Curb Your Enthusiasm recap: Balls get Larry into (and out of) trouble

So last week on Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry made himself quite the popular guy. After making a lot of people very mad for lugging a racist lawn jockey around in his car to replace the one he broke at his Airbnb, even bringing it to a Black church barbecue, he pled non-guilty to breaking that water bottle law and won everyone back. As Larry and pals stroll through LAX, having flown back in from Atlanta, they’re welcomed by all sorts of new and exuberant L.D. fans who have followed the news coverage surrounding his legal stuff—even the actress Sienna Miller is impressed. “Thank you on behalf of everybody who has a heart,” she says to Larry, and throws in that running into him was “bashert” (“destined” or “fated” in Yiddish, which definitely pushes a button or two for old Larr). She says “keep in touch,” and bumps into something like a dork as she walks away, clearly crushing a little—but he can’t make a move. (There’s a quick a bagel thing that’s worth mentioning, too: Larry tosses one he doesn’t want to a homeless guy rather than allow him to approach the car—it’s fine this time, but this comes back later.)

So why can’t Larry make a move on Sienna Miller? Irma, that’s why. Remember her? They’re doing Wordle together when she first shows up in this episode, and you bet she’s gonna shout the answer when she gets it—she’s that kind of person. Larry says it’s like sneezing in someone’s face. (Wordle etiquette pops up in this episode a lot, actually.) Then suddenly, Larry’s got something else in his face, so to speak: Leon’s balls. They dangle right out of the blue athletic shorts he’s wearing. I’ll just come right out and say it, balls flop in like this to save the day in a couple of instances this episode, so get ready.

But balls get Larry into trouble, too, though: the golf kind. Larry listens in on a private lesson that Academy Award winner (for CODA) Troy Kotsur is receiving at the golf club Larry frequents with his friends. The instructor catches our guy miming a swing from the bench behind him. It’s pretty obvious that Larry is taking this instructors’ tips without paying for a proper session himself. He even has to be told that the bench he’s sitting on isn’t actually for sitting, it’s an “aesthetic bench,” the instructor says.

Speaking of Larry not wanting to pay for things, his neighbor Duane Tubman, has suffered a loss in his family (his father-in-law), and during a visit to pay his respects, Tubman suggests that he and Larry split the cost to maintain the lemon tree that hangs over into Larry’s yard, since he also benefits from a stray lemon now and then. Larry very much does not want to do this, so he’s thrilled when Duane comes over with the invoice and some balls happen to flop back into the picture: Leon’s again, this time to save him. Leon sits down as Larry and Duane are chatting, with Leon’s rogue testicles in full view. Duane is disgusted, and spits out that Larry no longer has to pay him anything as he books it towards the door.

Larry makes this same tactic work for him later in the episode, too—this time with his own balls. Larry gets into lots of trouble with Mr. Takahashi, the golf club owner guy. Larry’s improved swing whacks a golf ball right into Troy Kotsur’s back (and he didn’t yell “fore” to alert him before swinging, thinking that he couldn’t hear it anyway). Then he ends up accidentally pegging him with a bagel when he’s trying to toss it to another unhoused dude from his car. Finally he’s caught listening in from a bathroom stall as that golf instructor shares more tips. Takahashi calls Larry into his office. L.D., however, dons those shorts of Leon’s and leans way back in the chair as they chat facing each other, giving Takahashi a real good look. Predictably, his discomfort causes him to short-circuit on Larry and he opts instead to shoo him along, consequence free.

There’s more to this episode, too. There’s some debate as to dogs’ importance to people relative to humans. That factors into the episode a few times, with male characters refusing to give up certain preferred activities (for one, golf; another, sex) when they hear coyotes howling mixed with doggie whimpers, indicating danger. (We get to see a cute puppy, too, as Ted and Cheryl give one to Susie as a belated birthday gift). In an extreme example of neighborly sharing, there’s an interesting subplot with Freddy Funkhauser trying to impregnate his neighbor’s wife, since her guy “shoots blanks,” before Leon is encouraged to step in on an ovulation night when Funkhauser is unavailable. There’s some bickering between Richard Lewis and Larry about them putting each other in their wills, then each resolving to outlive each other (out of spite, of course)—Larry goes as far as saying he’ll never eat another donut. I mean, this episode is kind of packed with plot lines, but it all weaves together pretty well. Most importantly it’s extra packed with hilarious phrasing and excellent delivery. That right there is why we tune in.

Stray observations

• The words Larry tries in Wordle as he’s playing alongside Irma are “SLEPT” and “ALONE.” Poor Irma! He wants out of that relationship so badly.
• Wordle queen Irma boasts to Leon that she helped him get “VULVA” one time. His response: “I know vulva… it’s one of the safest cars out there.”
• It’s extra funny that all of this stuff with Duane Tubman ensues, because we know that Larry didn’t really care that much about paying his respects to the dead. He was mainly just hoping to seize this open house sort of opportunity to score some praise from his Black neighbor about the whole Atlanta situation.
• It’s also pretty funny that Larry seems to have just assumed that because his neighbor is Black and has Tubman for a last name, he has to be related to Harriet Tubman. Each time Larry suggests that this is the case, the response from Tubman is the most perfect, deadpan, “okay…?”
• When called out about having enjoyed those lemons all along, Larry suggests that he could just as easily enjoy grapefruit on fish instead of lemon. He says “lemons are a fungible citrus.” What do you think?
• Dana Lee’s word choices are freaking funny. (He plays Mr. Takahashi.) When he calls Larry into his office after the golf ball/bagel incidents with Troy Kotsur, he tells him, “You are no longer the funny guy, you are the cheap and violent guy.”
• The actor who played the golf instructor has some great lines, too. He tells Larry that the bench he sits on when stealing those golf tips is “not a lingering bench, it’s an aesthetic bench,” and when Larry’s listening in on more golf tips in the bathroom, the guy accuses him of being “just a master of deception and subterfuge,” always, “creeping and peeping.”

Curb Your Enthusiasm is available to stream now on Max.