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‘We Didn’t Screw Up A Finale!! That Was A Good Finale!!’ Sunday Brings The SEINFELD-Saturated CURB Conclusion!!
I am – Hercules!!
It was almost two years between seasons five and six and almost another two years between six and seven, so Larry David only knows when we might see another episode of “Curb Your Enthusiam” after tonight. Or if we’ll see one at all!
The final season-seven episode is titled “Seinfeld”:
Episode #70 (season finale)
A returned favor costs Larry quality time with Cheryl.
9 p.m. Sunday. HBO.
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A returned favor costs Larry quality time with Cheryl.
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Oh yes
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but watching curb over the years made me wanna check out more seinfeld sine they're supposedly so similar, but based on this seasons seinfeld moments, its clearly a piece of shit not worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence as curb! last week was particularly bad - a bunch of millionaires sat around reading awful 'neurotic' dialogue while laughing at themselves. TWATS. the sooner we get this reunion shit over with the better. dont you agree??
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Because LD really delivered the goods for 7 seasons.
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Seinfeld was brilliant.
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Seinfeld is probably the greatest sitcom in history. You judged it after watching a few lines from Curb Your Enthusiasm? Stupid. And you do realize that Curb Your Enthusiasm IS about a neurotic millionaire don't you? Or did you miss that part?
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No soup for you.
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Julia Louis Dreyfuss looked really hot last week...even hotter then her Seinfeld days...the Kramer/Leon scenes were kinda corny in my opinion...hopefully the season will end on a high note
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Or the Lord of his castle.
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I just wish BSG could do something similar to atone for their finale.
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Actually the show started going downhill for me with Susan's death and the characters' reaction to it. From that point on it just became this mean-spirited parody of itself, similar to Letterman having been un-funny for the last several years.
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Nov 22, 2009 8:41:45 AM CST
But people who thought the characters were mean-spirited....
by chakraborty
...should have been happy they went to jail at the end, no? If you believe they were cold and callous, then that ending catered to you.
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I didn't like the change to begin with. I didn't want the story to end with them in jail just because the writers made the characters callous.
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...at first - it was somewhat dark and humorless. The funniest moment for me was during the credit roll when Jerry was doing stand-up in prison, and he insulted one of the prison blocks and one guy yells out, "I'll see you in the shower." LOL, that's pretty freakin' dark and hilarious. The finale was pretty ballsy. I agree that the show got darker towards the end with Susan's death, too, but I think that was more Larry David coming out, which was stuff not suitable for primetime TV, and that's why Curb is a great followup for him on HBO. Sitcom finale's rarely deliver because it's sad to see them go. I don't think the alternative of having them all mature and grow up and get married and settle down would have been better...and they flirted with those themes in the last season. I think the prison finale was a decent way to cap the show.
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Ending up in jail, IMO, wasn't about them getting a punishment, it suggested that for the next year, the characters will be forced by the state to "do nothing."
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Best Buy has an Insignia with built-in Netflix app and wireless for 130 bucks. I bought one for my dad (essentially in order to watch Star Trek on :) I feel if Herc can shill crap on here, so can I. Also, I'm only on season 5 of Curb and I just spent half an hour laughing through the 2nd episode, "The Bowtie." Pure awesome Larry awkwardness.
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And apparently, so do the cast of the show, (they just manufactured this supposed "dislike" for the purposes of the Curb Season 7 stuff). Looking forward to the episode tonight, but after that, I think I'm done with the show, assuming there's another season sometime in 2011. The "9-year-old pussy" joke was the final straw for me.
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...has a problem with with a 9-year old pussy joke? Also, the joke is the fact that it's inappropriate to talk mention a 9-year old's pussy, so the humor comes from their own awareness that it's wrong.
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LD's reaction to when the mother said it was priceless. And now he repeats it like there is no stigma at all attached to mentioning a 9 year olds pussy. Funny shit..but I will say, the Seinfeld parts of the show have been very weak. I didn't watch a lot of the Seinfeld shows in the past, and I am sure that alot of them are fantastic and funny as all hell but what they are doing with the characters on CYE just isn't working for me. And yes I would bang Elaine in a heartbeat.
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Nov 22, 2009 11:12:58 AM CST
THESE PRETZELS ARE MAKING ME THIRTSY
by supercowbell5thecowbellhasspoken
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but babies are off limits! I got what they were doing, it just wasn't funny (although Jerry's reaction was priceless)...it's "shock" humor instead of the wit from earlier in the series. In fact, Curb has been going downhill from Season 5 on. The first 4 seasons were brilliant, but come on, the humor and acting just become more and more contrived and less interesting. I tuned in this season for the Seinfeld arc, which was grossly over-stated and barely part of the show...
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So good. So glad someone else said it earlier.
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And the finale was overlong and not funny. I guess it sounded like a good idea to have the 4 on trial, and have all the witnesses be the shows most famous characters, but it basically was a clip show for the last half, and it was just really bloated. Plus they came off as the biggest assholes ever when the guy was getting his car stolen. Alot of stuff they did over the years was by mistake. They were never flat out rude like they were to that guy. I don't know what Larry David was thinking. Season 8 wasn't bad though. It had the chicken roaster ! An all time classic! The little Jerry and the comeback were great ones too. I'd say maybe season 5 was the best one though.
