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Larry and Cheryl might be wealthy but they still have the same problems as any householder — and not everything can be solved by money. In this case there’s an ugly wire running overhead across their back garden that they want to have buried. But in order to do so they need permission from five different neighbors. Four have given the okay. One, naturally, is a holdout. The couple, Phyllis and Dean, want to come over and meet the Davids.
Phyllis and Dean are played by comedian/actors Lucy Webb and Wayne Federman. Federman is not only a busy stand-up comic, but also the head monologue writer of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Once more, Larry David turns to the stand-up world for the small comic roles. Phyllis and Dean turn out to be the most boorish kind of television fans. “I’m finally in the house that Jerry Seinfeld built,” Phyllis says. And although he must be fed up with everyone giving Jerry all the credit, Larry takes it in stride and replies, “With his own hands.” But things go sour when Dean turns out to be seriously obsessed with Julia Louis-Dreyfus. He makes it quite clear that only if Larry arranges a meeting, will he agree to bury the wire.
The look of disgust on Larry’s face is priceless. (It ought to make any of us who wish that we could meet a celebrity feel deeply ashamed of ourselves.) “What is he, four years old?” rages Larry. But Cheryl wants that wire buried, so sure enough he calls Julia.
Julia reluctantly shows up, looking deliberately ordinary with her hair pulled back. But Dean is late at work (helping Jeff, who’s being sued by a camp because the boy he sponsored burned down a cabin). Instead they find Phyllis, distraught over the death of her cat — but not too distraught to take out the camcorder. In a later scene Dean finally gets to meet her, but by then Julia is so pissed off (for too many reasons to mention) she takes a strip off him. When Larry says that he kept his end of the bargain, Dean says, “You saw this as a meeting. I saw this as a horrible moment in my life.”
Like the previous show, this one too has a few stitches connecting it to earlier episodes. In this case the bracelet Cheryl wanted makes its reappearance. There’s also a nice little Seinfeldian discussion of the social nicety of the telephone cutoff time — in other words, how late you can call somebody else’s house. Nine-thirty? Ten? Ten-thirty? Whichever one it is, Larry manages to get it wrong, upsetting both Julia (who is so annoyed that she calls Jerry Seinfeld) and Jeff’s wife Susie.
Indeed, this episode gives Susie Essman a chance to tear up the scenery. When she discovers that her and Jeff’s house has been robbed by the boy Jeff sponsored for camp, she pretty much goes ballistic. That is one tough and scary woman.
And the wire? Well, anyone who has seen Curb can guess whether or not the wire is still there by the end of the show.
EPISODE SEVEN
AAMCO / Original Airdate: November 26, 2000 / Directed by Robert B. Weide
Unlike the perpetually single characters on Seinfeld (except, for a time, the unhappily engaged George) Larry is married and has no choice but to be part of a larger social world. Married people compromise. Married people do all kinds of things they’d rather not do. But, well, they’re married.
Larry tries hard to live as if he’s not married. For him that doesn’t mean fooling around, but simply doing only what he wants. And one of the things he doesn’t want to do is throw a dinner party. “What is this compulsion to have people over to your house and serve them food?” he asks Cheryl. But Cheryl insists — that is, if she can find a caterer to replace the one who has cancelled. (What, you don’t have your dinner parties catered?) Larry acquiesces but he makes a bet with Cheryl that he won’t enjoy himself. And if he wins, what does she have to give him? A “blow job in the car.” Just like a hooker. Man, that Larry. What a romantic.
But the dinner party is only one strand of this episode’s two main converging plot lines. The other one concerns Jeff’s new car, a baby blue ’57 Chevy. He allows Larry to get behind the wheel, and at that moment millions of regular viewers are no doubt screaming at their televisions, Don’t let him, don’t let him! But it’s too late. Larry yells at a driver who retaliates by rear-ending the Chevy.
