The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Season 11 Premiere

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Joe House to discuss the Season 11 premiere of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ (0:30). They choose their favorite scenes (11:25), the funniest bits (17:48), and their cast and non-cast MVPs (23:10). Hosts: Bill Simmons and Joe House Associate Producer: Sasha Ashall Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Ringer Reality TV podcast is the home for all things unscripted TV. The feed will feature challenge recaps with Johnny Bananas, Bachelor and Paradise Recaps from Amelia Weddemeer, and a weekly survey of the reality TV landscape with Juliet Limon and Callie Curry, and much more coverage across the reality spectrum from Survivor to below deck to selling sunset. Check out the Ringer Reality TV podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Sweetgreen. The day doesn't ask for permission.

Lunch window? Gone before you saw it coming. You deserve a break that actually satisfies. Sweet Green's new wraps have got you. Real ingredients? Zero shortcuts. Everything you love in one hand. Think green goddess chicken. Garlic aoli.

Crumbled bacon. Corn salsa. 40 grams of protein. Made to keep up with whatever comes next. New sweetgreen wraps hit different. Order now at order. Sweetgreen.com. It's time to refresh your yard during spring backyard days at the Home Depot.

Get low prices guaranteed on propitaine. paying grills starting at $179, like the next grill three-burner gas grill, or get $50 off to select Weber Spirit grill and bring big flavor to your backyard. Then set the scene with Hampton Bay string lights that bring it all together. Shop spring backyard days for seven days at the Home Depot. Now through May 6th, Exclusion supplies to homedipo.com slash price match for details. All right, it's a prestige TV podcast. My name is Bill Simmons and Mir with Joe House.

Curbonyers enthusiast in the 11th season. 11 seasons. First episode. Pop last night. House, for some reason, these episodes are 40 minutes now. I'm not complaining, but Larry just said,

fuck it, I'm supersizing these. I'm a very good man. I'm a good man. I'm a very good man, Bill Simmons. Not just 11 seasons. 11 seasons across 20 years. We've had Larry David in our lives for 20 years, the longest running series on HBO.

And I will say, For me, we came out firing on all cylinders. I know we're going to go through it in depth, but I just want to talk about the very, very, very beginning because the way the show began, I was nervous. It made me nervous. It made me uncomfortable. I felt like we were headed in a direction that was atypical

and uncommon direction for the show and for Larry David. It felt like a fever dream. I felt like we were in a dream. And then lo and behold, bang, we flip into exactly what transpired, which was a dead person in his pool. Yeah, I was taking either a fever dream or we had like a COVID break in, like somebody breaking his house for supplies or something. Right.

You're right. It was an unsettling start. And then all of a sudden he's with Jeff. And it's like, all right, well, where we go with this? The big picture theme, it seems like, is Larry getting old? Yeah. It seems like he,

and this has been two years since the last season. So, you know, he looks older, especially like, you know, HBO Max, when you have 20 years of episodes, same characters, same settings,

and especially for people like us who will watch season one, season two. And you're just, those are the people frozen in time, almost like athletes when you have like a young athlete and you see an athlete 20 years later,

they're like, oh, you've changed. Larry does seem like an old guy at this point. he embraced it, he leaned into it, and it seems like that's going to be the theme of this season is like, am I slipping? Am I losing a little bit, right? Well, and yes, and the broader themes of death and mortality across, I mean, this episode was replete with it. The episode began with a dead person, and then we were treated to

the fake funeral. Albert Brooks, Scott, speaking of a senior moment, I couldn't get Albert Brooks out. Albert Brooks, one of the plot lines revolves prominently about Albert Brooks wanting to host his own funeral so that he can have everybody say nice things about him while he's still alive. Then we talk about, you know, Larry feeble. He's losing, you know, some of his virility. And then he walks in a window. He plops.

J.B. What is J.B after? The wine plops. And then he walks into the one. He's like, he's got one more. He's got one more before he goes a nursing home. That's right. You're two feebles.

