Curb Your Enthusiasm

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OK, just watched ep 5 this morning and, no surprise, the episode was dedicated to Richard Lewis. Unfortunately, watching Lewis in the two scenes he had in this episode was absolutely heartbreaking. He looked pale and drawn and his eyes were bugging out, like he was struggling to stay awake. He looked like Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein. He also appeared to be having trouble remembering the few lines he had and seemed incapable of laughing or smiling. It was the saddest thing I have ever seen. I applaud his bravery in wanting to soldier on, but I really don't want to remember him like that. As for the rest of the episode, loved Sean Hayes and Daniel Levy as the gay couple whose relationship Larry destroyed, once again sticking his nose into something that was none of his business. The story of Funkhauser and the Disney Store girl and the story of the dead fish were both kind of stupid. It was nice to see Larry finally be rid of Irma, but now that she learned he was lying, will she return to him?



OK, just watched ep 5 this morning and, no surprise, the episode was dedicated to Richard Lewis. Unfortunately, watching Lewis in the two scenes he had in this episode was absolutely heartbreaking. He looked pale and drawn and his eyes were bugging out, like he was struggling to stay awake. He looked like Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein. He also appeared to be having trouble remembering the few lines he had and seemed incapable of laughing or smiling. It was the saddest thing I have ever seen. I applaud his bravery in wanting to soldier on, but I really don't want to remember him like that. As for the rest of the episode, loved Sean Hayes and Daniel Levy as the gay couple whose relationship Larry destroyed, once again sticking his nose into something that was none of his business. The story of Funkhauser and the Disney Store girl and the story of the dead fish were both kind of stupid. It was nice to see Larry finally be rid of Irma, but now that she learned he was lying, will she return to him?
And will Leon ever get his own place?
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Watched ep 6 last night and everything that happened with Susie's billboard was worth the price of admission all by itself. After all the crap she has put Larry through over the years it was nice to see kharma bite Susie in the ass for once. The whole Gettysburg address thing was kind of dumb and I had mixed feeling about the Lori Loughlin thing. It seemed like a weird thing to making fun of, but that's just me. Really didn't get Sienna Miller and the fruit either, but like I said, Susie's billboard made the episode for me.



I thought this was one of the worst episodes of the show that I have seen. I really didn’t find anything funny in it and found the billboard stuff to be pretty disgusting. On a personal level, I liked that Larry appeared to want to help out Lori by giving her a role on curbed, on a human level, it is a nice thing to do. But I kind of found the content of her appearance offensive since she seemed to be making light of what she did, and it made me feel like maybe she wasn’t that sorry and didn’t take her conduct seriously. For those that don’t know, she pled guilty to bribing school officials to get her daughter into a prestigious school and part of the scheme included lying on her daughters application and fabricating details that would give her a better chance of admission.



I thought this was one of the worst episodes of the show that I have seen. I really didn’t find anything funny in it and found the billboard stuff to be pretty disgusting. On a personal level, I liked that Larry appeared to want to help out Lori by giving her a role on curbed, on a human level, it is a nice thing to do. But I kind of found the content of her appearance offensive since she seemed to be making light of what she did, and it made me feel like maybe she wasn’t that sorry and didn’t take her conduct seriously. For those that don’t know, she pled guilty to bribing school officials to get her daughter into a prestigious school and part of the scheme included lying on her daughters application and fabricating details that would give her a better chance of admission.
I was ok with the Lori thing. She did a bad thing & we’ve moved on. I found her quite amusing playing a very tacky person, which is what a lot of people thought she was anyway.

All in all, I enjoyed the finale.



Ep 7 was a mixed bag. Everything with the maid who wouldn't work after seeing Larry and Renee was just stupid. I know this show overlooks logic for laughs, but sometimes I find it hard to overlook stupid. In any other situation on the planet, the second that maid said she wouldn't work because of the trauma would have been fired immediately. On the other hand. I have to go with the waiter regarding the terrible keyline pie...they ate half of it, expecting it to be taken off their bill was absurd. But everything with the dream scheme was very funny, especially when Frankie (Vince Vaughn) did it at the hospital.



Watch ep 8 last night and you could have knocked me over with a feather when the late Richard Lewis had two scenes. He looked like a zombie and he appeared to have trouble turning his head. Both scenes found him behind the wheel of a vehicle and I got this feeling that he was no longer ambulatory when these scenes were shot, but I suspect Lewis told Larry he wanted to work as long as he possible could. The rest of the episode was silly, typical curb stuff, I'm beginning to see now that all the episodes pretty much have the same format...Larry offends somebody or somebody offends hi, he looks to Jeff for assistance or advice, who only will help Larry as long as it doesn't affect him, Susie then finds out and kick Larry out of the house. Larry attempts to solve said issue, only making it worse and finding his only solution is to throw money at the problem. I can't imagine what that car probably cost him. Loved Steve Buscemi though and Conan O'Brien's scenes made him look like a total d*ck.



I think this was one of the better episodes of this season. It was amusing, at the very least. Two more episodes to go. They don't appear to really be making any effort so far to wrap up storylines or conclude character arcs. This feels very much like any other season of the show to me, so I'm very interested in how they choose to conclude this story in the next episode and the series finale.



It's funny that you mentioned wrapping up story arcs because the way this show is formatted, I just don't see that being an issue. I don't see how to wrap up anything here.



