"Curb Your Enthusiasm," In its Surprising Eleventh Season, Shows We're Not All That Different

For anyone that somehow doesn39t know the premise of the series is pretty simple Larry David plays himself the comedy icon and creator of the legendary American sitcom Seinfeld along with a certain superstar comedian It follows his life in California where he mostly hangs out with his friends and rubs shoulders with wellknown celebrities writers and comedians who usually have a 5050 chance of either playing a fictional version of themselves like David or Ted Danson or a different character altogether like JB Smoove who plays Larry39s friend Leon Larry you know is old and he knows it enough to double down on the whole quotbeing stuck in his waysquot shtick so much so that the show39s tagline for this season expressed exactly who his character is in the most succinct way possible quotThe world has changed He hasn39tquotNow like I said before I normally find onscreen Larry hard to side with because in most situations he seems to make choices that almost no human person would actually make Most people have a threshold as to how much awkward they39re willing to intentionally inject into any given situation but not this guy He39s always willing to take things all the wayBut this season while his general modus operandi hasn39t changed much the weirdest thing has been happening I find myself agreeing with him Sure he still ends up in situations that go way farther than they ever should but for once I agree with a lot of his points Since Larry doesn39t change maybe it39s me But that wouldn39t make for an interesting column Or would itTake his friend Albert Brooks39 faux funeral for instance The idea of being at one39s own funeral and hearing what people say is a normal thought that I assume most people roll around their heads at some point in their lives but actually throwing a fake funeral one where everyone knows that you39re not only alive but upstairs watching via video camera is pretty damn ridiculous Larry concurred and proceeded to heckle the notsopoor soul during his turn to make remarks and you know what He was right The event deserved to be mocked It was instantly overshadowed by an unintended discovery during the proceedings Brooks on the show was revealed to be a piece of sht quotCOVID hoarderquot who overstocked his home with PPE like hand sanitizer and toilet paper during the pandemic when said items were scarce for everyone specifically first respondersIn the third episode of this season titled quotThe Watermelonquot Larry makes a great point to Leon about how he shouldn39t be ashamed to eat watermelon in front of white people or anyone else just because he39s Black Now while I totally agree with Larry that it39s ridiculous to hide the fact that you like eating anything from anyone I also fully understand Leon39s apprehension because of course no one likes being boiled down to a stereotype and we39re all familiar with this one I39ve honestly felt that same hesitation with watermelon and white people before And fried chickenSo Larry emboldens both Leon and a random Black man at the supermarket and buys them both watermelons while also buying himself gefilte fish in order to make a point Later he brings home a potential lady friend for Leon who walks into the kitchen and sees him stuffing his face with said watermelon which as a Black woman immediately turns her off causing her to leave Then just to turn the thing on its head again Larry eagerly sits down to join Leon for what he called a quotwatermelon orgyquot because again who doesn39t love some watermelonThis season is chock full of situations like that where a point is made then proven then disproven then proven again and honestly it39s all goldamp160See how Larry deals with his female driver in the sixth episodeLarry39s exasperating selfcenteredness remains the primary reason why we watch that and Susie Essman39s portrayal of his explosive nemesis Susie Greene who drops fbombs like a champ but I think in the twenty years that it39s taken to get to season eleven one of two things happened Either Larry is growing as a person or the past couple of years have beaten us all down so bad that we all now share the same cynical and impatient outlook as this curmudgeonly old multimillionaire Your guess is as good as mineThe point is the sort of antisitcomish nature of Curb kind of prevents Larry from growing and changing too much which is good because the fact that he never really learns is kind of his whole thing Meantime it39s interesting to see how much more critical I39ve become as a viewer over the years or just how much Larry39s brand of cringe comedy has grown on me But between that trend and the starstudded revolving door of a cast I39d say I39ll probably find myself agreeing with this bald bespectacled genius more and more as time marches onCurb Your Enthusiasmamp160is telecast Sundays at 1030 pm on HBOClick the social buttons to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writersamp160amp160

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"Curb Your Enthusiasm," In its Surprising Eleventh Season, Shows We're Not All That Different

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Ainsley Andrade

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"Curb Your Enthusiasm," In its Surprising Eleventh Season, Shows We're Not All That Different

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