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. Here are the first 20 episodes: Larry lands a Broadway show; Larry and his friend/agent Jeff invest in a car periscope; and, of course, Larry goes into crisis mode after wearing a condom inside out. Come back tomorrow for 60-41.

The Ringer’s Curb Your Enthusiasm Rankings

Nos. 80-61

Nos. 60-41

Nos. 40-21

Nos. 20-1

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Season 5, Episode 5

Plot Summary: Lifelong friend Richard Lewis is ill and, as the title indicates, needs a kidney transplant. Lewis compels Jeff, his manager, and Larry, his closest friend, to get tested to see if they’re a donor match. When both tests turn up positive for a match, Jeff and Larry go to war over who will donate their organ to Lewis.

Episode MVP: Lewis. Though a young Mindy Kaling as Lewis’s hysterical assistant is a close second.

Best Larryism: “You stupid idiots, you don’t even know how to play eeny, meeny, miney, mo. You don’t know how to play eeny, meeny! You don’t know the first thing about eeny, meeny!” — Sean Fennessey

Season 2, Episode 6

Plot Summary: One of the more confusing Curb episodes, “The Acupuncturist,” is about a $5,000 bet and a $5,000 loan, which both lead to explosive confrontations between Larry and the unfortunate strangers who’ve entangled their fortunes with him.

Episode MVP: Ed Asner, who roasts everyone in the episode and goes on an extensive rant about denim (and then dies).

Best Larryism: “I mangled the whole belly button, and now the kid won’t even talk to me.” — Justin Charity

Season 8, Episode 4

Plot Summary: Larry has started dating the hostess at his favorite restaurant, but he has some concerns about her use of the titular smiley face in text messages. (It’s 2011; grown-ups haven’t caught on to emoji yet.) Meanwhile, his assistant Antoinette has left to care for her dying father, so Larry is left to wage war against his new office neighbor Dino (Harry Hamlin) — a.k.a. “Big Dog” — who has claimed too many kitchen cabinets.

Episode MVP: Harry Hamlin, who wins the kitchen-cabinet war and also out-Larrys Larry on the subject of counter space and breakfast cereals.

Best Larryism: “The Dog days are over.” — Amanda Dobbins

Season 6, Episode 9

Plot Summary: Larry attempts to win back his wife, Cheryl, under the advice of his therapist. When it goes horribly wrong, he enlists Dr. Bright (Steve Coogan) to make things right again.

Episode MVP: Dr. Bright, who psychically unravels in the space of half an hour.

Best Larryism: “Sometimes you make friends in a situation like this,” Larry calmly tells his now-imprisoned therapist. “They become your friend for life.” — Claire McNear

Season 1, Episode 7

Plot Summary: “You never congratulated me on my new car,” Jeff tells Larry. The boys then go for a joyride, and Larry, mistaking a radio AAMCO ad for a honking car, provokes a fellow driver to rear-end Jeff’s pristine ’57 Chevrolet. In its entirety, Curb Your Enthusiasm is a series about how these people can’t have nice things.

Episode MVP: The ’57 Chevy. It’s a beautiful car, and Larry was rude to ignore and then imperil it like that.

Best Larryism: “What is this compulsion to have people over your house and serve them food and talk to them? What a strange thing.” — Charity

Season 8, Episode 2

Plot Summary: Larry has run-ins with his unbeknownst-to-him neighbors over Chubby Hubby ice cream and small piles of dog shit, but ultimately, thanks to a patient marm, he opens his house to their dirty laundry. Larry uses political correctness to exonerate himself over the loss of a stranger’s “watch-my-laptop,” but it turns into a wrongful arrest. And Larry’s genuine concern for the real human attached to a pair of breasts (“It’s like Jello pudding inside those motherfuckers,” per a vending-machine-beating Leon) destroys Richard Lewis’s handsy relationship.

Episode MVP: Feminism, in the form of both Stella (Jan Anderson) — because it takes an extremely confident burlesque dancer to reduce her bosom by half — and Dale (Jen Kober), who carries around a laundry basket and injures obnoxious men like a boss.

