Pretty, Pretty, Pretty Good

by Josh Levine

  EPISODE EIGHT

  The N Word / Original Airdate: October 28, 2007 / Directed by Tom Kramer

  The separation with Cheryl causes some interesting behavior in this episode, not all of it directly linked but easy to read as a result of this rupture in Larry’s life. Why else would he clear a space in the backyard for Aunt Rae to plant a vegetable garden unless he needed to replace his lost family with a new one? And when Aunt Rae hugs him, would he have got an erection if Cheryl were still around as wife and sexual partner?

  And why is Larry suddenly even more conscious of being bald than usual, so that he thinks a waitress is discriminating against him? Could it be that as a single man his appearance is much more important than it used to be?

  And then there’s the dating thing. In a hospital cafeteria — he’s there with Jeff who is going to undergo surgery to stop his snoring — Larry flirts with a woman doctor named Sheila and ends up making a date. During their evening out she continues to act like a doctor: her living room looks like a reception area and she sends Larry to her bedroom to take off his clothes and wait for her. In the bedroom Muzak plays and there’s a weigh scale against the wall. Larry waits in his T-shirt, underwear, and socks as if expecting to be examined. Alas for Larry, they are interrupted by the arrival of relatives.

  The middle of the episode has Larry overhearing a white man on a cell phone use the word “nigger.” When he recounts it to Sheila, a black doctor overhears the word and takes Larry for a racist. Upset, the doctor mistakenly shaves Jeff’s head before his surgery. For the episode, Jeff Garlin really had his head shaved, and the effect isn’t flattering. But when Jeff discovers that people start ignoring him because he’s now bald, and a potential new client, Ben Stiller, decides not to sign with him, Larry says, “Welcome to my world.”

  Larry gets another chance to bed Sheila, but for once in his life he can’t get an erection, due to some estrogen that he’s mistakenly taking. That makes him zero for two in the dating game. As for Cheryl, she never appears in the episode, except in a series of flashbacks as Larry thinks back on their life together.

  EPISODE NINE

  The Therapists / Original Airdate: November 4, 2007 / Directed by David Mandel

  In episode seven Cheryl left Larry. In episode eight he tried dating. And in this episode there is an attempt at reconciliation.

  Usually when estranged couples try to find their way back, both admit to faults that have contributed to their unhappiness. But not in this marriage. There is no question that the unhappy partner has been Cheryl and the fault has all been Larry’s. But not anymore. Because Larry is a new man.

  “It’s a mystery to me. How you could have lived with that maniac for so long,” Larry says about his old self. He and Cheryl are in a bar having a drink. He is dressed in “proper” adult clothes, wants to go to Europe with her, and says he no longer cares about golf. Cheryl laps it up. And why not when he’s trying to be everything she wants?

  It turns out that Larry is being coached by his new therapist, Dr. Bright, well played by the English comic Steve Coogan of Hamlet 2 and Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story. Actually, Coogan is more like a dating counselor than a therapist and he advises Larry to hold her hand, tell her he loves her, and then say she has until Monday to decide whether she wants to move back in. After that the offer expires. Larry is skeptical, but he does as he’s told. And he’s got Cheryl beaming with pleasure, at least until the ultimatum. She immediately says no and tells him never to call her again.

  A heartbroken Larry tears a strip off Dr. Bright then drags him to Cheryl’s front door to admit it was his idea. Cheryl turns out to be living in a lovely beachfront house and although she believes the therapist story, she still isn’t sold. What to do? Larry knows that Cheryl is taking the advice of a therapist of her own and decides he needs to get this woman on his side. Yes, the old Larry comes roaring back. He devises a scheme where Dr. Bright, posing as a thief, tries to steal the therapist’s bag. Larry will rescue her, making himself a hero.

  The scheme goes well for Larry, less well for the doctor who gets nabbed by the cops. In fact, Larry does so well that his scheme backfires, for the therapist decides she wants him for herself. He has to extract himself by claiming to have Alzheimer’s. She agrees to tell Cheryl she should reconcile.