The highlight of the episode is the Davids’ dinner party, where Larry is forced to talk to a man about injection molding. (Later, Larry will tell Cheryl that at their next party he “wants some Jews.”) A couple urges him to take a cruise while someone else asks if he gets paid every time an episode of Seinfeld is rerun. (Yes, he does.) This last fellow (played by Mike Hagerty) turns out to be a car mechanic who specializes in old Chevys and agrees to fix Jeff’s car. He then proceeds to sit at the head of the table and lead everyone in prayer.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that fixing the Chevy goes amiss, or that the new caterer turns out to be a minor thief, keeping the leftovers for herself; all that tidying up in the last minutes is to be expected. No wonder Larry is spending his time doing absolutely nothing.
EPISODE EIGHT
Beloved Aunt / Original Airdate: December 3, 2000 / Directed by Robert B. Weide
In this first season, Larry David’s idea of his own character is really not that harsh. He’s a bit insensitive, sure. But he does put himself out for others once in a while, not that it ever does him much good. And most of the really ugly things that happen are misunderstandings. They’re not really his fault. This very funny episode is a case in point.
Death, suicide, and mourning — what better subjects for a situation comedy? But of course we’ve already learned from Seinfeld that for a character created by Larry David, funerals and their aftermath are a gold mine (or should that be land mine) of opportunities.
The opening shot is a crucifix over an urn. Jewish comics often think crucifixes are good for a laugh. See Mel Brooks’s The 2000 Year Old Man where his character decides that the cross is “too simple” and won’t sell. Or Woody Allen juggling one along with other religious paraphernalia in Hannah and Her Sisters. In this Curb episode we see Cheryl in a reception line and discover that her aunt has recently died by her own hand. And what is Larry doing? Fiddling with the temperature control on the wall and complaining about having cut his finger while punching a new hole in his belt.
But while Larry would rather go golfing than sit with Cheryl’s relatives (we meet her parents for the first time, played by Paul Dooley and Julie Payne), his offer to write the obituary for the newspaper comes only from a desire to be helpful — and perhaps win some brownie points from Cheryl. And there’s nothing wrong with the obituary that he dictates to Jeff; it’s the fault of the newspaper editor that the words “Devoted sister, beloved aunt” have been misprinted as “Devoted sister, beloved cunt.” Even jaded viewers of profanity-laden HBO shows will feel shocked at hearing the word in such a context. Unlike viewers, nobody in the family finds the mistake very funny.
It might not be Larry’s fault, but that doesn’t stop Cheryl from temporarily exiling him from the house. So he goes to Jeff’s house, to stay the night and give Jeff’s mother (still wary of Larry from the “Hitler” incident in episode one) a pair of sunglasses for her birthday. And all would be well except that Larry accidentally leans against the woman’s ample bosom, which naturally she believes is on purpose. (It might be interesting to count the number of times that Larry will be considered a pervert, porno lover, fetishist, or even “ass man” over the seasons.) As Jeff puts it, “You copped a feel off my mom, you gotta go.”
But Larry, at least in this season, often proves himself no slouch when it comes to moving with the tides. He ends up sleeping in his car and when the sun comes up he simply doffs a pair of sunglasses — the same glasses that he had bought for Jeff’s mom’s birthday. At least he doesn’t have to spend time with Cheryl’s family.
EPISODE NINE
Affirmative Action / Original Airdate: December 10, 2000 / Directed by Bryan Gordon
Until now Larry has occasionally been selfish and mean, but he hasn’t been truly ignorant or tasteless. But that is about to change. This is not a “Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People” episode. This i
s a “Why Do Bad Things Happen to Stupid, Thoughtless People” episode.
Which of these characteristics is most important to Larry: that he is rich, white, Jewish, in show business, or from Booklyn? The first two, if what happens early in the episode is any indication. Larry goes on a walk with Richard Lewis, who, like a petulant girlfriend, complains that he always has to initiate their get-togethers. When a black man jogs by, Richard says hello and introduces him to Larry as his dermatologist. Larry tries to be funny by suggesting the man has become a doctor through the “whole affirmative action thing.” The doctor is naturally offended; Larry has suggested that he wasn’t good enough to get into medical school on his own.
