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  Short clips of scenes of Larry, gussied up in jacket and tie, talking to customers on the floor of the Toyota dealership are funny indeed. When a customer asks him a question he simply makes up the answer. But when Richard Lewis appears to confront Larry (Richard has signed with Jeff, but Larry told Jeff that Richard would be a high maintenance client) the two get into yet another physical altercation. These two seem to bring out the kid in each other, perhaps because in real life they’ve known each other since summer camp. Larry gets fired, leaving him free to follow up the sitcom idea. And even though the time is past the “cutoff” for phoning people, Larry says “there’s a special dispensation for good news.”

  Hmm. Car salesman or television show creator — pretty tough decision, isn’t it? It seems to be true that everyone wishes he had some other job — even the people who have the jobs the rest of us might want. Larry wants to make it clear that television holds no glamour for him. In fact, it all seems like too much trouble to bother. Or maybe the message is that Hollywood people, who live in a kind of protective bubble of celebrity and wealth, sometimes crave an ordinary life. Well, sorry Larry. It’s back to television land for you.

  EPISODE TWO

  Thor / Original Airdate: September 30, 2001 / Directed by Robert B. Weide

  What do big asses, wrestling, and television shows have in common? The answer is Larry David.

  Since Larry doesn’t take his own personal life all that seriously there’s not much reason he should take anyone else’s seriously either. So when Jeff tells him that he has left Susie, all Larry can manage to say is, “It’s a long time coming.” But at the moment Jeff’s real concern is not his marriage but the fear that Susie will make public certain sexual preferences of his — nothing “evil” but still humiliating.

  The important moment in this scene though has nothing at all to do with Jeff. Rather it’s Larry’s response. He says that for this very reason he never tries anything kinky with Cheryl. In fact, he doesn’t even confide in her. “I just treat her like an acquaintance. Do you think I want her blabbing about me?” This isn’t particularly funny; if anything it’s an ugly little truth about Larry as a husband, one of those moments that gives the show its uncomfortable edge and takes it beyond funny. Larry is a character who often refuses true intimacy. He keeps his likes, his fears, his deepest self to himself. Living with Larry would indeed be like living with a stranger, and how long can any feeling person accept that? This does not bode well for Larry’s own relationship, although like so many marriages, his will take a long time to unravel.

  The second season’s story arc moves forward in this episode — if you can call being at a standstill moving forward. Larry goes to Jason Alexander’s office but, for reasons we’ll hold off on for a moment, he ends up late. They only have time to discuss holding a second meeting. Larry wants Jason to come to his office next time, but Jason refuses, saying that this meeting never really happened: “This isn’t a meeting about the show. This is a meeting about having a meeting.” Watching the two argue is like seeing Larry David confront George Costanza, or perhaps like Dr. Frankenstein meeting his monstrous creation. The horror!

  Larry was late for the meeting due to a little driving incident, which gives us a chance to note the importance of the car in Larry’s life and in the story lines of the show. It’s certainly one of the practical differences between Curb Your Enthusiasm and its precursor, Seinfeld, which was set in New York, a city of neighborhoods, walking, cabs, and the subway. The vibe of Los Angeles — and especially privileged Los Angeles — is very different indeed. In fact it’s like an upscale version of American suburban life — houses (larger than the norm), restaurants that have to be driven to (and that are more expensive), shops and malls.

  Driving to Jason’s office, Larry notices three kids in the back of a station wagon looking at him. He begins to make faces and then pretends to be firing a gun, as if playing cowboys and Indians. In other episodes Larry will also show himself as someone who, although childless, seems to like kids and especially likes to entertain them. That he’s rather heavy-handed about his play, sometimes too adult, and is rather stupid about judging their responses doesn’t mean his impulse isn’t genuine. Suddenly the wagon stops. A big, muscled-up guy with long blond hair gets out. “Have you heard of Columbine?” he yells at Larry. As always in threatening situations, Larry cringes with fear and becomes a “Yes, sir” muttering wuss. (Well, wouldn’t most of us?) While we’re at it, let’s not ignore the use of a tragic event — the murder of school children — for comic effect. That’s Larry David for you.

