Larry David Doesn’t Care About ‘Redeeming’ the ‘Seinfeld’ Finale
With Larry David, even the simple act of sitting down can raise an issue.
“This is a constant problem for me,” David said, after taking his seat in a wide, plush, yellow chair at HBO’s Manhattan screening room for a conversation on the lifespan and legacy of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” “I’m a sloucher.”
Blaming the chair’s accommodating tilt, David slouched, smiled, and cordially accepted his fate. He’s a sloucher. He slouches. That’s who he is, and you know what? People love him for it.
Even when they don’t — like, say, for writing the now-infamous “Seinfeld” finale — David doesn’t let it get to him. When asked by an audience member whether the upcoming “Curb Your Enthusiasm” finale would serve as “redemption” for the last episode of “Seinfeld,” David scoffed and said:
“Yeah, like I care.”
The question didn’t come out of nowhere. “Curb’s” final season has been building to Larry David’s trial in Georgia. Officially, he’s charged with violating the state’s Election Integrity Act by giving a woman standing line to vote a bottle of water, but recent episodes have made clear that what the jury will actually decide is if they like Larry or not — a plot point very similar to the last episode of “Seinfeld,” where the four main characters violated a Good Samaritan Law and had to defend their honor in court.
The “Seinfeld” ending has also been name-checked multiple times throughout Season 12, usually as an insult to Larry — like when his frenemy Ted Danson knowingly points out that even though Larry left “Seinfeld” before its final two seasons, he returned to pen the finale. “Yeah, Ted,” Larry says through gritted teeth. “I did the finale.”
“Curb” already addressed complaints about David’s NBC sitcom in Season 7, when the “Seinfeld” cast reunited for a special (which only happened, of course, because Larry was scheming to win back his ex-wife). Season 7 aired 15 years ago. The “Seinfeld” finale debuted 25 years ago. Will David really retry the case in “Curb’s” last episode?
Fans will find out Sunday night. David was tight-lipped about the much-anticipated ending while speaking to moderator Ari Melber of MSNBC. (When the audience member first started asking about the ending, David interrupted to say, “Do you really think I’m going to talk about the ‘Curb’ finale? Are you nuts?”) While uncomfortable with the standing ovation that greeted him when taking the stage, David appeared at ease throughout the 90-minute conversation, which included surprise appearances by series regular Susie Essman and recurring favorite Tracey Ullman.
When pressed about the show’s longevity (it premiered in 1999 and will end with 120 episodes in total), David repeatedly insisted there’s no secret to “Curb’s” success.
“It’s funny. That’s it,” he said. “And people love funny. People like to laugh. And there’s not that much that makes us laugh.”
So, in the spirit of laughter, here are few topics from the event that might tickle your fancy. And don’t miss the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” finale Sunday at 10 p.m. ET on HBO and Max.
- David remains firmly opposed to offering too many thank yous. “The next day thank you text? How many fucking thank yous do we have to give in this world?”
- Etiquette, at least per the Larry David School of Etiquette, dictates dinner guests should leave no more than 10 minutes after finishing their dessert. And if there is no dessert (or dinner, for that matter), “You can’t be at somebody’s house for more than an hour and 45 minutes” in total, David said.
- Although he refused to engage in any in-depth analysis of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” — “I’m not an intellectual,” he said. “I’m just an idiot from Brooklyn” — David did let slip a few rules the show lives by. “I like to make the big things small and the small things big,” he said about “Curb’s” comedy, specifically referencing a scene from a recent episode where Larry emphasized losing your father-in-law wasn’t as sad as losing your father. “Death is a big thing, and when you make it small, there’s something funny about it,” he said. “It’s so serious, so when you trivialize it, it becomes funny for some reason.” Still, for the joke to land, it has to be true — at least to Larry. “The truth [in that scene] is that the father-in-law dying is a lot better than the father.”
- “Larry loves to be yelled at,” Essman said, when asked about the “special relationship” between her character and her co-star’s. David agreed, and said, “I can’t even tell you how funny it is when people call me the vilest names.”
- But Larry finding something funny isn’t always a good thing. Both Essman and Ullman called him out for laughing in the middle of scenes (or “breaking”), which prolongs their work day and costs the show good takes. “Take after take, he’ll know it’s coming, but he can’t stop himself. He’ll giggle,” Essman said. “They make me laugh. And with all due modesty, I make myself laugh,” David said. (Later, he inadvertently provided an example. As he described one of his scenes with Phillip Baker Hall, David’s voice reached a sharp octave, his face turned red, and he could barely get through the story. He laughed the whole time, and when he finally finished, David let out a sigh of relief and said, “Holy shit!”)
- David’s favorite episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm’s” final season? Not the finale, but Episode 7, “The Dream Scheme.” “I like the structure of it,” he said. “That I use his flask to get out of something and he used my dream scheme to get out of something. I like the symmetry.”
- Bruce Springsteen, improv star? In the penultimate episode, The Boss comes over to Susie and Jeff’s house to meet Larry, and when he finds out Larry once preferred having sex on the floor — to avoid any inclination for cuddling after — Springsteen said, “I didn’t make you out for a floor fucker.” “Springsteen was just fantastic,” Essman said. “He really was. A lot of [what he said] was his stuff in that scene.” Turns out, the laugh-line was all Bruce. “When he said floor fucker, he made that up,” David said. All Springsteen needs to EGOT is an Emmy, so maybe he was going for the gold.
