Curb Your Enthusiasm “Ted And Mary”

Well, Larry sure knows how to ruin his own life.

Wait, that’s the whole point of this show.

So, my general recollection of Seinfeld, a show that has a lot in common with Curb thanks to Larry David’s whole “created both shows” thing, is that most of the various plot lines will somehow come together.  That doesn’t quite happen here.  There’s the whole thing about Larry’s wanting to be friends with Mary Steenburgen but not her husband Ted Danson, both playing themselves.  Then there’s Larry’s offending of a store clerk that will not be fixed if he offers to pay things off himself over what seems like a misunderstanding.

Yeah, the clerk plot is just kinda weird.  Larry, out on a bowling double-date with himself and Cheryl plus Ted and Mary, loses his shoes when the attendant gives Larry’s shoes to another bowler.  Larry actually gets his shoes back rather easily, but he had already special ordered another pair from a fancy store while out shopping with Mary and her mother (not played by Mary’s actual mother).  I get that Larry provokes extreme reactions from people he routinely encounters, and his general abrasiveness means he’s not often able to make things up to whoever he made mad.

But then there’s Larry’s general pettiness.  He loves Mary Steenburgen, and possibly not because he’s smitten with her!  He thinks he’d just like to be friends with her.  But Ted?  Nah!  He’s annoying because he uses the word “heaven” to describe things all the time and maybe asks too many intrusive questions about personal hygiene.  But Mary is, like, friends with the Clintons!

Man, friends with the Clintons is seen as a big deal while Cheryl Hines’s real life husband is also a bit more prominent lately.  This show may have aged weirdly.

Can Larry, a married man, be friends with a married women who is not his wife?

Well, probably.  But that’s not how he sees it, but he does seem to mostly charm Mary and her mother.  If he can just keep from offending Mary and her mom, he can go to that Paul Simon concert with Mary and Ted!  Cheryl will love that!

Oh, Larry will think he offended them.  But the invitation is still good!  He got the date wrong!  But then Ted and Mary have to go see the Clintons and Cheryl has to go to see some other friends, so Larry ends up at the concert with Mary’s mom, and she falls asleep.

What does that have to do with the clerk?  Beats me!