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Here is the link: http://tinyurl.com/ozfeldd
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especially the bit in the jail with Jerry and George rehashing the conversation they had in the first episode about the button placement on his shirt. Joke is they've run out of things to say and are now repeating themselves. Also a nice bit of book-ending. However, I would have liked them to have taken that idea further. Instead of prison, they should have gotten a "Jerry" kind of punishment (ie. sentenced to being someone's butler). Have the judge sentence them to one year apart - since they are horrible people around one another, time apart should do them good. Jerry, Kramer, and Elaine have lives outside the group so It'd be easy enough for them. The only person it would really affect would be George, who then couldn't go with Jerry to LA to work on the show and would be forced to spend a lot more time with his parents. The show would end "one year later". Jerry is back after his show has failed and he meets up with George in the coffee shop from the pilot. A little chit chat to get this exposition across, some mention of seeing Kramer later, but not Elaine (as she wasn't in the pilot), then launch into the conversation from the pilot. The show comes full circle - ends where it started. After all, after the finale, every episode you will see is a repeat, so why not make the last episode lead into the first? The entire series runs continuously in syndication - why not have the series itself form a continuous cycle?
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...is that they forced them into the trial situation in about 10 minutes, then blew the rest of the time on a lame clip show.
I didn't feel ripped off that they ended up in jail but rather that I sat through a fucking Family Ties clip show for a two minute punchline.
The jail scenario did set up the SNL/OZ thing so I'm grateful for that. -
sorry.
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Nov 22, 2009 12:05:38 PM CST
Yea I thought it was weird that it was just a clip show too...
by supercowbell5thecowbellhasspoken
Especially since the finale orginally aired after an hour long seinfeld clipshow. Once again, what were they thinking?
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....that Larry got an erection after hugging some kid near a public restroom? I don't see how suddenly making reference to a girl's medical problem on her vagina is crossing the line all of a sudden. Is it the usage of the word pussy? What if he said she has a rash on her vagina? It's clearly inappropriate, that's what's funny...but it's not leaps and bounds worse than certain things that have already been done on the show.
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Seasons 4 and 5 were probably some of the best TV ever made. Ever. They were very refreshing.
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This is going to be so good, I hope this isn't the last we see of Curb
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I have always thought that Larry David chose to have Seinfeld end with the cast in jail because The Phil Silver's Show (his favorite) ends with Sgt. Bilko in jail. I don't know if this has been discussed before.
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"The Doll" was infinitely funnier and more subtle than the "pussy joke". The humor used to be much more mature and sophisticated...now it's just played for shock value. I loved the end The Doll: "Mommy mommy! The bald man's in the bathroom and there's something hard in his pants"! There difference is the build-up the joke and the subtlety with which is is done.
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That would have been an awesome ending. . . Jerry being sentenced to be the victim's butler. Good call.
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Like Kramer?
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Because the script reading in the last ep had some awful jokes. Bernie Madoff and iPhone jokes? Not sure if this is LD's way of showing exactly why a reunion isn't and shouldn't happen, but I would assume so.
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I remember sitting there watching it bored out of my skull.
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"Sleeping in Light" was a rock-solid finale that truly delivered. SEINFELD's, on the other hand, was just painful to watch.
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Star Trek TNG had the best series finale of all time with "All Good Things". I can watch that 100 times, and still not get bored.
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was St. Elsewhere. I mean, really ... and austic kids day dream ? Gay. By the way, any chance we get to see Julia Louis Dreyfus' tits in this last episode ? Because I kind of want to.
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the best finale ive ever seen was the shield. really the last two episodes with mackay confessin into that tape recorder was intense. and then the last episode with mackay gettin confined to an office and losin everyone he cared about but essentialy getting away with it. wow. at the end when they show his eyes in the office and for just a moment hes goin through it all in his head and kinda just accepts it and goes home . also the 9 yr old pussy joke was to me not all that bad. i would think the time he pretented he was retarted so he didnt have to have someone rent the office next to him would be far more offensive. yet hilarious as shit
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Leon is the greatest character on curb. He has all the best lines. "There are two things Danny Dubenstein can do, math and Fuckin!". Man that was one of the best episodes to date.
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Nov 22, 2009 7:37:38 PM CST
I want to see Julia Louis Dreyfus' tits 12 years ago!
by asimovdiedofaids
Today, not so much, but she has held up pretty well.
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Full interview: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5737218n&tag=api
Web Extra 1: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5736838n&tag=api
Web Extra 2: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5736840n&tag=api
Web Extra 3: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5736762n&tag=api
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I consider the 'St. Elsewhere' ending worked on many levels and was consistent with the overall tone of the series which was filled with meta-references.
You have every right to your point of view but not everyone shares it. -
very funny
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Great way to put a cap on both shows. Loved this season, but, hey go out on a note that wraps up both. In my mind, that is the real Sinefeld finale (but I did like the real real finale anyway, but this was more fitting, ending with the four at Monks and not in jail)
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that was a great ending for both shows.
