‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Season 12 Review: Larry David Begins Finale of His People-Hating Show

cnn
—

After 11 previous seasons spread over 24 years, the latest series of “Curb your enthusiasm” It feels like an occasion, but it really isn’t, in the way that a show that really built into something, like “Lost” or “Game of Thrones,” was. Mostly, Larry DavidThe extended swan song provides one last chance to watch him and his friends act like idiots, feeling a little more on point in the execution.

As in previous seasons (the series “The Producers” is a prime example), there is a through-line to the events of season 12, with Larry being celebrated for an unintentional action, a ruse he struggles to maintain while still enjoying himself. the opportunity. to enjoy the glory.

The show also features a particularly impressive array of cameos from celebrities including, naturally, themselves, over the course of the previous nine episodes, and HBO asks critics to keep the biggest names under wraps.

Ultimately, though, “Curb” always comes back to Larry being Larry and dealing with the fact, as he describes himself, that he is “a person who hates people and yet he had to be among them” .

He also spends most of his time with his almost equally eccentric friends and frenemies, including Jeff (Jeff Garlin), whom David has kept by his side, despite accusations about his on-set behavior that led to his awkward exit from “The Goldbergs”), Susie (Susie Essman) and Leon (JB Smoove), as well as an expanded circle of Richard Lewis, Ted Danson and Larry’s ex-wife Cheryl (Cheryl Hines(which has become more controversial since her husband, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., began running for president).

Tracey Ullman also remains as the girlfriend that Larry dislikes very much but cannot break up with, as she is recovering from an addiction and, he has been told, such an event could be a significant setback to his progress.

Chalk this up, perhaps, to everyone being a little older than the last time we saw them, but much of this season feels more tired, or maybe just familiar, in an “Old Man Yells at the Cloud” (or in Larry’s case, Siri). kind of way. That said, there are still explosively funny moments, underlining David’s ability to identify the absurd and a prevailing attitude that has long made it clear that he doesn’t care who he might offend, but rather mischievously revels in it.

In fact, there’s a popular meme on the platform formerly known as Twitter in which David says, more crudely, “Nobody cares.” One of the defining aspects of “Curb” has been that its creator and star came to the show after becoming enormously wealthy thanks to “Seinfeld,” allowing him to produce episodes when and how he wanted to make them, an agreement that HBO has honored for a long time. quarter of a century.

That unique dynamic alone has made “Curb” a fascinating experiment, one that has lasted much longer than probably even David could have imagined. Even with all that creative freedom, given David’s quirks, real and imagined, his longevity is downright remarkable.

So regardless of what the final episodes say, this much seems certain: No one can say that “Curb” closed prematurely; and Larry David will leave on his terms, and only his, at which point he can go back to being one of those people who hates people no matter how much he wants to.

“Curb Your Enthusiasm” begins its 12th and final season on February 4 at 10 p.m. ET on HBO, which, like CNN, is a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery.