“Curb Your Enthusiasm” and the Art of the Finale
Critics at Large | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.4 • 679 Ratings
🗓️ 11 April 2024
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Since the turn of the millennium, HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” has slyly satirized the ins and outs of social interaction. The series—which follows a fictionalized version of its creator and star, Larry David, as he gets into petty disputes with anyone and everyone who crosses his path—aired its last episode on Sunday, marking the end of a twelve-season run. On this episode of Critics at Large, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the show’s “weirdly moving” conclusion as well as its over-all legacy. Then they consider other notable TV endings: some divisive (“Sex and the City”), some critically acclaimed (“Succession”), some infamously rage-inspiring (“Game of Thrones”). What are the moral and narrative stakes of a finale, and why do we subject these episodes—which represent only a tiny fraction of the work as a whole—to such crushing analytic pressure? “This idea of an ending ruining the show is alien to me,” Cunningham says. “I won’t contest that endings are different—distinct. Are they better? I don’t know.”
Read, watch, and listen with the critics:
“Curb Your Enthusiasm” (2000-24)
“Seinfeld” (1989-98)
“Sex and the City” (1998-2004)
“Succession” (2018-23)
“The Hills” (2006-10)
“Game of Thrones” (2011-19)
“Breaking Bad” (2008-13)
“Little Women,” by Louisa May Alcott
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Naomi, you mentioned that you had rewatched Seinfeld with your daughter. |
| 0:04.4 | I, too, have done a few Seinfeld rewatches. |
| 0:08.3 | My husband and I did a big one during the pandemic, and then we began again while we were |
| 0:13.0 | waiting for me to go into labor. |
| 0:14.4 | And at some point, I had to say, I don't think we can just begin this whole show again |
| 0:18.9 | every time it ends, like rereading the Torah every year. |
| 0:22.5 | We can't just have the cycle where this is the sacred text. This is nuts. I need to defamiliarize |
| 0:27.5 | and be able to come back afresh. |
| 0:45.6 | I'm going to... Welcome to Critics at Large, a podcast from The New Yorker. |
| 0:46.7 | I'm Nomi Fry. |
| 0:48.0 | I'm Vincent Cunningham. |
| 0:49.4 | And I'm Alex Schwartz. |
| 0:55.2 | Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here. |
| 1:01.2 | So today is a show about endings. |
| 1:08.2 | 24 years ago, the very first episode of Curve Your Enthusiasm aired on HBO. |
| 1:09.6 | Were we ever so young? |
| 1:11.0 | Were we ever so young? Were we ever so young? |
| 1:18.0 | The show was created by Larry David, co-creator of Seinfeld, and stars Larry David as Larry David, |
| 1:25.7 | or at least a version of Larry David, this wealthy set-for-life guy who got rich off of Seinfeld, and who now can basically spend the rest of his time getting into |
| 1:29.6 | petty disputes, grievances, social one-upsmanship, you know, all kinds of tricky and prickly |
| 1:37.1 | interactions with friends, neighbors, wives, you know, what have you. |
| 1:46.5 | What is this? |
... |
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