Curb Your Enthusiasm “Thor”

Does Larry David like big butts?  Well, he might.  But if he does, he most certainly can lie about it.

There’s a lot to balance to this one, and I think the episode pulls it off very well.  Jeff is splitting from Susie, and Larry’s been asked to go to Jeff’s house to get his clothes, and from here, I think I can guess why Susie becomes more antagonistic to Larry.  Now, Jeff is wary of divorce because he thinks Susie will spill his sexual kinks in court.  Larry, thinking ahead, has never admitted to anything remotely kinky with anyone, including Cheryl.

As such, much of the rest of the episode has Larry dodging accusations that he likes large butts.  He even says something to a jogging Wanda Sykes as he passes in his car that he’d know her behind anywhere.  He never commented on the size, it was meant as a joke, and it was completely tactless because now Wanda is telling Cheryl that he commented on her butt.  And then, when Jeff’s mom decides to go to see Jeff and talk him out of the separation, a camera set up by the city to catch people going through a red light that sees Larry seeming to check out Jeff’s mom’s butt.

But there’s some joy to be had as Larry, making his way to Jason Alexander’s office for a meeting, Larry sees some kids in the back of a station wagon and starts doing finger guns at them, mostly because they started it.  Their father, a large man who looks a bit like Marvel Comics’ Thor, doesn’t take too kindly to that, yells at Larry, and maybe deflates one of Larry’s tires.  But he has a vanity plate and turns out to be a pro-wrestler.  Knowing Jeff owes him one, Larry asks Jeff to deflate the tires on a car in a hotel parking lot because, hey, it’s Thor’s car.  And as Larry tells his sons that wrestling is fake, Jeff has to answer to a large angry man that catches him deflating some tires.

There’s just something rather joyful about seeing Larry win something.  Sure, the episode ends with the photo that looks like Larry is checking out Jeff’s mother’s ass, but he got to get back at a mean wrestler and Jeff, one for scaring Larry for doing basically nothing wrong, and the other for making Larry take abuse from Susie when Jeff was too cowardly to get his own stuff.  I don’t think Larry is going to win many of whatever he is up to because it isn’t that sort of show, but when he does win one, maybe we can celebrate that a bit.