None
Curb Your Enthusiasm finally returns this fall after a long and excruciating six-year hiatus. Thankfully, even during the darkest point of the break when it seemed as if Larry David really might not return to grace us with 10 more episodes of misanthropic misadventures, we still had 80 episodes worth of excellence to fall back on. You can read this list two ways. On the one hand, these 25 episodes, from a series that's never produced a bad one (fight me), are a testament to the work David put in and the comedic treasures he'd already given us. A ninth was desired, but greedily nonetheless. But you can also view it as proof that Larry David is still gifted with the pen (a lot of late series episodes appear here) and was always undoubtedly capable of giving us at least ten more.
So if there's no such thing as an unpleasant episode of Curb, what are the criteria by which we determine the best of the best? A prolific Susie appearance always helps. Dialog that went on to birth an ingeniously relatable and applicable phrase for social behavior is even better. But truly, Curb is at its best when every subplot converges into a major intersection for a beautifully orchestrated pile-up of comedic proportions. LD is a master conductor, his wizardry is at its peak when even the most disparate of story threads weaves together under the radar to provide a worthy comeuppance to whatever self-righteous havoc he wreaked earlier in the episode. But to be honest, sometimes an episode just needs five minutes of Leon ranting to make the cut. Either way, you're in for one hell of a marathon. Here's hoping season nine leaves us scrambling to re-do this list at Christmas.
Written by Frazier Tharpe (@The_SummerMan)
RELATED: The 50 Funniest TV Comedies of All TIme
RELATED: The 50 Best Family Guy Episodes
25. "The Freak Book" (Season 6, Episode 5)
Standout Susie ether: “Honestly, I don’t want to be next to you for eternity.”
Narratively speaking, “The Freak Book” is all over the place but who cares about a cohesive script when you’ve got Larry David and John McEnroe making assholes of themselves by laughing at the titular book in the middle of Paul McCartney’s pre-party at the Staples Center? Who cares if all the disparate plot threads make sense when you’ve got Larry pressuring Ted Danson to let his lonely driver come into his birthday party, and the guy gets so faded he yells “Happy birthday, Becker!” before feeling up Mary Steenburgen?
It’s impossible to not spend this whole episode in the same uproar Larry, Jeff, and McEnroe share toward their beloved, bizarre coffee-table read.
24. "The Wire" (Season 1, Episode 6)
Catchphrase: “What’s the cut-off time?”
Standout Susie ether: “You weren’t thinking, [Jeff], cause you’re a fat fucking asshole!”
Much like Seinfeld, the early episodes of Curb have a slightly different feel than the rest of the series, with Larry caught in scenarios that intentionally come off as mundane, lending a mockumentary aesthetic to seasons one and two. Before we’d meet larger-than-life figures like Krazee-Eyez or the Korean Bookie, we were treated to characters like Porno Gil or, as seen here, The Weinstocks, whose realism makes them that much more cringeworthy.
Cheryl wants a low-hanging wire in the backyard buried but to do so she needs consenting signatures from their neighbors. Enter schmucky opportunist Dean Weinstock and his batshit wife Phyllis, who, with faux-politeness, refuse to sign until Larry arranges a meet with Dean’s celeb crush: Julia Louis-Dreyfuss. When he finally does get Julia to their house (the first appearance from a Seinfeld alum on the show) Dean’s late, and Phyllis opens the door, face stained with makeup and mascara because...their cat has just died.
The scene that follows is spectacularly bizarre—Phyllis breaks out the camcorder— and things get even more uncomfortable when Larry disregards “the cut-off” and barges in Julia’s house late at night looking for his idea pad. Earlier the show portrays Dean as a thirsty super-fan when he asks Larry if the Seinfeld cast ever hangs out at his house, but the show gives us a meta morsel of fan service when Julia declares she’s calling Jerry to vent about the day Larry put her through. At the time, it felt like the closest thing to a reunion we’d ever get.
