This was published 7 months ago
Remember Seinfeld’s controversial finale? Curb Your Enthusiasm just fixed it
This article contains spoilers for the final episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. But what if you do the same thing twice and manage to blow everyone away? Well, that’s just called being Larry David.
After 120 episodes, spread out over a quarter of a century (the show debuted in 1999), Curb Your Enthusiasm, the HBO series starring David as a heightened version of himself, has come to a fitting (and familiar) end, mimicking the much-maligned Seinfeld finale.
Four bad Samaritans on trial, looks familiar, right? The Seinfeld finale remains one of TV’s most polarising endings.Credit:
The final episode of Seinfeld was written by David, who returned to the show as a writer after leaving at the end of season seven. In it, the main actors are put on trial and eventually jailed for violating a Good Samaritan law by failing to help a person in need. Watched by 76.3 million viewers in the United States, it remains one of the most divisive TV finales ever and is widely considered a limp ending to an otherwise classic TV series.
In the Curb finale, it was a case of copy, paste and tweak. This time around, Larry is on trial for being a Good Samaritan; having been arrested in the season’s first episode for giving Leon’s aunt water while she is in line to vote, violating a very real Georgia voting law.
The finale doubled down on the Seinfeld closer by also featuring a revolving door of Curb’s most memorable stars, each prepared to condemn David’s lifetime of cantankerous behaviour.
The fact Curb sent us back to the courtroom should be unsurprising; this is not a show where lessons are learned. If that wasn’t clear, the finale is literally called “No Lessons Learned”, and at one point, David tells a child, “I’m 76 years old, and I have never learned a lesson in my entire life.”
No Lesson Learned: Larry David in the final episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.Credit: HBO
For longtime fans of David’s work, the constant Seinfeld hat tips were much appreciated. The episode begins with David and his co-stars – Jeff Garlin, Susie Essman and J.B. Smoove – flying on a plane, a nod to Seinfeld’s infamous aeroplane scene. But this is all a preamble for the main event: Larry David’s trial.
Twenty-five years may have passed since Seinfeld pulled the same move, dusting off everyone from the Soup Nazi to Mabel with the Marble, but the beats still hit. Sure, Jerry’s overenthusiastic encouragement of Babu’s Pakistani restaurant may have backfired, but that’s nowhere near as bad as David opening Latte Larry’s, a spite store designed to crush David’s coffee rival, Mocha Joe.
Throughout the finale, David’s laundry list of sins, crimes and grievous misunderstandings is laid out for all to enjoy.
What about the time he killed a black swan with a golf club or when he let a woman leap off a ski lift, shattering her knees? Who can forget his urinating on a picture of Jesus or stealing a pair of shoes from the Holocaust museum?
David on trial in the finale.Credit: HBO
We’re also gifted another cameo by Bruce Springsteen when he returns to remind the audience that David gave him COVID, robbing us all of his final goodbye (not to mention Springsteen’s taste and smell).
As if that wasn’t enough, David gave audiences what they’ve so desperately craved since 1998: another Seinfeld reunion.
While Jerry has appeared sporadically over Curb’s run, his cameo in the finale felt tailor-made for fans. The pair chat about the hypothetical pros and cons of dating a bearded lady, dialogue that could be ripped from early-era Seinfeld, two friends talking about nothing.
Jerry Seinfeld (left) and Larry David.Credit: HBO
By the time David is convicted and sentenced to a year in prison, it’s hard not to admire the audacity of Curb’s creator and star. Of course, the episode ends with David complaining about his pants tenting up in the crotch area—a subject of the first Curb Your Enthusiasm episode and yet another Seinfeld throwback.
But right when you think David is done, he offers one final meta gift. The case gets dismissed after Jerry spots a juror at a restaurant violating the judge’s instructions (he’s a bad sequesterer!), and David is freed on a technicality.
As he leaves prison, Jerry gently reminds his friend that this is how things are supposed to be. “You don’t want to end up like this,” says Jerry. “Nobody wants to see it - trust me.”
The series ends with the pair agreeing that this is how they should’ve ended Seinfeld.
No doubt the Seinfeld-inspired Curb finale might be critically reframed as Larry David’s attempt at addressing his TV legacy, but if we have actually taken anything from one of TV’s greatest minds, that’s never been the point.
Larry David is not here to learn, and he’s not here to teach us a lesson; he’s here to make us laugh.
Find more of the author’s work here. Email him at thomas.mitchell@smh.com.au or follow him on Instagram at @thomasalexandermitchell and on Twitter @_thmitchell.
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