“Curb Your Enthusiasm” is having an impressive seventh season, proving that some shows may never jump the shark. The fourth episode of the season (“The Hot Towel”) will without a doubt delight audiences because it contains a series of vignettes centered around what we love the most – Larry David arguing with everyone. David manages to annoy friends, neighbors, his doctor, a passenger on a plane, Ted Danson and Christian Slater in a mere half-hour.
The episode opens with David sitting in the first-class section of an airplane, and the man next to him is wearing shorts. David is annoyed that he is forced to look at this man’s ugly legs for the duration of the flight, and decides to tell him. Needless to say, the man is not delighted to hear this opinion, which leads to an oblivious David being burned by a hot towel for his face.
The burn leads him to his doctor’s office, where an argument is started over the fact the doctor does not want to give David his home phone number. He feels the service will transfer all calls to him, but in order to move forward with his day, he decides to give to him.
However, a misdialed number lands David on the phone with his doctor, who is extremely frustrated, and yet another argument is witnessed by the audience.
But the real treat in the episode is how within a few minutes, David becomes enemies with Christian Slater. Slater is enjoying the caviar and refreshments served at Danson and Mary Steenburgen’s anniversary party when David tells him that he is taking more than his fair share of it. Slater becomes annoyed, takes a little bit more and walks away, causing David to rat him out to Steenburgen. Slater confronts David on the street, and later in the episode Slater is given a chance to rat out David in one of the best comical moments in the series.
What else happens to David, you ask? He manages to met an old girlfriend and rekindle a romance only, to discover she has a jealous boyfriend that wants to kill him. He buys Danson and Steenburgen a $300 gift certificate for a fancy restaurant, and is then insulted when they don’t invite him. He then manages to tell his best friend’s daughter that she shouldn’t sing, insulting her at the dinner party.
Everything comes to a hysterical end when David runs from the jealous boyfriend, knocking on his neighbor’s, doctor’s and friend’s doors that he insulted. Whether they’ll let him in or continue the argument is one of the major reasons to watch.
“The Hot Towel” is one of the most sharply written half-hours of television you will ever get, and the funny thing is that it is just a fraction of this great and possibly historic season. Also, it serves as a reminder that Slater deserves better than making direct-to-DVD garbage.
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