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Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld Curb Finale

The Series Finale of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Reminds us How it and ‘Seinfeld’ Are Inextricably Linked

By Lindsay Traves | TV | April 9, 2024 |

By Lindsay Traves | TV | April 9, 2024 |


Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld Curb Finale

Who knew after Larry David, a co-creator of Seinfeld, graced HBO with his meta-sitcom that we would be dissecting its twelfth season finale over twenty years later? I don’t think Larry David knew, the guy claiming various seasons to be the last, unsure if the series would return. But this time, he means it, David insists, and after season finales that even went so far as to contemplate his (character’s) death, this time it’s really over as David rewrites his take on the finale of the show that made him.

Larry didn’t owe us atonement for Seinfeld. This isn’t the forum to reflect on audiences being dissatisfied with every finale of a long running series (truly, if they’ve got beef with The Sopranos, there’s nothing anyone can do). But the series finale of Curb Your Enthusiasm gets unfortunately bogged down by a meta-attempt at penance.

It’s not the first time the show tackled the regret Larry and Jerry were made to feel for how they ended the show. It’s quipped about throughout Curb’s decades long run, and the entirety of the seventh season tackles a new attempt at sending Jerry, Kramer, George, and Elaine off into the sunset. (The finale was about 26 years ago, and that season was 15 years ago meaning we’re 5ish years farther out from the Seinfeld season of Curb than that season was from the Seinfeld finale so enjoy THAT information). When the final season of Curbopened with Larry being set up to stand trial based on how much people liked him, audiences sensed he might be retreading the same ground.

And audiences got it mostly right. After a season of clunking around with his usual pals, celebrity guests, and modern inconveniences, the final season wraps up with Larry in a court room being challenged by the prosecution’s long list of Curb Your Enthusiasm villains like Mr. Takahashi (Dana Lee) and Mocha Joe (Saverio Guerra). It felt like malingering in show that’s often reflected on instances of Larry being yelled at, dumped on, and thrown out of places during many of its finales, and this grand finale collection didn’t do much more than to serve to remind how many times Larry accidentally creeped out a woman. But it did do enough to remind us how inextricably linked Larry David is from the world’s greatest sitcom.

Throughout the seasons of Curb are peppered reminders ofSeinfeld. Not just because it’s constantly referenced as Larry’s claim to fame, nor because of his being friends with the cast, but because of the overlap of schtick that’s now laid on the backdrop of a rich guy in Los Angeles. There’s the time Larry cracks wise about an artist with an affinity for geometric shapes like Elaine’s artist ex boyfriend, the time Jeff Green (Jeff Garlin) declines airplane reading material also like one of Elaine’s ex boyfriends, sure. But also, ones that reapply the bit to the new formula like Larry wearing pants he needs to return, this time as a neurotic LA rich guy expecting the department store to have held on to his pants instead of as Kramer, the nut who didn’t think that far ahead. There’s the reflection of Bertanos, the bookstore, refusing George’s flagged book that he read in the bathroom reflected in Larry throwing out a near priceless smoking jacket and making considerations about a championship green jacket for the same reason. And in building up to this meta-Seinfeld second-kick-at-the-finale-can, the final season is filled with references like a stinky car, lady’s glasses, coveted pens, and inappropriate baby name suggestions. George Costanza might have been a conduit for Larry David, but Seinfeld is the culmination of Larry and Jerry’s comedic brains spitting out the regular tidings of self-centered men with a collection of neuroses. This time, in this finale, instead of the camera panning away from a man incarcerated, Larry doesn’t end up putting on his orange jumpsuit. Jerry comes to inform Larry that there was a mistrial, and “nobody wants to see that.” The pair waltzes from the cells realizing that this is how they should have ended their show, as if they cracked it all these years later. But they didn’t crack anything.

With this permanent link between the two, it feels impossible not to have Jerry Seinfeld be the guy waltzing down the hallway of cells as this series came to a close. But that’s not where it ended. Before “Frolic” ushered in the end credits, Larry is seen sitting on a plane home to LA with familiar faces Jeff Green, Susie Green (Susie Essman), Cheryl (Cheryl Hines), Richard Lewis (as himself), Leon Black (J.B. Smoove), and Ted Danson (as himself). Larry David, whose conduit was stapled to the character of Jerry Seinfeld’s side for nine seasons, has had sidekicks and confidants for this version of his character throughout his newer series that are impossible not to mention. It’s a stark reminder of how much has changed throughout the years, Garlin having his own ‘tribulations,’ and Cheryl Hines being associated with an ‘eccentric’ political campaign. The loss of Bob Einstein, the original Funkhouser (who might have created the funniest moment in the entire series when he tells Jerry Seinfeld a dirty joke) who had a pseudo-replacement in Vince Vaughan as Freddy Funkhouser. Then there’s Lewis who we lost in February of this year, seen in that row of seats as an unintentional coda for the late great comedian and his everlasting friendship with David.

Twelve seasons is a mountain for shows that aren’t procedurals or soap operas, a mountain that Larry David and company climbed, but not easily. There were peaks and valleys, there were moments of greatness and the odd flop, all which cemented Larry David as one of the comedy greats of at least one generation. As he flies off into the sunset, Jerry Seinfeld perhaps shoved in economy class, and the rest of his leading castmates by his side, it feels special to reflect on a cringe-comedy about a spin on a real guy’s experiences that allowed all of us to laugh at some of our worst impulses.