23. "The Bare Midriff" (Season 7, Episode 6)
"The Bare Midriff" is one of the strangest, most absurd episodes Larry and co. have ever pulled off. It features a cartoonish flashback that sees LD playing the husband of a character we only meet in this episode. There's a mistaken, and controversy-baiting, miracle when Larry's intense urine spray (seriously) gets some pee on a painting of Jesus, creating the illusion of a single tear running down Christ's face. It also goes for a sight gag, a series rarity, by way of Jerry and Larry's flabby, crop-top favoring assisstant.
As off-kilter as all this sounds, the episode works because we get to see how Larry and Jerry work. Whether cooking up the script or just shooting the breeeze in a way we imagine they must do in real life, the pairing is complete fan service to lovers of both Seinfeld and Curb, and is a real treat to watch, with Richard Lewis and Julia Louis-Dreyfuss occasionally serving as buffers.
22. "The Ida Funkhouser Roadside Memorial" (Season 6, Episode 3)
Catchphrase: “That’s a good one, get that. Get that.”
Standout Susie ether: “Just knowing you is a liability!”
Most episodes of Curb involve Larry getting into trouble through a series of misunderstandings. In the others, he’s just an asshole. Here, he robs not one but two of Funkhouser’s admittedly OD memorials to his recently deceased mother, all to selfiishly get back in the good graces of people he fucked over earlier in the episode (and to get it in with Cheryl).
In between there’s a great recurring gag involving a nasty, sweaty $50 bill from Funkhouser that no one will take off of Larry’s hands, and the way he does get rid of it is a joke only he could pull off with impunity. Also, in this edition of Larry David’s mission to civilize, he’s up against sample abusers. Three guesses on how well that goes.
21. "Mary, Joseph, and Larry" (Season 3, Episode 9)
Standout Susie ether: “Wait 'til I get my hands on that goddamn Larry David, the four-eyed fuck, I’ll kill him!”
The holiday season finds Larry trying to do something nice for others but, naturally, his personality quickly poisons all potential goodwill. Christmas means Tipping Season for the rich, and Larry fucks up majorly—not once but twice. First he gives the gardener more money than the maid, then while making it rain on waiters in the country club, he gives one guy a tip twice. Both deny it, and all Larry can do is give them the Eye-to-Eye stare down.
That’s nothing compared to the L he takes in this installment of Larry vs. the In-Laws, when he tries to stow his Jewish indifference to Christmas by arranging a live Nativity scene at the house. When Cheryl and her family return, however, all they see is Joseph (David Koechner) and Larry wrestling on the ground after he makes a suggestive comment about the actress portraying Mary, because apparently the line between reality and method acting blurs when you bring the Virgin Mother into it.
20. "The TiVo Guy" (Season 6, Episode 7)
Catchphrase: “Long-ball Larry”
Standout Susie ether: “You weren’t invited! Go eat somewhere else!”
In typical Curb fasion, art imitates life. In between seasons five and six, Larry and his wife Laurie separated and eventually divorced, citing irreconcilable differences. By the mid-point of season six, Larry’s TV wife has also decided she’s had enough, when Larry brushes off her fearful call from a turbulent flight because the TiVo guy is in the house doing some much needed maintenance. Cheryl returns safely from the flight, but she’s done with being Larry’s straight woman.
Larry’s losses double when all of their friends—and restaurants!—predictably “choose Cheryl” and shut him out, ruining a promising evening with Lucy Lawless, and to top it all off, a freak testicle injury means he has to stock up on the no-fly underwear brand that Cheryl’s new beau shills. Oh, and the TiVo? Still not working.
19. "Beloved Aunt" (Season 1, Episode 8)
Leave it to Larry to become persona non grata to not just his wife’s entire family, but the Greene’s as well. The obituary Larry and Jeff handle for Cheryl’s late aunt goes awry when the newspaper ridiculously publishes "beloved cunt" instead.
The in-laws are up in arms, especially when Cheryl’s sister Becky’s boyfriend mangles Larry’s advice and breaks up with her on the day of the funeral. Cheryl tells Larry, “See you next tuesday” and boots him from the house, setting up a sleepless night for the Bald Bastard. In the series fashion of giving old Seinfeld gags an R-rated upgrade, Larry inadvertently cops a feel on Jeff’s mom and for once a Greene family member other than Susie is laying into Larry for being a perverted, disgusting freak.
