had Larry’s cousin not ordered well done fried onions with his breakfast and delayed Larry’s group so that they were behind Norm’s. Larry’s cousin proves to be even more of a nuisance later in the episode, when he assumes that Larry’s offer to pay for his daughter’s college education implies a willingness to pay for his wife’s cosmetology school.
The focus is on flab this week on Curb Your Enthusiasm. In an episode that’s bizarre and literally gut wrenching, Larry’s time spent working on the Seinfeld reunion with Jerry is daunted by their chubby assistant Maureen’s love of midriff shirts. They can’t fire her because she is Julia Louis Dreyfus’ niece, so they decide with a match of “odds and evens” that Larry should be the one to talk to Maureen about the office dress code. He manages to offend her enough to make her quit (perhaps it was the suggestion that she wear something in between a midriff top and a burka).
Larry later goes to her house to coax her into returning, but not without meeting her mother, who swears he’s the spitting image of her deceased husband who was murdered for honking, and leaving some drops from his powerful urine stream on the picture of Jesus hanging in the bathroom. The “backsplash” turns out to be a blessing in disguise when Maureen and her mother see it and mistake it for a tear, prompting them to plan a tour of the country to exhibit this miracle. Read the rest of this entry »
This week’s episode of Curb Your Enthusiam may very well be the most offensive and politically incorrect episode that Larry David has ever done. Is that possible??
After recovering from what can be assumed to have been a fairly severe beating by Mary Jane Porter’s boyfriend, Larry David returns for more. Larry David sparks a feud between himself and Rosie O’Donnell when he refuses to let her pick up the tab after inviting her to lunch with the Greenes. The argument in the restaurant escalates into a full on fight, which sends rumors swirling that he was beat up by a woman.
There is little talk of the Seinfeld reunion this week besides Larry’s mention to Jeff that he has started writing. Read the rest of this entry »
Larry David’s (somewhat) lucky streak from the last episode seems to have come to an end. He offends even more people than usual in this episode, beginning with a man sitting next to him on a plane wearing shorts whose legs he calls grotesque. This criticism later comes back to haunt him when he knocks on colleagues doors in his gym shorts begging them to take him in so that he won’t have to face Mary Jane Porter’s boyfriend, who is waiting for Larry at his house after discovering the bandage from his hot towel wound in Mary Jane’s garbage pail.
Making a guest appearance is Christian Slater, whom Larry insults during Ted and Mary Danson’s anniversary party when he preaches to him about the unwritten law of caviar allotment before ratting him out to Mary for taking to much. Larry proceeds to mortify Jeff and Suzie by ruining their present to the Danson’s, which is their tone-deaf daughter singing a song for them.
Tonight was the much anticipated episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm with the Seinfeld clan making their first appearance.
At the beginning of the season, it seemed as though Larry missed Cheryl; now there’s no doubt that he wants her back. In this episode, Cheryl proves to be the driving force behind Larry’s decision to take on a new project. Right before Larry walks into NBC to tell them he’s not interested in doing the Seinfeld reunion show they’ve been begging for, he runs into Cheryl, who tells Larry that she’s acting again and wants a role in the Seinfeld reunion. Larry shocks everyone, including Jeff, when he tells the head of NBC that he’ll do the reunion and that the character of George will have gotten married, divorced, and will be trying to get back his ex-wife. The character of George, of course, has always been meant to represent Larry himself. Which is why Larry gets so upset when Jason Alexander criticizes the character as selfish and unlovable.
There are several challenges to putting the reunion show together, the first being convincing the former cast members to do it. Although Jerry is skeptical about Larry’s intentions, Julia Louis Dreyfus is worried about the show being lame, and Michael Richards is distracted by the erotic art hanging in the restaurant he and Larry meet at, they all agree to do it (one reason being that it will be a chance to make up for the series finale). The second problem is trying to figure out who will play George’s ex-wife. After Larry tells Cheryl she has the part, Jerry tells Meg Ryan that they’d love to give her the role. The third is that Larry tells the head of NBC to go f*** himself and consequently gets the show cancelled.
This episode raises the issues of tip coordination, giving someone the benefit of the doubt, and whether one may apologize for a begrudging apology. Fortunately for Larry, his ability to diagnose Lyme Disease is enough to make up for his insincere apology to the head of NBC and gets the show back. Despite bumps in the road, things actually seem to be headed in the right direction for Larry. The only problem: What is he going to do with two women cast for the role of George’s ex-wife? I’m hoping for a catfight.
