Welcome to a new Sitcom Tuesday! This week, we’re continuing our coverage of Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000-2011; 2017-2024, HBO), which is currently available on DVD and MAX.

Curb Your Enthusiasm stars LARRY DAVID as Larry David. With JEFF GARLIN as Jeff Greene, and SUSIE ESSMAN as Susie Greene.

This season marks the end of Curb’s original run. We’ll get into the revival next week, but I’ve already revealed that I’m not the biggest fan of the return seasons, specifically in comparison to these first eight years, for the new Curb offers a more jarring, extreme progression of the slight qualitative decline we’ve been following since the series reached its finest calibration around Three/Four, when it was best able to play to its situation in well-paced episodic story, thanks to fresh ideas and a performance style neither too unsure nor too premeditated. Since then, the show has come to feel more deliberately plotted, which has also made it less believably off-the-cuff, straining the veritas once implied by the metatheatrical premise and its handheld single-cam framing. Also, the comic ideas have heightened, and Larry’s characterization has responded accordingly — an unmotivated broadening that’s not troubling per se, just noticeable, suggesting that the series is now taking more effort to be what it wants to be comedically and narratively, amidst dwindling novelty. However, every year has been capable of gems, and certain season-long arcs have helped by reinforcing the otherwise diminishing situation in story, often with showbiz trappings that centralize the setting, the lead, and the “meta” of the concept — just as we saw in Seven with the Seinfeld reunion… Now, Eight tends to get a lot of credit with fans because it boasts some classics, but it still, in most entries, evidences this ongoing drift away from Curb’s most perfect form, with strain in both the creativity of its ideas and Larry’s characterization. What’s more, it doesn’t have an arc that can ground plots inside the situation — heck, it doesn’t have a real arc at all. Larry is officially single, and in the middle of Eight, the main cast packs up and moves to New York for a few months, but the star has nothing to actually do there, and while these final entries stand out because of this new locale, more character and premise-affirming setups would have made them feel more like Curb exclusively. To that point, single-cam comedies with their own form of meta were dominating the genre by 2011, rendering Curb less special — its age and influence were catching up to it… And yet, it’s still great comparatively, and this critique doesn’t really matter in the show’s grand scheme; after all, Eight is more like peak Curb than anything after the six-year hiatus will be.

(Incidentally, every episode this season has a story credited to Larry David, Alec Berg, David Mandel, & Jeff Schaffer — all Seinfeld alums. Schaffer, Berg, and Mandel joined the staff in Five as consulting and later executive producers, so this isn’t a big change, just new recognition.)

 

01) Episode 73: “Palestinian Chicken” (Aired: 07/24/11)

Larry begins eating at a Palestinian chicken place.

Directed by Robert B. Weide

My choice for this season’s Most Valuable Episode (MVE), “Palestinian Chicken” is often heralded as one of the series’ best — many even call it the best. That’s because it’s got some of Curb’s funniest comic ideas — the very thing this show prioritizes most in its quest for self-determined excellence. Specifically, the main logline is hilarious — as Larry, whose Jewish identity has been utilized throughout the run as a key part of his depiction, dates a Palestinian woman despite the obvious cultural tensions that exist between them, merely to get both good sex and tasty chicken. It’s a George Costanza-like rejection of personal principle in favor of immediate gratification that’s so reflective of his character. And the scene where Marty catches Larry in flagrante delicto is a particular highlight; that alone would earn this offering a place on my list. But what vaults this into, indeed, the series’ upper echelon is another narrative notion: the explicit labeling of Larry as a “social assassin” — someone whose reputation for calling out petty, trivial annoyances is so clear to everyone else that it becomes an asset, a strength that can be deployed strategically. That’s a smart treatment of the broadening in his usage — initially his misfortunes were often the result of error/circumstance exacerbated by his own maneuvers; now, he’s a menace who instigates most of his trouble, picking every little grievance along the way. Sometimes it’s hard to believe, but here, this dwindling social grace is precisely what renders Larry a social assassin, and Curb’s awareness of that fact — in addition to the Palestinian chicken storyline that plays with his foundationally self-serving nature — makes for the most enlightening, and also comedically maximized, use of his character post-Season Four. A testament to the show’s sense of humor and clever storytelling, it proves that, even while slipping, Curb is still capable of greatness — the kind of sitcom brilliance that my blog relishes in covering. (Guests include Beth Hall, Jason Kravits, Larry Miller, and Maggie Wheeler.)

