Curb Your Enthusiasm – Season 12 Episode 1 Recap & Review

Curb Your Enthusiasm Episode 1 begins with Maria Sofia (the bad actress in last season’s Young Larry) on the Jimmy Kimmel show, after Hulu picked up a second season. The show is getting rave reviews.

We then catch up with Larry, who is still living with city councilwoman Irma Kostroski, who irritates him with her jingle-singing. Unfortunately, Larry has been told by Irma’s AA sponsor that he must stay with her for at least 6 months, as she isn’t stable enough to handle a breakup. Larry is literally counting down the days on his calendar with an X. The current frustration with his life reaches a crescendo when he has a meltdown in his car because Siri won’t follow his orders.

Susie and Jeff meet Larry for lunch, and he tells them he’s been invited to Atlanta to show up at a birthday party of a wealthy African businessman because he’s a fan of Young Larry. All he has to do is ‘be cordial,’ and he makes it clear he won’t do stand-up or anything else. Susie questions if Larry is capable of being cordial. Unfortunately, Maria Sofia is along for the trip as well and meets Larry and Leon at the airport with her emotional support corgi called Pachuca, whom Larry and Leon hilariously point out is fat. Larry insists he can’t fat-shame her because she’s a dog.

They arrive in Atlanta, and Larry makes a mess of his hotel room and makes an enemy of the maid. He argues that she must be inexperienced if she is appalled by the mess. Larry, Leon, and Maria Sofia visit Leon’s Auntie Rae, and Maria Sofia insists she try on Larry’s glasses, causing them to stretch. Auntie Rae offers Larry a pair of tortoiseshell cat-eye lenses that he reluctantly wears. 

He tries to fix his glasses back at his hotel but they end up falling in the toilet; Larry refuses to fish for it and asks the maid in theory, if she would do it. She refuses and Larry is stuck with the colourful glasses instead. Larry shows up at the party of Michael Fouchay, who is a South African businessman (not exactly the African he billed himself to be). He finds himself in a debate about referring to a woman by her nickname upon meeting her (a.k.a the Brooke/Brookie rule) He is incensed that someone who had met her twice is allowed to refer to her by the nickname but Larry isn’t. 

He leaves the party thinking he has succeeded in being cordial, but Fouchay refuses to pay Larry because he failed his one task of ‘being cordial.’ Larry is honest about who he is, he just simply hates people, and when he turns up to confront Fouchay about the no payment, he simply tells him this and earns back his pay cheque. 

Back at the hotel, the maid finds a $10 bill in Larry’s toilet. The bill, which was supposed to be the housekeeping tip, had fallen into the toilet while Larry was blow-drying his pants because Pachuca slobbered all over them. The maid then throws Larry’s clothes out the window. Larry then loses the pay cheque again when Pachuca sits on his phone and rings Fouchay and he hears Larry ranting and berating him. 

The episode ends with Larry visiting Auntie Rae while she’s in line to vote and sweating in the heat. Larry offers to bring her a bottle of water from his car but is arrested for violation of Georgia’s Election Integrity Act, which states no one can bring free food or water to people in voting lines. We see a mug shot of Larry as the classic Curb theme kicks in. 

The Episode Review

It’s so good to have Curb back on our television screens, but sadly this is the very last season of the classic comedy show that has been running for 25 years. The quality of this show has never wavered and based on episode 1, there is no chance of it doing so now. Larry is as hilarious as ever, and the highlight has to be when he has a foul-mouthed rant at Siri in his car.

However, this is one of many laugh-out-loud moments, with the corgi dog Pachuca providing a lot of the chaos in Larry’s visit to Atlanta. There is also a brilliant guest star appearance from Sharlto Copley as a rich businessman who is a fan of Young Larry. Larry’s arrest at the end of episode 1 is a clever send-up of the Seinfeld finale when the gang ends up in jail for failing to comply with Massachusetts’s Good Samaritan Law, but let’s hope the finale to this show isn’t as divided as that one.