18. "The Surrogate" (Season 4, Episode 7)
Given the title, you know exactly what’s going to go down when Cheryl tells Larry they’ll be attending a baby shower for friends who are expecting child via surrogate. The real delight from this episode comes from Larry and Lewis’ obsession with whether size matters. Lewis is currently dating a black woman (Garcelle Beauvais) for the first time, who's also the nurse to Larry’s physician. The mere sight of her performing a physical makes Larry’s heart rate go up, and his doofus doctor saddles him with a heart rate monitor as a result.
The bulky hindrance comes in handy when Larry unplugs it to feign heart attacks lest he get his ass kicked, most notably when Muggsy Bogues isn’t so flattered when he catches the Jewish comedians peeking in his urinal to settle their debate. Elsewhere, an ill-timed apology voicemail to David Schwimmer’s father results in an episode-ending ethering that’s so great it’ll almost make you forget Susie’s absence.
17. "The Anonymous Donor" (Season 6, Episode 2)
Catchphrase: “I’m anonymous;” “The unwritten law of dry cleaning”
Standout Susie ether: “Get the fuck out of my house, I don’t want you here, be gone with you! If [Jeff’s] banned, then you’re banned!”
It’s easy to see why Leon became such a permanent fixture in the Curb universe even after the rest of the Blacks departed. He fits in so well here that it doesn’t even seem like his first episode, and "The Anonymous Donor" achieves classic status off the strength of his first real exchange with Larry—and his magnificent mispronunciation of “ejaculate”—alone.
Leon gets to shine twice. First, when he earns his keep in the David household (unlike Loretta and the rest of the Blacks, Leon wasn’t actually uprooted by the fictitious Hurricane Edna) by helping Larry subvert the unwritten rule of dry cleaning (you win some, you lose some) and retrieve his stolen baseball jersey—twice. Wrong guy? No problem. In the next scene, Larry and Leon are playing cards, Larry wearing his rightfully returned jersey and Leon the wrongfully retrieved one. Fast friends.
Bonus cultural significance points: Cam’ron cites this episode, where Larry lays into Ted Danson for being “a little yenta,” as an influence for one of his most classic skit-rants.
16. "The Ski Lift" (Season 5, Episode 8)
Standout Susie ether: “You think I care about your back? Do you know how much I’ve done for you this weekend? Get the fuck out of the bed!”
The lengths Larry David will go to to save his own skin, or in this case, his kidney. In order to get Richard Lewis bumped up on the donor list, Larry befriends the head of the organ donor board, inviting him and his daughter to Jeff and Susie’s ski lodge for the weekend. The catch: They’re orthodox, forcing Larry to don a yarmulke, adopt a cartoonish Jewish accent, mutter his way through Yiddish phrases, and swap wives with Jeff.
That’s right, Larry David and Susie Greene, mortal enemies, pretending to be a happy couple, a scenario so great that it’s a shame the gag only gets one real scene. That’s nothing compared to dude’s daughter, who’s so ride or die for the scripture that she ultimately undoes all of Larry’s machinations when they get stuck on the ski lift and she jumps off, lest she be alone with a married man past sundown.
15. "Denise Handicap" (Season 7, Episode 5)
Catchphrase: “Did you bring it? Did you do the dizzle on her? Bring the ruckus to that ass, Larry!”
Standout Susie ether: No verbal darts, but she does throw Larry’s BlackBerry into the ocean.
As sad as it was to see the David marriage crumble, freeing Larry up to date is the best decision the series has ever made (well, that and keeping Leon around). A single Larry is free to put himself in situations like courting a wheelchair bound love interest, whom he dubs Denise Handicap (which brilliantly captures the smart phone era of assigning new contacts specific titles to better remember them by)—and then picking up another, Wendy Wheelchair, by chance.
The women are more than just dates, of course, they’re a tool of sympathy for the bald narcissist to use to get back in to a private concert after he offends the hosts—but the best part is they’re using LD just the same to see the acclaimed violinist. Singularly, though. When they learn of each other, they’re livid, and when Larry ascends to heights they can’t climb, who steps in to seek vengeance for them but recurring frenemy Rosie O’Donnell.
