"The Freak Book"
When I heard that this episode would feature a meeting of
John McEnroe and
Larry David, I was almost giddy with excitement. This was the highlight of the show, but unfortunately, the rest of the story just fell flat. Maybe I'm just scarred because that ride from the cemetery to the Staples Center gave me Vietnam-style flashbacks to a horrible Friedman family car ride, because of the screaming and the threats, but after a stellar four shows, many of the scenes this week just hit awkward notes.
Larry's usually good for a decent party disruption, but bringing a "freak book" as a present and insisting on reading it with Jeff as Ted Danson continues opening gifts didn't strike me as the kind of hyperreal situation that
Curb usually goes for. Instead, it felt like a setup, and this show has always been better than that. Even the should-have-been hilarious Susie scene didn't really go right. I can understand not wanting to be buried next to Larry David (who would?), but her excuse, "Even your best self, I'm not interested for all eternity," didn't seem true to her usually profane sense of self-expression.
I'm all for uncomfortable humor (obviously, or I wouldn't be a
Curb fan to begin with), but the part of the story concerning the drunk limo driver with the wife in a wheelchair ("This is the s--tstorm of my life. It's s--t.") just pushed it a little too far.
I didn't hate this episode as much as I'm making it sound; I did think that the John McEnroe scenes were worthy of a few guffaws. In fact, most of the best moments came from those scenes, and here were my personal favorites:
" "How does a John McEnroe have fun?" "I like to be quiet."
" "Hey Mac, I'm s--tfaced. We're gonna need a driver."
" "It's a human pig!" (Shades of the pigman, anyone?)
" The extended "F--k you!" exchange between two of the angriest men in North America.
Being more than a casual viewer of
Seinfeld, it's natural that I find some overlap between that show and
Curb. However, never has it seemed more overt to me than with the issue of the overly chatty limo driver. It was the exact same gag tonight as it was almost exactly 14 years ago in "The Lip Reader." What can I say? I guess I'm just a little disappointed that LD didn't take advantage of the fact that he's on HBO now to tweak this a little.
I do love Larry David, and if anyone could make this episode as good as it was, it's him. It's just hard after "The Ida Funkhouser Roadside Memorial" (fast becoming my favorite episode
ever of
anything) to see something that doesn't live up to that show's promise. Bottom line on "The Freak Book": A huge step up from last season, but not quite up to par for this year.
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