TV

Every Episode of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm,’ Ranked (Nos. 40-21)

As The Ringer’s ‘Curb’ countdown moves into the top 40, we tackle Larry’s “beloved aunt,” an injured Shaquille O’Neal, and a kamikaze pilot who may not have been good at his job

TV

Every Episode of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm,’ Ranked (Nos. 40-21)

As The Ringer’s ‘Curb’ countdown moves into the top 40, we tackle Larry’s “beloved aunt,” an injured Shaquille O’Neal, and a kamikaze pilot who may not have been good at his job

By The Ringer StaffSept. 28, 2017, 12:30 pm UTC • 13 min

Larry David—social assassin, four-eyed fuck, utmost respecter of wood—returns to HBO on Sunday with a new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. It’s been six years since the last episode of Curb aired, and the extended hiatus has allowed us to contemplate some very important questions: Can you pause toast? Is the chat-and-cut a morally indefensible move? And, of course, what is the best episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm? Over the next four days, The Ringer hopes to answer those questions—well, at least the last one—by ranking 20 episodes a day for the rest of the week. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we covered the bottom half of the series; here’s the next 20: a romantic war with Rosie O’Donnell, Larry’s “beloved aunt,” and a dinner party kerfuffle between “survivors” of widely varying degrees. Come back tomorrow to see our Top 20.

The Ringer’s Curb Your Enthusiasm Rankings

Nos. 80-61

Nos. 60-41

Nos. 40-21

Nos. 20-1

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Season 2, Episode 8

Plot Summary: Larry and Richard Lewis sit right next to the bench at a Lakers game, which takes a nasty turn when Larry inadvertently trips and injures Shaquille O’Neal and gets booed out of the Staples Center. The following day, Larry gets ridiculed by nearly everyone he sees. But somehow, miraculously, Larry’s luck turns around and everything starts going well for him—you even get to see an elated LD dance in the middle of Starbucks. Later on, Larry goes to the hospital to apologize to Shaq by delivering DVDs of Seinfeld, and while there, he exposes Shaq’s doctor for cheating in Scattergories. Shaq and Larry make up, but unfortunately it reverses Larry’s luck.

Episode MVP: Shaq, because he was on the show during his prime, and he effortlessly shines in one of the best guest spots in Curb history.

Best Larryism: “I’ll have a vanilla—one of the vanilla bullshit things, you know, whatever you want. Some vanilla bullshit—latte, cappa, thing. Whatever you got, I don’t care.”—Sean Yoo

Season 5, Episode 1

Plot Summary: After nearly drowning, Larry decides he wants to reinvest himself in his Jewish faith, but with tickets already sold out for Rosh Hashanah, he must resort to using a scalper. (A bad idea with equally bad consequences.) In other news, Larry finds out his favorite deli has named a sandwich after him, but it’s a terrible, fish-filled sandwich—“That sounds awful,” Ted Danson tells LD—so he spends the episode trying to get different ingredients on the “Larry David.” Oh, also? Larry finds out he may be adopted.

Episode MVP: Larry David, who recoils in disgust when someone asks if he’s married to Susie, tells Jeff to “shut the fuck up” with a hilarious amount of frustration, uses his yarmulke to clean his glasses, and reacts to possibly being adopted with stupendous glee.

Best Larryism: [With the most sarcasm possible] “Mustn’t interrupt intercourse! Oh, sacred intercourse, cannot be interrupted. Oooh, everybody quiet. Quiet for intercourse! Shh! Don’t disturb the intercourse!”—Andrew Gruttadaro

Season 7, Episode 1

Plot Summary: Season 7 is a strange one—as Larry schemes to break up with his cancer-stricken girlfriend, Loretta (Vivica A. Fox), he does etiquette battle with her doctor, his pal Marty Funkhouser, and Funkhouser’s sister, Bam Bam, recently released from a mental institution. When Jeff takes advantage of Bam Bam, all hell breaks loose.

Episode MVP: Incontrovertibly Catherine O’Hara as Bam Bam. She is unwell, voracious, and riotously funny. Her darting eyes and flirting gestures are screwball magic.