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For both Seinfeld and Curb. The Seinfeld scenes were PERFECT, which was surprising because all of the lead-up didn't have me hopeful. And I'd hate not to see any more Curb, but that would work perfect as a series finale.
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The tint didn't work for me. Once again they threw in the tipping deal. The dogs f'ing in the car. George running away from Larry out the back window. I liked how they brought back Ms. Shue. Georges little book. The water stain was ok i guess.
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Anyone else catch that Sinefeld reference when Jason was running out the window?
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Tonights Curb Your Enthusiasm made me realize how great a show Seinfeld really was!
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Stupid ass piece of shit ... get a clue. You have no idea what you are talking about, then you make a snap judgement based on shit that wasn't even in Seinfeld, but from a separate show. You dumb fuck.
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I loved the way they ended. Just awesome.
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Definitely in the top 3 for clever endings.
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that epi was total closure...and it was brilliant...and it made me laff...and right when i was gonna cry, it made me laff again
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This was the perfect way to wrap up this series.
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Mocha Joe was more of a character than Kramer. The Seinfeld Reunion part ended up seeming an aferthought...
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did you not see it, lockesbrokenleg? Shock!
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It is unfathomable to me that anybody could think this wasn't a letdown. In the finale we saw hardly any actual Seinfeld action (I was expecting 10-15 minutes, which it should have been with an hour time slot), no Bania, Newman or any other supporting characters, and almost all of the stuff we did see was stuff we already saw. It was nice seeing the characters back in action, but it feels like there was an almost full-length Seinfeld episode hidden somewhere that they did not let bloom. What a waste.
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...that they had to have shot an actual episode of Seinfeld. To not have done so with all the talent (actors AND crew) assembled would have required a good deal of restraint for egomaniacs like Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David. And to Lockes -- do you know what a reunion show is? Most reunion shows for sitcoms are just where the cast and crew get together and reminisce about the show -- technically to qualify as a reunion you'd just have to have the cast together, which this did and then some. So, yeah, it was a fucking reunion. Sorry if you watched the entire season and missed that fact which was right in front of you. Geez.
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but still, it was fun. Did anyone feel like Julie-Elaine had more face work done in just a 1-2 episode timespan?
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Nov 23, 2009 8:36:47 AM CST
My problem was that they billed this as a big Seinfeld Reunion
by coughlins laws
and they didn't follow through. Now maybe it was HBO's fault for marketing it that way and maybe people should just be happy the actors were back together, but this was not what I was expecting or hoping for. They made it in a way that fans of Seinfeld that don't like Curb (which I know alot of, including two of my brothers) will not like this. I recorded last weeks's episode and this episode hoping to give it to my brother and sister-in-law to watch and I'm not going to now. There's really not enough in there for people who loved Seinfeld that aren't fans of Curb. There were too many really crude jokes and inside jokes from Curb (covering events as far back as Season 2) that if someone was just tuning in to watch these last two episodes, they wouldn't get alot of it and might be turned off... I, for one, am not super-disappointed, I liked it. However, like I said, I just don't see a non-Curb fan liking this and the fact that HBO was trying to get people hyped up to watch this that were just fans of Seinfeld means they were disingenuous at best...
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But the Mocha Joe plot WAS Larry playing George in a Seinfeld episode, to all intents and purposes. The character substitutions and framing transitions were very deftly handled. It's impressive how uncluttered the script felt, because it got a hell of a lot done.
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making the point that this episode should've been a full hour and spent more time on the actual Seinfeld Reunion part. This episode was Curb all the way. However, they billed it as the "Seinfeld Reunion". If you tuned into this having never watched Curb before thinking this was a "Seinfeld Reunion", would you not have been disappointed that Mocha Joe got more screen time than Kramer and Elaine?
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He was absolutely killing me last night. I don't know why. I think it's because - as someone pointed out (maybe here?) - he makes the perfect Robin to Larry's Batman. I would love to see them in a buddy cop movie. Maybe not cops. Maybe dentists. A buddy dentist movie. -
No, because he was playing the sort of oddball character you got on a typical Seinfeld episode - Leon filled this role last week. It's a neat trick, it feels like the actual Seinfeld scenes don't amount to a whole episode, and they don't - they even allude to a B plot with a doll happening entirely off screen in the reunion "episode", and much of what is on screen we partly saw last week anyway. But the reunion is actually the B plot to the whole switcheroo with Jason and Larry. It's clever. If you watch the whole episode like it's basically a Seinfeld episode which is happening on a production lot, it really really works. There are hints - that brilliant opening shot with the diner in the background then the camera angle switches 180 degrees reversing the characters from left to right with Larry now watching as the scene continues in a different "setting" even though they haven't moved. They use the Seinfeld music a couple of places during Seinfeld scenes. The way George and Larry keep switching places pays off with George going back in but Cheryl coming out, and they really are just watching two character on TV who aren't really them after all. And they get back together but they're right where they started with some ridiculous argument. It's the classic sit com resolution where nothing ever changes and they're always in the same situation in perpetuity. There's so much of that stuff being executed so well and unobtrusively that it perhaps makes the episode feel slighter than it is on first viewing. It's astonishingly light of touch and hard to believe that such complex sophistication in the script structure can be achieved with the appearance of effortlessness. The scenes between Larry and Jerry really are played like they would be in a Seinfeld episode too. In a sense Larry is the anchor on which the two shows keep switching places around him, rather than the characters switching in and out of one particular show. The scene where he walks through the different sets and then outside (onto another set) like it's a maze was a bit Charlie Kaufman. I think last week was the flashier episode, with the bigger, bolder dramatic non-punchlines, and it also played with these same metaphysical themes, but I think this week really tied it all together into something quite satisfying and understated and impressively well thought out.
