SPOILER ALERT: This text discusses plot factors from the collection finale of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
Larry David acquired the chance to revise the controversial ending he’d chosen for his first broadly beloved TV collection, and he stayed fairly near the formulation. However whereas his earlier collection ended with its protagonist in jail, his present one is ending with David himself strolling free.
This season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” had appeared, from its first episode, to be constructing towards an ending that both mirrored or inverted the way in which “Seinfeld,” co-created by David and Jerry Seinfeld, had wrapped up in 1998. The season’s mega-arc has been the continued uncertainty across the character Larry’s having unintentionally run afoul of Georgia election legal guidelines. And, all through the season, askance references to the “Seinfeld” finale (which featured the core forged going to jail after having been pressured to listen to infinite testimony as to their self-centeredness) prompt that the correct solution to wrap up a collection was very a lot on David’s thoughts.
The “Seinfeld” finale — which David, who had left the collection, returned to write down — was pilloried on the time, but when one watches it at present, exterior the warmth of the present’s press-choreographed march to the end line, it’s not unhealthy. It’s only a bit sloppy. In that, it was already extra like a generic episode of “Curb” than a generic episode of “Seinfeld” — after which the “Curb” finale simply reiterated the formulation. I’ll admit that I used to be stunned to understand that this “Curb” episode, within the current day, actually was simply doing the trial formulation over again, and that I used to be dismayed that the character witnesses, this time, had been plucked usually although not solely from current episodes. (“Seinfeld’s” witnesses, just like the Soup Nazi, had the burden of getting blossomed by widespread mandate into TV historical past; “Curb’s” included Bruce Springsteen, speaking about one thing that occurred on final week’s episode; Alexander Vindman was additionally again, for some motive.)
“Seinfeld” ended with its characters confined to jail, put away on a technicality after years of abusing their fellow man. It’s prime Larry David, in that it looks like an ending David had in thoughts, towards which he constructed a collection of occasions that made sense — form of. “Curb’s” ending was nonetheless extra complicated: Larry is convicted, however then let off on a technicality after the real-life Jerry Seinfeld sees a juror breaking sequester, spurring a mistrial ruling. Larry flies off into the sundown, with a comparatively uninspired quarrel with Susie (Susie Essman) marking the top of this narrative. Earlier within the episode, David had made the barely-buried subtext of the collection textual content: Confronting a toddler, he appears prepared to inform him off or to ship unsolicited parenting recommendation to his mom, earlier than declaring, “I’m 76 years outdated, and I’ve by no means discovered a lesson in my whole life.”
Jail can’t wake him up, however TV manufacturing may: One can learn this episode because the response to classes he discovered from the response to the “Seinfeld” finale. And there are, certainly, moments of enjoyable that had been lacking there — David and Seinfeld, strolling out of jail collectively, comment how way more enjoyable it could have been if Jerry, Elaine and the gang had gotten the same last-minute reprieve. Ha-ha. And Essman has nice moments elsewhere within the finale, earlier than her look within the out-of-ideas closing scene.
However the finale spoke, in the principle, to each the strengths and weaknesses of “Curb” relative to what may — had he been much less bold within the years after — have been David’s nice work. “Seinfeld” was elastic for a community present, nevertheless it had its limits. “Curb,” which debuted as an everyday collection in 2000 after first airing as a particular in 1999, is as outdated as this century, and has moved ahead by perpetually pushing limits. It’s completed a stable if not at all times optimally elegant job of monitoring the evolving dinner-party trending matters over twenty years. The present’s on-the-fly nature — with its wholly improvised conversations constructed across the unfastened define of a plot — successfully invented a class of leisure, but additionally implies that the present is by its nature a blunt instrument. Larry and his buddies are loopily, outrageously humorous; they dwell out loud; they play video games of one-upsmanship which can be genuinely pleasant to observe. However they’re hardly ever sly.
This, as a lot because the West Coast-vs.-East Coast divide or the profanity allowed by premium cable, is what differentiates “Curb” from “Seinfeld” — on the latter collection, (almost) each episode’s closing minutes had a satisfying, Swiss-watch high quality, because the disparate storylines clicked neatly into place and the characters got here again collectively as soon as extra. “Curb” has made a observe of bringing its episodes in for memorable landings, too, however its endings extra often come as wild, who’d-have-thunk narrative swings. (This has change into more true and more true in current seasons, the development of which has grown ever extra lackadaisical.) On “Seinfeld,” one admires the logic; on “Curb,” one admires the audacity.
Which additionally meant that on “Seinfeld,” those that weren’t bitterly disenchanted by the finale may admire a sure poetic logic to it. The one poetry to “Curb’s” finale was free verse. (It’s telling that on “Seinfeld’s” finale, we noticed all of the witnesses and acquired their tales positioned in context; towards the top of “Curb’s” testimony towards Larry, a prosecutor performed by Greg Kinnear was simply itemizing off issues that had occurred on a collection that was improvisatory to the top.) Larry will likely be missed. However he could deserve a break.