  The muscle man (played by Deron Michael McBee, a former American Gladiator often cast as a villain in B-rated action movies) turns out to be a professional wrestler named Thor. Larry may not be able to take him in hand-to-hand combat, but he can get back at him in other, sneakier ways. Finding Thor’s kids sitting in the lobby of the hotel where he’s staying, he tells them that their father’s wrestling matches are fixed. “You mean it’s faked?” asks one of the boys, clearly surprised and upset. “Phoney baloney,” Larry says happily. Use the kids to get to the parent — nice strategy, Larry.

  The third story line in this rather complicated episode starts when Larry, happily protected in his vehicle, sees Cheryl’s friend Wanda (played by the well-known stand-up comedian and actor Wanda Sykes) jogging. He yells out a remark about recognizing that “tush” anywhere. Later at the house, Wanda complains and then accuses Larry of certain sexual likings. “You are an ass man!” she says over and over. The ass theme exposes itself (shall we say) several times in the episode, convincing Cheryl that Larry indeed likes a substantial rear end. Larry is, of course, innocent. Indeed, in matters sexual he usually is.

  And perhaps that second meeting with Jason Alexander ought to be mentioned. It never happens. George Costanza #1 (Larry) and George Costanza #2 (Jason) are just too stubborn. Well, I can’t think of a better reason for a television show not happening. But the season’s story arc is just at the beginning of its halting trajectory.

  EPISODE THREE

  Trick or Treat / Original Airdate: October 7, 2001 / Directed by Larry Charles

  This episode contains perhaps the most memorable scene in the series to date, one that is both highly comic and highly disturbing. That the actors seem to really inhabit their roles, making the anger feel genuine, only adds to the heightened effect.

  Cheryl and Larry are waiting outside a movie theater where a film, written by their friend Cliff, is about to have its premiere. Cheryl’s birthday is coming up and Larry is reminded of the story of Richard Wagner composing a piece for his wife’s birthday. He begins whistling it but a man nearby, offended at hearing music by an anti-Semitic German who was Hitler’s favorite composer, asks Larry if he’s Jewish. “You want to check my penis?” Larry asks. The two get into a screaming match, with the man shouting about the millions of Jews who died in the concentration camps. Larry could, of course, argue that Wagner’s music transcends his personal story, that Wagner has been performed in Israel, or other reasonable arguments. Instead, his response is not to address anything the man actually says, but to mock him, insinuate that the man is mentally ill, and then begin whistling the song “Springtime for Hitler” from The Producers. The scene is crude, vicious, alarming, and, yes, somehow terribly funny.

  “Trick or Treat” is an even more complicated episode than the last one, and mapping out every line and detour would create a map looking something like the shifting borders of Eastern Europe. This episode is also brimming with animosity, anger, and contempt for one’s fellow humans. There’s the argument with the filmmaker friend over the origins of the Cobb salad, the misunderstanding with Cliff’s wife who misinterprets a joke and thinks that Larry wants to have an affair with her. (She’s quite willing, but Larry wants none of it.) And then there’s Halloween.

  When two teenage girls show up at the door without any costumes demanding candy, Larry refuses. (Jerry Seinfeld used similar material about
teenagers without costumes on Halloween in his stand-up act. It’s common for comics to riff on the same subjects, especially when they have similar backgrounds.) But the girls — whose father happens to be the Wagner-hater — have their vengeance, wrapping the Davids’ trees with toilet paper and spray painting “Bald Asshole” on the front door. Larry is surprised that neither the cops nor Cheryl are terribly sympathetic to his stance against teenage non-costume-wearing trick-or-treaters. As Cheryl says, “Not everybody knows your rules, Larry.”

  On the morning of her birthday, Cheryl wakes up to see a string ensemble playing in her living room. Cheryl is naturally touched at this surprising display of Larry’s romantic side — at least until Jeff shows up, expecting Larry to come golfing as planned. Yup, that sort of ruins the moment. Larry, however, makes further use of his musicians to get back at the Wagner-hater and his teenage delinquent daughters, by serenading them with Wagner from the front lawn. Yes, the Jews can be a stiff-necked people, as God tells Moses.

  While the episode doesn’t address the season’s story arc, it does plant the seed for its development when Jeff mentions that Julia Louis-Dreyfus is looking for a project.