You can't have three feebles. Yeah. So I guess that's going to be the theme because then you have another character who had he might have dementia. He might not. There might be a conditional dementia. It seems like whenever it suits him, it's dementia. It could be like Ben Simmons' mental health.

Right, right. It's whatever it suits him in the moment, it works. Susie called him out on it and was like, you gave me a lifetime guarantee. I'm getting my, I'm getting my diamond back. And that's how that went. So the biggest surprise for me was Albert Brooks because he's Super Dave's brother. This was Super Dave's territory. This was one of the things he had carved out.

Depending on who you talk to, I'm not sure how close the brothers were. I think it was pretty competitive. I've heard various stories on this, whether they didn't talk at all, they barely talk, stuff like that. And the general consensus is that Albert Brooks now being in curb in a funk housey-type role Super Dave somewhere. It's like, you got to be kidding me. What the hell? This is my turf. You're on my turf. So it was really interesting that Larry played that card. I was surprised. It felt so successful, though. It felt so natural. They have an unbelievable rapport. It's obvious. It feels like we're

going to get a ton of Albert Brooks this season. I'm here for it. I mean, the way the first episode ended was the two of them dateless because of the circumstances that befell each of them over the course of the episode at an orchestra performance, a symphony performance where they play the Kirby enthusiasm music. It was really a wonderful. For three minutes. Yeah, I loved it so much. Those two sitting together and they were enjoying each other's company. So do you think Albert Brooks, he basically, because it's almost like he moved more into the Richard Lewis role than the Marty Funkhauser role, because Larry was never really friends with Marty. He was more like, it was like a family-type foil situation. Lewis was his buddy, his really close.

friend. So I don't know, did he trade out Richard Lewis and Super Dave for Albert Brooks and maybe threw in like two first rounders? Maybe so because Albert Brooks had Larry speak first at the fake funeral and Larry immediately makes Albert regret it because Larry will not play along with the stupid conceit that in and pretend that Albert is dead. He makes five jokes about Albert being alive and the fact that everybody is going to see him to great enthusiasm out of the assembled audience. Well, it makes me, I guess Richard Lewis is fine. I was, I was Googling him to make sure he, because it seemed like that would have been the Richard Lewis part. Richard Lewis would have had a funeral, but Albert Brooks moved in, but basically all the same stuff he can do with

Richard Lewis, like his older friend, Jewish, neurotic, he can basically get all the Richard Lewis stiff done. It's just with Albert Brooks, one of like the great comic minds of the last 50 years. So he was like, probably fuck it. I'm going to mix it up. Pretty good. I'm happy. happy to have it. I mean, it was a welcome surprise. I deliberately did not do any research whatsoever before the episode because I just wanted to be surprised by the faces and the names. Oh, good. I'm so glad. I saw somebody had the poster of all the faces and I'm like, I'm not looking at it. I don't want to know anything. I knew John Hamm was in it because I accidentally saw a commercial, but other than that, I saw nothing. So as usual, we had five stories. Usually there's four, but we have 40 minutes episodes.

The big stories were Larry pitching a new Netflix show about Uncle Mo. So now we have Uncle Moe. succession. And we have I wondered about that. God, it made me nervous. I thought there was some pedophilia that was going to come out as part of it.

Maybe there still will be. It's a rough run on HBO for the real life Uncle Bose. Just somebody who just says at Uncle Boe's like, what did I do? I'm getting murdered left right. So he's pitching a new show to Netflix. So that was one.

