Curb Your Enthusiasm Season Eight Commentary: When Leon Met Larry

July 21, 2011 Patrick Hickey Jr. TV 0

Episode Commentary: “The Safe House”

Even though the work of both Richard Lewis and Larry David induce several moments that make this episode memorable, the antics of Leon [J.B. Smoove] once again steal the show.

In a matter of minutes, Leon is able to put Larry in a situation that even his ex-wife couldn’t get him in.

And she just took his house.

Without spoiling the experience, lets just say there’s an expression that comes to mind when pondering this situation.

“Get them by the balls and their hearts and mind will follow.”

Make no mistake; Leon has Larry at his most compromised point in the series history.

The only question is, will he ever have a reason to take advantage of Larry, or will he simply be satisfied mooching off him? It may be the most intriguing question of the season.

All in all, it’s a great thing though. Leon, in a short amount of time, has gone from a funny side character to someone with a definitive role.

As a result, even in its eighth season, the show continues to provide new ways of producing laughs and is far from becoming stale.

While Leon’s role was where many of the laughs came from, Lewis and his new girlfriend [and her breasts] and the comedy that arises from that situation make this episode the best of the new season thus far. With Leon, Larry, Jeff and Funkhouser all at the strip club, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” was at its best this past week. With the four of them going out of their way to see Lewis’ new burlesque dancer girlfriend perform, it was obvious they’d get caught, but you didn’t care.

And that’s okay too; this show gets its laughs from Larry and his friends’ inability to care about other people’s feelings. To see this process not only continue, but also be executed so well is the reason why the show has been so successful over the years.

At the same time, it’s nice to see Larry with the shoe on the other foot for a change.

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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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