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Nov 23, 2009 9:41:24 AM CST
unfaithfullyyours, there's a typo in your post
by grammaton cleric binks
I'm sure what you really meant to type was Jerry Seinfeld has never been funny!
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Actually, it was very "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", wasn't it. Larry wrote Cheryl into a Seinfeld episode to try and get her back and now he's lost her in the middle of this Seinfeld episode and is wandering around in there trying to get her back and it gets to the point where he can't even tell if he's Larry or if he's George. And then he gets out of there but she realises what's going on and she runs after him, and they watch the Seinfeld episode on TV, after Larry has a moment when he realises the girl on TV isn't Cheryl and he isn't George. Then they have their own sitcom resolution, and the credits roll, breaking the fourth wall again because we, the audience, were watching two characters watching two characters, so who are "Larry" and "Cheryl" anyway? I thought that was great.
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Nov 23, 2009 10:01:13 AM CST
rosasaks, I understand what you're saying. But Seinfeld
by coughlins laws
wasn't a cult movie like Eternal Sunshine. It was possibly the most popular sitcom of all time. Curb Your Enthusiasm is very different than Seinfeld was and only a fraction of the audience of Seinfeld watch Curb. In order to get most of the jokes they alluded to, you'd have to be not just a casual Curb fan, but a loyal fan who's seen every episode. Otherwise, references to The Doll, or The Hooker in the Car Pool Lane will go right over your head. Anyone who was a Seinfeld fan who tuned in just to see the last 2 episodes of Curb will have been disappointed. Not to mention, all the jokes we actually saw were done in the Table Read. It just wasn't that funny. Clever, yes. But as far as some of the people I saw writing that this was a perfect wrap-up for both series, I just don't see it...
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I can see that side of the argument. I think the episode actually anticipates the criticism to an extent. We get that last scene of a Seinfeld episode, where all the disparate plot strands typically unify - except we haven't actually seen most of that! So where's the pay off? Or rather, how can you have the pay off without showing the build up? Well, in the absence of the missing scenes, I guess you're right, knowledge has to be presumed of the history of both shows. And the pay off isn't the last scene of the Seinfeld episode, it's the careful arrangement and resolution of the framing devices. There's kind of an illusion going on, it's like they've chopped up scripts of a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode and a Seinfeld episode and constructed something new. So each bit on its own feels fractured but as a whole the episode does have unity. It's just the "situation" bit keeps switching - which kind of breaks a fundamental rule of the sitcom if you think about it. The "comedy" is taking place simultaneously in two different "situations". Maybe that juggling is cleverer than it is funny, I don't know. I don't know what the typical viewer would or wouldn't expect last night so don't trouble myself too much with that because I'd probably get it wrong. It worked for me. Seinfeld did end ten years ago. I wouldn't have had a problem if they shot a 22 minute new episode and then framed it with 22 minutes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, but what they pulled off seems a lot more inventive to me. The last scene with Larry was perfect. And it came after an episode which was delivered in the style of the show he used to write. I guess there's a danger that if he had just done a reunion show, it would have felt a bit like fan fic? I think this was a great way to retire Seinfeld, because the stuff with Moca Joe would have made for a fine episode in Seinfeld's 1990s heydey. And I think that's preferable to trying to make it a very special episode, as it were. I think he ticked all the boxes, it's just there's a lot of misdirection thrown in as well. It's subversive. The beats aren't quite where you expect them to be, but it's all there.
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Actually, I don't have any real criticism, I just wanted to use that joke.
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Nov 23, 2009 10:38:38 AM CST
Like I said, I liked it. And I liked how, even though he
by coughlins laws
got his way and Cheryl was back, he still insisted on fucking it up with his stupid code of ethics, yet again taking her out of the mood. It was reminiscent of the time he stopped sex with her in order to get a stain off a rug with club soda or to answer the phone... Again, I thought it was funny and you're right, everything was there. However, they should have spent more time with the Seinfeld cast. I don't know why this couldn't have been a full hour. And I know that my family members who are not Curb fans won't like it. Seinfeld had a certain magic of Jerry and George saying Larry's curmungeonly words. But alot of people don't personally like Larry David and feel that watching him is like watching a Woody Allen movie. He purposefully makes himself unlikeable, where as Jerry Seinfeld and Jason Alexander ARE likable. I wish that it came together better. But even though I thought it was hilarious, I don't think anyone that I know that are Seinfeld fans will enjoy jokes about a 9 year old's pussy or get delicious irony of Larry not being able to play George as good as Jason, a character he created based on himself...
