Curb Your Enthusiasm recap: Conan O'Brien steals the show

The specter of mortality has loomed large here in the twelfth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. And why shouldn’t it? It’s the last one, and these guys are all looking discernibly older, no matter how much hair dye Jeff has tried to smear on his locks. Our dear Richard Lewis has already left us, and he continues to pop up in episodes like this one. Who knows how the rest of these guys are faring health-wise. They may soon be worn down like the cars in this episode: cursed with unshakeable odors or simply drained of battery power, so to speak. Am I paranoid now? Clinging to these familiar comedic presences, never certain that my comedy heroes aren’t out there doing their little bits and spoofs, yet all the while withering before my very eyes?

Anyway, the gallows humor is back, and I actually do like it. Jeff is the first guy to bring up death, because he’s undergoing back surgery. Routine, right? There’s only a 3-percent chance of this procedure killing him, but he still asks Larry to take over as power of attorney for Susie (unbeknownst to her, of course, because… well, she’s Susie, so she’ll be pissed). Jeff claims he just doesn’t trust her not to pull the plug, but he does trust his buddy. Fortunately, though, Jeff’s and Larry’s lawyers share an office building, so they can simply go there together, as if Jeff is accompanying Larry to a legal meeting, and get the paperwork sorted then with Susie none the wiser. Of course, it goes awry. How could it not? But man, the dark little jokes Larry keeps making about being able to “kill [his] friend whenever [he] wants to” are pretty great.

Next comes Richard Lewis’s car saga. With his sense of smell gone due to long COVID, Lewis drags Larry along with him to check out a classic car he’s been eyeing and make sure it doesn’t carry any strange odors. Larry climbs in with Lewis, catches a whiff of old tobacco funk, and tries to negotiate the price down on behalf of his friend. They ask for a “smell discount” of $3,000. Now, DiCarlo the gentleman selling the car (Steve Buscemi, gotta love him!) is put off by this, says it “smells like a scam,” and refuses the discount, ending the sale. Larry makes a little joke that it could be worse, the guy could have a colostomy bag, and his expression sours immediately into what Larry calls a, “hangdog, ‘I shit in a bag’ look.” So now Larry’s off trying to make the guy feel better about the faux pas, and of course he ends up buying the car, at full price, even though it runs like shit and the seat belt falls off. He sells it almost immediately back to Richard Lewis, with the $3,000 smell discount they had been trying to negotiate, losing out on that cash himself… but not before buying something and forgetting it in the backseat.

Larry has some troubles all his own this episode, too. First, his mock trial, in preparation for his Georgia court date over the water bottle thing, does not go well. Afterwards, his lawyer Christopher Mantle (Sean Hayes) goes over the juror questionnaires with Larry, and lists off some of their pretty damning descriptions of him: “less than cordial,” “repugnant,” “surly,” “petty”—it’s all pretty spot-on, honestly. But Larry doesn’t get rankled by any of that, and he’s not even mad that Mantle has reconciled with his husband and they’re going with Zeckelman for their baby’s surname after all (a choice L.D. t00-vocally opposed). Larry can’t take that Susie told Mantle about how she and Jeff ate some cheese that Larry left in their fridge, and Mantle sides with the Greene’s, agreeing with Susie’s assertion that possession is nine-tenths of the law. It’s enough for Larry to fire the guy. “I’m going to find a lawyer who’s going to take my cheese side,” he says, and walks out. What will this mean for Larry’s case?

The other thing grinding Larry’s gears this time is the issue of whether or not it’s permissible to toss keys to a valet. He thinks it’s a lighthearted, fun thing, that everyone loves to throw and catch, but another valet is pretty offended by it, and Larry thinks the guy may have turned the whole mock jury against him as a result. While the valet Larry tossed his keys to at the start of the episode seemed fine with it, to this valet, it’s not only a “big shot move,” but a safety risk. Larry learns that risk firsthand a little later. He tries to rush over to Jeff and Susie’s to intercept the highly secretive POA paperwork, only to find that the pissy valet has unplugged his electric car, causing it to power down, conveniently, right in front of Conan O’Brien’s house. Now, Larry knows he’s not supposed to talk to Conan without clearance from their mutual friend Lewis, but in this emergency situation, Conan agrees to not only talk to Larry, but help him out by letting him borrow his car. He tosses his keys to Larry, who had just moments ago removed his glasses, and they hit him right in the eye. “It’s fun!” Conan shouts. He and Larry have more in common than they realize.

Anyway, it turns out DiCarlo’s surgery was for an ulcer—he has no colostomy bag—but Richard is very happy with the car, and tells Larry he’s actually on his way to pick someone up for a date that night, someone he thinks could be “the one.” Nice little end to that storyline, right? Nope! Remember how Larry left something in the back of that car? Well, it was cheese, to replace the wedge that Susie and Jeff ate. It stinks now, and though Lewis can’t smell, it completely repels his date within minutes. It’s not a happy ending with the whole power of attorney thing, either. Jeff and Larry both sit with eyepatches and hangdog expressions in Jeff’s lawyer’s office as they sign things back over to Susie. And now Larry’s out a lawyer because of the cheese disagreement.

We’ve got two episodes left, folks. Where does this leave us? Larry’s got no legal representation for this big case coming up, we know that much. Does that set us up for another fun guest star? Let’s hope so. But Conan is going to be a tough one to beat.

Stray observations

• Larry is such a little baseball boy. He really wanted his lawyer’s baby to bear the last name Mantle (like Mickey Mantle), and here he’s so insistent that it’s human nature to love a game of catch.
• Larry finds Richard’s “let’s go” head nod to be insufficient. He says you have to use your eyes as well for it to be effective. Do you have a “let’s go” head nod? I truly do not. Per my husband, “You seemingly never want to go or have any clue that it might be time to go. It’s just me, head-nodding till my head falls off.”
• When Larry goes with Jeff to meet his lawyer and sign that power of attorney paperwork, Larry compliments they guy’s pen, and he doesn’t let him have it. This flouts a pretty baked-in rule of engagement in this show. Does it mean something?
• Susie says that Larry and Jeff are like “Frick and Frack, attached at the hip,” a reference to the 1930s ice skating team that Larry wholeheartedly appreciates and co-signs, but Jeff doesn’t seem to fully get. Larry and Susie keep having these little moments of getting each other’s references this season, which is kind of a special thing, and it has me wondering… what if they hook up? What if that happens?
• I looked up this “Vonderdonk cheese” that caused so much strife this episode, and got a bunch of results for Onderdonk, but no Vonderdonk of any kind. Did these fools prank us with a fake cheese?
• My beloved Leon is only in one scene this episode, but he did get to call the car DiCarlo sold to Larry, “presidential,” then ask Larry, “Who’d you get it from, Mr. Peanut?”
• I love Conan so goddamn much. His lines in this make up for the fact that Leon only got a couple in this episode. I love that Conan asks, “Why would you go up to someone if you hadn’t gotten the okay from Lewis?” as if this is a normal thing, required before every interaction with anyone. And when he’s admonishing Larry for assuming that Lewis had reached out? “I assume this boat has plenty of life preservers for everyone. Oh. No, it’s the Titanic. It doesn’t.” And the way he takes Larry to task for calling his Dalmatian a firehouse dog? “He’s never been in a firehouse. It’s a stereotype.” Larry keeps in lockstep with Conan, too, when he offers that Fatty Arbuckle once broke a bottle over the head of a person who didn’t get clearance to talk to him. It’s all such gold.

Curb Your Enthusiasm is available to stream now on Max.