I guess that was the A story. The B story was the fences around the pool in this break and he had. And then dealing with. Yeah, the death. the extortion plots. That's a B story. The C story was kind of COVID hoarders, which they lay all the groundwork for it, come back to it. The D story was friends with dementia and Larry and Larry getting old, basically, and all of those pieces. And then the live funeral. So we had an ABCD and an E plot. What was

your favorite out of those five? The F plot, which is Leon, I mean, because this is going to be a recurring thing. I was, you know, I always enter a new season like this, wondering what kind of a dose am I going to get of my beloved characters, right? Because I need Leon. It's been well established between us as we've talked about this show over the years. We just, you know, can't get enough of him. And he is a foil for Larry. It's just a majestic interplay between the two. The two cultures coming together and Leon as a truth teller in the show. And once again, playing a magnificent role in that respect. The scene of Leon and Albert Brooks telling Larry that him walking into the glass

meant that he was not going to have sex with Lucy Lou. That was wonderful. I couldn't have enjoyed it more. We were going to have Leon. Leon found himself a replacement for a trip to Asia that he paid. for with a go fund me for a campaign for me and whoever. Mary Ferguson. He was dating a woman named Mary Ferguson.

She walked into a glass window. She's feeble. She's out. Glass door, glass window, whatever it was. He had to kick her to the curb and he interviews a whole series of potential replacement Mary Ferguson's and the brilliance of the show and curb. They run simultaneously. Larry's audition.

of the role of a young lady in his Young Larry Netflix program that has to go to the extortionist's daughter, right? I forgot to mention that the show is called Young Larry. I thought that was so fucking funny. We have Young Rock and Young Sheldon, right? Who would buy Young Larry? I wrote as favorite scenes, one of the scenes I had was J.B. Larry and AB altogether. And my single favorite part was with J.B. Spoof called Albert Brooks AB.

That fucking killed me. Yeah, right, A.B. I just loved the three of them in a scene. Like, to me, that could have, if we can do that every once an episode for 10 straight episodes, I'm in. It feels like that's possible. I mean, the way that everything's set up, I want to share with you something that really affected me. And it is this character, Maria Sophia. Maria Sophia effes me up.

There is something about her physical presence, her gesticulations, the way she is approaching this, the actress is approaching the character, however she's inhabiting this character. The bug eye kind of thing she does was great. It's effing me up, Bill Simmons. It's making me fearful. I can't tell if she's doing a faux sexuality.

Every time she speaks, I'm worried that she's going to say something. something, it just is very disconcerting, the Maria Sophia experience. You're worried about ulterior motive in some way with her. Everything. Everything about her concerns me. Yeah, it doesn't bode great. And also, it seemed like during the audition, he did have some really good actions.

So now he probably cast somebody who's going to screw up young Larry, and we won't get to see young Larry. I hope we get to do, like, a table read for young Larry. I'd like to see fake scenes for Young Larry. young Larry, it's so stupid. The best scenes, we mentioned the J.B. Larry and A.B. all together. Larry confronting dementia guy.

It just comes out of the gate in six minutes. The Brentwood convenience mart, whatever it is. It just goes in and those guys just start screaming each other because we had to have that. Let me ask you this. The prevailing sentiment that I encountered on the social media's afterwards, folks are on Larry's side with this. Like, you know, he can't be completely in the wrong, Larry.

The guy owes him $6,000 and it's been six months. Like, on the face of it, like no communication whatsoever from the guy. Like, did the dementia just occur in the six months between the time they went on the golf trip and when Larry encountered him again? Or do we think the guy had dementia? This did because he even has to call them out. I think I think that could have been a subplot of maybe for a future episode as if this guy's actually faking it for whatever reason. It was a classic curbsing though because, you know, super uncomfortable topic. Larry goes in full speed.

He's kind of half right, but still shouldn't be as aggressive as he is. It gets turned on him. And somehow he's the bad guy in a situation when he was actually in the right when he approached it. And we've seen this how many times in 100 curb episodes or whatever? Well, and in the brilliance that is curb, of course they have another encounter. The guy tells him, the next time I see you at the club, I'll have a check for you. So Larry bumps into him at the golf club, walks up to the guy, is like, yay, great to see you. Last time we saw each other, you told me you stroked me a check here at the club.

We're seeing each other. Can we just resolve this? And the dude's like, Larry, what's going on? I wrote you that check. I wrote you the check. I gave you the check. Well, part of me wondered if Larry, maybe they're setting up that it's actually Larry who has dementia. Oh, no.

