Fatwa!

One of the best episodes ever made. If you wanted Kubrick and Hamilton to influence your favorite show, this is the episode for you.

Also, it's almost double length.

One of the best episodes ever made. If you wanted Kubrick and Hamilton to influence your favorite show, this is the episode for you.

Also, it's almost double length.

One of the best episodes ever made. If you wanted Kubrick and Hamilton to influence your favorite show, this is the episode for you.

Also, it's almost double length.

One of the best episodes ever made. If you wanted Kubrick and Hamilton to influence your favorite show, this is the episode for you.

Also, it's almost double length.

When Larry asked the ambulance driver to make a detour so that he could get to Sammy's wedding, and the driver refused, Larry should have had him stop so that he could get out of the ambulance. Then Larry would run all the way to the ceremony, holding up his pants as he ran. Background music would be the instrumental version of "Mrs. Robinson" from "The Graduate." As Larry approaches the ceremony, still trying to keep his pants up, he calls out "SAMMY," "SAMMY" (spoofing Dustin Hoffman calling out "ELAINE"). Just as he gets to the event, he runs around a corner, smack into the large-breasted "signer" that Susie had just thrown out of the ceremony, and the two fall down in a heap. Hearing the commotion, Susie runs over to investigate, and sees Larry on top of the woman with his pants down around his ankles. Cue theme song.

I still like the series and hope they will continue because there are not many comedy shows out there, unfortunately. I think Larry comes up with quite original ideas and situations in this show. I do feel bad for him because he just tries to be objective or nice or sensible, but people often misunderstand his intentions. Often they just try to take advantage. He rarely gets any satisfaction or recognition.

The long gap between seasons was enough to get excitement for Curb returning, but it was also helped for me by how good the previous season had been. In essence this season looked like it would had a great through-line with the fatwa and the related musical (albeit a bit similar to a previous season). It doesn't run through this very evenly, but mostly it does the job, while the random misunderstandings or poor social interactions do the rest of the work. It is frequently funny, but never as consistent as I would have liked. There are callbacks and repeated elements, which add to the impact of the lines, but again - not enough.

The most obvious place to see this not working is in the ending. At its best the final punchline is the strongest callback - it ties the episode up in an absurd bow by linking back to what had gone before and doing so in a way that makes you groan by how obvious it is (in retrospect) but yet be inspired by how smartly it all clicks. There isn't really a single episode that pulls that off here; okay they all reference something from the episode but they are not really strong or punchlines. The show still does its base elements well, and it is hard not to enjoy it for David's brand of humor, but it doesn't click and spark consistently, even if it produces plenty of moments along the way.