  Larry and Cheryl have a wonderful date at an amusement park and all looks resolved. At least until Cheryl’s therapist finds out that she’s been conned. The look on Cheryl’s face as she receives the therapist’s call tells us that the old Larry isn’t going to cut it.

  This is certainly one of the season’s best episodes, with high emotional stakes and high humor too. Coogan proves himself to be one of the few guest actors who can hold the camera’s attention equally with Larry and he does so by underplaying the part. A minor note: Jeff Garlin’s hair is starting to grow in, showing that the episodes have indeed been shot in sequence.

  EPISODE TEN

  The Bat Mitzvah / Original Airdate: November 11, 2007 / Directed by Larry Charles

  While the Black family has become part of Larry’s household — and a good thing too, given his loneliness for Cheryl — what their fate is to be hasn’t yet been addressed. Nor do we know what will happen to Larry and Cheryl’s marriage, although the signs aren’t good. This episode has an unusual opening scene in which Larry is not present. Instead the Black family has gathered in the kitchen. Leon has telephoned Jeff to tell him that Larry is depressed and won’t get out of bed. “Mopy Dick,” Leon calls him.

  Jeff arrives for an intervention and finds Larry moaning, “I’ve fucked up my life.” He’ll never meet another woman like Cheryl. To make matters worse, Cheryl is bringing the man from the airplane as her date to Sammy’s bat mitzvah. Jeff says that Larry must bring a date too and Larry agrees to pull himself together.

  What little stability Larry has collapses when Loretta tells him that their house is ready for them to move back into. But the episode needs some story of its own and gets it in the form of a bad television director (played by Michael McKean of This Is Spinal Tap) who wants Larry to put in a good word for him to direct a pilot that Richard Lewis is making. As well, Larry suffers from yet another odd and embarrassing ailment, this one a tickle in his anus. When he tells an insistent medical secretary that he has a “gerbil up my ass,” the rumor spreads through small-town L.A. that Larry has actually inserted a rodent into himself for some kind of perverse pleasure. (This plot seems to derive from the the urban legend, since debunked, that actor Richard Gere was admitted to hospital several years ago with just such a medical problem.)

  Hoping to find someone to take to Sammy’s bat mitzvah, Larry goes out on a double date with Susie and Jeff and a woman he met in the proctologist’s waiting room, but unfortunately the woman seems to be suffering from the same squirm-inducing problem as Larry. At the last minute he asks Loretta who has never even heard of a bat mitzvah but is happy to go.

  The bat mitzvah scenes look like the real thing — happy guests toasting the bat mitzvah girl (Larry’s own toast offers too much information about his tickle) and having a good time. Loretta, it must be said, looks smashing in her dress and with her hair done, all showing off her natural good looks. Things look like they might go bad when Larry spies Cheryl and her new beau, Glenn, and goes to speak to them. And when Cheryl and Glenn get up to dance Larry looks pretty upset. But then — miracle of miracles — he sees Loretta who’s a vision of loveliness and a look of realization crosses his face. He asks her to dance, they hold one another romantically, and the moment (don’t ask me how) practically trembles with emotion. Could the two really be getting together?

  And then in an amazing montage we see the new life of Larry, Loretta, and the family. The two wake in bed in the morning when the children pounce on them. Larry is yelling at Daryl’s soccer game. Larry and Loretta are driving with the kids misbehaving in the car, just like a regular family. Susie comes to the door to tell off Larry, only to have it slammed in h
er face by Loretta. And the final shot: a Christmas photo of Larry, Loretta, the kids, and Auntie Rae under the Christmas tree.

  The ending is breathtakingly effective because it is so unlikely and surprising, and such a delicious wish-fulfillment. Here is Larry with a beautiful young partner, a family that needs him, no longer sinking in his own petty concerns but living life fully. It is funny, certainly, but the remarkable thing is that it is more than funny. Because in the end we want Larry to be happy. Once more Larry David has pulled off a brilliant season ender.

