Undoubtedly worth the wait for “Curb Your Enthusiasm” fans, the Larry David comedy kicked off its eighth season premiere on HBO Sunday. And while it seemed to be grasping at straws for a story and lacked any classic one-liners and rants, it still delivered a healthy, much-anticipated dose of Larry David finding a way to make every daily situation a complicated, hysterical mess.
As a resolution to last year’s climactic scene, the premiere’s opening moments revealed that Larry’s excruciating focus on minutiae (Cheryl’s lack of respect for wood, in this case) nixed their impending reconciliation. Fast forward a year, and the couple is currently finalizing the terms of its divorce. Larry, armed with a highly-regarded, apparently-Jewish lawyer named Andrew Berg, seems to be on the verge of securing a very favorable settlement.
But this is “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and there was no way things could go smoothly. Along the path to a miserable settlement, Larry sparks the divorce of his friends, unwittingly teaches a young girl how to deal with her first period, crosses an angry army of Girl Scouts, turns his divorce over to an incompetent lawyer and effectively ruins the life of Joe O’Donnell, the fictional owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
For many, the aforementioned “period scene” likely made up for the lack of a signature Larry David rant. Having agreed to buy Girl Scout cookies from the daughter of the Dodgers owner, as part of an informal agreement to get seats in the owner’s box for an upcoming game, David kindly welcomes the girl into his house so he can finalize his order (he planned to get five boxes of every variety). As he looks through the list of cookies, the girl suddenly freezes, confirming that she had her first period. Luckily, Larry still has some of Cheryl’s tampons in the house and appropriately equips the girl.
Unfortunately, she was never taught how to use one, so Larry, using the included instructions, has to talk her through the process from outside the bathroom door. The exchange is a riot and one that proves the “Seinfeld” creator can still do “wittily uncomfortable” like no one else in the business.
Even though he was effectively forced into the situation, Joe found the situation inappropriate and called off the invitation to the Dodgers game. As a response, Larry David “called off” his offer to buy the Girl Scout cookies when some local Scouts came to collect his money.
But there are some things that can overcome a Larry David grudge, and false ethnic representation appears to be one of them. In a scene that mirrored the classic “Donna Chang” storyline from the “The Chinese Woman” episode of “Seinfeld,” it turned out that David’s divorce lawyer, who happened to be the same lawyer working on the Dodgers’ owner’s divorce, was not actually Jewish. Like Donna Chang and her interest in acupuncture, Confucius and Chinese food, Andrew Berg has no problem taking advantage of the assumption a lawyer with his name is Jewish. He works “Mazel tov” and “Oy” into his conversations. He apparently celebrates Hanukkah and does not express confusion over the question of whether he attends Temple on Jewish holidays.
Upon learning that Berg is actually a Catholic Swede, Larry freaks out, assuming that the lack of a Jewish lawyer means he will get the raw end of the deal in his divorce settlement (especially since Cheryl has a lawyer who is both Jewish and bald). He conveys the news to the Joe, who expresses similar concern. But once they ditch Berg, who will they get to finish their respective divorces?
Larry then recalls an encounter from earlier in the episode. While eating at a buffet with Jeff, Susie, Marty and Nan (the latter two of whom he inadvertently causes to move for divorce), Larry gets caught slipping some food from his all-you-can-eat buffet plate to Jeff, who opted to order a single dish from the menu. During the exchange with the waiter, a shady lawyer named Hiram Katz came to his aid and delivered an effective argument about why Larry did not, in fact, breach buffet etiquette. Between the stereotypical Jewish name and the successful buffet argument, David feels he has his guy.
Predictably, the lawyer turns out to be a total joke who works out of a disaster of an office with no assistant. His poor settlement for O’Donnell results in the wife gaining ownership of the Dodgers, and just as Larry rushes to stop Katz from finalizing his own divorce, he gets popped in the mouth by an angry O’Donnell. Sure enough, Larry’s settlement is a disaster, and Cheryl even ends up getting the house.
The episode managed to be “Curb” at its finest without necessarily being a terrific episode by its own standards. Some of the scenarios were more forced than usual, and the storyline involving the lawyers came across as overly-assembled and inorganic at times.
Not establishing a clear creative direction served as a blessing and a curse. Even though some of the best “Curb” episodes are the ones that largely distance themselves from the season-long arc (such as season three’s “Krazee Eyez Killa,” season four’s “The Carpool Lane” and season seven’s “Denise Handicapped,” “Officer Krupke” and “The Black Swan”), a loose structure can sometimes create more believable scenarios for Larry and company. For as much as one can totally “get” Larry David switching from his non-Jewish attorney to a stereotypical ambulance chaser who makes a spirited argument about buffet etiquette, throwing the scenario together after it appeared Larry already had a great settlement seemed bizarre. Faith or not in Berg’s propensity for arguing tooth-and-nail, could Larry really not use the actual terms of the settlement to make an educated guess about whether or not it was fair?
Luckily, the show’s key relationships remain intact. The Larry-Leon chemistry continues to go strong, and Jeff’s inability to join his friends in getting divorced due to fear of a financially-painful split with Susie made for some hilarity. As the season advances with some great guest stars lined up, hopefully the chemistry and “wittily uncomfortable” scenarios stay genuine.
