Curb Your Enthusiasm Coverage: What a Debacle

August 5, 2011 Patrick Hickey Jr. TV 0

Episode Commentary: The Smiley Face

Last week’s episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” was easily one of the best in the show’s history.

This past episode was easily one of the worst.

With all of the momentum the show had going for it, it’s a wonder what went on during the writing of this debacle of an episode. For one, Larry’s sexy new Palestinian lover has completely disappeared, replaced by the always-beautiful Rebecca Creskoff, a hostess from Larry’s favorite restaurant. While that’s not a problem as far as the eyes are concerned and Creskoff is talented, the total lack of continuity right from the start will make viewers go, “Wait a second.”

The rest of the episode, you’ll just wait for something funny to happen. If sun block pranks and men named Dino help induce laughs, you’ll love this episode.

If not, you’ll wonder what happened to a show that was at its comedic best just a week before.

Sure, Curb doesn’t always have a logical story structure, but this time, this shift in story hurts this episode tremendously. After such a strong episode, why would you want to erase any and all remnants of it?

Above all else, it would have been nice to see the ramifications of Larry’s actions last week. Also, it would have been funny to see Funkhouser in his new Jewish persona again.

Add in weird roles by Hollywood veterans Michael Gross and Harry Hamelin, who do nothing to induce laughs and sadly, this episode never gets going.

Larry and the rest of the cast try hard to get laughs, but overall, this episode is pretty flat. The only times there’s even a remote snicker is at the end, when Larry, in spite of several warnings to stop dating the hostess of the restaurant [Jeff and Richard exclaim a few times during the episode, “You don’t **** where you eat.”] gets served a bad meal.

While it’s obvious that Larry won’t learn his lesson here and continue his future shenanigans, lets hope that he and his creative team don’t serve up another stinker like this one.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14262 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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