A Curb Your Enthusiasm finale? That'd be pretty, pretty good
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Version 0 of 1. It took me about two episodes to “get” Curb. Weird steadycam shots of two men walking the halls of TV networks discussing their penchant for nodding at black people. As someone who’d never watched a second of Seinfeld it was completely foreign. But as the constant taboo-breaking mounted up and Susie’s abusive tirades grew ever more caustic it became an unmissable show. There have been times over the eight series when my interest has waned – everything up to season six is flawless, but seven and eight were a bit too self-referential for me – yet the prospect of a final season is something most fans would savour. Arguably, the character of Larry David has had a life outside of Curb. When he appeared in Woody Allen’s Whatever Works, the funniest moments were when he broke from Allen’s script and ad-libbed, while the HBO movie Clear History was essentially Curb on tour. Anyone who’s seen the finale of season four, where David appears on Broadway in The Producers, will know what to expect when his real-life Broadway show Fish in the Dark starts in February. David was on Bill Simmons’s Grantland podcast yesterday and the subject of a Curb finale came up. Clearly a bit uncomfortable at being pressed on how likely a return was, he settled on: “I guess the odds would be against it. I guess, right now, the odds would be against it, probably six to one.” It’s understandable. Larry David doesn’t want to go through the abuse he suffered by fans irate at Seinfeld’s controversial conclusion. “I wouldn’t say I’m mad about it,” David said, when asked about the reception it got, “but it taught me a lesson that if I ever did another show, I wasn’t going to wrap it up.” If the Seinfeld backlash was bad back in 1998, imagine the beatdown he’d get in the internet age, where – as Bill Simmons rightly pointed out – there’s a three-week lead-up referendum and then a public postmortem every time a show ends. Look at the vitriol Dexter generated, despite being a show so bad you’d think the fact it ended would be a blessing regardless of how completely ridiculous it was. The conclusion of How I Met Your Mother left people in a state of catatonic shock, while Simmons himself admitted to still not “being over” the finale of The Sopranos. He also raised the idea of a one-off 90-minute Curb, mirroring the HBO special that started the whole thing. That seems apt, as would a Seinfeld-esque finale exorcism of all the wrongdoing Larry David has committed. The season finales so far have always worked, such as the spontaneous Tourette’s at the end of season three and the trip to heaven he takes at the end of season five. But perhaps not returning to the show at all would be the most fitting ending for Curb, a final social taboo broken, the ultimate version of going to bed without saying goodbye. If anything should be clear to fans of Larry David by now, it’s that he’s not going to conform to TV norms. Seinfeld’s manifesto of “no hugging, no learning”, made so many shows look staid and old-hat, and the finale was his perfect ending. Fans expecting a concise and neat end for Larry, Cheryl, Jeff, Susie, Leon, Funkhauser et al are always going to be disappointed, because what would that even look like? Sheryl and Larry getting back together and reminiscing about the pants tent? Leon and Suzy having a fling? A 25-minute Funkhouser dirty joke? One prolonged stop and chat with a rotating door of former disgruntled guests? Actually, that sounds OK. Curb helped to recalibrate the way people thought about comedy specials, Larry David and TV comedy in general. To expect it to end in any sort of conventional way seems remiss. Fans should put their faith in David and hope for something that’s – at worst – pretty, pretty good. |