Surprisingly Touching ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Scenes
Curb Your Enthusiasm isn’t exactly the most sentimental TV show, hence why most episodes don’t end with Larry David learning a valuable life lesson accompanied by saccharine music, à la the Tanner family. No, this is a series in which our protagonist will shamelessly berate an overly emotional funeral mourner because he finds her crying to be an irritant.
Or cheerfully steal a pair of shoes from a Holocaust memorial…
But despite the show’s overarching cold-blooded cynicism, there are a few instances when Curb Your Enthusiasm proved that it still has a beating heart beneath its bespectacled, bald sociopath exterior, as evidenced by a handful of surprisingly emotional scenes. Such as…
Larry Screams Obscenities to Help Support a Chef with Tourette Syndrome
The third season of Curb finds Larry investing in a restaurant, along with Jeff, actor Michael York and Ted Danson (who later drops out). The opening night of Bobo's is going swimmingly until the open-concept kitchen allows everyone to hear the new chef’s loud string of profanities. Because the chef suffers from Tourette syndrome, Larry makes good on a desire to be more like the type of person who would shave their head in solidarity with a chemo patient, supporting his employee by immediately shouting out more obscenities. Soon everyone is gleefully dropping F-bombs, leading to one of the show’s most memorable scenes and ending the season on a surprisingly sweet note.
As part of Mel Brooks’ clandestine scheme to torpedo his demanding musical project once and for all, he casts walking disaster Larry David in the lead role of his Broadway hit The Producers. Larry seems doomed to fail after constantly screwing up in rehearsals and being straight-up cursed by Stephen Colbert.
But in the end, Larry is… great? His performance is a triumph, and his wife Cheryl looks upon her husband with a newfound sense of pride (as he reminds her that he still has an hour left to cheat on her consequence-free).
Larry Admits That the ‘Seinfeld’ Reunion Was All About Winning Cheryl Back
After Larry quits the Seinfeld reunion show, he admits to Jeff that the only reason he wanted to do it in the first place was so that he could cast Cheryl as George Costanza’s ex-wife and attempt to win her back — not realizing that Cheryl is in a nearby parked car.
Larry’s inadvertent revelation prompts Cheryl to quit the show and take Larry back, moved by his grand romantic gesture. Of course, he re-ruins their relationship almost immediately, but it’s still a nice moment.
Larry Dances Asks Loretta to Dance
In the Season Six finale, Larry attends Sammy’s Bat Mitzvah following his separation from Cheryl, where he publicly denies shoving a gerbil up his butthole. Things seem pretty bleak for Larry until he asks Vivica A. Fox’s character Loretta Black to dance, and the two seem to immediately fall for one another while swaying to the dulcet sounds of John Legend. We then get a montage of Larry and Loretta’s blossoming relationship, with Larry accepting her family as his own. Had the show been canceled, or had Larry been hit by a city bus, this would have been a great ending for the series.
And while Loretta would soon leave, the gift of Leon remains to this day.
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