  Season Seven

  EPISODE ONE

  Funkhouser’s Crazy Sister / Original Airdate: September 20, 2009 / Directed by Larry Charles

  The honeymoon between Larry and Loretta has not, it turns out, lasted long. She is bossing Larry around, making him feel like Cinderella to her evil stepmother as he fetches her soup, endures the high thermostat she prefers, and awaits the news of her biopsy — for Loretta may have cancer. What does that mean to Larry? That he has twenty-four hours to break up with her. If her diagnosis is positive, he’ll never be able to get out of the relationship.

  It’s not hard to imagine what Larry David is thinking. The Blacks provided a terrific story line for last year, and the joining of Larry and Loretta was a fine ending to the season. But enough is enough; it’s time to move on. And he does it in a couple of episodes. The only member of the Black family that will remain is Leon. He and Larry make a great vaudeville team so why not keep him living in Larry’s house?

  Marty Funkhouser comes over and, with an expression that alters about as much as Boris Karloff’s in Frankenstein, is as funny as always. His opinion that it’s okay for people in your home to go into your fridge for “liquids” but not food sounds like it should be made an official social rule. Marty’s sister Bam Bam has been living in a mental institution and he takes Larry up on his offer to visit her, despite Larry insisting it was “an empty gesture.”

  Catherine O’Hara plays Bam Bam, the second alumnus of SCTV to be on the show (Martin Short was the first). Larry and Jeff go to visit her and when Larry returns from helping himself to the contents of Marty’s fridge, he hears Jeff — who does not exactly set the bar high when it comes to extramarital sex — behind a closed door with the crazy Bam Bam moaning, “Fuck me, fat boy!” (Actually, this is the first transgression we know of since Jeff and Susie reconciled over a pregnancy that was later dropped as a story line.) The old joke that all so-and-so really needs is to get laid comes true; Marty can’t believe how Larry and Jeff’s visit has picked up Bam Bam’s spirits.

  But to Jeff’s unease, Marty brings Bam Bam to a dinner party that he and Susie are having. When Bam Bam offhandedly mentions the sex, a desperate Jeff says that she is crazy. When Marty says her delusion means she’ll have to go back to the institution, Larry tries to suggest it isn’t necessary, but Jeff heartily agrees, an unusually cruel action on his part.

  Viewers may have been wondering if Cheryl is simply gone from the show. But Larry runs into her, and she’s looking lovely. What’s more, she’s no longer seeing the No Fly Zone guy. And the seed is planted for the season story arc when she mentions, “It was different when you were working on Seinfeld.” Larry says, “I get that. Too much Larry. We can reduce Larry.” The hope of getting Cheryl back makes the need to break up with Loretta even more urgent.

  Alas, he doesn’t beat the doctor back to the house and the news isn’t good. Loretta has cancer. “This is really where the hard work starts,” he tells Larry. But he offers what he thinks is hope: “In two, three, maybe four years hopefully she’ll be fine.” To Larry, that’s a death sentence of his own.

  EPISODE TWO

  Vehicular Fellatio / Original Airdate: September 27, 2009 / Directed by Alec Berg

  Having cancer has certainly given Loretta the upper hand in this relationship. Larry has become her servant. She wants him to take her to the salon to get her nails and hair done even though he has a golf game. Why can’t Loretta drive? “Because I have cancer and I want you to drive,” she says. Argument over.

  Nor is Loretta exactly fitting into Larry’s world. When Larry reluctantly asks if she wants to come with him to dinner with Jeff, Susie, Richard, and Richard’s latest girlfriend, she asks, “Any black people gonna be there?” If not, why would she want to go? Larry’s acid reply — “Might be some people with cancer” — is harsh but illuminating. Can we only be friends with people who are in a group that we ourselves identify with?

  The episode’s story line is based on an act more identified with adolescent sexuality, or perhaps sex for sale, than it is identified with middle-aged couples: oral sex in a car. Jeff tells Larry that Richard’s new girlfriend performed on him while he was driving to the restaurant, which has the effect of making Larry not want to kiss Beverly or try her drink. (Beverly is played by Lolita Davidovich who began her career in an episode of Three’s Company and made her mark in 1998’s Oscar-winning Gods and Monsters.) This slight by Larry causes some serious problems for Richard, who of course demands that Larry make up with Beverly to save his new oh-so-important relationship.

