Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 8 Episode 9

Curb Your Enthusiasm is back! After the very disappointing "Car Periscope", the show needed to have some life injected into it. "Mister Softee" has done just that. The laughs are non-stop in this episode. The flashback of Larry's fateful game of strip poker is rip roaring hysterical. Speaking of which, how funny was the scene of Larry driving his girlfriend home? Watching her get off thanks to a loose car seat and Larry's chatter about mixed nuts was the funniest moment of the entire season. The last line of his chatter was perfect. I was laughing so hard my sides hurt. I was laughing even more when Larry was giving Susie a ride. Larry's reaction was funnier than Susie's! "Mister Softee" is why I am a fan of Curb Your Enthusiasm. I am totally dipless!

The penultimate episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm does little to avoid the fact that this was a disappointing season.

I am a big baseball fan so the idea of Bill Buckner and the '86 Mets being at the forefront was interesting, but the laughs just were not there. People getting pleasure from a bumpy car ride is not the reason I watch a show like this.

Jeff was barely in it, and I don't even know what they were doing with Leon tonight. Disappointing Curb, and please let the finale make up for this lackluster year.

I will definitely admit that this season of Curb hasn't been its best. I liked the seasons where there was a vague over-arching theme that tied everything together with the occasional random episode thrown in for good effect. This season has a "Season 1" feel to it; besides the move to New York, there hasn't been all that much continuity to it. In fact, I waspleasantlysurprised to see Larry bring up the failed "golf championship" in this episode. It showed me that Larry isn't forgetting about what happened before.

But regardless of any lesser quality, there's something about a Curb episode that is so relieving. Honestly, the last episode of the show that I truly didn't enjoy was probably 'The Hot Towel' from last year. Everything after that has been enjoyable for me.

While I don't think this episode was as great as some of the other ones this season, it gets my vote just for being so insanely ridiculous half of the time. Bill Buckner showing up could've been random stunt-casting for a show that usually doesn't resort to crazy stunt-casting, but wow, Buckner was hilarious here. His Koufax joke, his calm demeanor after he misses Larry's toss, him catching the baby at the end. Great stuff from Buckner here, and a great redemption for him at the end. I'm sure there are still Buckner haters out there, but for me, someone who understands people makes mistakes, I'm glad to see him get the chance to redeem himself, even if it's in a TV show.

Other then that, there was a massive amount of stuff going on in this episode (33 minutes compared to the usual 28 or 30 minutes), so much so that it felt like it was getting a bit out of control. I could've done without the therapist since it didn't necessarily go anywhere (although the George Lucas story was amazing), and while I loved seeing Larry's gross reaction to Susie getting "her rocks off" in his car seat, the whole Yari/car plot felt random. We've never met Yari before so it was just a strange introduction. And Leon didn't have that classic feel that he usually does, but then again, they can't all be winners.

But overall, the episode was a good example of Larry getting almost everything right. Sure, maybe it wasn't the best, but I found myself laughing more than the average show.