But wait a minute. Was Larry really trying to be funny? Would the line be funny if it wasn’t offensive — or even if it is? Not at all. Perhaps what Larry was really doing was saying that for him the man was black before he was anything else, and that his race makes Larry uncomfortable. He’s saying it without realizing the true meaning, of course. Larry is, indeed, someone who says aloud the thoughts that most people manage to keep to themselves. This is rather brave of Larry David (the man, not the character). I can’t think of a single actor in television who would wish to appear as even a mild racist, unless, like Archie Bunker, it was an essential part of his fictional character.
Larry David does like to pile one related incident on top of another to raise the stakes and he does so here when Larry the character runs into a black woman in a Mexican restaurant. She had interviewed for the job of line producer on Sour Grapes, but the position had gone to somebody else. She implies that she didn’t get the job because she’s black and then claims that there was not a single black character on Seinfeld. (Not quite true, but close.) “I’ve got your number,” she cries. “There’s no number!” insists Larry. To add insult, she notes that the film wasn’t very good and she was better off not getting the job.
This Larry-as-accused-racist has to reach a crescendo and to do it David relies on his favorite structure — using one plot to fulfill another. That other plot, begun early in the episode, has poor Cheryl suffering from a seriously itchy case of dermatitis. Among Larry’s issues is an excessive aversion to picking up other people’s cooties. First there was the incident with Mary Steenburgen’s mother’s glass. This time he flinches and backs away from Cheryl. But he really messes up by losing her prescription (he hands it to a maître d’, thinking it’s a rolled-up bill). Because it’s the weekend, when Cheryl’s own doctor refuses to hear from patients, Larry has no choice but to phone Richard Lewis’s dermatologist friend. The man agrees to write a new prescription and Larry goes over, to find the doctor engaged in a party attended by black men and women. They all want to know how Larry offended the doctor and to his credit he tells them honestly. With his own peculiar brand of charm, he manages not to turn them into an angry mob. At least until a particular woman walks into the room — the line producer he didn’t hire.
All of this means no prescription. Cheryl has no choice but to phone her doctor, but she makes the fatal mistake of sending Larry to the all-night pharmacy, where there is a long lineup. If a tip works for a maître d’, why not a pharmacist?
Because for a pharmacist it’s a bribe, that’s why.
The most pathetic shot of the entire first season is of Larry, a condemned man, walking up the stairs to tell Cheryl.
EPISODE TEN
The Group / Original Airdate: December 17, 2000 / Directed by Robert B. Weide
Sometimes being married to Larry must seem like living with a seven-year-old. For example, in this, the opening of the last episode of the first season, Larry gargles and sings at the same time, asking whether Cheryl can make out the song. (She can; it’s “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”)
Is it possible to make a joke out of absolutely anything? Is there no subject that is taboo? How about sexual abuse? Nope, that’s okay. How about incest? Ditto. At least for Larry David.
Sex, in various manifestations, is the theme of the episode. A dissatisfied Cheryl asks why it is she always has to initiate sex. Larry’s answer is that he’s available all the time and any time she wants to have it she can, while the opposite isn’t true. But the next night, when Cheryl asks for it, Larry declines. The reason is that he’s “tapped out,” code for his having masturbated already. Of course masturbation, or rather abstinence, was the subject of the famous episode of Seinfeld called “The Contest.” But here Larry David goes farther; Cheryl divines that Larry pleasured himself while thinking about Lucy, an attractive ex-girlfriend they had run into that day. “She made a brief appearance and said goodbye” is the most Larry will admit to. He tells Cheryl that she should be glad he doesn’t fantasize about her. “You don’t want any part of that world.”
When Lucy asks Larry to lunch, he gets a little excited. But what she really wants is for him to attend an incest abuse therapy group with her. Not surprisingly, Larry agrees only reluctantly, soon finding himself the sole male in a circle of unhappy women led by the former Saturday Night Live actor Laraine Newman. When he is asked to speak, instead of telling the truth, Larry makes up a story about having sex with his uncle when he was twelve. “An osteopath. I don’t even know what they do.” Perhaps the extraordinary thing about the scene is that it is funny and it isn’t offensive.
