10 Best Larry David & Susie Greene Fights In Curb Your Enthusiasm, Ranked

Larry and Susie’s arguments consistently provide some of the best moments of Curb Your Enthusiasm, with their explosive dynamic somehow remaining fresh for 12 seasons. Larry David makes a lot of enemies on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Susie Greene – played by Susie Essman – is supposed to be a close friend, but even she is quick to tire of his social missteps and his difficult personality. Their fights became a key part of the show’s appeal early on, and the Curb Your Enthusiasm series finale added a couple more to bid farewell to TV’s least functional friendship.

The funniest thing about Susie and Larry’s dynamic is that they usually start off on good terms, very cordial and polite. Unfortunately for Larry, he knows just how to rub Susie the wrong way, and she can explode at any moment. She constantly acts as his moral compass, keeping him on track via insults and screaming. She is the one character who accepts none of his nonsense and calls him out instantly. Larry and Susie’s best fights on Curb are often rather one-sided, with Larry being put squarely back in his place.

10

Burial Plots

Season 6, Episode 5, “The Freak Book”

After yet another disagreement with Ted Danson, Larry decides that he can’t bear the thought of being buried in the plot right next to him after they die. Since the Dansons, the Davids and the Greenes have all agreed to be buried in a row of six, Larry has to convince someone to swap places with him. Cheryl shrugs her shoulders, once again not caring about one of Larry’s peculiar hang-ups, but convincing Susie to spend eternity next to him instead of Cheryl is a different story.

Larry first tries to ease Susie into the conversation by complimenting her outfit – perhaps the only compliment he pays her in 12 seasons – but this isn’t enough to get her to agree to his plan. She states flatly that she doesn’t want to spend eternity next to him, and she reprimands him for offering a compliment as a ruse. This whole ordeal is typical of Larry’s habit of causing problems for himself. He’s so concerned about who will be next to him after he dies that he lets the situation ruin a nice day.

9

Susie’s Drinking Noise

Season 8, Episode 3, “Palestinian Chicken”

“Palestinian Chicken” is one of the best episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm of all time. It’s mostly remembered for the political microcosm of a Palestinian restaurant opening up next door to a Jewish deli, but it has plenty of standout moments which don’t touch on the restaurant. Larry’s short-lived career as a “social assassin” feels like a superpower at first, but he soon has to grapple with the corresponding responsibility as Sammi begs him to scold Susie for the loud noise she makes when she sips a drink.

Susie immediately sniffs out that someone has put Larry up to the task, so she turns toward her other favorite verbal punching bag, Jeff. Susie has an incredible ability to move through the gears quickly, and she hits the ceiling of her rage in no time, without caring about the crowd of onlookers on the golf course. This is one of Susie’s most admirable qualities. She behaves in public the same way she does in private. It’s just a shame for Larry that she’s such a perennial combatant no matter where she is.

8

Larry Tells Sammi To Shut Up

Season 7, Episode 4, “The Hot Towel”

One thing that will always send Susie spiraling into a rage is someone hurting Sammi’s feelings. She’s a fiercely protective mother, and this doesn’t always gel well with Larry’s attitudes toward children. He mostly tries to ignore them, but he can also be outwardly disrespectful to them. He doesn’t know how to behave with children, and he doesn’t soften his language when Sammi wakes him up early in the morning by singing too loudly.

Larry does a lot of terrible things in Curb, and screaming at a child barely even enters into the discussion of his worst misdeeds. It probably isn’t even the worst thing he does in “The Hot Towel,” as he also tries to rush Sammi to finish her song, assuming that everyone else would be just as embarrassed and uncomfortable as he is, rather than enjoying that Sammi is a sweet kid singing a nice song.

7

Greg Sews A Swastika Pillow

Season 8, Episode 10, “Larry vs. Michael J. Fox”

Larry and Susie’s ongoing tit-for-tat relationship crosses state lines in season 8, as they both travel to New York along with the rest of the show’s cast. Larry has a clean slate in New York City, but he quickly makes a few new enemies. Larry’s inability to communicate with children causes him yet more problems as he teaches a boy named Greg about Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party through idle chit-chat.

When Greg sews a pillow emblazoned with a bright purple swastika, his mother is left speechless, so Susie quickly jumps in to deliver another verbal tirade against Larry on her behalf. Susie doesn’t have any of the context, but that doesn’t stop her from ripping into Larry and assuming the worst. This is one of the few episodes where Larry is actually in the right, relatively speaking. All he does is get Greg a sewing machine for his birthday, which he knows he’ll love, and talk to him casually about Hitler.

6

“Do You Respect Wood?”

Season 7, Episode 10 “Seinfeld”

One of Curb‘s most iconic quotes, “do you respect wood?” comes from the season 7 finale. After Julia Louis-Dreyfus accuses Larry of not using a coaster and leaving a stain on a beloved antique side table, he tries desperately to solve the mystery of who is truly responsible so that he can get out of paying for the repair. Susie isn’t the only person who Larry approaches with this question, but her response is the most memorable.