Larry was his third feeble. He does have to go into the nursing home. He's misremembering. Well, that's the thing because, well, first he remembered what the guy was wearing. So I was like, well, that theory's wrong. But then near the end, he said, didn't I compliment you for your driver? I said it was spending the guy. And the guy's like, no.

And then Larry's like, maybe it was somebody else. So then I'm wondering. if this whole season is under the lens of Larry actually might have onset dementia. Oh, shit. I hope not because this is why I was unsettled by the very beginning. Like the cinematography has him like in bed and hearing something and it felt very dreamy. And when he walked downstairs, there is a mist that's rising from the pool. And the whole thing felt like dreamy.

I will tell you this. I did see a quote from the director's, I think it's the director showrunner. I'm not sure. Jeff Schaefer. He says this season, like all this season, it's a thousand piece puzzle made up of 10,

100 piece puzzles. And he promises that everything will come together in a nice, completed puzzle of pettiness and awkward vengefulness at the end. But if each, well, like think of that,

10 100 piece puzzles building up to a thousand piece puzzle, we're going to go in a lot of different directions before we get to a conclusion that makes any sense, right? Well, we still had, we had some of our favorites. We got our guy, J.B. Thank God. He's already on an MVP pace right now. We got some great Jeff. I always like when he sides with Larry against his wife, but never in front of his wife.

Because that was one of the best scenes I had was Susie C-plop, which was really funny. in all time. And leading to Larry walking into the window, which just made me laugh by ass off. That was my daughter's favorite part. And then Lucy Lou just being horrified. I also love that Lucy Lewis casted it. Look great, by the way.

Oh, my God. I'm so glad you said it. What a comeback, Lucy. I haven't seen her in a while. When we were talking about not doing any research in advance and just wanting to be surprised, she was one of the top surprises, and I was not, my socks were knocked off by the whole thing.

I was so happy to see her. You could tell me any age for her, and I'd believe it. You could tell me she's 70. You could tell me she's 40. I agree. I mean, she was in Charlie's Angels 20 years ago.

I have no idea about it. She's just timeless. But the C-pop was great. So we got some good Susie, and we got some good Jeff kind of playing both fences with Susan and Larry. We didn't get Cheryl,

your favorite in this episode, one of your favorites. I don't know if she's lingering. We know we'll see her at some point. Yeah, we know we see it. We're going to see her. And then obviously we didn't get Super Dave because he passed away in real life,

but they've now replaced them with Albert Brooks, which fantasy was saying on Twitter last night was curb just like, that was like their Durant in 2016 Warriors moment where they're like, we're adding Albert Brooks. I don't, I think we could sit here for 20 minutes and try to think of better people to add to the show than Albert Brooks,

and it would be hard to come up with like four other people. I agree. I mean, he just hits so many aspects of what the show over the 20 years, you know, the identity of the show. he has like all of the core elements that are that are crucial to the success. Well, you had the fake funeral scene when he gets outed as the COVID hoarder. And he's on the balcony and they're all yelling at him.

And he kind of like sneak throws it in as they're leaving. He's like, come back. I have flu shots. And he might get them all back with the flu shots. Who knows? That closet was so funny. I was dying. There was so much Purell in there.

The paper towels. and the bath tissue was what did it for me. And then the other funny scene was just J.B. Smooth interviewing the Mary Fitzgerald's and settling. Jimberdade de Laker. Mary Ferguson. Jeffrey Day, Laker, no. Did you ever date a clipper? I didn't date a clipper.

That was the answer. And then she's in and it seems like God only knows where that one's going to go. The clincher was him saying, you know, say the two of us end up on a deserted island and, you know, things go... She interrupts him. Yeah, I thought you eat me.

Yeah, I would let you eat me. Bam, that's it. All the interviews are done. So the funniest bits, the young Larry thing was great. The whole thing with the name Don Jr. And then tied into Netflix. So Netflix doesn't really look like that. Like, they made Netflix look like Dr. Evil's compound.