14. "Officer Krupke" (Season 7, Episode 8)
Catchphrase: “There are only two ways to injure your neck...”
Standout Susie ether: “That’s a load of shit, you don’t even know how to use a computer.”
“I’m Larry David. I happen to enjoy wearing women’s panties.”
The lengths Larry and Jeff will go to for each other’s lies is explored here when Jeff cooks up the most absurd excuse after Susie finds a pair of panties in his car. Meanwhile, Larry’s scheme to get Cheryl back is put to the test when Jerry prefers another actress (Elisabeth Shue) over her for the part of George’s wife in the reunion show, the same actress whose randy husband (David Schneider) is plotting to rope Cheryl into a threesome. This turn of events leads Larry to make an infamous declaration that there are only two ways a person can injure their neck: a car accident or...cunnilingus.
13. "The End" (Season 5, Episode 10)
Strip away everything Larry David thinks he knows about himself—is he still the same neurotic, arrogant, narcissistic bald asshole? Season five’s adoption storyline culminates when Larry learns his real parents are two salt of the earth, god-fearing, Christian (!) residents of Bisbee, Arizona. He takes this new development as an excuse to reinvent himself into a kind-hearted Bible Belter, one who attends church, hunts and shotguns beers, and is ultimately moved to put an end to the season’s other ongoing plot: Richard Lewis’ kidney search.
On the flight to Bisbee he’s a neurotic mess, demanding to be re-seated away from the emergency exit, because he “doesn’t work well under pressure.” After his experience with the Cones, he’s pleasant to the same stewardess and completely calm. The contrast is clear: Larry David is a changed man. That is, until his P.I. tells him on his way into the operating room that, of course, the Cones aren’t his actual family. Larry literally tries to hop off the gurney but it’s too late. Flash forward two months, and in exchange for his generosity, Lewis is gallivanting on beaches with models and Larry’s on his deathbed.
Three seasons later we’re fearing the end, but “The End” was clearly intended to be such at the time. There’s even a nod to the Seinfeld series finale when the dying David reminisces about every person he’s done wrong by and run afoul of, by way of a supercut. Then he ascends, but not before witnessing his loved ones quickly devolve into a nasty spat over his will, money Jeff owed Larry, etc. Clearly the series didn’t end here, but season six doesn’t just resume as if Larry never passed away.
The best part about this faux-series finale is that Larry, naturally, lasts about seven minutes in Heaven before his guardian angels (Dustin Hoffman and Sacha Baron Cohen) get tired of him and bounce him back to earth. And has time with the Cones and near-death changed our man full time? The last we see of him he’s abusing wheelchair privileges to flex over handicap amenities. So, no.
12. "The Corpse-Sniffing Dog" (Season 3, Episode 7)
Standout Susie ether: “You sicko, fucko, asshole...get me the fucking dog!”
In which Larry steals a kid’s pet not once, but twice. The first time is, as always with Larry, inadvertent. Jeff is allergic to Oscar, the titular corpse-sniffing German Shepherd that Susie got during their separation, but their daughter Sammie is taken with it. Larry, good friend that he is, goes over to the Greene household while Jeff and Susie are out to talk some sense into Sammie, and helps himself to a glass of wine...which he sets right next to her glass of grape juice.
As soon as Larry leaves with Oscar you just know Susie’s verbal onslaught will be an instant classic, and sure enough he returns to his house to find her waiting in his driveway, ready to tear him a new one for “getting Sammie drunk” and giving her dog away. And who did he give it to? Susan Braudy, the woman he insulted a few days ago when he refused to thank her along with her husband for picking up the check at dinner, because he’s the only one who brings money in. She’s forced to take the dog when her kids see it, but by the time Larry comes back on Susie’s request, the whole family has taken to it, and a thin apology for his slight won’t do the trick.
It’s hilarious but also really mean when Larry uses Oscar’s dog whistle to call him and escape, because it marks the third time he’s disrespected this poor woman in as many days. No wonder this is Susan’s last appearance.