Best Larryism: “Can I tell you something about apricots? You know one in 30 is a good one. They’re such a low-percentage fruit. Always mealy, dry.”—Sean Fennessey

Season 5, Episode 10

Plot Summary: Richard Lewis needs a kidney transplant and Larry, who is a match, keeps finding excuses to not be a donor. (“I’m not even that friendly with him. Yeah, I’ve known him 44 years, but we’re not really close friends. He’s more of an acquaintance. Who gives a kidney to an acquaintance?”) But when Larry is told that he was adopted and that his biological parents are Christians from the Midwest, he immediately converts, loses his neuroses, and becomes a compassionate and loving person who happily offers up his kidney to Lewis. As Larry is being wheeled into the operating room, a private investigator tells him that he wasn’t adopted, and that he’s always been a Jew, and all of Larry’s anxieties come flooding back. Larry goes into a coma after the operation, eventually dies, and then gets kicked out of heaven and sent back to earth after he fights with his guardian angel (played by Dustin Hoffman) over the best system for ensuring DVD cases never get lost.

Episode MVP: Larry, for his superior system for DVDs—put the case on top of the DVD player the moment you remove the disc from the case; for begrudgingly telling a hospital patient, “Congratulations, again, on getting out of the coma;” for using his dying breaths to ask his wife if he’s allowed to fool around in heaven; and for wearing a fanny pack, a white straw cowboy hat with a ribbon around it, and a TGIF shirt.

Best Larryism: “See, this is what you get when you do good deeds. I avoided good deeds my whole life. Turns out I was right.”—Mark Titus

Season 4, Episode 9

Plot Summary: Larry and Cheryl prepare to renew their wedding vows for their 10-year anniversary. After a mix-up with Larry’s rabbi, a former Survivor contestant and a Holocaust survivor go head to head at his dinner party. Larry plots to cash in on Cheryl’s promise that he can sleep with another woman, but runs into difficulties when he misunderstands the parameters of sexual encounters in Orthodox Judaism. Many suits and sheets are ruined—somebody get a sponge!

Episode MVP: Sol, the Holocaust survivor, for his perfect indignation at the mere utterance of reality show luxuries like “snacks” and “flip-flops.”

Best Larryism: “It’s a go-home stain, but I didn’t go home.”—Alyssa Bereznak

Season 7, Episode 6

Plot Summary: A midriff-revealing shirt disrupts Larry and Jerry’s work on the Seinfeld reunion, and Larry’s super-powered piss stream leads to a miraculous misunderstanding.

Episode MVP: The Larry-Jerry relationship. Nothing beats their booth banter.

Best Larryism: Either Larry’s medication-enhanced urination scenes or his appeal to his midriff-exposing assistant: “You can flaunt two-thirds of the day outside of the office. And then you’ve got one-third non-flaunt. Do you have to flaunt 24 hours? Why not take a break in the flaunt?”—Ben Lindbergh

Season 3, Episode 9

Plot Summary: It’s Christmas and Larry has a pubic hair stuck in his throat. He must overcome this physical difficulty in order to navigate tipping season, which he screws up royally because he’s Larry and his housekeeper keeps telling people he went to a U2 concert. Since Cheryl’s parents are visiting, she gets a Christmas tree for the house, and after initial resistance, Larry arranges a nativity scene to get into the holiday spirit. It does not go as planned.

Episode MVP: Jeff Garlin, for asking Larry how to pronounce “Bono.”

Best Larryism:

Becky: You ate the baby Jesus and his mother, Mary.

Larry: I thought they were animal cookies.

Becky: Jesus Christ is not an animal!

Larry: I thought he was a monkey. —Amanda Dob

Season 5, Episode 2

Plot Summary: At Marty Funkhouser’s anniversary party, Larry discovers that he’s on the outs with both the lesbian and black communities—the former because he was overly congratulatory when Funkhouser told him that his daughter Jodi, heretofore a lesbian, is dating a man; and the latter because his new dog, Sheriff, is racist. But after Larry inadvertently scares Jodi’s boyfriend away from the relationship, his status is reclaimed—until the dog takes a bite out of Rosie O’Donnell.

Episode MVP: Wanda Sykes, who, in one scene, deconstructs the antiseptic quality of the modern McMansion and the racism of the American justice system: “Sheriff? That’s a perfect name for a racist dog. Where’d you get this dog? At the Klan meeting or something?”

Best Larryism: “You’re a gentile, you’ll go [to the bathroom] in the middle of Fifth Avenue! It’s different for Jews!”—David Shoemaker

Season 3, Episode 10

Plot Summary: Days before his restaurant is due to open, Larry injures an influential restaurant critic, fires his chef for wearing a toupee away from work, and hires a replacement who has Tourette syndrome.

Episode MVP: Jeff, almost solely for the inspired, out-of-nowhere “grandma” in “Cock! Cock! Jizm! Grandma! COCK!”