  Larry is far more interested in shaking off Loretta. He takes her to a doctor who believes that women with cancer should leave their spouses who are unsupportive. During the consultation, Larry is very, very funny as he makes noises, points out the African art on display to Loretta as if she might relate to it, and imitates an old Jewish man. The plan seems to be working, but then Loretta sees the doctor going down on her husband while he’s driving and the act turns her off the doctor’s advice.

  But there will be two more acts of oral sex in cars before the show is done — one illusory and one real. The illusory one has Larry in his own car with a married woman whom Leon has been sleeping with and now must hide from her husband. When Loretta wrongly thinks the woman is giving Larry some vehicular satisfaction, she leaves him. Victory! The second, and real, act, between Susie and Jeff, is simply a comic denouement. But it’s a good thing that Larry has come along to help pull them out of the ditch after they crash. Larry was right, fellatio in a moving car is dangerous. A helpful hint for us all.

  EPISODE THREE

  The Reunion / Original Airdate: October 4, 2009 / Directed by Jeff Schaffer

  “You know,” Larry says, “those reunion shows, they’re so lame . . . the actors are ten years older. It doesn’t look right . . . and Jerry would never want to do it either.” But NBC continues to bug Jeff about the possibility of one. Wouldn’t Larry come to a meeting and tell them face-to-face that there’s no possibility of a Seinfeld reunion show?

  So Larry goes, only to run into Cheryl who is auditioning for a part. It has never been made clear what sort of career Cheryl had before marrying Larry, but the indications in episodes this season is that it wasn’t much of one. When she hears about the reunion show meeting, Cheryl says opportunistically, “You have to write a part for me. No kidding.” Is she preying on Larry’s longing for her, which she’s well aware of?

  A fantasy of Larry directing Cheryl in a part and having her look at him with adoration prompts him to tell NBC that he’ll do a reunion show. Now all he has to do is convince a skeptical Jerry Seinfeld who makes his first speaking appearance on Curb. Jerry remembers how Larry would watch other shows and put on his “very judgmental face.” All that Larry can say is “We’ll do it in a way that won’t be lame” and tell of his story idea: George, now divorced, is trying to win his wife back. Hmm, that sounds familiar. But Jerry decides to trust Larry and agrees. And who does he think would be good for the part of George’s ex-wife? Meg Ryan.

  Next Larry has to convince Jason Alexander, who doesn’t think the audience will believe that George, “a jerky, schmucky little character,” ever managed to get married. But he too agrees in the end, musing that “It could make up for the finale, that’s for sure.” (Larry, however, refuses to accept that the original Seinfeld finale was a dog.) And who does Jason Alexander think would be good for the role of the ex-wife? An actre
ss with a funny voice — Jennifer Tilly or maybe Kristin Chenoweth.

  The story idea for the Elaine character that Larry presents to Julia Louis-Dreyfus is that she cuts the hair off a little girl’s doll. The idea for Michael Richards — the only one of the group who is appearing on Curb for the first time, looking older and very spacey — is that he picks up a prostitute so that he can drive in the fast lane. In other words, Larry the character is pulling ideas out of his life — ideas that themselves came from Larry David’s own life. Many viewers will be reminded of the show that Jerry and George created on Seinfeld that also drew on stories from previous episodes.

  Larry is delighted to have set the reunion up, only to have it go off the rails temporarily when he tells an NBC executive to “fuck himself” for giving Larry and Jeff crummy seats to a Lakers game. Julia and Jason are also angry at him while Michael Richards, it turns out, has no idea what’s going on. But Larry makes right with the cast and offers a “very begrudging” apology to the NBC exec. The light turns green again.

  EPISODE FOUR

  The Hot Towel / Original Airdate: October 11, 2009 / Directed by Alec Berg