02) Episode 76: “The Hero” (Aired: 08/14/11)

Larry is falsely accused of doing a good deed and clashes with Ricky Gervais.

Directed by Alec Berg

After the previous excursion set up the idea that Larry is joining Jeff and Susie in New York for a few months simply to follow through on a lie he told, this one begins on their plane to the Big Apple — where they will stay for the rest of the season. Now, this is a funny logline… but there’s still nothing for Larry to be doing once they get there, and without something to tether weekly plot to that’s also affiliated with the situation, this year feels like it loses both character and premise a bit… That said, the New York shows are notable because they’re innately unique, and this one is tops because it reinforces the series’ showbiz meta ethos by having Ricky Gervais appear as himself — his feud with Larry is the kind of stuff we expect of Curb, and it enables one of the year’s best samples for the series’ leading characterization, which is aided here by a dozen humorous ideas well within the show’s comedic wheelhouse. A really solid outing. (Among the other guests are Chris Parnell, Dan Bakkedahl, and Ruthie Henshall.)

03) Episode 79: “Mister Softee” (Aired: 09/04/11)

Larry deals with past trauma triggered by the sound of an ice cream truck.

Directed by Larry Charles

This popular excursion also boasts a funny central idea that earns it a slot here — the reveal that Larry has childhood trauma connected to the sound of the Mister Softee ice cream truck and is therefore triggered every time he hears it. It’s a silly, one-joke, sketch-like gag, but it’s also inherently laugh-inducing, and provides an amusing excuse to bring Larry trouble, first at a softball game, and later when trying to pleasure his new girlfriend, played by SNL’s Ana Gasteyer. The episode then branches out for other subplots — Bill Buckner appears as himself and gets a chance for redemption related to his own baseball error, plus there’s a runner about a vibrating, orgasmic seat in Larry’s car (Susie’s turn makes it worthwhile!) — all of which converge for a memorable climax that corroborates the show’s comedic focus and aggrandizing narrative bent, and is fun, even without the character-specific panache evidenced in the rest of this list. (Robert Smigel has a riotous guest turn, and look out for a young Amy Schumer.)

04) Episode 80: “Larry Vs. Michael J. Fox” (Aired: 09/11/11)

Larry gets into a feud with neighbor Michael J. Fox.

Directed by Alec Berg

Eight’s finale features another star playing himself in a feud stoked by Larry — Michael J. Fox, whose Parkinson’s becomes fodder for Larry’s lack of social tact, which breeds discomfort and earns big yuks. Again, spotlighting a guest celebrity who’s blurring his own fact and fiction is an ideal gesture to the fourth-wall-broken premise that Curb naturally invites as a result of Larry’s reality-based characterization, and this subject matter audaciously flatters the series’ reputation for being more willing to break taboos, per its HBO bona fides. In a similar vein, the subplot where Larry encounters his girlfriend’s flamboyant son (about whom she seems to be in denial) is a delightfully hilarious and socially prickly comic idea — with the swastika pillow climax very much in the spirit of classic Curb. So, all in all, this idea-led entry is a funny, enjoyable end to this era of the series’ life. (Jim Downey also appears, and Michael Bloomberg has a cameo.)

 

Other episodes in consideration for the above list were: “Vow Of Silence,” which has a few memorable comic ideas but is mostly used to set up the New York arc, and “The Bi-Sexual,” which puts Larry in romantic competition with the funny Rosie O’Donnell.

 

*** The MVE Award for the Best Episode from Season Eight of Curb Your Enthusiasm goes to…

“Palestinian Chicken”

 

 

Come back next week for Season Nine! And stay tuned for a new Wildcard Wednesday!