  EPISODE FOUR

  The Shrimp Incident / Original Airdate: October 14, 2001 / Directed by David Steinberg

  David Steinberg takes the director’s seat for a very funny episode, even if it’s one that begins by showing Larry as a less-than-sensitive husband. Larry and Cheryl are planning to go out for Chinese food, but Cheryl wants to stop first at an upscale bar and have a drink. Larry refuses, arguing that she can get the same drink at the restaurant. Cheryl wants to make a night of it, Larry is dumb as a board about the idea, and in the end Cheryl is so disgusted that she doesn’t want to go at all and Larry agrees to get takeout. The sweet, more affectionate Larry of the previous episode seems to have curled up and died.

  A mix-up over Chinese food orders is the catalyst that propels this episode’s story lines. Larry gets home, discovers he has brought back the wrong order, returns to the restaurant, and finds out that his order was taken by Allan Wasserman, president of HBO. This is the same Allan Wasserman who green-lighted Larry’s HBO special that spawned the show — the special that Larry got out of by claiming his stepfather was in an accident, a lie that comes back to bite him in this episode. Discovering that several shrimp are missing from a dish, Larry believes that Allan Wasserman ate them before returning the order. If this isn’t a Seinfeldian idea, then I don’t know my chocolate babkas from my Junior Mints.

  In the first season, Julia Louis-Dreyfus looked deliberately drab, hair pulled back, unmade-up. But here, as Larry goes to tell her of his sitcom idea, she looks like the big-haired, energetic Elaine we remember. She likes the idea but demurs, saying perhaps it’s more suited to Jason Alexander because he played such an “idiot” on the show. The two of them have some fun dissing Jason: “Between you and me,” Larry smirks, “George was the only character that Jason could do.” Julia agrees she’s more versatile and jumps onboard. Their tentative title for the show: Aren’t You Evelyn?

  The first hitch arrives immediately with Julia’s suggestion that they pitch it to HBO so that her character can say “fuck” and “cocksucker.” But the meeting doesn’t exactly go well when instead of pitching the show, Larry — a master of getting his priorities bass ackwards — takes the opportunity to accuse Wasserman of stealing his shrimp. The argument escalates and Wasserman throws his well-timed bomb: “Take your four hundred and seventy-five million dollars and buy some shrimp!”

  Julia Louis-Dreyfus shows herself to be a convincing actor in the aftermath when she looks both angry and upset about Larry’s behavior. She gives a very funny line that might be remembered well by anybody who wants to get into show business: “Everybody steals shrimp and everybody lies about it. This is Hollywood.” Indeed, of all the actors on the show so far — including the regulars — Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the only one who rivals Larry for a strong screen presence. Julia offers a solution. She and her husband (that is, her real-life husband, SNL alumnus and television writer Brad Hall) play in a regular poker game with an HBO guy named Michael Halbreich. Larry and Cheryl can join the game and Larry can make nice with Michael (played by Sam Pancake, who has made recurring appearances on Kitchen Confidential, Lovespring International, Will & Grace, and Arrested Development).

  Perhaps the only thing more disturbing than seeing Larry’s antisocial behavior is watching him act excessively social. He doesn’t seem to quite understand the rules that everyone else lives by, and his attempts at joviality can sometimes go a little over-the-top. Alas, such is the case at the poker game when Michael Halbreich, a married man despite some telegraphed signs that he might be gay, folds when he should have stayed in. Julia wins on a bluff, everyone shouts and moans in disbelief, and Larry tops them all. “You cunt!” he says over and over to Michael. In Larry’s mind this is a friendly way of saying that Michael acted like a sissy, but not only is Michael offended, so are the women at the table who now think Larry is a misogynist. He refuses to apologize and the game breaks up.

  What is perhaps a little strange is that Cheryl, although naturally annoyed, doesn’t herself act offended. Maybe she’s less the feminist than she pretends or maybe she just knows Larry too well. She’s so unoffended, in fact, that in the car she plays a little game of theirs with Larry (the first time we’ve heard of it) where he pretends to hit her. Weird game, but then there’s no accounting for what couples do. Unfortunately, the dentist from the poker game who called Larry a misogynist sees them and thinks it’s real. He tells the HBO people and the new television series is dead in the water.

