Curb Your Enthusiasm- "The Divorce" Season Premiere Review

He's back. Be VERY afraid.

Damn, Curb Your Enthusiasm has been gone a long time. The last episode, "Seinfeld", aired right before Thanksgiving 2009. It is now just after 4th of July 2011, and after nearly two years, everyone's favorite social assassin is back. Larry David returns with the first episode of this ten-part eighth (and again, possibly final) season, with an episode that's better than most of the previous season. Sure, a few episodes in Season 7 hit the mark (particularly "Vehicular Fellatio" and "The Table Read"), but it also had some of the worst episodes of the series (the overhyped "The Reunion" and "Officer Krupke", along with "The Bare Midriff", which contained a rather offensive joke to those of the Christian faith that may have been funny in context, but just took it a little too far). And the finale, "Seinfeld", did not live up to its potential as the final reunion of David's Seinfeld cast, with an amusing but mind-boggling cliffhanger ending. Luckily, "The Divorce" resolves that issue almost immediately before skipping ahead a year, as Larry is finalizing his divorce from Cheryl. While I'm a fan who thinks that they play off each other better when together than apart, there were at least a few divorce-related jokes that hit the nail on the hammer, particularly Funkhouser's revelation that he also wanted to divorce his life so him and Larry could be "two single dudes", as well as Jeff's wife Susie threatening that if her and Jeff ever got divorced, she would "take his balls" along with everything else. Other jokes that worked included Larry's discovery that his lawyer was not Jewish, only to switch to a Jewish lawyer that not only costs his friend (played by Entourage's Gary Cole) the LA Dodgers, but gives up Larry's house in his divorce, forcing him and Leon (the always hilarious JB Smoove) to relocate. This episode was so good, it's too bad that one joke just nearly ruined it, and that being a Girl Scout (who happened to be the daughter of the Dodgers owner) having her first period in Larry house, and him trying to help her insert a tampon through the bathroom door. This joke, like the Midriff joke, was just ridiculously offensive, and was too creepy to get even the most depraved shock laughs. Luckily, an amusing joke involving a tampon and Larry's face saved face for the original gag, and the Girl Scouts attempting to break down his door was funny. Overall, a solid start to the season, but that one joke was a tad too far.

"The Divorce" - 4/5 stars