Curb Your Enthusiasm

Sad to see Jeff is going bald slightly. For so long he had a beautiful head of dark hair, then he went grey & is now going bald. Such is life.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

Larry looked so good in a suit in the penultimate episode. Tie, shirt, shoes, jacket, pants all perfect.

Saw the finale. I liked everything up until the trial and then hated it. Why Larry David decided to repeat everything that people strongly disliked about the Seinfeld finale again, with one relatively minor change at a the end that I won’t spoil here, I will never understand. It was also very predictable, as anyone who followed Seinfeld likely figured out early in this last season that this is exactly how Curb would end.

Finally watched the finale this morning and I hate to admit it, Larry knocked it out of the park. Loved the fact that it ended the same way Seinfeld did with a trial summarizing Larry's past sins. Larry pretty much picked the right recurring characters to return to testify against him, though I have to admit I was kind of looking forward to the return of Tracy Ullmann's character or the obnoxious overweight actress who became a star on Larry's new show. I was kind of upset when Jeff was able to con Anna Rae out of her dressing receipe because the last thing i wanted to see in the finale was Susie getting what she wanted. I was really hoping to see something awful happen to Susie to make up for the crappy way she treated Larry for 12 seasons. I was also a little disappointed that none of the Funkhauser family showed up as witnesses. The whole thing with Allison Janney was pointless as was Leon's critiques of Seinfeld. Very pleased to see Jerry show up and the way he got Larry out of jail was brilliant and I fell out of my chair when Larry told Jerry that's what they should have done for the Seinfeld. A rock solid series finale for a show that brought me a lot of questionable laughs, but I enjoyed the ride for the most part and the finale rocked.

I was sorry the young overweight “influencer” didn’t make the finale. She was vacuous incarnate.

Gideon, happy to hear you liked the finale! I really don't understand why it's been so well received though. This finale, once the trial begins, with the exception of the very end, is structurally exactly the same as the "Seinfeld" finale, which was reviled. Both finales involve the central story being either Larry on trial or the Seinfeld gang being on trial, and a lot of people from their past testifying against them. So, why was the "Seinfeld" finale hated, which was the same story, while this one was loved? I just don't get it. Would the "Seinfeld" finale have been perceived as successful had been released based on a technicality, which was the only substantive change between this finale and the earlier one?

I'd be very happy to hear an explanation from anyone who has seen both finales.

I have always liked "The Seinfeld" finale, so I can't help ya there.

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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

I never hated the Seinfeld finale, and don’t think either are particularly good or bad. The shows were never going to be about their ending anyway. They just aren’t structured that way.

I think the meta element is probably what people are responding to though. Audiences eat that kind of thing up, see Newhart finale for example. I didn’t see the end result coming, because I didn’t really care. You could see what he was going for pretty early though, and you knew that would be subverted somehow.

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Letterboxd

I saw both finales and there's no denying the formatting of both shows were pretty much identical and I had no problem with that. A lot of people I know were troubled by the Seinfeld finale but I thought it was perfect because Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer were four of the most thoughtless, insensitive, and self-absorbed television characters ever and did a lot of crappy things to people in their orbit over nine seasons and, for me, they had it coming and I don't know how anyone can honestly think Larry didn't deserve similar treatment.

Had to come back here for a minute because I rewatched the finale and noticed I made a big mistake in my post about the finale. I mentioned being sad that Tracy Ullman's character wasn't included, but she was! Somehow I missed her the first time I watched it. BTW, I also watched the first two parts of this for the first time:



For the uninitiated, this is a video of a podcast where Jeff Garlin and Susie Essman talk about the history of the show, from the primetime special I watched about a month ago through season 12 and apparently they are going to be talking about ALL twelve seasons. I watched two parts and turned it off because I got sick of the sound of Jeff Garlin's voice. In the two episodes I watched, he barely let Susie Essman get a word in edgewise. I was actually finding Essman to be quite charming, nothing like her character on the show, but it wasn't easy because Garlin never stops talking. So unless you're madly in love with Jeff Garlin, I'd give this a hard pass.

Sounds like they do a reverse in real life. Susie is charming & Jeff dominates the convo. Amusing.

It sounds like we don't really have many people who saw both finales and didn't like the "Seinfeld" finale, but did like this one, so it's still not clear to me why the reception of this has been so different. The structure and plot line of both, with the exception of the end, are very similar. I do think the meta nature of it, calling back the "Newhart" finale, is the best explanation that I've heard, and I do think that's part of the reason for the difference in reception. I've always thought that the "Seinfeld" finale was one of the worst of all time and hated by the vast majority of fans, so I was surprised that we had some fans of it here! I remember watching it and not liking it, so I think I'm closer to the consensus view, but find it intriguing that that was apparently not shared by some, since culturally, we've been made to think everyone hated it.