Editor’s Note: The below contains spoilers for the ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ series finale.
After 12 pretty, pretty good seasons on HBO,Larry David’sCurb Your Enthusiasmhas come to an end. The co-creator ofSeinfeldhas made a career out of playing an exaggerated version of himself, doing it so well that it’s now becomehard to tell just where the real Larry David ends and the TV character begins. Just ask poor Elmo. The lengthy, 53 minute finale ofCurb Your Enthusiasm, the series' 120th episode, leaves nothing on the table, giving fans more laughs,some perfect cameos, and a callback to another finale that Collider may have predicted since the first episode of the season.
Curb Your Enthusiasm
The life and times of Larry David and the predicaments he gets himself into with his friends and complete strangers.
‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Series Finale Sees Larry David on Trial
The final episode ofCurb Your Enthusiasmis fittingly titled “No Lessons Learned,” which wasthe motto for Larry David onSeinfeld, a show about nothing which was not allowed to lean into typical sitcom stereotypes of a lesson being learned at the endthat brings the characters together. If anything,Seinfeldended with the gang getting their comeuppance for their selfish acts. The same thing often happens to Larry David at the end of everyCurb Your Enthusiasm, though he may not always deserve it. Sure, he’s a self-absorbed jerk, but he’s also a man with no filterwho can’t help but call out everyone else’s bad behavioras well.
With that in mind,Curb Your Enthusiasm’s first episode of Season 12 finds Larry in Atlanta for a party. It’s there that he runs into Leon’s (J.B. Smoove)Auntie Ray (Ellia English). While she is outside in the hot sun, standing in line waiting to vote, Larry hands her a bottle of water. The local police see this and arrest Larry, asit’s illegal to give food and water to voters in Georgia. Larry is hauled in, where he poses for an angry-looking mugshot.Curb Your Enthusiasmhas always had a deft way of combining reality with fiction in the series,from bringing inMichael J. Foxfor a brilliant episodewhere he uses his real-life Parkinson’s Disease to annoy Larry, to a recent episode that hadFull House’sLori Loughlincheating at a golf club, more than a wink to the actual cheating scandal that landed her in prison.
Season 12 sees Larry preparing for his eventual trial, which has him becoming a hero of sorts in the country. Of course, Larry being Larry, he finds a way to keep messing it up, like when he angers his new friends by conspicuously painting a lawn jockey. As Larry’s trial commences, things don’t look good for our hero.
Larry David Gets Sent to Prison in ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Last Episode
“No Lessons Learned” begins with Larry on his way to Atlanta getting in trouble for having his phone on while on a plane, so he squeals on Jeff (Jeff Garlin) and Leon for doing the same. Meanwhile, Leon, even though he’s known Larry for years, has finally started binge-watchingSeinfeld, and he’s fascinated by howJerry has a new girlfriend every week. On their way to the courthouse, a woman driving on the highway, played byAllison Janney, won’t let them merge into traffic, going so far as to flip them off. If that’s not enough, a few minutes later, a kid accidentally throws a ball at Larry’s head. When his mother tries to get him to apologize, wanting her son to learn a lesson, an impatient Larry tells the child, “I am 76 years old and I have never learned a lesson in my entire life.” Meeting up with his friends,the late, greatRichard Lewistells Larry about his new girlfriend, Cynthia. When she walks in, it’s of course Allison Janney, though her character denies being the woman who flipped him off. See, Larry’s not always the bad guy!
Larry and company end up at Auntie Rae’s restaurant, where the salad dressing is so good that Susie (Susie Essman) asks for the recipe, but Auntie Rae won’t give it away. No matter, as later,Jeff and Larry call Auntie Rae, pretending to be someone who is having a medical emergency due to the dressing and begging for the ingredients. Auntie Rae gives it up and Jeff uses the info to make the dressing and give it to Susie, who declares it as the best anniversary present she’s ever received. Meanwhile, jury selection for Larry’s trial is beginning, withGreg Kinnearplaying the prosecutor andDean Norrisas the judge. Larry cuts people from the jury for the most superficial of reasons, such as, “That guy’s got a string tie. No liberal would be caught dead in a string tie.”
What we’re really here for is Larry’s trial, wherethe prosecutor says in his opening statement that he’s going to show a pattern of Larry David not respecting the law. So begins the calling of witnesses, like Larry’s enemy, Mocha Joe (Saverio Guerra), who testifies about Larry opening a spite store to put him out of business and supposedly burning his place down. Several more witnesses are called, includingAlexander Vindman,Bruce Springsteen,his ex-girlfriend Irma (Tracey Ullman), and a fun call back to Season 2’s “The Doll,” where Tara (Bailey Thompson), the little girl whoLarry hugged while he had a water bottle down his pants, is all grown up testifies about what a pervert he is.
Knowing he’s in trouble,Larry tries to counter the wave of negativity against him by putting Susie in a wheelchair and having her pretend that she’s his girlfriend whose life he saved. Oh, and he also works in an animal shelter and with disabled kids who love Larry so much that “they would jump up if they could jump.” All of this planning is for not, however, as Auntie Rae comes in to testify in Larry’s favor, but learns about the scheme to steal her dressing by him and Jeff. She turns on the man who once helped her, recalling how Larry used the n-word and hugged her with an erection.Jerry Seinfeldhimself shows up to support Larry, but with Larry’s public image ruined, he’s found guilty for breaking the Election and Integrity Act and immediately sentenced to one year in prison.
‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Season 12 Could’ve Used This Guest Star Better
One of Hollywood’s nicest guys was reduced to a one-note character.
The ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Finale Recreates the Infamous Ending of ‘Seinfeld’
Does all of this sound very familiar? If you’re aSeinfeldfan, like Leon now is, it should.Curb Your Enthusiasm’s last episode rips offthe much maligned series finale ofSeinfeld, which Larry David wrote and directed, wheretheSeinfeldfour are sent to prison for not helping a man who was being robbed after a trial that brings back everyone they ever wronged.It’s something that could be predicted from the season’s first episodethanks to Jerry Seinfeld making news a few months ago by leaking that he wasworking with Larry on something that would fix theSeinfeldfinale. We now know what he meant.
The parallels betweenSeinfeldandCurb Your Enthusiasmcontinue as Larry sits in a jail cell, complaining to a fellow inmate about his “pants tent,” the fold in the groin in the pants that can make it look like someone is aroused.It’s the same thing he complains about in the very first episode, just likeJerry and George (Jason Alexander) recreate the same conversationin the first and last episodes ofSeinfeld. This is where it changes, though.Seinfeldends with the gang in jail, and it looks like Larry is destined for the same fate over the next 12 months as the camera pulls back, but then Jerry walks in.
Seinfeld ran into who was supposed to be a sequestered juror at a restaurantwho did not like Jerry telling him that he looked likeJoe Pesci. Being sequestered means that you’re not supposed to be out (“He’s a bad sequesterer!"), so Jerry went to the judge and told him what happened, leading to a mistrial and Larry’s conviction being overturned. As Larry is walking out of his cell he stops and says, “This is how we should’ve ended the finale.” Jerry replies, “Oh my God, you’re right. How did we not think of that?” The two friends then walk out of jail together, frustrated that they can’t change the past, although, in the most hilarious of ways, they just did.
Every season ofCurb Your Enthusiasmis available to stream on Max in the U.S.
