After his back-to-basics Season 8, Larry David returned six years later with Season 9, one of his biggest and most ambitious season to date. As you may expect, it's a bit of a mixed bag, but I actually found it to be way more fun to watch than some of Curb's other weaker seasons.
Season 9's story arc is a bit complicated, but I'll try to keep the summary quick. Larry is making play about the Ayatollah called Fatwa! He accidentally insults the Ayatollah while promoting his play and gets a fatwa ordered against himself, so he then spends the rest of the season trying to remove the fatwa so he can continue with the play. This storyline is a mess, on so many levels. For starters, the sheer concept Larry being in danger of being assassinated suffers from the same seriousness issue as the kidney stuff in Season 5... Actually, it would if it wasn't forgotten for episodes at a time. You can't really balance such an urgent storyline with an episodic comedic format, so Curb doesn't, which is probably for the best. But where the arc really falls flat is in the last three episodes. Episode 8 has Larry remove the fatwa through a trial that brings back old characters for the show. Sounds familiar? It should, it's the Seinfeld finale, one of my least favorite episodes ever. Episodes 9 and 10 fare a bit better, as they focus on Larry holding the play. It's a bit of a poor man's Season 4 but still a good time, though it also has a glaring issue. See, this season came out in 2017, at a time when the biggest play was Hamilton. So, Lin Manuel Miranda becomes the lead of Fatwa!, and the last two episodes are entirely comprised of Hamilton references. Look, Hamilton's a good play, and the music is good too, but it's also not the massive phenomenon it used to be, and makes these last two episodes feel dated in a way Curb rarely is.
Thankfully, while the story arc was a bit of a whiff, I actually found this season to be really enjoyable to watch on an episodic level, especially compared to Season 8. The first thing I noticed was just how creative so many of the season's storylines were this season, stuff like foisting your assistant onto someone else, the restaraunt manager's inability to be candid, and of course, the now iconic "accidental text on purpose". The sheer entertainment value of some of these premises gave the season a ton of energy. It also helped that Marty Funkhouser, Cheryl, Richard Lewis, and Ted Danson got a lot more screentime now that Larry's back in New York. However, while I did find this season's comedy enjoyable, I can't quite say it improved much over Season 8 in some aspects. My gripes with Larry's characterization last season hasn't changed, and in some aspects has gotten even worse. Larry seems so happy for most of Season 9, looking like he enjoys getting in every conflict he's in, which just feels wrong. But I actually think my other major gripe with this season is that the episodes are a bit overstuffed. Every episode in Season 9 is around 40 minutes long than the 30 of prior seasons and it shows, as they're all packed with around 5-6 subplots of differing quality. The worst instance of this was Thank You For Your Service, which had some neat ideas but was dragged down by a cartoonish war reenactment subplot.
At its best, though, Season 9 was pretty great, especially when it focused off the Fatwa:
A Disturbance In The Kitchen: I forgot how hysterical this episode was, and that's almost entirely because of Rich Fulcher as the restaurant manager. His cadence gives me "Office Space boss" vibes in the best way possible, and his whole storyline takes the annoyance with not knowing what the "disturbance in the kitchen" is and taking it to perfectly cartoonish proportions. The rest of the episode is great too though, from Elizabeth Banks showing up, to Susie's "little sister", to Ted's Tesla, it all just clicks.
The Accidental Text On Purpose: While it took a bit of time to really get going, this episode of Curb really soars thanks to its genius premise. Larry's idea of purposefully sending your girlfriend a text on accident to relay information to them is genuinely clever (and typically disastrous), and makes for the closest thing Curb has to a full-on episode of Seinfeld (outside of the actual Seinfeld reunion episodes of course).
Overall, Season 9 of Curb Your Enthusiasm is a bit of a mess, but I did really enjoy it. The story arc is a dated mess that remakes the awful Seinfeld finale, but whenever it focuses on comedy, Season 9 is creative, energetic, and uses the whole cast to its fullest, if a bit overstuffed. Season 9 is the Be Here Now of Curb Your Enthusiasm. It's big, loud, and ambitious to a fault, but I can't help but admire its excess.
2/5 Stars
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