aparisi2274
Member
I lost it when Elizabeth Banks was lying to the cop and broke out an Irish Accent... oh man, so good.
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Curb Your Enthusiasm S9 |OT| He Left. He Did Nothing. He Returned - Sundays on HBO
- Thread starter TheOddOne
- Start date
Johnny Cage In The Shower
Member
I am totally in agreement with most of the above quoted. I am not about to shit on one of my fav shows of all time but...
Maaan, there are some crucial Curb elements (laws if you will) being broken or totally ignored this season, two sequences in this episode totally ripped me out of the Curb universe. Felt so contrived and not like the grounded, documentary like drama that unveils around is as we watch Larry start an argument with a "straight man" character.
The first being Larry's interaction with the Chef in the kitchen.. Now this wasn't as bad as the second one but, the whole thing felt so contrived and weird, the Chef just took Larry's bait and went with it, there was no real argument, Chef was just throwing a tantrum at Larry because he asked about the disturbance. They yelled back and forth, it was kind of pointless.. In a better Curb Episode, the chef would tell Larry to mind his own business and leave his kitchen and how he isn't suppose to be back there, but he didn't even care, as if Larry goes back there often...
If this scenes was a setup for the very last scene of them running through the kitchen knocking things over, it was a weak way of going about it. The purpose of this shot was literally to show the audience that the kitchen in the back exists, there are silver bowls that may fall over later.. "Look everybody".. It was straight up pointless!
Second one that really bothered me was the scenes where the cop gets out of his car and gives him a ticket, this was one of the most unrealistic, "undocumentary" "Very sitcomy" contrived scenes, that totally took me out of the show.
What makes Curb funny is when people Larry encounters, act as normal, and as realistic as any person WE encounter in public in real life. A cop in Curb usually acts just as rational and smart as a cop you'd would encounter in real life...
So for
1) a cop would not park his car at a traffic light stop, sit in his car without the cherries on... My 25 years of driving , I've never seen that happen.
2) A cop, without giving any indication that he is parked middle of the road permanently, would not lose his shit and get out of his car at just one "honk"
3) The old Larry would be too smart and he would point these details out to a cop (or whomever he is arguing with) and win the argument and go about his day... This new Larry is dumb and sometimes doesn't even knwo what he is angry at, but he's always angry (same as the Kitchen vs Chef scene)
"You know officer, if you're in the middle of 'important police business' Why not turn on your "police" lights on, so I know your "police" business" is "serious" So I can drive around you, huh! How about that?"
That's the smart ass Larry I know... With the air quotes and everything.
4)Cop just gets annoyed again, very quickly and writes him a ticket, for what, we don't even know.
The less real, the more cartoony the side characters Larry interacts with, the more an episode loses it's original charm, I think. That's why I really liked Jim Rash's performance as the Hotel clerk in the last Ep, because he really acted like a real life Hotel clerk, minus the pickle jar run ( which was fun and effective) he did not do anything stupid, and tolerated Larry's craziness, with a straight face. Unlike the Cop, who gets out of the car and writes Larry a ticket for honking without the proper build up of dialogue exchange before having the need to give Larry a ticket.
DongBeetle
Banned
Yup. Just feels incredibly forced
Jag
Member
Look, I like Jim Rash too (Dean!) but those were clearly Pepperidge Farm cookies.
CaptainABAB
Member
I thought this was the funniest episode this season... based purely on laugh out loud moments... pushing the perfume lady, the bus of kids mocking him, driving up to the country club with the "10-foot cock" on his car, laughing at Susies complex brain", etc.
Like I took a straw and put it in a frogs ass!
Goldfish would commit suicide in this water.
Like I took a straw and put it in a frogs ass!
Goldfish would commit suicide in this water.
RedBullEnergy
Member
Yeah Jeff is phoning it in all over the place, not acting just being loud and delivering lines with zero effort.
Last episode was way way closer to classic curb though. Preeeeeety funny.
Last episode was way way closer to classic curb though. Preeeeeety funny.
Sapiens
Member
The median age of the cast is 70. Its fine.
Jag
Member
Yeah Larry's chemistry with Jeff isn't there. He is so much better paired with Leon.
Grizzlyjin
Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
Easily the best episode of the season. All time classic level. Accidental text on purpose and Richard Lewis' honeys had me crying.
MastAndo
Member
He looks tired, like he doesn't really want to be there. The rapport between he and Larry is definitely lacking this season.
That said, I still think the show is really funny. This past episode was all around hilarious - was laughing basically through the entire thing.
Grinchy
Banned
He's always been the worst one on the show imo.
Larry - "Man, I just can't figure out what pants to wear."
Jeff - "OH, YOU'RE HAVING TROUBLE FIGURING OUT WHICH PANTS TO WEAR??"
He just doesn't improv well or keep things flowing. He's just there to keep Larry talking and moving the plot along.
And personally I don't really like Leon. He kind of took over a lot of the show and a lot of his punchlines involve him describing some situation in a funny way with a curse like, "well Larry, I guess your shit is fucked!" or something like that. I don't know, I always roll my eyes when his line comes and it's effectively what I thought it would be. (I know there's more to him but I'm being purposefully reductionist for this conversation)
A lot of the characters are 1-trick ponies but I get fatigued of Leon super easily and find I have to force laughter when watching with my dad who's a huge Leon fan. Whereas the Susan/Larry standoffs, a Curb staple, are foolproof roflcopters.
Lol good point but I think he works well on that level. He's Larry's stupid yes-man who is totally checked out the entire time
ZenOfThunder
Member
Larry David never really specifies, I read an interview with him once where he said he would always be open to doing more Curb if he had good enough ideas for a whole season, and said that if he ran out of ideas, he just wouldn't do another one, and that would be that. He mentioned having a good working relationship with HBO. They don't pressure him and if he wants to come back, he can come back any time.
I doubt we'll ever get a solid finale if the show ever does end for good.
Link1110
Member
What would the finale even be? The only thing I can picture, and it's admittedly more of a family guy cutaway had, is Susie and Larry arguing when Susie takes it a gun and shoots him
MafiaMurderBag
Member
A Finale would definitely have to have some kind of symbolic setup to enforce there's no return, but a LD funeral would just be too sombre with out Larry himself turning it into the car wreck we all wanna see, and a Victor Meldrew style death would be too depressing.
Link1110
Member
Or Funkhouser turning it into a case wreck for revenge the Larry ruined 3 of his family's funerals
samenamenick
Neo Member
I like to think the finale already happened when he was banished from NY. Pig parkeur!
Everything after that is just more sweet, sweet icing on the LD cake
Everything after that is just more sweet, sweet icing on the LD cake