Curb Returned With A Perfect Curb Episode Last Night
After a 19 month hiatus, Curb Your Enthusiasm finally returned with its Season 11 premiere last night, and it was a god damn perfect episode of Curb. If I remember correctly, people didn't love the Season 10 premiere and thought it was almost TOO Curb to the point where it felt like a parody of itself. But Season 10 got WAY better as it went along and ended up being one of the best the show has ever had. Well, last night was great right off the bat. I'm very optimistic for this season.
I think that a lot of people thought the show would focus on the pandemic quite a bit, I even reposted my Corona and 2020 blogs yesterday trying to predict some storylines, but it seems like Curb wants to stay true to Curb, and I think that's a good idea. Obviously, there will be some carryover COVID storylines (see: the hoarding), but it's smart to not focus on it too much as people want to move on and live in a post-pandemic world without feeling like it's constantly surrounding them. Larry David has said that much himself in interviews. He doesn't think it would've been funny to have people running around with masks on and being too hyper-focused on the pandemic, so it's instead just a minor storyline for the season. I think it's the right call.
Anyway, here were some of the highlights from last night's episode:
-Albert Brooks was an awesome addition to the cast. His storyline of holding his own funeral before dying to hear nice things about him was very funny, and he played his role perfectly. Him being a pandemic hoarder obviously stole the show in a classic Curb twist. And his "I just bought this house! It was a CVS!" was pure comedic gold.
Hopefully we see more of him this season.
-Jon Hamm also stole every scene he was in. From the heartfelt funeral speech to immediately turning on Albert after seeing he's a pandemic hoarder. We saw him last season shadowing Larry to play a character like him in a movie, but we found out last night that audience found the character too "repugnant" so the movie got cancelled. I hope we see more of Jon Hamm this season too.
-Great Susie episode. I don't know if it's possible to consider her underrated, but she still might not get enough credit. Did she plop?
Yes she absolutely plopped. Can't wait to see her and Larry yelling at each other again all season
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-I also thought the dementia guy storyline was great for like a C sub-plot. It is always very awkward when someone owes you money and then you feel like the asshole for reminding them about it. But they're the assholes for not paying you back in the first place!!! Throw in the dementia twist and you're at a whole new level.
-Lucy Liu was a welcomed addition to the episode as well. I wonder if it'll be a running theme all season that Larry is getting old and everyone starts worrying about him: from his feeble hands dropping the wine to him walking into the glass door, the old age is catching up to him.
-It seems like our main storyline for this season will be the burglary gone wrong in Larry's yard. The opening scene was a guy breaking into Larry's house and then tripping and falling into pool on his way out, drowning to death. But since Larry didn't have a five foot tall fence around his pool like Santa Monica requires, Larry may now be liable both financially and also could even do jail time. Just a tough break for a guy to rob your house and you still somehow end up being the one in the wrong. But that's classic Larry for you. Someone DMed me this theory and I kind of love it:
There's no indication that this will be the last season of Curb but that would be a very funny and meta way to go out.
-The other main storyline for this season, which kind of ties into that, is Larry's new Netflix show "Young Larry." We see him pitch the show to Netflix as a story about his 24/25 year-old-self in Brooklyn and Netflix buys into it immediately. The catch is that Larry now needs to cast the dead burglar's niece as the main love interest in the show so the brother won't press charges. Her horrible audition followed by Larry having to praise her with a "We got her!" was just perfect.
-And lastly to wrap things up, a unique twist to the theme song dropping at the end.
I liked it. Better than forcing another scene just to make it work. Liked seeing the switch up.
Overall, a great season premiere. Some phenomenal guest appearances, classic Curb storylines, and we have our main themes for the season set up. Excited for next week.