Susie has no time for Larry’s interrogative techniques. She proclaims that she does indeed respect wood, before swiftly moving on to threatening him with physical violence and kicking him out of the house. Larry starts this argument with the upper hand and a wealth of evidence to support his claims, but this proves to be no match for Susie’s unbridled rage. Larry immediately shrinks whenever Susie hits her stride, and he has no response to her except for a timid “ok”.

5

Susie Ruins Larry’s Defense

Season 12, Episode 10, “No Lessons Learned”

The Curb Your Enthusiasm series finale is packed full of callbacks to old episodes, so it was only right that it included another unforgettable Larry vs. Susie showdown to add to the collection. This fight has even more weight than any other that has come before it, because it almost lands Larry in prison for a year. Susie breaks her character as Larry’s ailing sweetheart in the courtroom to abuse him and Jeff for stealing Auntie Rae’s salad dressing recipe.

The Curb finale flips a Susie story line from season 3, in which she has a special recipe of her own that she isn’t willing to part with. Susie is often at her best when she is taking Larry and Jeff down at the same time, and they can do nothing but sit quietly like sad schoolchildren. Even though she agrees to help Larry out in his bizarre scheme to endear himself to the jury, he and Jeff undo all their good work in an instant. Naturally, Larry tries to make the charade work, even after Susie has shown that she isn’t really a wheelchair user.

4

Larry Ruins Sammi’s School Hopes

Season 6, Episode 3, “The Ida Funkhouser Roadside Memorial”

Larry can usually count on having Jeff on his side, even if nobody else sees his point of view, but he crosses the line when he ruins Sammi’s chances of getting into the Greene family’s chosen school. The fight outside sees Larry having to defend himself against both Susie and Jeff combining their anger. It’s often a puzzle why Jeff and Susie stay together when so much of their marriage is built on fiery disagreements and a lack of trust, but moments like this show that they are ideally suited for one another.

Larry is completely in the wrong on this occasion, and he knows it, but he still has the audacity to ask Susie for the flowers that she’s holding. When he has an objective in his mind, everything else seems to fall away, all social propriety and self-preservation. Larry knows that he wants the flowers to replace the ones he stole from Marty Funkhouser’s mother’s memorial, even if this gets him on the end of another tongue-lashing from Susie, and with a bouquet of Irises shoved into his mouth.

3

The House Tour

Season 3, Episode 8, “Krazee-Eyez Killa”

Larry and Susie’s volatile dynamic can make a massive fight arise from the most innocuous of circumstances, as evidenced by the episode “Krazee-Eyez Killa” in which Susie offers to show Larry around her and Jeff’s new house. Larry declines her offer, saying that it’s all just bedrooms and bathrooms and that he understands the general gist of a house, but Susie point-blank refuses to accept this.

This is another time that Larry lands himself in trouble by not prescribing to the same rules of polite society that everyone else does, but examining his actions in any detail shows that there’s no concrete reason that he should be in the wrong. Larry shouldn’t have to go on a tour of Susie’s new house if he doesn’t want to, but this is simply the polite thing to do, for whatever reason. What makes this fight stand out is just how quickly Susie accelerates from pleasantries to expletives and insults.

2

Larry Gets Sammi Drunk

Season 3, Episode 7, “The Corpse Sniffing Dog”

Larry tries to do the right thing in “The Corpse-Sniffing Dog,” but this ends with him doing two horribly wrong things over and over again, as he ferries a dog between two different households. He initially tries taking the Greene family’s dog to a new home to help with Jeff’s allergies, but Susie is quick to let him know that this won’t be acceptable. She waits for him to appear before ambushing him with an abusive rant.

Susie isn’t just angry about Larry taking their dog. She’s more upset about the fact that he gave Sammi wine, and she has very little patience for his unconvincing explanations. “The Corpse Sniffing Dog” closes on one of Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s best endings, as Larry finally brings the dog back just as Jeff arrives to stay at a home free of allergens. He immediately gets back in his car and leaves.

1

Larry Takes The Doll’s Head

Season 2, Episode 7, “The Doll”

“The Doll” marked a turning point for Curb Your Enthusiasm, as Larry’s depravity hit new depths and his social encounters went from mildly awkward to unimaginably excruciating. It’s no coincidence that the episode also has Larry and Susie’s most explosive and hilarious fight. Susie discovers that Sammi’s favorite doll is missing a head, and she automatically assumes that Larry is to blame. Funnily enough; she’s right.

Not only does this fight have the best use of Susie’s iconic music, it also sets the confrontation up perfectly, with Larry sheepishly stepping out of his car knowing that he is about to get a verbal beatdown. Each of Susie Essman’s line deliveries in this scene are utterly unpredictable and hilarious. If “bring me the head” isn’t Susie’s most memorable quote in Curb Your Enthusiasm, then it must surely be “the kid is home hysterical, because her doll Judy has been decapitated!” Few performers could dish out such hilarious vitriol.