Bohemian Cinema By Jonathan Pacheco

Enthusiastic Endings

Tags: TV, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David, Finales, Seinfeld

When Season 5 of Curb Your Enthusiasm ended, I still stared at the screen; did I really just see what I saw? I remember when Curb was about mistaken erections, botched apologies, and Larry David’s inability to shut up. All of a sudden, Larry David’s dying, ascending to heaven, making people angry there, and getting kicked back down to earth.

Huh?

This is the show that started out as a mockumentary; the intention of the pilot was to make it seem like this was the true Larry David. Upon seeing the first few episodes, friends of actress Cheryl Hines called her up, asking her when she got married to Larry David—that’s how convincing the show used to be. No, I’m not saying the show should have stuck to its roots; it’s too restricting of a format for a show like this. But what happened to that happy plateau where we knew the show was fake, but cringed at the realistic situations?

One of the top 3 Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes is the Season 3 finale, “The Opening”. After a season-long arc involving Larry’s investment in a restaurant, we’re treated to a profanity-laden ending that has Larry coming out as a hero—a rarity. Things almost never go Larry’s way; I mean isn’t that the whole premise of Curb to begin with? So it felt good to not only see something good happen to Larry, but something good became of his seemingly-rare unselfish behavior.

When Seinfeld ended after 9 long seasons, there’s no denying that it was a drastically different show than when it started. In the beginning, stories revolved around deciphering what a woman’s body language meant and going on bad dates, and in the end Kramer was stomping on the Puerto Rican flag and Jerry was turning into a werewolf. Most people will agree that overall, the 4th or 5th season of the show was the best; it seemed to find a happy medium between the extremes of the first and ninth seasons; the former was too mundane and the latter was too silly.

While I’m not afraid to criticize my favorite show for veering from its course, I still find myself enjoying the latter seasons. They were different, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t funny. The 5th season may have had “The Switch,” but the 8th season had “The Gum,” an episode so wonderfully planned and executed, that I marvel every time I see it. Curb Your Enthusiasm seems to have made the same journey from trying to be painfully real to tossing it all by the wayside and just getting wacky. So even though it’s not what it used to be, I realize that the show can still produce the good stuff.

That’s where Season 5 comes in; Season 3 had the balance, 4 was a transition in between. For nine episodes, the 5th season established its world, and it was goofy. But “The End,” its finale, was just plain not funny. The jokes have been done before, and there was no joy to it. It felt like the show was going through the motions, tossing in whatever absurd situation that could come up. The episode is called “The End” because I believe it was intended to be the final episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, period. Seems about right: Larry dies and gets a second chance at life on Earth, there’s a brief montage of moments that Larry has royally ticked off other people, and knowing David’s obsessive and anal-retentive nature, it doesn’t surprise me that the finale was episode 50—a good, clean number.

But it was not to be. Season 6 is like a second chance for Larry David. It looked like Curb was done, and Larry was done with it. But then word came of another season, and everyone close to David said it only happened because he’s really excited about his material. But fans everywhere were thinking the same thing I was thinking:

“I’ll watch, but he better get it right this time.”

Did he? It’s a bit early to say, but I know he at least got it more right. As you can tell from this post, I think the season ending is a good litmus test for the entire season; Season 6’s finale, “The Bat Mitzvah,” is a worthy finale, not only for the season, but for the series (more on that later). What struck me about the finale, and the episodes leading up to it (including a great one, “The Therapists”), is that they all seemed to make sense within the context of the Curb world. Sure, Larry getting kicked out of heaven makes sense, but it’s too big of a leap and too soon. Now, to see Larry,who’s been accused of racism against blacks more times than I can count, fall in love with a black woman, whose last name happens to be “Black,” well, that’s just plain irony! It’s something that you never thought you’d see, yet it works so perfectly.

Though there’s unofficial confirmation for another season of Curb (and claims from David that Curb will run longer than Seinfeld), I feel that “The Bat Mitzvah,” and more specifically it’s closing montage, was made as a hypothetical series finale; it’s a funny way to let you know that Larry’s going to be all right. And I’m okay with that. I want much, much more Curb, and I probably will get more, but just in case, if these were the very last moments of Curb Your Enthusiasm, I’m okay with that.