(Season 2, Episodes 9-10)
It’s sufficiently surprising that Cheryl was interested enough in Larry to marry him; I think she should feel pretty secure that he isn’t about to find another woman to cheat on her with. I mean, as strange as he is, you have to imagine he appreciates what he has … or at least that he appreciates how tough it was to do once, so why screw it up and have to accomplish the near-impossible all over again.
2.9 “The Baptism”
It’s not a known historical artifact like “The Puffy Shirt,” but how could Cheryl be so flip about Larry’s Seinfeld show-night jacket? It could be as ugly as sin (not quite, but close), and still it would hold enough place in history to be kept, even if only at the back of a closet.
I found it ironic that, in explaining why he dislikes Christianity (he seemed to focus on the missionary parts of it), Larry compared the religion to lobster. As he put it, he loves lobster but doesn’t go around telling everyone to eat it … Larry, the Jew, using his love of crustaceans to explain what he dislikes about Christianity. Yeah, sounds about right.
I knew as soon as Larry discovered the tickets missing that they’d be in the pocket of the jacket that Cheryl gave away. But I nevertheless thoroughly enjoyed the desperate attempt to get on the plane, and the high-speed car race to make the baptism in time. And Larry’s car conversation is just the worst. I mean, the guy says anything and everything that occurs to him anyway, so imagine having to sit through the many progressions of his mind for three straight hours. Cheryl must have been ready to kill herself.
I guess Larry’s running into the water to stop the guy from “being drowned” was sort of funny, but that assumes that he — unlike the rest of us — hasn’t seen countless TV and movie baptisms. There are wildly different looks to someone being ceremoniously dunked backwards into water and someone being forced beneath the surface against their will. The result was that the Jewish guy’s family sounded a lot more reasonable when assuming that Larry had done it on purpose. Because, really, who could be that clueless?
2.10 “The Massage”
I would say it was about time Julia called it quits with Larry and their pilot idea, but she agreed to pitch it to CBS, so there goes that. It’s still time … it’s just that she didn’t yet call it quits.
The “scarlet letter” punishment was cute, with scofflaws being sentenced to wear sandwich boards emblazoned with their crimes. It came back around to get Larry brilliantly, although his stealing the silverware for the limo driver’s dinner was dumb. But his punishment found him standing outside a Network Symposium, where car after car arrived to deliver various executives we’ve already seen Larry have run-ins with on the show. Very appropriate, and a good way to close the second season. The lineup of old faces was slightly reminiscent of the Seinfeld finale.
I was appalled at the fact that Larry’s “happy ending” masseuse was played by none other than Congresswomen Andrea Wyatt, AKA Toby Ziegler’s ex-wife, AKA Kathleen York. Does she tuck Huck and Molly into bed with those hands?
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Aug 20, 2010 @ 12:00 EST5EDT
