Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.8: The Unexpected Advocate

Well, I haven't been reviewing Curb Your Enthusiasm the last few weeks because, as I keep saying, I don't like to review comedies, and I had to make good on that assertion.  (Ok, The Orville is comedy, but it's much more than that - it's Star Trek: TOS under a different name - and I have been reviewing that.)  But episode 9.8 of Curb was so good I can't lay off reviewing it (though, truthfully, the episodes I didn't review were all too good not to review, too).

One of the many brilliant things about Curb Your Enthusiasm is the way it establishes a theme early in the season, and comes back to it, unexpectedly, as the season progresses.  In season 9 it's been the fatwa placed on Larry.  And in 9.8 he meets the man who says he was about to kill him, as a devout Muslim, but doesn't because Larry comes to his passionate defense after a crowd brandishes its anger at the man for cutting in line to get a second helping of potatoes.  (This, by the way, is one reason I don't much care for smorgasbord restaurants.)  The would-be killer is so moved by Larry's defense that he turns into Larry's advocate, and mounts a successful campaign, culminating in a trial before a board of Mullahs, to lift the fatwa.  It's all hilarious, including that Larry's defender looks like Salman Rushdie (wait a minute, wasn't Rushdie already on this season?).

And if that isn't enough, we get Larry almost making it with Gilmore Girls' Lauren Graham.  Of course it's "almost," because Larry always does something to mess up even the best attractions, and it makes you wonder how he ever got Cheryl to love and marry him in the first place.  Maybe Larry was a little more controlled back, then.  Or, at very least, if memory serves, Cheryl was able to restrain him on occasion.

In any case, I can say with unrestrained praise that Curb Your Enthusiasm is as laugh-out-loud funny as it ever was, and remains, after all these years, my all-time favorite comedy on television.

But I may or may not be back here with a review of tomorrow night's show.

See also: Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.1: Hilarious! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.2: Wife Swapping ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.3: Benefits ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.4: "Hold You in his Armchair" ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.5: Schmata At Large



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" ...