SPOILERS FOR THE SEINFELD & CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM FINALES!!!
After being on the air for 12 seasons that spanned over 24 years, Larry David's second hit comedy series "Curb Your Enthusiasm" came to an end earlier this year when the final episode aired on April 10th on HBO Max.
The episode titled "No Lessons Learned" was met with mixed reviews after airing but after watching the full series over the last three months I must admit, I loved the finale.
The finale is essentially doubling down on the controversial end of his first hit show "Seinfeld" where in that final episode of that show, Jerry, Elaine, Kramer, and George are on their way to take one final trip together to Paris, but after their private plane is forced into an emergency landing, the foursome is forced to wait in a small town in Massachusetts while their plane is being repaired.
Walking around the town, the four see a carjacking take place and stand idle while finding the crime amusing. But as they say, "Karma is a bitch" and because of their lack of empathy by doing anything to stop the crime, the four are arrested and taken to trial for not following the town's "Good Samaritan Law".
While on trial, tons of beloved side characters from the show's past come back to testify against the group to try to emphasize how bad of people Jerry, Elaine, Kramer, and George have been throughout the series.
The four are found guilty and "The Show About Nothing" ends with the characters we grew to love over nine seasons being sentenced to a year in prison for not doing anything.
In Curb's finale, we are once again in a courtroom where this time, David is getting scolded by characters from past episodes of the show who are trying to see him get thrown out in jail for a small crime. However, unlike Seinfeld's finale, Curb set up this courtroom ending when at the end of season 11, David got arrested for violating Georgia's voting law when he gave Auntie Rae a glass of water while she was waiting in line to vote. The entire season was building up to this moment, we just hadn't realized it.
After the trial, Larry David is found guilty and is sentenced to jail time in Georgia but as the camera begins to pan out in an all too familiar setting, Jerry Seinfeld, who appeared throughout the final episode, comes to share the great news with Larry that the case was declared a mistrial as one of the jurors broke their sequestration which meant he would not have to serve any time in prison.
As Larry and Jerry begin to walk out of the prison, David comes to a realization and says to Seinfeld, "Oh god, this is how we should have ended the finale".
After years of hearing complaints, I love that David decided to double down on his
controversial Seinfeld finale by giving us almost the exact same final episode but did decide to give it a twist of its own. In addition to that, having Jerry there to help Larry stay out of jail was awesome to see.
Is it the perfect finale? Of course not, but good lord was it funny and to say it worked for me would be an understatement.
It seems as if David did in fact learn his lesson with this one.
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