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Nov 23, 2009 10:44:17 AM CST
RedHorse, who the fuck cares? You'd think Larry David
by coughlins laws
would considering I'm sure alot of people got subscriptions to HBO just to see this or will buy the DVDs of this season thinking they're getting a Seinfeld Reunion, they'll be disappointed. It was basically a tacked on afterthought. And just because something is meta, that doesn't make it good. Not to mention the vast majority of Seinfeld fans (a sitcom that began 20 years ago) aren't even sure what meta means and certainly aren't fans of "anything meta" like you. It really wasn't a great episode or even the best this season. For nostalgia purposes it was fun to watch, but as far as humor, it really wasn't that funny...
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spread throughout half the season. Seeing Larry and Jerry interact was kind of funny and interesting. It was great to see Jerry on TV again. But Michael Richards only got one episode with anything to do. As far as realizing that most fans don't really appreciate Larry David, I first realized that with people's reactions to the Seinfeld Finale. I thought that it was the perfect ending. They had proven over nine years that they were horrible, rotten people and it was fitting that they finally paid for it. However, I was shocked at how many people really disliked the episode. It was like they didn't get the point of the whole show...
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I think the darker tones last week and the structural cleverness this week suggest this "reality" sitcom format could sustain itself as a model for an hour-long drama. Sort of a comedy of manners done dramatically in the mundane everyday, rather than a genre show or a period piece or whatever. The best HBO dramas always contain a lot of black comedy anyway, just not in the form of jokes. I mean everybody's been trying to rip off Larry David and Garry Shandling for the last ten years, but I think really Curb Your Enthusiasm already shifted the goal posts again. The last two weeks are about as elaborate a deconstruction of sitcoms as there's ever going to be. I think Frasier was pretty much the end of the traditional sitcom. It did it better than it had been done and the scripts and performances are enduring. Seinfeld and Larry Sanders were influential in what was to come next, (and Arrested Development should never have been cancelled) but Larry David just exploded all of that as well. The people trying to rip him off are wasting their time.
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Seinfeld finale, though dark and sad-ish, was actually fittin for those assholes... esp wit how they had a convo bout a stupid button (again)
But if ya wanna see a dark finale (besides Angel), I would say Roseanne has the best one... all those years of the Connors were just imagined by Roseanne. imagine growin up wit Becky and Darlene, seein them fall in love wit those brothers, then come to find out that they really dated the other brother... and Jackie was gay (and the mom too right?), and Dan died... now that was a bittersweet finale... -
Great analysis--the part where they did a scene of Seinfeld with Larry playing George--i.e. real life Larry David playing the CYE character "Larry David" playing "George Costanza", a version of Larry David played by Jason Alexander, but here played by "Jason Alexander", a CYE character based on real-life Jason Alexander and played here on CYE by the real Jason Alexander--well, it's just this amazingly complex integration of real life and fiction where the boundaries keep getting erased and shifted. Jason Alexander's "Acting Without Acting" book, in addition to providing good fodder for jokes, is kind of a good statement of this--all of these characters are playing themselves, so how can they be acting? But they're not playing themselves really, they're playing versions of themselves created by Larry David. You're exactly right--you don't even realize on first viewing it how complex the whole thing really is.
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formula Larry David pulled off here would work good on that show. All the characters are stupid and not necessarily assholes like on Curb. But like I said, I was just hoping to see more screen time for Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine all in character because this is obviously all we'll be getting of them...
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There's the fact that we all know that Larry David just divorced his real-life wife Laurie. We have to assume that a lot of Larry/Cheryl throughout CYE has been based on Larry/Laurie. So here in this episode we have Larry writing a story about George and his divorce from his fictional wife, which is based on Larry's divorce from Cheryl--but Larry and Cheryl are fictional characters presumably inspired by the real life Larry and Laurie David. There really is something Kaufmannesque about the layers upon layers of reality--like in Syndecdoche New York, where the model of New York replicates the real New York with actors playing all the characters in Philip Seymore Hoffman's life, and that model eventually has a model of New York inside it, and so on. Good stuff!
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The bit with the pen last week was fiendishly metaphoric too. Acting without acting. Writing without writing... the pen was a cypher for the character substitutions in the play within a play.
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better than the last episode. I guess I just fell victim to what I criticize a lot of people here for, the Expectations Game... Even though I read articles that this wasn't going to be an actual Seinfeld episode, I guess just based on the build up and the HBO promos the last two weeks, I was expecting a lot more. All the actual jokes we saw on the Seinfeld show they already told us last week. Plus, I would've liked to seen the whole Newman-Jerry scene... Oh well, as a whole, the Season was very good. Probably the best season since Season 4. However, the thing I wanted to see the most was very short and underwhelming...
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great episode.. having said that.. yeah, mocha joe was funny and all, but funny for a regular curb episode, not the Seinfeld reunion. although 10 seconds seeing larry playing george was almost worth the whole season. if you're a long time seinfeld/curb fan its hard to watch reruns of seinfeld and not put larry in george's place. to actually see it was gold.
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seeing george say "pretty.. pretty, pretty good" was just as surreal.
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Reading this has brought back some of the funnier lines. I'll have to rewatch it.