Best Larryism: “Guy couldn’t get dates, he takes it out on the rest of the world. I couldn’t get dates, you don’t see me taking it out on anybody."—Lindbergh

Season 3, Episode 4

Plot Summary: Larry attends a fellow restaurant investor’s pool party, where—with the help of the resident nanny (Cheri Oteri)—he circumvents party rules to use the main house’s bathroom. He also, at some point, happens to notice the remarkable endowments of the host’s young son, and being Larry, he later shares these observations with the host in an attempt to bond. The relationship is ruined, so Larry is not able to help the nanny when she gets fired for letting him use the house bathroom. There are also subplots about sponge cake and whether Richard Lewis invented the expression “__ from hell.”

Episode MVP: Lewis, who communicates the deep, quiet shame that comes with having invented the phrase “__ from hell” and getting no credit for it.

Best Larryism: “For some reason, I had a side dish of applesauce, and I have to tell you, it was really fantastic. It was so tasty, and I’m thinking, they never serve applesauce in restaurants. … We should consider it.”—Dobbins

Season 3, Episode 1

Plot Summary: Larry admires a shirt from a photograph of his dead friend Chet and buys his own. Ted Danson, who is investing in a restaurant with Larry, admires the shirt, too; Larry buys him one, but the gifted shirt has a hole, which leads to some Wizard of Oz–related problems with Ted. Larry also gets his two front teeth knocked out, which is problematic for the usual reasons, and also because he recently snubbed his dentist.

Episode MVP: Mean Ted Danson! Never give Ted Danson a shirt with a hole in it.

Best Larryism: “I don't like talking to people I know, but strangers I have no problem with.”—Dobbins

Season 1, Episode 8

Plot Summary: Larry hosts Cheryl’s family for the funeral of her Aunt Louise. They quickly turn against him after an obituary he submitted to the newspaper prints with the typo “devoted sister, beloved cunt” and Cheryl’s sister, Becky, learns that Larry offered her boyfriend breakup advice. After a lot of soul-searching over the labor of gift-wrapping, Larry arrives at Jeff’s house with a birthday present for his mother, a pair of Elizabeth Taylor–esque sunglasses. He’s quickly exiled after accidentally brushing up against her bosom. Larry’s final attempt at shelter backfires, after he fails to usurp the hotel room of Becky’s ex. He spends the night in a parked car, with nothing but the sunglasses for comfort.

Episode MVP: Jeff’s mother, for her steadfast suspicion that Larry purposefully tried to feel her up.

Best Larryism: [On Aunt Louise’s suicide]: “Would it have killed her to leave a note?”—Bereznak

Season 8, Episode 7

Episode Summary: Larry gets into a romantic competition with Rosie O’Donnell over a bisexual woman (Amy Landecker). Intimidated by going up against a lesbian, Larry begins taking Viagra, which allows the episode to morph into an allegory about Major League Baseball’s steroids scandal. In the middle of all of this, Larry confronts a Japanese restaurant employee, whom he believes has given him a “shit bow” as an apology.

Episode MVP: J.B. Smoove’s Leon, who makes his first appearance in New York City in this episode after he drives Larry’s Prius across the country. “Why didn’t you fly?” Larry asks Leon. “I don’t fly, baby,” Leon responds. “You gotta have a photo ID for that, know what I’m saying? Fuck that.” He says this immediately after parking a car.  

Best Larryism: “What is that—they have to have sex with everyone? Half the population isn’t enough for them? They want everybody? So selfish.”—Gruttadaro

Season 3, Episode 5

Plot Summary: After Larry is rude to Paul Reiser’s wife at a restaurant, he attempts to make up for it by letting her in on some primo intel: that a terrorist attack is planned for L.A., per Wanda Sykes’s brother’s best friend. Unfortunately, Mindy Reiser shares the secret all over town, causing the postponement of a fundraiser featuring Alanis Morissette and alienating Larry from all the friends and acquaintances whom he didn’t tell. When Larry calls out a friend who always disappears to the “little fat boy’s room” right before the dinner check comes, he triggers a rage that results in Alanis performing in a neck brace—though not before she confides in him about who “Mr. Duplicity” is.

Episode MVP: Larry. It’s so satisfying when he calls out the check-evader, his attempt to imitate the Jiminy Glick voice is a delight, and he gets the dirt from Alanis. Also, in later Curb seasons, this episode could never happen because Larry would never feel bad enough about snubbing Mindy Reiser to set off the episode’s sequence of events. All hail early-era, conscience-having Larry David, a true relic!