11. "The Grand Opening" (Season 3, Episode 10)
Standout Susie ether: “Fuck you, you carwash cunt”
All season long Larry, Jeff, and fellow investors that include Michael York (Ted Danson backed out at the last minute) have been working to open their own restaurant, an endeavor that’s seen setbacks as bizarre and nightmarish as Oscar the corpse-sniffing dog alerting the police to a probable cadaver under the premises.
The final conflict is just as original, when on the eve of the opening, a vengeful food critic relieves their 11th-hour search for a new chef (Larry fired the old one upon learning he wears a toupee, and only came to the job interview without it to appeal to Larry’s pro-bald sensibilities) by saddling them with a French guy afflicted by Tourette Syndrome. He spouts profanities at any given moment, and wouldn’t you know it, the kitchen faces the restaurant patrons.
This leads to a delightfully madcap finale where Larry gets his moment of rare selflessness (kind of) and solidarity, when he breaks the the deafening silence that follows Chef Guy’s initial outburst with his own string of random dirty words. Jeff follows suit and soon the entire restaurant—filled mostly with family and friends like Cheryl and Larry’s parents, her sister, his assistant, Richard Lewis, etc.—is firing off cuss words more original than anything Debra Morgan comes up with on Dexter. Given that most of Curb is filmed improv-style, that must’ve been one fun day on-set.
Bonus Points: A rare bit of physical comedy from Cheryl Hines, whose ill-timed colon cleanse forces her to hop out of the whip mid-car wash.
10. "Vow of Silence" (Season 8, Episode 5)
Catchphrase: Chat’n’Cut
Standout Susie ether: “Boy am I glad we’re going to New York for three months and not gonna see your face!”
When it was announced that most of season eight would take place in David’s native New York, viewers wondered what plot development would facilitate the setting change. The end result is nothing short of fantastic, in that it’s completely true to form and in Larry’s nature. Only L.D. would create a lie so extravagant as going to New York to work on a nonexistent project with Jerry to get out of doing charity work, and only he would actually commit to it lest he run into the involved party around L.A. and get called out as a liar.
If this is indeed the final season, then “Vow of Silence” is the final L.A.-set episode and Larry leaves the west coast in style. From creating one of the greatest descriptors for a social occurrence ever—people who “recognize” a friend at the head of a line are performing “chat’n’cuts"—to filming a veritable Pinkberry commercial with Jeff when they wolf down the cup they’re supposed to be taking to Oscar as a last meal, Larry is in rare form. It’s only fitting that his last night in the city that’s seen him annoy so many people features a man breaking the vow that lends the episode it’s title, just so he can curse Larry out.
9. "The Therapists" (Season 6, Episode 9)
Catchphrase: "Somebody gotta get fucked up, Larry."
Despite his rampant narcissim, LD truly cares for Cheryl. That much is clear because we've never seen him so vulnerable and susceptible to another person's advice as he is here with his therapist (Steve Coogan). Cheryl is following her own therapist's advice even more religiously, so to subvert her and win Cheryl back, Larry, Jeff, and Leon conspire to create a scenario where Cheryl's therapist will feel impressed by Larry and inclined to send Cheryl back to him.
Naturally, things backfire. Larry's doctor pulls off a faux mugging but is arrested in the process, and Cheryl's therapist falls for Larry and thusly tries to effectively end the David marriage. In the end for all his scheming, Larry is even farther away from ever winning Cheryl back than the episode's beginning.
8. "Mister Softee" (Season 8, Episode 9)
Catchphrase: “You Bucknered it!”
Standout Susie ether: “That was a horseshit catch...I thought you were a baseball player, you can’t catch a goddamn toss?!”
When “Mister Softee” aired, acclaimed TV critic Alan Sepinwall described it as Curb: The Motion Picture and he’s absolutely right. The running time is only a few minutes longer than normal, but if it is indeed the penultimate episode of the series, coupled with “Larry vs Michael J Fox” (which didn’t make the cut but is great, nonetheless) then they couldn’t have gone out on a better note. The epic redemption of Bill Buckner along with the character-defining flashbacks to Larry’s childhood—his “whole life could’ve gone differently” if he won that game of strip poker—gives the episode a theatrical feel.
