As Curb Your Enthusiasm continues on, it continues to improve at a very steady pace, leading to Season 4, easily the strongest and most consistent one out of the original five.
Coming off the heels of the fantastic restaurant storyline, Season 4's main premise is also one of the show's better ones. It involves Mel Brooks casting Larry David in the lead role of his Producers play, along with Ben Stiller (who quickly gets replaced by David Schwimmer). I've always loved storylines where the cast puts on a show or shoots a film, so this season is right up my alley. However, I don't think this storyline sticks the landing quite as well as Season 3 did, even if it does end on a pretty genius twist. While the play is happening, there's also a subplot about Cheryl challenging Larry to have sex with another woman for their anniversary, but it was pretty forgettable. However, as far as plot goes, the actual highlight of the season was a three-episode arc in the middle, which finally introduces the Funkhouser family, an integral part of later Curb seasons. It's a manic mini-arc where Larry gets kicked out of his golf club, wars with the weatherman, and frames a friend for carrying marijuana. It's Curb at its most unhinged.
Speaking of the comedy, this is easily the most consistently funny season of the bunch, lacking the slow start that Season 3 had. Everything I said about the previous seasons improving on the improv and one-liners apply to this one even more, and outside of a single episode (Wandering Bear), there really isn't a single one I'd call subpar. As mentioned above, the peak of this season was easily the Funkhouser episodes, which basically take the bonkers Krazee-Eyez Killa episode from last season and expands it to three. Add in the survivor episode and you get some of the best black comedy in the show yet. However, my biggest criticism towards Season 4 is that it doesn't really reach the same heights as most of the other seasons. The Car Pool Lane is probably Season 4's best episode, but it's still nowhere near high points like The Doll or Krazee-Eyez Killa, and that's not even getting into episodes from the later seasons. Season 4 is consistent, with hardly any low points whatsoever, but it doesn't really have many high points either.
Still, there were some episodes I liked more than others:
The Weatherman: Similarly to The Special Section, I found this to just be a really funny episode, from the introduction to the Funkhouser family, to Larry's weatherman conspiracies, to Larry falling into the toilet bowl, to all the dentist shenanigans. The Weatherman simply works really well as the start of that fantastic three-episode stretch I kept raving about.
The Car Pool Lane: There's a lot to this episode, it's a lot. Larry pays a prostitute to just sit in his car so he can use the car pool lane, fakes being racist to get out of jury duty, gets Marty framed, and smokes marijuana and hallucinates. The sheer insanity of this episode and constant escalation of absurdity makes for a very fun time, but what really impressed me was the fact that this episode also somehow managed to exonerate a murder suspect by confirming his alibi. You know, in case things couldn't get any weirder.
Opening Night: This finale was a bit more of a mixed bag than the last one. It went on a bit long and spent a lot of its runtime just showing scenes from the play. But as an ending to the main storyline, Opening Night still worked wonderfully, from the genius twist reveal that Mel Brooks wanted to tank his hole to Larry losing his last chance at adultry because he doesn't want to have sex with a republican.
Overall, Season 4 is easily the best Curb Your Enthusiasm season to date. It doesn't reach the heights of other seasons, but its solid premise, fantastic Funkhouser arc, and general consistency makes for an overall great entry in the series.
4/5 Stars
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