Curb Your Enthusiasm Season Eight Commentary: Sex and Chicken

Episode Commentary: Palestinian Chicken

Make no mistake; this is easily one of the best episodes of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” …ever.

For anyone that isn’t a fan of the show, or has never experienced the “social assassin” style of comedy Larry David and his crew provide every week, this is a great episode to either sway them his way or convert them entirely.

Between the typical comedy you would expect from the show [Larry being incredibly politically incorrect and finding himself in situations both real and wacky] and a hilarious sex scene, “Palestinian Chicken” is the highlight of season eight thus far.

In the beginning, it appears that Larry is going to get himself in trouble the way he usually does- with his big mouth. While that ultimately is the case, to see so many small stories and instances of wit and hilarity sewn together so finely in the end proves that Curb is still one of the most entertaining shows on cable. It’s beautiful that after the first half f the episode that Larry is beginning to “get” it. He knows his big mouth is both his greatest asset and worst enemy. But even when he tries to keep it shut, the people around him expect the worst from him.

His only choice- continue to offend as many people as he can.

Well, that and eating chicken from a Palestinian restaurant in spite of his Jewish lineage and having sex with an uber-hot Palestinian chick who makes sure to remind him of his “filthy” faith during intercourse. That situation alone made the episode fantastic, but to have the recently converted Funkhouser downstairs listening to the entire endeavor made it classic.

The only sad part of this episode is that after one of his best comedic performances on the show, Leon [J.B. Smoove], was nowhere to be found. Luckily, to make up for that, Funkhouser’s [Bob Einstein] newly found faith and his tussles with Jeff and Larry provide an extra level to the already potent comedy.

What is the end result of all this craziness?

An episode that comes along once a season.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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