Rent Curb Your Enthusiasm: Series 10 (2020)

Curb Your Enthusiasm: Series 10 review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Season 10 of Curb Your Enthusiasm kicks off in a big way. Larry finds that the grotesqueness of Donald Trump has created a sort of shorthand with the Make America Great Again hat. He notices that if he ever wears the hat, people will either stop talking to him or want to be around him. It’s the perfect solution for someone as insecure as Larry who wants to find any excuse not to get involved. Even better, it makes angry bikers give him more respect when he cuts them off in traffic. Of course, not everything will work out for Larry but who could’ve guessed it would involve talcum powder and sex that ends up getting someone sent to the hospital?

Season 10 continues on with so much about what makes the meta-comedy of Larry David so much fun. There are business ventures that go awry, relationships that crumble in absurd ways, and all manner of guest stars pop in for some hilarious exploits. Some of the highlights include Larry getting irritated when nobody inquires about his cancer scare, Freddy Funkhouser (Vince Vaughn) gifting Larry a sex doll, and fighting over a lunch bill with Richard Lewis. The ongoing stories for this season are also pretty neat with Jon Hamm attempting to play Larry in an auto-biographical movie and Larry’s continuous fight with Mocha Joe. By the way, the finale of what Mocha Joe ends up buying in the final episode is too beautiful to spoil here.

The retroscripting is down to a science now with how many fantastic performances grace this season with ease. Alan Tudyk is a lot of fun as an eccentric inventor that is suspected of being a Nazi for his dog being named Adolf and responding to Nazi cues (a perhaps not-so-subtle nod to the controversy of Count Dankula). Nick Kroll has a small but notable role as a pissed-off maitre d’ who has a petty feud with Larry’s looks. The celebrity story trend also leads to some fun ideas with Jonah’s Deli (Jonah Hill) and Sean’s Exotic Birds (Sean Penn).

Season 10 also marks the 100th episode of the series. While it doesn’t perhaps end with the biggest of bangs, it does end the season off in the best ways that the show always culminates. Larry gets into an argument, he thinks he finds a way out, and karma comes back to bite him in the butt. Everything from his Trump hat to his side-sitting has consequences the more he tries to avoid confrontation. For a premise that an almost Sisyphean assembling, it still manages to make me laugh just as much as it did in college. That’s a lasting legacy for a comedy show unlike any other and one that has many great seasons ahead of it I’m hopeful.