  Misogyny and wife-beating — riskier material for comedy, but Larry David pulls it off, even if he doesn’t come across as quite as likable as he did in season one. Cheryl David looks rather meek and passive here, which is perhaps more disturbing than anything Larry says. And maybe it’s also why, when a social worker arrives at the door asking if she wants to press charges, Cheryl is still thinking about it as the show ends.

  EPISODE FIVE

  The Thong / Original Airdate: October 21, 2001 / Directed by Jeff Garlin

  We all know that deep down, beyond the glib facade, the refusal to connect, there’s a deep, wounded person in Larry David — or at least, the Larry David character. If we only had a chance to see him somewhere else, say with his therapist, we would see the truth. And in this episode we get just that chance.

  And what is Larry talking to the therapist about? Sneakers. Or more precisely, why he prefers gray sneakers over white or black.

  So maybe we were wrong. Dr. Weiss (played by John Pleshette, perhaps best known for the role of Richard Avery on Knots Landing) does manage to shift Larry from the subject of sneakers to Cheryl’s discontent. When Larry admits they don’t do very much together, Dr. Weiss suggests that he take Cheryl to the beach.

  Here’s a fact that you wouldn’t know without watching Curb Your Enthusiasm: eighty-five percent of all sunblock is bought by Jews. Or so Larry guesses. Although he has agreed to go to the beach at Santa Barbara, he can’t help complaining while there — at least until stopped by the sight of none other than Dr. Weiss himself. An older, pudgy man, Dr. Weiss is wearing a thong bathing suit. Naturally Larry makes an instant decision to stop seeing him. Is this merely an excuse, a result of his discomfort at the beach and a desire to put the blame on the good doctor? Possibly. Or maybe Larry just hates seeing an unfit man in a thong. Can’t blame him, really.

  A slight problem is the fact that another patient, one Richard Lewis, introduced Larry to Dr. Weiss in the first place and now Richard decides he too must quit. Unlike Larry, Richard is no doubt a good patient, someone only too happy to talk about his unhappiness, his addictions, his lousy childhood. But like two kids who insist on going (or not going) to the same summer camp, it’s all for one and one for all.

  The second plot in the episode begins when Larry leaves the shrink’s office for the first time and bumps into
— cue celebrity cameo — Rob Reiner. The son of Mel Brooks’s old comic partner Carl Reiner, Rob earned fame with his role in All in the Family and has had a successful directing career including the Oscar-nominated A Few Good Men (1992) as well as When Harry Met Sally (1989), The Princess Bride (1987), and Stand By Me (1986) to name but a few. As a founder of Castle Rock Entertainment, he had some minor involvement in Seinfeld from the start. In this scene, Larry reluctantly agrees to have a lunch-with-Larry auctioned off to raise money for battling a hyperactive illness called Groats syndrome.

  If you ask yourself whether Groats syndrome is real, you’re not alone. It’s a fake. Maybe Larry David felt that making fun of someone with a real illness would be going too far, even for him. At least until season seven, when he deals with one of the big ones: cancer. Or maybe he just enjoyed using the last name of baseball player Dick Groat.

  A man named John Tyler who has a niece with Groats pays $4,000 for the privilege and Larry, overly self-conscious about showing the man a good time during their lunch, acts rather hyperactive himself. He riffs on John’s name being the same as a president, sings like Marilyn Monroe — he’s funny but also weirdly manic, kind of like a stand-up comic on uppers. Maybe the lunch wouldn’t have been a complete disaster if Larry hadn’t insisted on starting to eat before his guest’s meal arrived. But then he wouldn’t have had to host the Groats syndrome talent night. And when John Tyler’s niece comes on to play the piano and begins speeding up and playing horribly, he wouldn’t have tried to pull her off, causing her to attack him.

  Note to Larry: Are you sure you should quit Dr. Weiss?

  Fans should note this is the first episode directed by Jeff Garlin. Larry David doesn’t like people to direct the same episodes they act in, but the manager is absent from this one, giving Garlin the opportunity. Instead, the more frequent director Robert B. Weide gets a chance to appear. Or at least to be an extra. That’s him backstage at the talent show — the thin, bearded guy.