As the legend of Larry goes, a game of strip poker in the back of a Mister Softee truck with the driver’s daughter goes awry when Larry loses, dad catches them, and throws Larry out onto the street stark naked. Now just the sound of the truck’s music fucks his shit up and it’s ruining his sex life with his girlfriend (they’re kind of serious, another momentous plot line) and ruining his performance in his and Jeff’s baseball league, which leads him to commiserate with Buckner after a chance encounter.
All of those elements, plus an orgasmic passenger seat, Larry’s chatty therapist who gives zero fucks about doctor-patient confidentiality and Leon wearing glasses because white people are always more inclined to help a brother with spectacles blend together so seamlessly and cinematically that you have to wonder if this is where David got the idea to try something like Clear History.
7. "The Bisexual" (Season 8, Episode 7)
Catchphrase: “Shit bow”
There isn’t one bad episode of Curb, but the show is truly on its A-game during the rare occurrence when each parallel plotline converges in the climax to perfection. “The Bisexual” doesn’t quite achieve this, thanks to a C-story involving Duckstein, the lonely L.A. acquaintance that Larry wants nothing to do with. Aside from that, good God is the episode beautifully complete.
Larry and Rosie O’Donnell’s race to win a bisexual woman’s affections is brilliantly juxtaposed with their battles on the baseball field, especially when Leon suggests Larry “juice” to combat Rosie’s intimate knowledge of the female pleasure center. Of course Larry gets his comeuppance for both that and his arrogant investigation into Japanese culture, and on the steps of the baseball Hall of Fame no less. Like we said, perfect.
6. "The N Word" (Season 6, Episode 8)
Standout Susie ether: “He had a beautiful head full of hair that I loved, a mane! And now he looks like you!”
In the season of The Blacks it was inevitable that this issue would come up, but the N word sitcom trope doesn’t feel tired here at all. Larry’s already in hot water with the family thanks to an involuntary erection while hugging Auntie Rae, but when they walk in on the wrong part of him explaining a racist conversation he overheard to Jeff and Susie, the hellfire they rain down on him is nothing short of hilarious.
The race-relations fallout also claims Jeff, when his surgeon overhears Larry recounting the story sans censorship and instead of the planned operation, vents his frustration by shaving Jeff completely bald, the sight of which later freaks Ben Stiller out too much to sign with his management. Meanwhile Larry’s courtship with a doctor (Brenda Strong) is complicated when she expresses her feelings in a handwritten note that he can’t decipher.
The bright idea to give it have a pharmacist translate it goes awry when the guy, an African-American, makes an epic misunderstanding involving the Blacks’ ironic last name. Seinfeld fans especially will get a kick out of Larry’s manic head-shake at episode’s end, when he refuses to utter the dreaded slur one more time.
5. "The Car Pool Lane" (Season 4, Episode 6)
Catchphrase: “I thought we were cool-de-la?” reprise; “I need my scrilla;” “Schwag”
“The Car Pool Lane” is the episode that just keeps on giving. First Larry performs the most awkward drug deal ever (with Lost’s Jorge Garcia) when he tries to score some “schwag” to ease his dad’s glaucoma. Then he co-ops a hooker named Monena (Kym Whitley) to go to the Dodger game with him so he can zip past traffic in the diamond lane. Every second of their interaction is comedy gold, with Whitley absolutely killing it as the de facto female version of Krazee-Eyez Killa.
And just when you think it can’t get any better than Larry hanging at a baseball game with a hooker and Funkhouser, Nat asks Larry and Monena to smoke the weed with him, and the scene that follows is simply transcendent. While Monena and a giddy Nat bond over the commonalities between Yiddish and ebonics, Larry excuses himself to endure one of television’s weirdest weed trips in the bathroom alone, where he has a bizarre, instantly-classic conversation with himself in the mirror.
4. "The Table Read" (Season 7, Episode 9)
Every Seinfeld fan’s pipe dream is realized. The entire gang plus Larry is back on set at Jerry’s apartment and Monk’s cafe, the pieces of the reunion show script that we hear are fantastic, and almost every recurring actor pops in for a cameo from Newman to Estelle Costanza, and on top of that the show uses Leon to address Michael Richards’ N-word controversy.