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Denise Handicap has to be the most elaborate knock knock joke ever contrived. To write a knock knock joke, dramatically visualise it, and use it as the "punchline" to a 30 minute sitcom was pretty audacious. It's been a great season with plenty of stand out episodes. I think the Table Read was my favourite. I'm curious how it will fit with the finale back to back. I'm kind of glad the "police" bit wasn't carried over, as it would have needed an episode in itself, and really served to parallel the Michael Richards plot and tease out some permutations and play devil's advocate to the audience. I suppose there's a joke that the last episode in the end didn't consist of Larry being put on trial! But taken together, it does feel like we got a George story, and a Kramer story, in a two parter. Just within Curb episodes, rather than an actual reunion. And the interplay between Larry and Jerry is the dead give away that the writing was conceived as Curb done in a Seinfeld style. Cheryl says something about the cast having a rhythm. They use that rhythm during a lot of the Curb scenes. The irony is Larry does get to play George, and he plays him well. The set-up is done as in Curb, but once embroiled, this time, Larry begins to act like George. The stuff with the favour and the tip is typical Curb, to reach that scenario, then they stylise what he does afterwards like a Seinfeld episode. So leaving out the transpositions and the fact nothing really plays out on the Seinfeld sets, despite them being there, it is a bit like they filmed two new Seinfeld episodes, because large portions of the script were written and acted like Seinfeld episodes. In terms of the style and execution, it's as good as it ever was. Maybe that's the big joke about the "reunion". The show was always allegedly about "nothing" and the "reunion" is literally stripped down to nothing. After the great sequences in the table read which show off the old spirit with aplomb, we don't see any of that in the "episode", not really, except the characters and the set. The show within a show is stripped down to the formulaic bare bones. But the real Seinfeld episodes are located within the world in which the "cast" are playing themselves. Michael Richards gets taken for a ride by Leon in the type of scam Kramer would normally be embroiled in, allowing for the meltdown gag. Jerry and Larry banter like old. And the George stuff we've explored. I think maybe what's coming across is that some people wanted the bulk of the script to be located within the set shown on stage. And we get a glimpse of that when Larry watches the television. But really, the episode is located in the layer which Larry is producing the show in. And so we get, as mentioned above, a Seinfeld episode not with Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine, but rather with "Jerry" "Jason/Larry" "Michael" and "Julia". But they're not playing versions of their real selves so much as they're playing versions of their famous characters. The point of this long winded ramble is it's a red herring to bemoan the absence of an actual Seinfeld episode, or that the Seinfeld scenes are only a few minutes long. You could take the script of the actual Curb episode, take out the framing devices and the reunion gimmick, and film it straight as a Seinfeld episode no problem at all. That the reunion amounts to nothing is a gag. And the whole thing about George and Jerry writing a sitcom was part of the original Seinfeld concept anyway. So here we have George years later watching his sitcom on television, to tease out another great inversion!
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But George saying "Pretty, pretty, pretty good." And seeing Larry say "Ha-Ho! George is getting upset!" both made me smile a lot.
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I also loved the finale of Seinfeld and it felt appropriate for the show and characters. At the time, there was actual discussion of implementing a good samartian law in some states. Although I agree that making it a clip show was weak, not everyone was going to watch the clip show before it AND I doubt people watching on DVD or reruns will always have a clip show preceeding that ep. I will say that this season of Curb was better and funnier than the last couple seasons. I laughed a lot at every ep, but I agree with whoever said the Seinfeld stuff was weak. For 90% of the eps, there was nothing to do with Larry working on the show. When did he even write that script? And the season finale was okay but still felt like a bit of a let down with not much happening. Larry as George was funny as was George acting like Larry. I lke how Larry quit the show, which he supposedly did constantly back on Seinfeld. Mostly I like the strange, almost hateful, relationship between larry and jason Alexander whenever they get together. That is always funny to me.
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C'mon, how can people complain about Moca Joe? "E for effort!" "F for favour!" "C for coffee!" I could have taken a whole episode with him. Also, I'll admit to tuning into this, my first full season of Curb just to see the Sinefeld reunion, and it was kind of light on it. Having said that, I realize the show is Curb Your Enthusiasm, not Sinefeld. We got enough. We got closure. It was great for someone who didn't know all the subtle ins-and-outs of Curb continuity. Call it a day. Generally, everyone on the planet thinks it was an awesome ending. Aside from a about 5 talkbackers. Which is usually the norm.
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...while I would love to see Curb come back for another season, I only want it conditionally. The condition is that Larry be a little less controversial. The episode where he splashed urine on Christ and the 9 y/o pussy episode were reeeeally hard to stomach.Larry, buddy, there is plenty to make fun of out there without resorting to blasphemy and pedophile-type comments. Most all the episodes this season were great, but this show has survived so long on a premium cable channel because of mass appeal. If you continue with the controversial stuff...less appeal, less mass.
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Nov 23, 2009 2:50:49 PM CST
As far as the pee on Jesus, although I think Hollywood
by coughlins laws
does pick on Christians WAAYYYY too much, I think that it wasn't actually that mean-spirited and that Larry does have a track record of making fun of other religions, including his own... There were some really good episodes this year, but there were also some bad ones. Funkhouser's Crazy Sister, Vehicular Fellatio, Denise Handicapped, and The Table Read were all classics. However, the one with Cristian Slater and The Black Swan were pretty lame...
