Curb Your Enthusiasm Update: Larry David directed a screenplay written by him called Sour Grapes when he, after the seventh season, left Seinfeld. Following this, he then produced a one-hour special called Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm for HBO in 1999, the first full season of which was premiered a year later.
The show went on successfully for eight seasons, after which it took a not so brief hiatus for six whole years leaving all the fans completely unsettled. Season 9 of the show then premiered in 2017. Currently, the show is between its 10th and 11th seasons which made it the longest-running fictional series to hit HBO. Here are the top 10 episodes from each of Curb’s ten seasons, ranked:
(10/10) Season One: Beloved Aunt (8.7)
Larry writes the necrology for Cheryl’s recently deceased aunt. When the newspaper makes a typo error that is quite indecent and offensive to be printed, Cheryl’s entire family blames him. A parody of the tense relationship between Larry and his wife’s extended family serves for putting out comic effect in the show. It was the highest-rated episode in season 1.
(9/10) Season Two: The Doll (9.4) – Curb Your Enthusiasm
It is perhaps the most humorous episode in the entire season. A little girl asks Larry to cut the hair of her invaluable Judy doll. However, havoc is wrecked once she realizes that that hair won’t ever grow back. Larry and Jeff’s pursuit to swap the old doll with a new one ostensibly counts as one the most hilarious plotlines of the show. Moreover, the episode is endowed with a bonus of Sophie’s blasphemous outbursts.
(8/10) Season Three: The Grand Opening (9.1)
The plot follows Larry’s team up with some of his friends to open up a fashionable L.A. restaurant. Towards the season finale, the restaurant finally views its grand opening, but the Tourette syndrome of the chef turns up at the wrong time.
And that’s not all. To worsen the situation further, Larry somehow injures the infamous restaurant critics and ends up making reparations to deter an appalling review for his new enterprise.
(7/10) Season Four: The Car Pool Lane (9.1)
To avoid being stuck in the horrible traffic, Larry calls a prostitute on his way to the Dodgers game, not for her “services” but only to ride with him so that he can use the fast-moving carpool lane.
The episode also saved the life of an extra who was caught up in a murder case. He had apparently walked in the background of one of the episode’s shots which confirms his presence in the game that evening and served as his alibi.
The episode was truly the best amongst all in season 4.
(6/10) Season Five: The Ski Lift (9.2)
It is vividly believed that the fifth and the sixth season of the show are the weakest in comparison to the rest of them. However, season 5 spawns one of the series’ best episodes, “The Ski Lift”.
Larry tries to befriend and woo a man he thinks can get his friend jolted up in line for a kidney transplant. In order to do so, he and Cheryl spend a weekend with that man at a ski retreat which unquestionably ends in a disaster.
(5/10) Season Six: The Bat Mitzvah (9.1)
After a series of funny episodes, now comes the show’s strongest episode on the list. To free himself from the disseminating foul and nasty rumor, Larry uses Jeff’s daughter Bat Mitzvah as an excuse.
The episode ends with Larry’s new love interest and family life. The season also introduces one of the show’s most beloved characters Leon Black and concretizes his regularity in the series.
(4/10) Season Seven: Seinfeld (9.2)
This season revitalized and recharged the series by introducing a Seinfeld reunion in a kind of meta-story arc. The stars of Seinfeld reunite with Larry and the others recreating the epic show. The season also offers a fictional behind-the-scenes experience that somewhere reflects the reality of the Seinfeld shooting.
The season finale is an extended episode which is part Curb and part Seinfeld. The reunion works like a charm to rejuvenate the show and could only be pulled off as a Curb episode!
(3/10) Season Eight: Palestinian Chicken (9.3)
The Israel-Palestine conflict is undoubtedly a matter of utmost seriousness. However, both Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm have a flair for parodying the controversies and political issues in a manner that neutralizes or defuses the preconceived opinions of the audience.
Larry and Jeff at the behest of not offending their friends and family, surreptitiously visit a Palestinian restaurant that they love. Larry also finds himself solicited as a “social assassin”. This was actually an idea borrowed from the Seinfeld years when Kramer was tasked with the same duties.
(2/10) Season Nine: The Accidental Text On Purpose (9.2)
The social scheme of Larry David that the episode portrays is no wonder spurred by the Seinfeld tradition. He advises his friends to text their friends something and later feigns that the text was intended for another person.
This gives the “accidental but on-purpose” recipient of the text a “glimpse into the soul” of the sender. Undeniably the entire plot is arranged as a devious maneuver, but nobody has to know that.
(1/10) Season Ten: Happy New Year (9.2)
Larry, for the magma of spite that grows in him after encountering his old rival, Mocha Joe, decides to open up a competing coffee shop next door to his. It’s one of the strongest season premieres in the history of the show, ostentatiously presenting a wonderful plotline.
The episode also offers a funny subplot in which Larry discovers an ingenious way to free himself of his social obligations that involve a controversial wardrobe choice.
