Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.4: "Hold You in his Armchair"

So, as I've mentioned here several times, I have something of a principle - well, not quite a principle, maybe more of just a practice - of not reviewing comedies.  They rarely have continuing storylines, and the act of reviewing always seemed somewhat antithetical to the very notion of comedy.  Yet I started against my better judgement to review this ninth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and I've been drawn so inextricably into comedy that I've even reviewed three short plays this weekend, two of which are comedies (see my review of Anthony Marinelli's  Max & Domino, for example).  So clearly, there's nothing to be gained by resisting a review of another episode of Curb.

In this case - a review of tonight's 9.4 - I drew the title from Rob Sheffield's masterful book, Dreaming the Beatles, and its maybe facetious discussion of whether the line in John Lennon's "Come Together" is "feel you in his arms, yeah, you can feel his disease" or "feel you in his armchair, you can feel his disease".  Never mind that the second makes no sense.  Sheffield says there's been a decades-long debate about which it is.

And what does this have to do with tonight's Curb?  Well, the least funny part of the episode, but still pretty funny, was Larry's quest to get his shrink (played by Bryan Cranston!) to get Larry a more comfortable armchair for their therapy sessions.  Hence the connection between armchair and therapy in Curb 9.4 and the armchair and disease lines in "Come Together".

Larry's disputing whether the patient is bound by doctor/patient confidentiality was funnier, and more profound.  And as almost always, I think Larry is right.

But the funniest, burst-out-laughing part came during Funkhouser's eulogy for his nephew, which Larry first disrupts in his pursuit of his reserved seat, then any seat, then someone who Larry is sure is about to enact the fatwa on him, but of course turns out just to be a late guest in Middle Eastern garb.  Anything Funkhouser does is funny, but this memorial scene was pure gold.

(The length of flies routine - the kind that zip and unzip - was also hilarious.  Some maybe that's a tie with the interrupted Funkhouser eulogy.)

Ok, enough of this comedy.  Time to turn to the grim and brutal Ray Donovan, which I'll do in my next review.

See also: Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.1: Hilarious! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.2: Wife Swapping ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.3: Benefits





It started in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn Monroe walked off the set of The Misfits and began to hear a haunting song in her head, "Goodbye Norma Jean" ...