After breaking up with his girlfriend after the two raised money through a GoFundMe for a vacation to Asia, Leon starts auditioning fake replacement girlfriends to take on his trip. While the friendship between Larry and Leon has become one of the greatest additions to this show late in the game, “The Five-Foot Fence” seems to imply that this season might actually give JB Smoove his own separate story. It’s unusual to see an angry group of people in Curb for once that isn’t focusing their disgust towards Larry. But “The Five-Foot Fence” avoids any predictable COVID story, instead, having Larry discover during Albert Brooks’ faux funeral that Brooks is a COVID supply hoarder, leaving everyone wishing that Brooks was actually dead. The pandemic would've given Larry an opportunity to avoid human contact as much as possible, cancel all plans, and validate many of his feelings about society in general. RELATED: 15 Essential 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' Episodes to Watch Before Season 11īut again, even though it’s hilarious to watch how Larry reacts to how the world around him treats him (one rant in which Larry claims that he’s not “a bad guy,” but instead “a very good guy” would fit into pretty much any episode), it’s how Curb Your Enthusiasm subverts expectations that makes it still one of the most brilliant comedies on television.įor example, it seems like writing a season of Curb Your Enthusiasm during COVID would pretty much write itself. Much like the musical Fatwa! Larry wrote in Season 9, and the “spite store” that Larry started in Season 10, this certainly seems like the creation of this new show for Netflix is set to be the through line for Season 11. Even Albert Brooks (also playing himself) decides to throw a funeral for himself, so he can see all the kind things his friends will say about him when he’s gone.Įven Larry is looking back on his life, as he and Jeff ( Jeff Garlin) pitch a show to Netflix called Young Larry, in which a mid-20s Larry David moves to New York with his Uncle Moe, as he tries to start his standup career, while also trying to cause premature death in his uncle, so he can inherit the money that will be left to him when he dies. If that’s not enough, Larry runs into Dennis ( John Pirruccello), who owes him $6,000, and has early onset dementia, which makes Larry think that he needs to get that money before Dennis forgets his debt. Leon ( JB Smoove) is quick to mention that doing two feeble things in a row could get Larry’s ass sent to the nursing home. Moments later, Larry walks right into a glass door, to the shock of Larry’s date, Lucy Liu (playing herself). The episode begins with Larry discovering that someone has broken into his house, tried to flee the scene, fell, and hit their head, and now Larry has a dead body floating in his pool, almost like a cringe comedy take on Sunset Blvd.īut this theme of growing older continues through the episode, especially during a dinner party, when Susie ( Susie Essman) plops down on the couch next to Larry, causing him to spill wine all over a couch. Yet even though Curb isn’t showing its age, the first episode of Season 11, “The Five-Foot Fence,” certainly seems concerned with death and aging. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Jeff Schaffer said when people ask him how they still come up with ideas, he says, “Well, until society reaches a place where you can walk outside and not be annoyed by your fellow man, I think we're good.” After 21 years, Curb Your Enthusiasm continues to make this simple idea an effective building block for a great series, and Curb shows no signs of slowing down with “The Five-Foot Fence,” not only proving that this is still a concept ripe for a series, but that Curb is still one of the best comedies on television, two decades running. Curb Your Enthusiasm has done this by keeping certain elements consistent throughout - notably David’s complete disregard for social norms - and yet remained completely unexpected.
Over the course of 100 episodes and ten seasons, Larry David’s series has been one of the most beloved comedies in HBO’s lineup, and has somehow remained consistently great. Earlier this month, Curb Your Enthusiasm celebrated 21 years on the air, making it the longest-running scripted HBO series.