Diary of a Curb Your Enthusiasm virgin – Who stole Larry’s newspaper?

(Season 5, Episodes 7-8)

It’s interesting that these two episodes share a common thread: they’re a compilation of whatever little Larry knows of his religion, as seen through the kaleidoscope of his mind. I’m actually mildly disappointed that Larry would stoop to stereotypes to get laughs. In general he’s much more original than this.

5.7 “The Seder”

This episode began with one of the more interesting “You’ll never see how it ties in” plots — a guy in a suit has been seen stealing Larry’s newspaper. I loved how focused everyone was on why a guy in a suit would need to steal a paper … wouldn’t that, therefore, be the perfect cover to cast suspicion elsewhere?

Rob Corddry is someone whose comedy I don’t consistently enjoy. My favorite thing he’s done is The Winner. But I did enjoy him here as sex offender Rick Leftowitz. It wasn’t clear at first that Larry realized that the guy was the sex offender; I actually thought it would have been funnier had Larry just been being wary of strangers in general.

I love the random Seinfeld guest actor appearances on this show. This time Jeff’s cousin Len Dunkel was played by Stephen Tobolowsky, best known to me as Tor Eckman from a season two episode of Seinfeld. I loved Len’s crazy 77-year President theory; I’m not sure he had the chance to finish his thought, but one of his suggested “greatest” presidents in there totally didn’t hold up.

While it was somewhat in poor taste, it was kind of funny that Corddry’s character was the only person at Larry’s Seder that knew mouth-to-mouth when Jeff’s daughter Sammy (Ashly Holloway) collapsed. Of course, Larry could have established for us why he had to register as a sex offender — leaving open the possibility that he’d molested kids is what darkened the episode — but then that would be too much to expect from the mind of Larry David.

In the end, was it Dr. Mark (Rob Huebel) who was stealing Larry’s newspaper? Just because his ducking out of the Seder was justified doesn’t make him innocent.

5.8 “The Ski Lift”

It would make sense that Larry would try and get Richard Lewis bumped up the kidney donor list before giving Richard one of his own. Great spot by George Lopez as the guy who pointed Larry toward the head of the kidney consortium, Ben Heineman (Stuart Pankin).

The set-up for how Larry attempted to get Richard bumped up the list was lazy — from hitting Heineman’s car to pretending to be a fellow Orthodox Jew, did Larry the writer and creator of the show really think it made sense as something an intelligent, successful person would fall for? And why did Heineman bring his daughter Rachel (Iris Bahr) to the ski lodge instead of his wife? And why did Susie have to play Larry’s wife instead of Cheryl? The whole thing was weird.

What was funny, in an only Larry sort of way, was how the edible underwear that conservative investigator Omar Jones (Mekhi Phifer) left at Larry’s house turned into a life-saving snack for Larry while he was stuck on the ski lift. No kidding he blew that kidney donor opportunity for Richard.

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Jan 21, 2011 @ 13:00 EST5EDT