The lead creative executive named Don Jr. So you could read between the lines on that one. they even take some John Jr. shots. Then he has, he's in like the $25,000 suit in his office in his chair, just like sitting back, nodding like a TV character. And then he's got his creative team, which checks every box. Oh, spectacular. Sitting on the couch, saying nothing other than just laughing.

And then they accept this pitch in five seconds. So I feel like Larry was trying to do a drive-by shooting of Netflix pretty overtly, I thought. Yeah, right. Oh, that's interesting. Because of the assembled group that was in the executive's office. Like, like, specifically Don Jr. Like that type of executive. Yeah.

Pretending that he cared about a diverse team, didn't listen to them at all. Right. His name's Don Jr. So he has the same name as Trump. Listen to the pitch and greenlit it in two seconds. Like just a jackass. And it seemed like Larry, I felt like that scene, Larry is trying to say a little more there.

The sea plopping was just a really good bit that's happened to all of us. the dropping the kids off at the pool conversation? Long one. I was surprised by that. Went a little too long, but I like the whole kind of what bathrooms are on limits, off limits, I thought was great.

It's an important conversation that does resonate. You have to have in that kind of circumstance, a bathroom that's a permitted bathroom or a set of permitted bathrooms, and then at least one that's completely off limits to anybody else. I totally, that makes perfect sense to me, and I happen to subscribe to that. Yeah, I know with nephew, Kyle,

we definitely have a bunch of women. Off limits. Yeah, you have bathrooms that he's not allowed to be in. Not even non-bathrooms are off-limits. And then the bit of losing your sexual appeal for a dumb reason I thought was pretty funny. Well, it wasn't a dumb reason. Like, the way he banged himself on the head and then fell down and it was like, you know, moaning. Oh.

Oh. Like, you know, I get it. I'm with Lucy on this. Like, she gets him a glass of water when they're at the funeral. I just want to make sure you're in good shape when you go up to do this. She kisses him on the forehead on the end of the date. She's a caregiver. She's a caregiver.

She's transformed. I want to ask your opinion of something. Yeah. The one plot line that, again, it's very disconcerting to me, this Maria Sophia character. Yep. Why do you think that Larry, upon receiving the envelope with the obvious, obvious extortion plot inside of it, which is, you know, here's the ordinance circled in red, and then scribbled in red, let's talk, and here's the address.

Why is it that Larry himself physically drives himself in his car, arrives at a tacharia, and not only does he, like, size the whole thing up, he goes right in, and he's looking for whoever it is that is obviously going to extort him. And he's like on the defensive. Why is Larry doing any of those things? Why didn't he take the envelope and burn it? Why didn't he give it to the police? Like, what is it about Larry that we've learned over all these years?

Why is he the one going right into the tacheria in confronting the extortionist? I think he absolutely would have brought Jeff if you're staying true to the show. I also, that rule of the pool, the rule is if you're, if you're, you have kids. At least that's my, I might be wrong, but this one, my wife was like,

that's not a rule. The rule is if you have kids in your house, you have to have a fence around the pool. But Larry doesn't have kids, which he said, and they were like,

no, no, you have to have it for, but either way, you get something like that, you're going to either the police or you're going to Jeff, something, you know, you're doing one of those too.

Here's the other thing, though, the guy broke into his house. Yeah. He committed, it could have been armed robbery. We don't know if he had a, weapon, but it was at least robbery. Oh, and if he stole anything worth at least $1,000 or it's caused $1,000 worth

the damage, that's a felony, punishable, you know, by at least a year in prison. I don't, I guess the answer is it's curb. They needed something, you know, they needed a launching pad for some sort of running plot, right, which is going to be this young Larry thing. And this somehow, even though it was perfect and it got greenlit in two seconds, it still has this now, Achilles heel of this person. and you shouldn't be on the show. I mean, the conceit is wonderful,

and I really don't mean to be like, no, I'm with you. How can we create the perfect connection and connect all the dots for a logic and internal logic of this that makes sense? I mean, it's freaking curb. So it's okay that it doesn't all make sense and doesn't all square with whatever

the local ordinance is in Santa Monica or whatever. It's fine. I'm willing to look past all of that stuff. I just felt like there was an opportunity with at the front end of the extortion to spend some, time building out the extortion. Yeah, the exasperation of it.

