Warning: This article contains spoilers for Curb Your Enthusiasm season 12, episodes 1 and 2.
Curb Your Enthusiasm season 12 is building up to a redo of the notorious Seinfeld finale – but that infamous ending could actually work better for Curb than it did for Seinfeld. Larry David has always treated every season of Curb Your Enthusiasm as if it would be the last – the season 5 finale is literally called “The End” and sees Larry dying and going to Heaven – but season 12 is the first one to be marketed as the final season. It really seems to be the end of the series this time.
In Curb Your Enthusiasm’s season 12 premiere, Larry is arrested in Atlanta for bringing a bottle of water to Auntie Rae at the polling station, unwittingly violating a recently passed Georgia law that forbids people from giving food or water to voters. At the end of episode 2, Larry pleads not guilty, setting up an extensive legal battle for the rest of the season. This whole storyline seems to be paving the way for a do-over of the Seinfeld finale, and it might work better in Curb.
Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 12 Episode 2 Recap: Larry’s Hair Dye Parody & 9 Other Best Moments
From Jeff’s runny hair dye to Larry’s mysterious familiar lawyer, there are plenty of hilarious moments in Curb Your Enthusiasm season 12, episode 2.
Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 12 Is Setting Up Larry For The Same Fate As The Seinfeld Characters
In the final episode of Seinfeld – season 9, episodes 23/24, “The Finale” – Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer are arrested in a small town in Massachusetts for breaking a local Good Samaritan law. They’re put on trial with Jackie Chiles as their lawyer, and everyone the group has wronged over the course of the series, from the Bubble Boy to the Soup Nazi, appears as a character witness to condemn them under oath. This leads to all four characters being sent to prison in the final scene.
With the season 12 storyline of Curb Your Enthusiasm, David seems to be setting up the same storyline. By pleading not guilty, Larry has made the trial longer and more complicated than it needed to be. Throughout the trial, the prosecutors could bring in all of Larry’s enemies from over the years to testify against him. Not only is this a fun callback to the Seinfeld ending; it might actually be more successful as the ending of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Why The Seinfeld Ending Could Work Better In Curb Your Enthusiasm
In the Seinfeld finale, the characters’ trial was crammed into one episode, but the serialized nature of Curb Your Enthusiasm will give the show more time to build up to the climactic trial. Season 12 is already laying the groundwork for a more interesting and complex storyline, with Mocha Joe seemingly posing as Larry’s lawyer in an elaborate revenge scheme. It’s a bold move to revisit the notorious Seinfeld ending as the ending of Curb Your Enthusiasm, but it could work out beautifully.
