‘Curb’ 8.05 Recap: “This Is Chaos. Society Can’t Function Like This.”

Ah ha! I knew I’d heard that ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ would change venues to New York this year. I just assumed that it would happen up-front in the season, as a result of Larry’s divorce. I didn’t realize that it wouldn’t come until mid-way through the season. This past Sunday’s episode was the last in Los Angeles, and shows us exactly why Larry David needs to get the hell out of town.

The opening scene of ‘Vow of Silence’ should portend what’s to come. Jeff and Susie are having a “Bon Voyage!” party because they’ll be heading off to New York for three months while their daughter attends a summer program at Julliard. Larry doesn’t initially plan to travel with them, but he winds up telling an escalating series of lies to his friend Tessler (Michael McKean) in order to get out of participating in a charity event for kids. Larry keeps saying that he has to make work trips to New York for a new project with Jerry (one that doesn’t really exist, of course). Every time he is allegedly supposed to be out of town, the charity event gets pushed back to another week when he should be back. Eventually, it gets to the point where Larry has to leave L.A. for real.

In another running gag, Larry’s friend Vance has taken a vow of silence. However, he can still communicate by mouthing words. Larry describes this as being “like a ventriloquist without a puppet.” Naturally, he finds the whole thing ridiculous and annoying.

Jeff’s dog is sickly and needs to be put down. Susie is a wreck over this, but Jeff pretty much takes it in stride. When he and Larry are sent off to Pinkberry to get some frozen yogurt for the dog’s last meal, they (being selfish pricks) eat the yogurt on the way back to the vet’s and then lie to Susie by saying that Pinkberry was closed. Unfortunately, Vance spotted them eating the yogurt. Larry and Jeff take advantage of his vow of silence and jump through hoops to prevent him from communicating what he saw to Susie.

Other recurring events that piss Larry off include a “pig parker” (someone who parks a car over the line and takes up two spaces), and people who “chat-and-cut” into queue lines. In one brilliant scene, as Larry berates a woman for chat-and-cutting in front of him in a food line, she deftly chat-and-cuts behind him while arguing that he’s made the whole thing up.

The episode ends with poor Richard Lewis, waiting alone in a restaurant for Larry, who swore that he absolutely wouldn’t blow off the lunch date, but who is of course on a plane to New York at that very moment. The look of disappointment on Richard’s face – not disappointment at Larry, but at himself for ever believing that Larry wouldn’t stand him up – is priceless.

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