Theme, continuity, and followups- who needs them when you’re the genius of Larry David? The 8th season of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm debuted this July and has kept the viewers watching throughout the summer. Larry David, the executive producer and star of the show, chose to go a different route, skipping a theme (unlike previous seasons where there is a central idea “Lewis Needs a Kidney” and “Larry’s Getting Divorced”) and honing in on individuals, groups, and maladies that he had not sufficiently (in his mind) targeted for ridicule in the past- sticking the knife in deeper, and twisting it just a bit more.
The cast of Curb Your Enthusiasm is back and ready to amuse the audience with their hilarious spur of the moment lines that always seem to pierce Larry just the right way. The show’s star, Larry, is an uptight Jewish man that blames his faults and targets himself for his own race. Larry David’s best friend, Jeff Greene (Jeff Garlin) and his wife Susie (Susie Essman) are the ultimate fighting couple that never back down from the opportunity to have an argument. But the most amusing character this season hands down is Leon Black (J.B. Smoove), Larry’s returning roommate. Leon is a young, straight-talking black man that usually has the most hip and updated jabs that Larry has to compete with. The humorous banter between Leon and Larry usually focuses on their races, unintentionally making fun of themselves, and intentionally making fun of each other. Although this season has lost one of their main characters, Cheryl Hines who played Larry’s overbearing wife, it doesn’t take anything away from the show’s zeal.
Larry, working on his divorce, makes a critical error in choosing his settlement lawyer- who he perceives to have a specific ethnic background. In the process, offending the Jewish and the Nordic race, Larry is left alone and less wealthy than before. The first episode leads the season to a relatively dull beginning, with the overly scripted and forced plot- straying from the show’s concept of a mostly improvised comedy.
Now that Larry is officially a bachelor, he finds the need to immerse his feelings in a tub of ice cream, but with Larry, nothing is ever that simple. Two women at the grocery store are having a heart-to-heart directly in front of the freezer he needs to get to, but his needs are obviously more important than theirs, so having to put a stop to the women’s conversation, he aggravates them both, and soon finds out they are living in a battered women shelter in his neighborhood. As the episode progresses, Larry ends up counciling the women making for a comedic get together between the emotional women, and the not-so-emotional Larry David.
The third episode of “Curb” shows promise when Larry patronizes going to a local restaurant that is rumored to serve the best chicken, but is a social taboo to Jews because it is run by a family of Palestinians. The on going feud between the two groups is showed at the end of the episode when Larry has to decide to protest with his Jewish friends, or side with the restaurant. This episode leads to much hilarity, mocking every Middle Easterner, especially those of Jewish heritage.
Over the next two episodes, Larry’s peccadilloes and his inability to handle simple social situations lands him in New York City which is the closest to a theme the eighth season will get. Trying to avoid attending a benefit for mentally challenged children, he lies to an acquaintance, telling him he’ll be absent during the event because he will be in New York City for the next few months. This habit of Larry insisting to opt out of social conventions has landed him in hot water in the past and this situation is no different.
On the plane ride to New York City, Larry haphazardly becomes a hero, stopping a drunk passenger from causing havoc, simply because of Larry’s untied shoes. Larry trips and pummels the drunken, babbling man. Finally in his hometown of New York City, Larry attends a play with Jeff and his wife starring Ricky Gervais. Jeff is trying to land Ricky as a client, but Larry and Ricky get in an argument about who is the more wealthy, pompous man. Their bombastic altercation shows for a captivating interaction, but leaves Jeff without Ricky Gervais as a client.
In the following episode, Larry is playing on an adult softball team against their rivals, featuring actress Rosie O’Donnell as Larry’s biggest competition. Not only do they compete in the softball tournament, but they come to liking the same woman. Both set up dates with her with out the other knowing, but once they find out they are trying to court the same woman the overall competition escalates.
The eighth episode of “Curb” isn’t a memorable one with Jeff and Larry investing in a new invention the “cariscope.” Larry decides the only reason to trust the New York inventor is because of the man’s spouse’s looks. The episode is lost in the depths of Larry’s previous hilarious episodes.
Larry finally tries to do Susie Greene a favor by getting Jeff a baseball signed by his favorite player. In doing so, Larry meets with Bill Buckner, former first baseman from the Red Sox. Throughout the thirty minutes, Bill is ruthlessly yelled at by strangers for his irrefutable error that cost the Red Sox the world series. Larry ends up losing the tournament for his softball league by “Bucknering it.” The ball goes right through Larry’s legs and costs his team the victory. After years of absorbing all the torment, Bill Buckner makes a life saving catch in the last minutes of the episode. A mother and her child are inside an apartment building and the woman throws her baby down and Bill Buckner (finally) catches something at the right moment.
The season finale of “Curb” stars Michael J. Fox as Larry David’s neighbor in the apartment building. After starting minimal conversation at a restaurant, Larry notices that Michael gives him a head shake as he walks out. Larry is destined to find out if it was a disapproving head shake, or a shake due to Fox’s Parkinson’s. Larry visits Michael in his apartment trying to figure out exactly what kind of shake it was. Michael tries to convince Larry that the head shake was Parkinson’s, a soda can is shook and sprayed over Larry- Parkinson’s, and bumps in the hallway also, Parkinson’s. Larry has trouble believing Fox, leaving for humorous conversations between the two. Once Larry offends Michael excessively he tries to seek forgiveness by donating to Fox’s Parkinson’s foundation, but instead Fox invites Larry to spend the day at the hospital with sick children. Knowing Larry, he doesn’t want to take part in such an event, so once again, he makes up the excuse he is leaving, but this time it’s to Paris.
The eighth season of Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” starts off to a slow beginning, but slowly picks up once Larry is finally in New York. This season is full of very memorable episodes especially, “Palestinian Chicken” and “Mister Softee” featuring Bill Buckner, but was also accompanied by lackluster episodes with no real shocking comedic value. Some of the season also seems overly scripted, while “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is usually and impromptu show. Although “Curb” is known for its controversial topics, it’s the closest to the truth that television has. Larry certainly isn’t afraid to show what he really thinks, leaving for a hysterical HBO television show.