Best Larryism: “It’s very hard to apologize to a dog, because they’re a stupid animal.” — Katie Baker

Season 7, Episode 2

Plot Summary: The two main stories are Larry going to great lengths to get out of his relationship with Loretta (Vivica A. Fox) — including going to a cancer doctor he knows will recommend she dump him — and Larry being unable to approach Richard Lewis’s girlfriend after he hears that she gave him a blowjob in the car. The stories cross when Loretta ignores the doctor’s advice — specifically because she sees the doctor performing “vehicular fellatio” — but breaks up with Larry anyway after she thinks she catches him receiving road head. She moves the Blacks out of Larry’s house; Leon, of course, stays behind.

Episode MVP: This one is all LD; the episode opens with a two-minute feat of acting in which he loses his mind trying to open a vacuum-sealed package.

Best Larryism: “Blowjob in the car? Wow, how gentile.” — Andrew Gruttadaro

Season 7, Episode 4

Plot Summary: Larry goes to the doctor for treatment on a hand burn that he got from a too-hot hot towel on an airplane. In the parking lot he runs into an old flame, Mary Jane, and they make a date for the next day. Larry gives Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen a $300 gift certificate to a restaurant, and is flabbergasted to see them dining there with Jeff and Susie instead of him the next night — especially because Jeff and Susie’s gift to Ted and Mary was merely a vocal performance by their daughter, Sammi. (“At least I got you a gift! I didn’t have my daughter go up and sing a song. … That’s not a gift!”) Later, when Mary Jane’s boyfriend is on the hunt for Larry, Larry hides out at Jeff and Susie’s house, where he’s awakened by Sammi’s singing. When Larry yells at her to “shut the fuck up,” Susie kicks him out: “You squashed the spirit of a talented young girl. You piece of shit, you heartless piece of shit. Out!” Christian Slater, who is somehow also in this episode, gets the last laugh.

Episode MVP: Larry’s doctor, Dr. Morrison, who is played by the inimitable Philip Baker Hall, and who balances the sturdiness of a seasoned doctor with the dyspeptic deadpan of a Borscht Belt comic.

Best Larryism: “I’m comfortable in pajamas but I don’t wear pajamas on a plane. I like to sing, I like to whistle, I like to play the bongos on my leg. I like to imitate horses but I don’t do it, OK? ’Cause there’s somebody sitting next to me.” — David Shoemaker

Season 4, Episode 1

Plot Summary: In anticipation of his 10-year wedding anniversary, Larry reminds Cheryl of a promise she made him before their nuptials: After a decade, Larry would be allowed to cash in a one-time-only sexual escapade with another woman — so long as he can find a willing participant. Later, after a friend’s karaoke party, Larry is called upon by Mel Brooks to join the cast of The Producers on Broadway as Max Bialystock.

Episode MVP: Then-77-year-old Mel Brooks, who not only sings karaoke and puts a dent in Larry’s head with a bathroom door, but also hires him (alongside Ben Stiller) to star on Broadway. Honorable mentions to Stiller in an inspired turn as the crankiest version of himself and Philip Baker Hall as a doctor with a predilection for doctor’s office etiquette and a bit of a drooling problem.

Best Larryism: “You got yourself a partner? I got a wife. Not exactly a partner — more like a, uh, rival. You know what I mean? It’s a rivalry.” — Fennessey

Season 1, Episode 2

Plot Summary: There’s no double date that sounds more delightful than bowling with Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, and even Larry has fun. Almost too much fun, as he develops an embarrassing friend crush on Mary and proceeds to make the interpersonal dynamic between the couples as awkward as possible.

Episode MVP: Mary’s mother (Anne Haney) is a gentle Southern woman who just wants to go shopping and enjoy the music of Paul Simon with her daughter, and instead spends most of the episode attempting to be polite to Larry. She’s the MVP for keeping a straight face when Larry buys a jacket to match Mary, a feat few people could manage.