Meanwhile the episode’s central joke is the most hilariously cringe-inducing gag Larry’s come up with yet, when everyone uncomfortably refers to his co-worker’s nine year-old’s “rash on her pussy,” the same little girl who’s so taken with Larry that she texts him non-stop with important questions like, “Do you watch Wizards of Waverly Place?” But seriously. Seinfeld, Louis-Dreyfuss, Richards and Alexander, back in apartment 5A and riffing on Superman. Who would’ve ever thought?
3. "Seinfeld" (Season 7, Episode 10)
Catchphrase: “Do you respect wood?”
Standout Susie ether: “I respect wood so much, that if I had a piece of wood in my hand right now, I’d beat the shit out of you with it!”
Season seven finds Larry David, the real-life man and the fictionalized bald asshole, triumphant. Despite a steadfast claim that the world will never see a true blue Seinfeld reunion, Larry gets to have his cake and eat it too, by dedicating the season's plot to fictional Larry staging a reunion—with Jerry, Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, and Michael Richards all fully participating—just to win his wife Cheryl back. Lo and behold, what we see of the reunion show, within the show, is actually hilarious, and some subplots crib from actual Curb storylines, which makes for a glorious meta-loop.
Even more meta? Larry battling Jason Alexander (David wrote George Costanza as a more pathetic mirror of himself) for Cheryl’s affections. In a rare, genuinely sweet moment, Larry’s roundabout scheme succeeds. Instead of a saccharine ending, though, Cheryl is instantly reminded in one sitting of everything she loved about Larry...and everything she hated. Leave it to Larry to ruin a reconciliation with his estranged wife because she "doesn't respect wood." A brilliant ending to the series’ magnum opus of a season.
2. "The Doll" (Season 2, Episode 7)
Standout Susie ether: “You four-eyed fuck! And you fat piece of shit! Get me the [doll] head!”
Earlier we said it’s the rare Curb episode that manages to restrain Larry David’s attention span and introduce varying plot elements that assemble together beautifully and seamlessly in the climax. “The Doll” is one such treasure. Everything that precedes the final scene, from an annoyingly righteous theater attendant, to a latch-less bathroom door, and of course, thee doll, plays a part in creating the horrific, hilarious but also horrible, how-is-he-going-to-explain-this situation that Larry finds himself in during the final minutes. Nothing is extraneous, making “The Doll” a textbook example of tight sitcom writing, and as only the seventeenth episode of the series, solidfying Curb as unfuckwittable.
As if it needs more praise, “The Doll” also boasts a top five Susie massacre (and the first time the show employs the Western-showdown score as her takedown theme?) when she catches Larry and Jeff sneaking around the house (they’re separated at the time) and later when she realizes what they were up to. In the opening moments, Larry and Julia Louis-Dreyfuss are pitching a show about a sitcom star tired of being associated with her one famous role. After this episode though, Larry had officially stepped out of Seinfeld’s shadow.
1. "Krazee-Eyez Killa" (Season 3, Episode 8)
Catchphrase: “I thought we were cool-de-la?”; “Are you my Caucasian?”
Standout Susie ether: “Freak of fucking nature, doesn’t want a house tour”
Before Leon, there was Krazee-Eyez. It’s a wonder it took three more seasons for Larry to cast a black sidekick, because every interaction here between himself and Krazee Eyez Killa snaps crackles and pops, so much so that no one minded Larry casually confirming “I’m your nigga.” Today Chris Williams’ portrayal of Krazee, Wanda Sykes’ gangsta rapping fiance, would be dated and tired, but in 2002 it was give-this-man-an-Emmy brilliant.
This was the episode to screen for your poor misguided friends that dismissed Curb as “boring” and “too dry.” Even on tenth rewatch, “Krazee-Eyez Killa” is a laugh riot from top to bottom, mostly because the titular rapper is one of the most colorful guests David has created to this day. And when Larry isn’t with Krazee, crafting sixteens, talking about the finer points of cunnilingus, or receiving the most hetero house tour (“this right here is the floor, made of, you know, floor shit”) we’re treated to one of Susie’s more spirited profanity rants when Larry refuses a tour of her and Jeff’s new digs.