Review: Curb Your Enthusiasm, “The Lawn Jockey” | Season 12, Episode 2
Larry and the gang settle down in Georgia—but not for long
In the 26 years since Larry David ended his last TV show, the Seinfeld finale has loomed large. It wasn’t a popular ending at the time, but David has defended it over the years, even as Jerry Seinfeld has more openly acknowledged the issues. (In my book, it’s a decent enough episode, but never one I’d re-watch if I were in the mood to pop on a Seinfeld.) Season seven of Curb Your Enthusiasm offered a perfectly meta way to “redo” that original ending, offering all the affectionate cast reunions you could hope for without compromising David’s own stated disinterest in actually reviving the show. In the finale of that season, Jerry even says, “We already screwed up one finale,” prompting Larry to shoot back, “That was a good finale!”
Multiple seasons of Curb have offered episodes that would work well as series finales, though none were written as definitive endings. How do you beat season five, with Larry dying and getting kicked out of Heaven for arguing with two angels (played by Dustin Hoffman and Sacha Baron Cohen)? This time, though, it’s the real deal: this is the final season, and barring a very-unlikely-but-not-entirely-unprecedented change of heart, David won’t get any more re-dos after these ten episodes are over.
So it makes sense that David would have the Seinfeld ending on his mind. And it’s hard not to think back to that finale while watching the overarching storyline of season twelve take shape. Larry has been involved in legal trouble before, and we saw him contesting a ticket in court back in season nine. But the threat of Larry facing a $10,000 fine and “up to a year in prison” more directly recalls the Seinfeld finale’s one-year prison sentence. It’s possible Larry could end up in prison at the end of this series, just like Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer at the end of David’s last.