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I loved Seinfeld, but I just can't stand Larry David as a performer and it kind of bums me out as there aren't many good comedies out there. I can barely watch a full episode of Curb because of Larry.
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The last scene of Barney Miller was so subtle and understated, but really resonated well with fans of the show - just a 'lights out close the door' scene with an empty set for about 2 minutes. Instead of pumping us with clips, the show let us come up with our own favorite moments in our head as the lights slowly darkened over the precinct.
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wow that was pretty lame.
Not enough Kramer and Susie.
They should do a spin-off where Susie leaves Jeff for Kramer. -
The pussy joke and the pee on Jesus were the best parts of the season. The Seinfeld stuff was nostalgic and all but funny? Not really..neither was Mocha Joe funny, just a dumb character. I still have yet to see an episode of Seinfeld so I may start watching them from season 1 and see how I like it. But I love CYE.
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Buffy. Season 5. If only Joss Whedon had the balls to end the show there.
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Don't start watching Seinfeld from the first season. No need. The show doesn't hit it's rhythm till season 3, and season 4 is when it explodes and is the iconic series that has come to dominate our culture. Seasons 3, 4, 5, and 6 are the best seasons. I say watch season 4 - or 5 - so you can soak in the best and see what all the fuss is about. It's worth it. The 1st season, Jerry and Larry were still trying to get the rhythm and pace down, and season 2 wasn't quite there either. Season 3 was getting better but not perfect. Season 4, 5, and 6 are the definitive SEINFELD years. Plus, each episode virtually stands alone so no need to worry about continuity. Enjoy!
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If I miss the first 3 seasons I won't miss any huge ongoing plot points?
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What part of "a show about nothing" do you not understand?? Honestly, about the only episode you might not fully appreciate without seeing some of the others first is the finale. By the way, what planet have you been living on for the past 20 years??? I jest... enjoy the show! :)
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Are seasons 1 through 2 and possibly 3 not funny? Just wondering..
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kidding! but because that last season was so fucking god awful, and 7 was pretty weak too, that i was glad the show go put out of its misery. jesus christ if the main star leaves the show, followed by another popular star, you shouldve just ended it when they were still there. stupid fox.
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and they'd never even HEARD of Seinfeld - just never aired there, I guess? Friends, yes, but Seinfeld... no what is that?
anyway, I've always had TWO problems with the Seinfeld finale, and neither of them are the fact that it's a clip show...
First of all, this law is about not helping out someone in trouble right - but THEY DID help the guy out by capturing it all on video so the culprit can be easily identified and captured WITHOUT placing themselves in any danger by intervening-
which brings me to my second point - the other part of that law was that you were ONLY obligated to help if you were not endangering yourself by doing so...
HELLO?? THE GUY HAD A GUN - plain for everyone to see on the video - so WTF were they supposed to do exactly?
I get that the lawyer was a parody and he wasn't actually supposed to be all that good a lawyer but come on! Forget LAWYER, anyone with half a brain in their skull could have had this case dismissed in a heartbeat! The prosecution can trot out as many character witnesses as they like and try to make it about character but by these people were perfectly within THE LAW the whole time - and character doesn't have a damn thing to do about it! CASE FUCKING DISMISSED
thanks. glad I got that off my chest -
Jesus, if you want fucking Law & Order just change the channel...
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Interesting and all, but so what? As others said, it doesn't automatically make it great. Also I think it's a little silly to say that the Mocha Joe stuff was just like a Seinfeld episode. The entire SERIES has been very Seinfeldesque and is the same basic idea. Mocha Joe was a stale Curb plotline (tipping etc.) that we've already seen a bunch of times, including earlier this season. If they were trying to make the B story blatantly Seinfeldesque, this wasn't the way to do it.
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..most of the friends I met there have heard of Seinfeld. Just fyi.
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I thought I understood Curb until I read your analysis. Now I just feel terribly inferior... Great read, though.
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Sorry you can't stomach a speck of pee on your imaginary sky god.
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my girlfriend moved here (USA) from Russia about 5 years ago. shes a typical 25 year old girl, only not from this culture. so when she came here she watched reruns of 'Friends' and loved it. when we started dateing she would DVR reruns of friends. usually when you DVR something you get a couple of minutes of the next show.. which was usually Seinfeld. she commented to me once, "this show seems funny. should i watch it?" now, that was all she needed to say for me to go out and buy every season of seinfeld so she could get caught up, and she loved it.the interesting thing was to hear her completely unbiased opinion on the show. (as in, she wasnt influenced at all by pop culture, or critics, etc.. just how she felt, and i didnt say anything.)she liked season 4-7 the best. was shocked by susan's death, was a little let down by seasons 8-9, and, like many people, was let down by the finale. (i guess no matter what, its hard to see characters you've learned to love ending up in jail.)i guess this story has no point. (/cool story, bro! as one would say on fark.) but it's interesting to re-live decade old pop-culture with someone without any preconceived notions, and still hear the same general opinons.
