Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 7, Episode 10: "Seinfeld")

Curb Your Enthusiasm finale, “Seinfeld”, may be the best final episode of a TV series that I ever saw. It builds a bridge between two television legends that Larry David’s über-selfish mind spawned, it comments on both, and incarnates them at the same time. Not to reveal too much to those who hadn’t seen it yet, it’s fair to say that CYE finale managed to become one of the best Seinfeld episodes I ever saw.

One especially poignant moment comes when – after a jealous feud with Jason Alexander – Larry David auditions for the part of George (which he originally based on himself). And, however paradoxical it may seem, he doesn’t look the part: Jason Alexander owns it to the extent that Larry can only end up aping his quirks. It’s a great scene that exorcises the creator’s relationship to his own autobiographical creation – imagine Tennessee Williams in drag, playing Blanche, and you will get the idea.

Needless to say (spoiler coming up!), in the end we witness more than one reunion – the Seinfeld cast one being the less significant of the two. And even though there’s a sudden (and welcome!) surge of sweetness as Cheryl and Larry hug, it gets checked almost immediately – Larry again plunges into his obsessive pettiness (“Dou you respect wood, Cheryl…?”). This time around though, it’s because of these obsessions that Cheryl adores him. What can I say, but to applaud this ultimate neurotic’s dream?

Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 7, Episode 9: "The Table Read")

Something towering and uncanny was achieved in yesterday’s episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000–), which had the whole main cast of Seinfeld (1990-1998) reunited, playing themselves, playing Seinfeld cast reunited to shoot one last Seinfeld episode. Tangled enough for ya?

Until this (final?) season, the specter of Seinfeld lurked here and there in CYE, and both Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jason Alexander made appearances on the show. The current seventh season basically replicates the narrative arc of season four, which culminated in a revival of Mel Brooks’ Broadway version of The Producers, with Larry David playing Max Bialystock. Since we are only one week away from the Season Seven finale, I’m really wondering what kind of a treat David cooked up: maybe it will be staged entirely as a Seinfeld episode gone terribly wrong…? Cannot wait!

Still, I salute the way David is balancing between social satire, private fun verging on an in-joke, and the mathematical precision of his farcical scripts. The comic redemption of Michael Richards’ real-life racist rant seen in yesterday’s episode was great, and so was the whole “pussy-rash” thread.

David’s biggest virtue as a comedian and a screenwriter is his immense flexibility: he can do several things at once, and yet never lose the main focus of the show, which is the wide-eyed astonishment over how easily people adapt (and enforce) social conventions upon themselves and others. This is of course a characteristic trait of Jewish humor as a whole – exemplified by Sacha Baron Cohen’s work, as well – but David has the performing affability of a truly great comedian, and he never comes off as insecure in his shticks (it happens to Cohen, when every now and then he effaces himself and showcases his “victims” instead of Borat’s or Brüno’s reactions).

And how precious is a line like: “You cannot give to Jason anything that can be inserted”…?