I know! I think you are right. They may not be planning to conclude any character arcs given the nature of the show, but I think it would be disappointing to me, and a lot of other fans, if the last episode felt like just another episode of the show, and I think that is what this is shaping up to be. I was really hoping at the very least that by the end of the show Larry and Cheryl would get back together! There are still two episodes left, so there may be some surprises in store for the characters that aren't apparent now. Based on the story so far, the only wrap up story that I see is that Larry might go to jail, which would parallel the end of "Seinfeld". The "Seinfeld" finale was quite poorly received though, so not sure why he would want to go in that direction again with his follow up show.



I know! I think you are right. They may not be planning to conclude any character arcs given the nature of the show, but I think it would be disappointing to me, and a lot of other fans, if the last episode felt like just another episode of the show, and I think that is what this is shaping up to be. I was really hoping at the very least that by the end of the show Larry and Cheryl would get back together! There are still two episodes left, so there may be some surprises in store for the characters that aren't apparent now. Based on the story so far, the only wrap up story that I see is that Larry might go to jail, which would parallel the end of "Seinfeld". The "Seinfeld" finale was quite poorly received though, so not sure why he would want to go in that direction again with his follow up show.
In my mind, the show ended & that was that. There’s nothing to analyze.

One last time: the show overall was pretty, pretty, pretty good.



Ep 9 was, as always, a mixed bag. First of all, how totally awesome was it to see Bruce Springsteen as a guest star? He was fantastic and looked amazing. As for his assistant Ken/Kendra, that was a clever reveal having Ken be a former Larry employee who is now a man, but they took it way too far. It was way too squirm worthy having this guy pawing Larry and making it clear to everyone present that the female version of himself had sex with Larry. A cute idea that went way too far, even giving Susie yet another excuse to throw Larry out of her house. I also didn't understand why, if Larry was so upset about that restaurant owner changing his rating, why go back to the restaurant at all? Seemed pointless to me. Also everything with the Leon and the masseuse was stupid. While I'm here, I would like to talk about this:



Has anybody else seen this? I watched this after ep 9 thinking it was going to be a behind the scenes peek at the show but that wasn't what it was at all. This appeared to be filmed before the 12 seasons of the show and featured Larry and Jeff Greene (Jeff Garlin) arriving at HBO to pitch the idea of Larry hitting the road as a standup again, climaxing with Larry doing a standup concert at a large venue in either New York or Los Angeles. My first thought was that this was the actual pilot for Curb, but was confused when it featured interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Larry Charles, Richard Lewis, and Carol Leifer. I realize now that this was some sort of "mockumentary" in the form of This is Spinal Tap, which led to the creation of Curb. It had some funny stuff, but surprisingly, the footage of Larry actually doin standup was the least funny element of the show. Just looked it up on the imdb and my suspicious were correct, it was filmed in 1999. Has anyone else seen this?



Ep 9 was, as always, a mixed bag. First of all, how totally awesome was it to see Bruce Springsteen as a guest star? He was fantastic and looked amazing. As for his assistant Ken/Kendra, that was a clever reveal having Ken be a former Larry employee who is now a man, but they took it way too far. It was way too squirm worthy having this guy pawing Larry and making it clear to everyone present that the female version of himself had sex with Larry. A cute idea that went way too far, even giving Susie yet another excuse to throw Larry out of her house. I also didn't understand why, if Larry was so upset about that restaurant owner changing his rating, why go back to the restaurant at all? Seemed pointless to me. Also everything with the Leon and the masseuse was stupid. While I'm here, I would like to talk about this:



Has anybody else seen this? I watched this after ep 9 thinking it was going to be a behind the scenes peek at the show but that wasn't what it was at all. This appeared to be filmed before the 12 seasons of the show and featured Larry and Jeff Greene (Jeff Garlin) arriving at HBO to pitch the idea of Larry hitting the road as a standup again, climaxing with Larry doing a standup concert at a large venue in either New York or Los Angeles. My first thought was that this was the actual pilot for Curb, but was confused when it featured interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Larry Charles, Richard Lewis, and Carol Leifer. I realize now that this was some sort of "mockumentary" in the form of This is Spinal Tap, which led to the creation of Curb. It had some funny stuff, but surprisingly, the footage of Larry actually doin standup was the least funny element of the show. Just looked it up on the imdb and my suspicious were correct, it was filmed in 1999. Has anyone else seen this?
I have no memory of Springsteen in the show. How could I miss this! Which season, which episode?



The newest episode that premiered on HBO in America last night. The second-to-last of the entire series.
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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra



Stirchley, serious question. Do you actually read the posts in this thread or just skim them? You continue to be under the impression the show has ended, but we've repeatedly shared the last season of the show is still airing, while you continue to make comments that it's over. It's quite confusing.

The last episode of the show, the series finale, is next week. There is one more episode to go, and then you will finally be right!



Stirchley, serious question. Do you actually read the posts in this thread or just skim them? You continue to be under the impression the show has ended, but we've repeatedly shared the last season of the show is still airing, while you continue to make comments that it's over. It's quite confusing.

The last episode of the show, the series finale, is next week. There is one more episode to go, and then you will finally be right!
I made 2 posts that suggested I was confused about the actual date of the finale. Apparently, I ended the season before it had ended. Unfortunately, now I need to renew Max to actually finish it. I have a lot going on & I admit I was confused.

And, yes, I actually do read all the new posts in every thread I subscribe to. Happy now?



Thanks Stirchley. I am very much a problem solver, so I've been trying to figure out how this could have occurred and appreciate the helpful explanation.



Ep 9 was, as always, a mixed bag. First of all, how totally awesome was it to see Bruce Springsteen as a guest star? He was fantastic and looked amazing.
Bruce trash-talking Don Henley was hilarious. I hope Don thinks so too.