Why Curb Your Enthusiasm said goodbye Seinfeld-style: “That wasn’t the idea in the first place”

Larry David's series ended with a callback to the conclusion of his other cult series. Obviously ironic.

Twenty-four years, twelve seasons, 120 episodes. Curb Your Enthusiasm, one of the funniest series of the last thirty years, said goodbye on Sunday evening in the United States. Very successful, this conclusion allows us to make up for a rollercoaster season 12, surely a little more mechanical and less biting than the previous ones. As many fans saw it coming, Larry David decided to go on air with a mischievous tribute to final series of Seinfeldwhich still divides as much (the characters ended up in jail, after a trial confronting them with all those to whom they had caused harm).

This final episode of Curb therefore places Larry in the position of the accused, and the judge played by Dean Norris sentences him to one year in prison for having distributed water to voters who were waiting under the dodger of Atlanta (a real law of the State of Georgia, completely absurd). But there was no question of letting the old curmudgeon rot in a cell: he ended up being freed thanks to Jerry Seinfeld himself, who noticed that a juror had not respected the confinement. “ Damn, this is how we should have ended Seinfeld », said David. “ You're right, why didn't we think of that? ? “. And both raised their arms in the air as if they were sorry.

Which is obviously not the case: “ In real life, what people think of the finale of Seinfeld don't bother Larry at all », explains to Variety Jeff Schaffer, director and producer of Curb Your Enthusiasm. “ The great thing about him is that he never once cared about other people and what they think. This is why the series is so successful. If we think it's funny, we do it. Once we knew how we wanted to end the series, we sprinkled the season with scenes where Larry gets hassled about the final of Seinfeld. »

But at the start, it was not at all planned to conclude by aping Seinfeld : “ That wasn't the idea. We just knew that we were going to start season 12 in Georgia with this stupid law. It was possible that there would be a trial, but we weren't sure. We wrote episodes and discussed how Larry might come face to face with a kid who did something stupid – like threw a ball at Larry's head -, and whose mother would like to teach him a lesson. And while we were playing this orally, Larry said, “I'm 76 years old and I've never learned a lesson in my entire life.” » A phrase that ended up being found in the last episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. “ We were laughing and realized that was the key. We tell the spectators that Larry is incapable of learning the slightest lesson, we then proceed with the trial as at the end of Seinfeld and we get away with a pirouette (…) Often, we blur the line between the real Larry and the Larry of the series (…) But neither of them has ever learned a lesson from anything! That's what I like about this ending. Larry really thinks he did something very funny with the conclusion of Seinfeld. And then he started again. »

The entirety of Curb Your Enthusiasm is available on Prime Video's Warner Pass.