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:shows with kick-ass series finales... Letdowns: BSG, The X-Files (though the whole last couple seasons were the real let-downs), Deadwood.
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The whole idea of them being arrested for not helping someone being robbed with a GUN, and being sentenced to one year in jail just because they were "rude" to some people is too farfetched and ridiculous, even for Seinfeld. And the anti-climax was VERY weak - I wouldn't mind an anticlimatic ending, they could have KILLED them all, but that was fucking weak. Looked like a crappy season finale.
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It's a TV show people, nerds or not gain some perspective, who cares if it makes sense its not Edgar Allan Poe it's a comedy show intended to make us laugh, not tell us an exciting tale or tightly woven intricacy, which to be fair David sort of does anyway.I thought it was lovely and great to see a sort of Feld episode again, make more LD.
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Larry's neuroses get frustrating sometimes. That won't be the last episode of CYE. There's so many unresolved issues in Larry's life....the saga will continue....
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I think you need to watch the Seinfeld finale again, because clearly it went over your head. The reason they were locked up was because they had a videocamera and instead of using it to help catch the criminal, they used it to make fun of the overweight victime. meanwhile, the inspiration behind the story is that there really are Good Samaritan laws in place to encourage people to help those in trouble. In most cases, the laws are to prevent "wrongful" liability suits against people who chose to help. However, some states DO have laws on the books making it an actual crime, that can be brought to court, if you do not report a crime that you have evidence of....such as, say, videotape. Of course, they wouldn't have went to jail, but the point remains.
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1. I am not musical but the notes played when Larry was by Cheryl's car when he wason his phone were truly brilliant. Is that a trumpet? a trombone?
2. I can't remember laughing harder than at the final joke. Maybe I have done, but I can;t remmeber laughing at anything harder than that. -
Nov 24, 2009 9:17:48 AM CST
Even though the Seinfeld reunion brings things full circle....
by chakraborty
...in terms of Larry's career, it doesn't bring things full circle in terms of the man. I think there will be at least one more season to explore Larry David, the man, beyond his career with Seinfeld. To end now would be like ending Seinfeld after the episode where their sitcom idea gets picked up by NBC. It brings the show concept full circle but not the characters, and the meaning of their lives. Expect to see more of Larry David, the man, the myth, the legend....Larry David: Beyond Thunderdome.
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Jason is just as funny as he was as George 12 years ago, if not funnier. The scenes with him and Larry in The Table Read and now this finale were gold, as were all moments with Jerry involved. It's a shame these guys can't work together forever!
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If this had been a slam bang, full circle, no holds barred season long production of the Seinfeld reunion it would have sucked for one reason. Self indulgence. That's what the first finale was, and I think that's what Larry David wanted to avoid here. So he gave us snippets. Snippets of George being George, Jerry being Jerry, etc. And that's why it was so enjoyable for the short time that it was on. Were it an entire season it would have gotten stale and self aware, like the original finale. In the end this was just another season of Curb (they even found a place for Funkhauser and Ted Danson), featuring the creation of another episode of Seinfeld. It wasn't about some grand type of closure. It ended in the diner as it should have. We got to see Elaine in a supporting role, Kramer and his crazy hair barging in, Jerry brilliantly playing off George, and George driving the plot as usual. The best part was seeing these actors become their characters once again. It looked effortless, especially for Jason Alexander. A perfectly satisfying season, and a really, really great finale.
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Mocha Joe was the perfect character for the Seinfeld reunion episode.He was just like the many personalities that seinfeld had episodes revolving around. I liken him to the soup nazi, babu, bob cobb the maestro, or any of the many characters that theseinfeld characters had confrontations with throughout the years.
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Seasons 1-3 are funny, but they are missing something. The rhythm and the way the storylines intersect and the development of Kramer's character was not fully realized until the 3rd season, and wasn't in full-fledged perfect mode till season 4. Even in a commentary on one of the DVDs, Larry David and Larry Charles discuss this, how they were out one day and realized what the show had been missing, the way the storylines would all intersect in ways you'd never see coming, etc. ENJOY!
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Nov 24, 2009 3:38:33 PM CST
"It looked effortless, especially for Jason Alexander."
by burnhollywood
Well of course it was...he was ACTING WITHOUT ACTING.
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Season 7 was brilliant! Having said that...I wish there was more Seinfeld reunion in it, there wasn't enough Kramer. But I guess if they had shown more, it would have bordered on lame. The Junior Mint episode is on my tv right now..."let's go watch them slice this fat bastard up."
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This CYE episode was amazing! It was a commentary in and of itself about making a reunion show about a show "about nothing" within a show! Acting Without Acting indeed!
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I never really got into it, but having watched Curb just for the Seinfeld episodes, I gotta say LD is kinda growing on me...
is it wrong that I tend to sympathise with his position a lot of the time, on certain things?
As a Seinfeld fan who's not a Curb fan, I thought the reunion was just fine - HAVING SAID THAT, it seemed like the fictional "reunion show" within a show that LD ends up watching on TV looked pretty lame...
I think someone mentioned before how reunion shows usually ARE lame so maybe that was the point they were trying to make
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