Best Larryism: “Nothing gives me more pleasure than cracking an egg.” — Kate Knibbs

Season 6, Episode 7

Plot Summary: Cheryl’s plane encounters severe turbulence, and when she calls Larry to tell him she loves him for what may be the last time, he rushes her off the phone so he can deal with the TiVo repairman. Finally fed up with his antics, Cheryl decides to leave Larry. Hearing the news of their breakup, Larry and Cheryl’s friends are put in the awkward position of having to choose between them. They all choose Cheryl. Meanwhile, Larry sustains a scrotal hematoma and contusion (“twisted balls”) and goes on a date with Xena the Warrior Princess (Lucy Lawless).

Episode MVP: Ted Danson. When Larry asks him why he didn’t get an invite to Danson’s “oceans fundraiser,” Danson’s excuse is, “I thought you were a global warming guy.”

Best Larryism: “My testicles got ensnared in the fly of my underwear, and the doctor says I can’t have sex for a week … but we can go [to your house] for dinner?” — Jordan Coley

Season 4, Episode 3

Plot Summary: After Ben Stiller drops off his wife at yoga, Larry refuses to join him in the front seat of their car — an argument that pushes Stiller to quit The Producers. Mel Brooks’s partners become convinced something is wrong with Larry after they spot him at lunch with a mentally disabled car washing crew and a burka-clad Muslim woman. Larry attempts to set up the Muslim woman with his blind friend, Michael, but the date is ruined when he misfires his umbrella, removes her veil, and decides she’s unattractive. Cheryl’s cousin Stewart refuses to tell Larry the secret to a card trick.

Episode MVP: Stewart, for his deadpan assessment that Larry is not “a natural magician.”

Best Larryism: “Lil’ baby’s gonna walk!” — Alyssa Bereznak

Season 5, Episode 6

Plot Summary: Larry goes to the Playboy Mansion and swaps his dad’s smoking jacket for Hugh Hefner’s. He also brings a terminally ill tween to the mansion in his own twisted version of Make-A-Wish because the kid wants to see a naked woman. I don’t know if HBO had some sort of arrangement with Hef for Playboy-themed episodes in the early 2000s (remember the L.A. episodes of Sex and the City?) but watching this in 2017 is less notable for how funny it is — it’s pretty mediocre by Curb standards — than as a reminder of how quickly Hef and Playboy fell off the cultural radar. (Would a 12-year-old boy even know what the Playboy Mansion is now?)

Episode MVP: I’m going to give the MVP to Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt, Hugh Hefner’s former girlfriends, who look so convincingly uncomfortable during their prolonged chat with Larry that it both made me uncomfortable and curious enough to find out what happened to them after The Girls Next Door ended. (Holly performed in a burlesque show in Las Vegas and wrote a few juicy memoirs; Bridget operates an Etsy store.)

Best Larryism: “Double transgression theory.” — Knibbs

Season 2, Episode 9

Plot Summary: Larry crashes a baptism. Importantly, he does this after bugging Cheryl with his wild musings and unhelpful directions on the long car ride to said baptism, which Larry mistakes for an attempted murder by drowning.

Episode MVP: Kaitlin Olson as Cheryl’s sister. Her cameo is brief — she mostly screams in a river — but I’m Sweet Dee hive for life.

Best Larryism: “We don’t need more states — we’re not the British Empire. Are they trying to turn us into the British Empire? And what is Puerto Rico, anyway?” — Charity

Season 4, Episode 8

Plot Summary: Larry seeks medical advice from his Native American gardener, Wandering Bear, after he wears a condom inside out and numbs Cheryl’s vagina. Meanwhile, Larry tries to conceal a College Girls Gone Wild video and an injury to Jeff’s dog, Oscar, in addition to repairing his relationship with his personal assistant.

Episode MVP: Larry. By this point in the series, Larry has come into his own as a comedic actor — it’s not just his observations, but his intonations and expressions. Every aspect of his performance in this episode works, from the fake voice he uses to order the video to his discomfort and disinterest during the whole first scene with his jilted assistant (“What are those, Mentos?”) to his anxiety about having his “web of lies and bullshit and deceit” exposed.

