Curb Your Enthusiasm Review

The trick is that only the plot is written. Each episode works from an outline, the actors invent the words, and the result keeps the rigorous convergence of David's earlier work while sounding like people arguing in a parking lot. That combination is why the show can build a whole season toward a single humiliation and still feel improvised on the way there. Palestinian Chicken is the high point, an argument about tribal loyalty disguised as a restaurant recommendation, and the seventh season reunion is the rare piece of nostalgia that earns itself by being about failure.

David is not a technically skilled actor and that helps, because the discomfort reads as real rather than played. Susie Essman and Jeff Garlin have a rhythm nobody could have scripted, and Richard Lewis is missed whenever he is offscreen. It looks deliberately ugly, handheld and overlit, which suits it exactly. Some seasons are thin and the late run repeats itself openly. At full strength it is the most uncomfortable comedy on television.