Yeah, I get it. All right. Two different MVPs before we go. MVP for somebody who is actually on the cast, which I think we have to include Albert Brooks because I think he's on the show now. Incredible. Incredible. So who is your MVP?

My MVP is J.B. Smooth for this episode. Yeah, it's Leon, of course. And like I said, I was so gratified for him to play such a prominent role. Great, Leon. All right. Non-cast MVP. I think, I think it was, what was Mary, what's her last name? Maria Sophia.

No, no, the one Jerry picked. Mary Ferguson. I think Mary Ferguson who got picked to go on the Asia trip was my non-show MVP. The first Mary Ferguson, the first Mary Ferguson is your... No, the second one, the one he picks, who dated the Quipper, who didn't date the Quipper. I didn't date the Quipper. Well, you know, we're going to see her again. So she's got a lot, the ceiling is still, we haven't seen her ceiling yet, which is just, just to

Thank God. I love the energy. And Lucy Lou, I think it's special honors for something. I don't know what the honors are. She played the part pretty weird. Like, she was pretty cold. Well, I think cold after. Like it seemed...

But even before, she's like not... It was kind of one of those things that was like, wow, why are these two together? It was one of those. I would have liked the backstory. It would be funny to hear, like, behind the scenes. Here's the backstory of how Larry and Lucy Lou got to be... Yes, so it's together. Well, because the thing...

You know, the thing with Larry David, he got divorced, I don't know, seven, eight years ago. But, you know, he, he's out there. Like, he gets attractive ladies. Women love Larry David. With good reason. With good reason. It is completely realistic that Lucy Lou is somebody that he would go on five dates with.

Well, for me, I can't give the non-cast MVP or the new character MVP to Maria Sophia until I, I, I make peace with her agenda is. I'm really worried. It really, she bothers me. So my new character MVP is Mr. dementia. Dennis,

Swivele. Jewel. Jewel. The jeweler. Yes. Yes. Yes. I don't think we see him again.

I think he was a one and done. I think we see. I would love him as a recurring character. The dementia is important. I also know you love any scene when there's at the country club and people are getting ready to play golf. That's a fact. That it was all.

It felt like I actually, I don't know this for a fact, but the two guys who come in at the end and he's like, oh, I thought I complimenting your driver. I don't think those are real actors. I think those are people Larry plays golf with. So if you look carefully, if you watch it again, watch those two guys. One guy in the right doesn't say anything and has complete there in the headlights. So it's clearly Larry's golf buddies would be my guess. But I enjoyed it nonetheless. All right, Joe House.

First episode of Curb in the book. Listen, let's be honest, deep down, every time. and they go back to the well with the new season. We get a little worried that it's going to be the Jordan on the Wizards kind of, you know, like, oh, they stayed a season too long. I did not feel that way last night. Now, you didn't either. No, no.

That was a tremendous showing. I really feel like we're set up for some terrific storylines. There weren't even only a couple like genuine laugh out loud belly laugh moments from last night. I mean, it wasn't even like a full hit parade of laughs, but it delivered the goods. It set us up for so many delightful paths that we're going to go down. All right. This podcast, I don't know if we're doing another episode too. Maybe we just do mid-season rewards.

If next season is amazing, we'll pop back next week. But we're monitoring. You and I are monitoring this curb season. We're on it. We're here for reactions when warranted. This podcast was produced by Sasha O'Shaal. We are coming back maybe next week, but at least with the mid-season awards on the prestige TV podcast. See you with Succession on this.

With Sean and Joanna on Wednesday. See you there. Spring just slid into your DMs. Grab that boho look for that rooftop dinner. Those sandals that can keep up with you. And hang some string lights to give your patio a glow up. Spring's calling. Ross, work your magic.