Best Larryism: “You think I don’t know about that bathroom trick? I invented that bathroom trick!”—Katie Baker

Season 3, Episode 3

Plot Summary: Larry gets jealous of Cheryl’s new tennis partner, Brad (Josh Temple), and attempts to find a new chef for his restaurant.

Episode MVP: Brad, who gets a little too in-character at his performance of Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding.

Best Larryism: “It sounds like pigs fighting” is a perfectly Larry thing to say to Cheryl in the midst of an otherwise pleasant game of tennis.—Claire McNear

Season 1, Episode 4

Plot Summary: Larry promises to buy Cheryl a diamond bracelet. He does not end up buying Cheryl a diamond bracelet, although he does go on a walkabout with Richard Lewis and alienate a service-industry employee.

Episode MVP: On their stroll, Larry and Richard encounter a blind man (Patrick Kerr) who asks if they can help him move furniture. The blind man convinces Larry and Richard to unpack and arrange his entire apartment, and is thus automatic MVP for being the rare stranger Larry meets who manages to get the best of him without Larry first provoking him.

Best Larryism: “How can you say ‘blind man’ in front of a blind man?”—Kate Knibbs

Season 4, Episode 5

Plot Summary: Larry makes progress in his rehearsals for The Producers, and he assumes the affectations of his gay choreographer. He also complains about the number of cashews that appear in the packaging of his costar’s father’s nuts and raisins snack brand. When a friend’s father dies, he makes an inappropriate swap of a personal effect at the funeral, which leads to his ejection from their club. Later, a dog bites Larry’s penis. This is a strange, magical episode.

Episode MVP: Paul Mazursky, the sage-like writer-director, who guests as Norm, the man who inspires Larry’s rejection from his country club.

Best Larryism: “A dog, uh … a dog … [muffled] bit my penis.”—Fennessey

Season 5, Episode 3

Plot Summary: The orthotic inserts Larry gets for his shoes may provide him physical relief, but they are painful to everyone around him—from young, innocent Sammi, whose belief in the tooth fairy is shattered by the “fakakta shoes,” to Cheryl’s parents, who lose sleep over the obnoxious squeak. When Cheryl asks Larry to fire their housekeeper because she doesn’t wear a bra, he decides to buy one (with some unwitting sizing help from Susie) because he can’t imagine a life without Maria’s chicken salad. Both a visit from Larry’s father and Larry’s life itself are saved by a symbolic nail—but Larry’s biggest faith awakening comes when he finds a five-spot beneath his pillow.

Episode MVP: This episode is a true Susie tour de force. Not only does she look fantastic in a bright, high-ponytailed getup that is Pucci meets I Dream of Jeannie, she tells Larry that “you don’t know child psychology”; that her family’s tooth fairy strategy is “not your business, Larry, you misanthropic moron”; that he was caught bra-handed “mincing around”; and that he is a “sick fuck pervert.” (Bonus points for asking Cheryl’s dad, with a mix of confusion and disgust: “Why’d ya have a nail around your neck?!”)

Best Larryism: “There is no fucking tooth fairy, and it’s about time she learned that!”—Baker

Season 1, Episode 10

Plot Summary: Larry runs into an ex-girlfriend, who convinces him to come with her to an incest survivors’ group. The group’s anonymity policy is tested when one of its members turns out to be directing Cheryl in a play.

Episode MVP: Cheryl, for snagging that coveted role in The Vagina Monologues. Go, Cheryl!

Best Larryism: [musing] “If they took all the pillows away, if there were no more pillows in the world, you think that would affect you adversely? You think you would notice it? You think it would bother you, like throughout the day, ‘Oh, there’s no pillows on this couch.’ I know at night—it would have an effect at night.”—Lindsay Zoladz

Season 5, Episode 4

Plot Summary: Larry inadvertently causes a suicide attempt by questioning a former kamikaze pilot’s son about his father’s survival, then alienates the residents of his own father’s nursing home by impugning the integrity of their bingo game and appearing to threaten his nursing-home nemesis.

Episode MVP: In an episode without a strong supporting cast, Larry wins in a walk for crowing about bingo, debating doctors versus pharmacists, and inquiring about how a kamikaze pilot could miss.

Best Larryism: “Excuse me for having a curious mind that asks questions of people.”—Lindbergh 

Come back Friday to see the 20 best episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Disclosure: HBO is an initial investor in The Ringer.

The Ringer Staff