Best Larryism: “Marvin, I’ve had every sexual problem known to mankind. What is it, you’re impotent? I’ve gone 10 years with no erection.” — Ben Lindbergh

Season 2, Episode 10

Plot Summary: Larry declines to “stop and chat” with the maître d’ at his favorite restaurant — which has consequences when Cheryl takes Larry to a celebratory dinner and Larry attempts to “borrow” a fork. At some point in the middle of this, Larry gets an inappropriate massage and tanks his pitch to CBS because he’s worried Cheryl will find out through her psychic.

Episode MVP: Cheryl, who does indeed figure out the wrongdoing via psychic and who doesn’t get caught stealing a fork.

Best Larryism: “He wanted to do a stop-and-chat, and I don’t know him well enough for a stop-and-chat.” — Dobbins

Season 8, Episode 8

Episode Summary: Larry and Jeff go into business with an inventor who has pioneered a mechanism that’d allow drivers to see ahead of traffic and who Larry trusts almost solely because the man’s wife is less attractive than him. (A form of judgment that permeates the whole episode.) The B-plot is an homage to The Fugitive in which Larry is accused of taking advantage of a (very racist) old man during a game of Scrabble when really, it was a one-armed man. (One noteworthy musing that only slightly makes it into the plot: the ethics of walking ahead of someone in order to get a cab before them, otherwise known as “upstreaming.”)

Episode MVP: Aida Turturro, who plays the inventor’s wife! The sight of her stalking toward Larry — as he hurls popcorn at her in self-defense — after he lets slip why he trusts her husband, is a magical sight.

Best Larryism: “I always think of nice things, but I never act on them … What is that?” — Gruttadaro

Season 4, Episode 10

Plot Summary: Larry travels to New York for the opening night of his Broadway show, and makes a couple of final efforts to cash in on his 10th-anniversary gift from Cheryl.

Episode MVP: A frantic cameo by a pre–Colbert Report Stephen Colbert as an irate tourist with possibly mystical powers.

Best Larryism: “What could you be talking to a stewardess about? Did you allude to me?” — McNear

Season 5, Episode 9

Plot Summary: Larry uses a Korean florist named Sung as a bookie to bet on NBA games. When Jeff and Susie’s German shepherd, Oscar, goes missing, Larry suspects that Sung has kidnapped Oscar and cooked him. Later, at Dr. Mark and Marla’s wedding, when Larry learns that Sung has not only provided the flowers for the ceremony, but made one of the dishes being served at the reception, he freaks out and tells everyone that they’re eating dog. As Cheryl and Larry are pulling out of the parking lot and leaving the wedding, Oscar appears and runs out in front of their car.

Episode MVP: Sung is definitely the MVP of this episode. He’s an in-demand, multitalented businessman. I mean, the guy’s a florist, a bookie, and he cooks a mean bulgogi?

Best Larryism: “You know the story of The Three Little Pigs? The one who built his house with bricks? That’s me. … I’m the third pig. Think of me that way, the third pig.” — Coley

Season 8, Episode 1

Plot Summary: The Season 8 premiere begins with a typical argument between Larry and Cheryl and then, quite unceremoniously, the announcement that the two will be getting a divorce. But, in keeping with Curb’s elite pettiness, no part of the episode is dedicated to processing the emotional drama that led to the disintegration of their considerably long marriage. Highlights include: Larry confronting his divorce lawyer, “Berg,” after evidence indicates he is feigning Judaism, and Larry instructing a Girl Scout as to how to insert a tampon through his bathroom door.

Episode MVP: Berg (Paul F. Tompkins), for peppering his conversations with just enough Yiddish to appear marketable, while also maintaining plausible deniability.

Best Larryism: “I got Sweded!” — Bereznak

Come back Friday to see the final 20 episodes on our Curb Your Enthusiasm countdown.

Disclosure: HBO is an initial investor in The Ringer.

The Ringer Staff