Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 12 Episode 8 Recap & Review

The Colostomy Bag

Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 12 Episode 8 begins with Larry’s mock trial in preparation for his Georgia court date over the water bottle incident, but it doesn’t go well, and he’s convinced it’s because one of the jurors saw him throw his keys to the valet and thinks he is being overly flash. Next up, Larry spots Conan O’Brien walking his dog in the neighbourhood. 

Jeff is having lunch with Larry and tells him he’s undergoing back surgery, but there’s only a 3% chance of this procedure killing him, so he asks Larry to take over as power of attorney for Susie without her knowing, as he doesn’t trust her not to pull the plug.

Jeff’s and Larry’s lawyers share an office building, so they can plan to simply go there together, as if Jeff is accompanying Larry to a legal meeting, and get the paperwork sorted with Susie none the wiser. Susie enters and is wondering what they are plotting, and Larry claims he’s talking about his mock trial. Larry gets a call from Richard Lewis to ask him if he can help him look at an old Mercedes to buy, claiming he needs his nose to check if the car has a certain odour to it. (Richard has long covid and has lost his sense of smell.) Before leaving, Larry asks Susie if he can leave this fancy cheese in her fridge. She agrees and he leaves. 

Larry and Richard head up to look at the car, and Larry asks him about Conan. Richard confirms he’s moved into the area, but Larry needs clearance before approaching him to speak to him, so Richard offers to get him ‘Conan clearance.’

Richard and Larry climb into the classic car they have gone to look at, and Larry catches a whiff of old tobacco. Richard tries to negotiate the price down by asking for a “smell discount” of $3,000. The man selling the car, DiCarlo, is not having any of this, saying it “smells like a scam,” and refuses the discount. Larry makes a little joke that it could be worse; the guy could have a colostomy bag. His expression makes Larry think the guy actually has a colostomy bag and has taken offence.

Larry and Jeff turn up the law offices to sign the papers, and he sees the man on the mock trial who didn’t like him tossing the keys. It turns out he’s a valet himself. 

Larry signs the papers to turn over the power of attorney to him in relation to Jeff. After signing, Larry finds out from Jeff that DiCarlo had stomach surgery, and Larry tries to figure out a way to make it up to him. They return to Jeff and Susie’s house, and Larry goes to the fridge to get his cheese but discovers Susie has eaten it. They have an argument, and he storms out after she claims possession is nine-tenths of the law. 

Next up, Larry bumps into Conan while he’s walking the dog and asks him if Richard Lewis spoke to him about the ‘clearance’ with Conan, claiming the conversation was now an ambush. Larry goes to see DiCarlo and apologises. To make the guy feel better his bad joke, he ends up buying the car at the full price, even though it runs badly and the seat belt falls off.

Larry goes to buy more of the luxury cheese from Beverly Hills and puts the bag in the back of his new funky-smelling car. Richard Lewis turns up and is furious to find out that Larry has bought the car. He agrees to sell it back to him, with the $3,000 smell discount they had been trying to negotiate. Larry turns up at his lawyer’s office and uses the charging station for his car, and the valet sees him tossing the keys again. 

During the meeting, Larry’s lawyer Christopher Mantle goes over the juror questionnaires with Larry, and lists off some of their pretty damning descriptions of him: “less than cordial,” “repugnant,” “surly,” “petty.” Larry also discovers that Susie told Mantle about how she and Jeff ate some cheese that Larry left in their fridge, and Mantle sides with Susie, agreeing with Susie’s assertion that possession is nine-tenths of the law. Larry decides to fire Mantle and says “I’m going to find a lawyer who’s going to take my cheese side,” and walks out. 

When he’s leaving, he receives a message to say the power of attorney documents are being sent to Jeff and Susie’s house. He tries to rush over to their house to intercept the highly secretive paperwork, only to find that the valet has unplugged his electric car, causing it to power down. He sets off anyway, but it completely powers down right outside Conan O’Brien’s house. Despite Larry not receiving clearance to talk to Conan, he asks for this to be classed as an emergency situation, and Conan agrees to talk to Larry and even help him out by letting him borrow his car. He tosses his keys to Larry, who had just moments ago removed his glasses, and they hit him right in the eye.

Larry and Jeff (who both have eyepatches over one eye, with Jeff’s coming courtesy of Susie) sign the power of attorney documents back over to Susie. After this, Jeff receives a text message saying DiCarlo’s surgery was for an ulcer and he has no colostomy bag.

The episode ends with Richard Lewis calling Larry to tell him he’s very happy with his new car, and tells him he’s on his way to pick someone up for a date: someone he thinks could be “the one.” However, after Larry hangs up, he realises he’s misplaced the cheese. But where could it be? Of course, Larry left the cheese in the back of Richard’s car and it stinks now, and though Lewis can’t smell, it completely repels his date within minutes of her entering the car. 


The Episode Review

A fantastic episode of Curb, with some truly laugh-out-loud moments, and some particularly dark humour, even for Curb’s standards.

There are also two excellent guest appearances by two well-known faces. The first is Conan O’Brien who plays a twisted version of himself, requiring prior approval before Larry can engage in conversation with him. Steve Buscemi also appears as a character called DiCarlo who is trying to sell a vintage car to Richard Lewis. He plays the downtrodden guy so well, reminding us what a talent he is. Richard Lewis features heavily in this episode and it’s another reminder of what a loss he is to comedy after his death just a few weeks ago.

Only two more episodes to go before we say farewell to this comedy show forever. It’ll be missed. 

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1 thought on “Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 12 Episode 8 Recap & Review”

  1. This was really a terrible episode. The show just continues to get dumber and dumber this season and there was only one good episode so far out of the eight.

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