curb your enthusiasm

I'm binge-watching the last season of curb your enthusiasm. I heard J Elvis Weinstein and Andy Kindler criticize it on a recent episode of their Thought Spiral podcast. They thought it's gone on too long and it was getting stupid. And to some extent the first episode of the season was a bit much. Larry David walks down the street and without a word grabs a couple's selfie stick and breaks it and knocks down a row of scooters.

But I didn't think that was nearly as bad as a couple of episodes in past seasons. One where he speaks at a Bat Mitzvah or some such event and addresses a rumor that he had engaged in an unspeakable sexual act. In another he uses an old gag I first saw on WKRP in Cincinnati. On that show, Gordon Jump tells Tim Reid that he and his wife are thinking about adopting but says it in such a way that Reid thinks he's confessing to being a pedophile. On curb your enthusiasm, Larry David does the same thing but says something that no human being would ever say.

Of course, as I write this, I have an episode on and it's awful. Richard Lewis falsely told people that Larry was suffering from a bleeding rectum. I don't know why he did this. I could go back and look but I won't.

I'm sure the show was better in the past. Even Larry David wanted to quit because it had gone downhill. But I didn't think it was that terrible.

Okay. Another episode's on. It's terrible.

I need to remember to quit this HBO free trial before they start charging me.