On second thought, maybe the episode isn’t really about sex. Maybe it’s about women’s health and sexuality. For one thing there’s the therapy group. For another there’s Cheryl being given a chance to come out of retirement and act in the hit play The Vagina Monologues thanks to Jeff dropping her name to the director. Why Cheryl has stopped performing has never been addressed. Did Larry become too rich for her to work? The only problem is (plot-crossing alert) the director turns out to be the same woman who conducts the therapy group and it’s clear that she and Larry recognize each other. But the group members swear to secrecy and Larry and the woman cover up, making Cheryl suspicious enough to quit the play before she starts.
At home, Larry spills the beans about the group, and Cheryl, sorry she quit the play, phones the director to apologize. The only problem is the part has gone to another actress — Lucy!
Wait a minute. Maybe the episode is about sex after all. Lucy only got the part because Jeff took her on as a client, and he only took her on so that he could sleep with her, which he does. It’s interesting though how severely Larry disapproves of Jeff’s extramarital affairs. He might be a Freudian id run rampant, but Larry’s unspoken desires seem to fall short of cheating. Flirting, admiring — that’s okay. But not cheating.
Larry David provides a satisfying ending to the season by finding a way to get Cheryl’s part back. To do that, something bad has to happen to Lucy and Jeff (a car accident), divine punishment for their transgression of Larry’s code.
Season Two
EPISODE ONE
The Car Salesman / Original Airdate: September 23, 2001 / Directed by Robert B. Weide
It’s a cliché that men don’t want to grow up, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. And Larry is certainly a boy/man. This is most obviously expressed in his tendency to become obsessed by trivial things while missing or, more to the point, avoiding what’s important to most people.
“Have you just retired and this is what you’re going to do for the rest of your life?” Cheryl asks him. Having sold their house, they’re living in a hotel. Larry seems quite content with this transient lifestyle, room service, and reality TV on the set. But Cheryl has arranged for them to go and see a house.
And what a house — showy, made of stone, too grand to be rustic, with a breathtaking ocean view. Larry himself thinks it’s too big, a house more appropriate for “the Osmonds,” but Cheryl loves it. And this is something we are learning about Cheryl. The wife of a rich man, she wants luxury: expensive restaurants, limo rides, a huge house. She has no compunction about enjoying it. Larry, however, grows suspicious of the house’s owner because the guy, a William Morris agent whom Larry knows, tells him his swe
ater is one hundred percent cashmere. Larry doesn’t believe it. Talk about trivial.
The nagging accusation of doing nothing is obviously rattling around in Larry’s brain when, having lunch with Jeff (their business relationship seems to exclusively involve going to restaurants), Larry meets the owner of a car dealership. Impulsively, Larry asks how one becomes a salesman and then asserts that he could sell a car on the very first day. A car salesman? Let’s face it, that’s the sort of dream job an eight-year-old kid might think up. The owner agrees to let Larry try.
This new “job” of Larry’s turns out to be a very good excuse for not helping Cheryl when they are due to move into their new house on Monday. She’s naturally flabbergasted by this new job, which Larry equates to wanting to swim the English Channel. Even Larry doesn’t pretend the job will last long, but that doesn’t stop him from making it the intense center of his waking interest. However, he does reluctantly take a meeting with Jason Alexander who, it turns out, has been having trouble getting work due to being identified as his Seinfeld character, George. “They see the idiot. They see the schmuck,” Jason complains. It’s amusing to see that Larry, having fashioned the George character after himself, is puzzled and offended by this characterization. As they chat, Larry gets the idea for a series in which Jason plays a character who was previously in a hit show. Now he can’t get work, everyone identifies him with the old character, and life is a series of frustrations. Jason likes the idea (why wouldn’t he if he’s out of work?) and wants to pursue it. But Larry, of course, has a more pressing obligation. He’s now a car salesman.