Dear Larry David, Here's a Perfect Idea for 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' Season 9

The world needs another season of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' and we think we've found the inspiration.

Not Available Lead
Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

Not Available Lead

It's been a full 56 months to the day since the last episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm aired.

Four-and-a-half years since a new season of the seminal HBO half-hour comedy in which comedian Larry David, most famously known as the co-creator of Seinfeld, played comedian Larry David, famously known as the co-creator of Seinfeld, and also a bored, blunt prick who terrorized his wife and their rich circle of friends with one socially relatable mishap after another. Over eight seasons, the series aired not one bad episode and many, many great ones, putting David and his companion Show About Nothing on arguably equal celebrity footing as Jerry Seinfeld and his namesake sitcom.

After concluding the eighth season in September 2011, the series was declared neither canceled nor officially over by David or HBO, but instead in a rarefied limbo: it could return whenever David felt he had a new set of ideas he deemed worthy of a new collection of episodes. In the years since, David aired Clear History, a Curb-esque HBO TV movie, launched and for a time starred in a successful off-Broadway play, A Fish in the Dark, and gained even greater fame via recurring appearances on Saturday Night Live as Bernie Sanders. But no Curb. Maybe Larry's disinterested but just doesn't want to declare it dead just yet. Or maybe he's lacking inspiration. If it's the latter, well, I think I may have found an idea to jumpstart him.

Amidst each of his projects and in every public appearance, the question of more Curb arises, not just to David but co-stars such as Jeff Garlin as well. And the answer is always vague and noncommittal to the point of abandoning hope. If there's one glimmer, it's that this pattern of behavior has been going on since the fifth season, after a finale that saw Larry die, go to Heaven and subsequently get kicked out for being annoying. It would've been a perfect series finale, and it seemed like David realized that—and since then the hiatuses between seasons grew noticeably longer. Around the same time that he finally rounded up Garlin, Cheryl Hines and Susie Essman with a new idea for a sixth season, he and his wife Laurie had publicly announced their divorce. So, midway through season six, Hines' Cheryl David separated from TV Larry, fed up with his selfishness.

Now, Curb has never been much of an art-imitating-life type deal, with David heavily drawing from his personal life to write the show. There are no character arcs, rarely narrative ones even; TV Larry will never change nor should he. If anything, it's IRL social interactions that provide the autobiography, the same way they did on Seinfeld. We've all been victim to a "Chat n cut," David just put a catchy name to it after suffering one too many himself. But it would stand to reason that his divorce and new status as a single middle-aged man helped spark concepts for a new season. And if it's a spark he's lacking currently, well, maybe he may do well to look towards his family for inspiration yet again, because his daughter, Cazzie David, is it.

I had no idea Larry David even had a daughter, or who she was, until this hilarious Instagram made the rounds. I automatically hit follow, less out of actual thirst than blind Larry David Standom. But now Cazzie David is making the blog rounds again, as it seems she's dating SNL young gun Pete Davidson. That's good for them—I wish them luck, love, and happiness and all that, but I didn't care until an idea struck me while talking with my co-worker Chopz, to whom I assign a new Curb classic ep to watch every week. This, this is Curb season 9, right here:

What if Larry made his art resemble life yet again and loosely pulled inspiration from Cazzie? Of course, TV Larry has never had a child nor been particularly fond of them even. But, even if the show is far less autobiographical than say Louie, Larry does have the option of completely curving coherent narrative the way Louis CK does. The only narrative constant is that Louie is a father of two, with an ex-wife. Otherwise, relationships and characters come and go on an episodic basis. Sometimes he has one brother, then two sisters—there was also that time his sister left him with her preteen child that she was unfit to raise.

An even more apt example though would be Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which created Michelle Trachtenberg ​out of thin air at the end of the fifth season premiere as a brat kid sister Buffy's always had. Imagine Larry borrowing these elements, coming home at the end of a ninth season premiere that functioned as a normal episode of Curb only to find his daughter back from college or something with a new boyfriend.

The scenario is a veritable treasure trove of awkward and hilarious situations to fashion ten episodes out of; new cast additions are often the jolt of energy a long-in-the-tooth series needs to maintain freshness. The meta can even take a step further and have the loose "plot" of the season find TV Larry on SNL as well, working alongside his daughter's new BF (the same way season seven's Seinfeld reunion was a Trojan Horse to win Cheryl back). And while Larry probably has a good relationship with Davidson, imagine TV Larry's horror at his daughter bringing home an aspiring comedian who either annoyingly looks up to him, or reminds him of too much of himself (or, like Davidson, smokes way too much weed). Imagine Susie's profane takedown once Larry articulated these insecurities. Imagine Cheryl's exasperation. Imagine Leon!

Simply put, Larry, we appreciate you and all you've done. But the satirical, dry sitcom streets are clamoring for more Curb. At least one more season. Or even a movie. Feel free to disregard this idea, but at the very least I hope it gets the wheels turning.

Latest in Pop Culture