TV

The end of the ‘Curb’ finale was teased by Jerry Seinfeld in Boston last year

"Something is going to happen that has to do with that ending."

By Lauren Daley

April 9, 2024

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Note: This story contains spoilers for the April 7 finale of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

As a massive “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” fan, I’d theorized since the season 12 premiere — when Larry David introduced the idea of a trial — that what Jerry Seinfeld teased in Boston was going to come true.

“Oh my God,” I said after the “Atlanta” episode, where Larry (I just can’t call him David) was arrested for good-doing — giving a bottle of water to Auntie Rae as she stood in line to vote— instead bad-doing, like the Seinfeld gang.  “He’s going to redo the ‘Seinfeld’ finale.”

Sure enough, Sunday night, 26 years after “ruining ‘Seinfeld’,” as my dad puts it— and as all of America seemed to agree at the time — LD went out in the most LD way possible: making fun of the most public of his many humiliations, to paraphrase Jackie Chiles.

Why did I have this hunch? Jerry told Boston this would happen. 

“Well, I have a little secret for you about the ending,” Seinfeld told a Boston crowd last October, in a video posted to Instagram by Linda Henry, CEO of Boston Globe Media. “But I can’t really tell it, because it is a secret. Here’s what I’ll tell you. OK? But you can’t tell anybody. Something is going to happen that has to do with that ending. Hasn’t happened yet. And just what you are thinking about, Larry and I have also been thinking about it. So you’ll see.”

That happened spontaneously during the audience Q&A portion of the show at Wang Theater at the Boch Center.

He told Boston to keep it a secret (and OK, we kinda told), but apparently he didn’t even tell Julia Louis Dreyfus (who was not in the “Curb” finale).

“I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about,” she told UK’s The Guardian after they picked up the news. Still, the new-finale scuttlebutt spread like wildfire in the Seinfeld fandom.

And sure enough, Larry and Jerry did it. 

The “Curb” finale — 26 years after Jerry, Kramer, George and Elaine were imprisoned —  was in perfect symmetry to the “Seinfeld” finale: A string of past characters take the stand to reveal Larry’s awful deeds from past episodes.

But while the tone of the Seinfeld trial felt off-brand, dark and forced, on “Curb,” it worked.

Mocha Joe tells the jury about Larry’s “spite store” solely aimed at destroying his business. Mr. Takahashi recounts Larry killing his beloved black swan. We hear from the orthodox Jewish woman who jumped from a ski-lift at sundown — while Larry ate edible women’s underwear, lest we forget — and broke a bone. The courtroom hears that Larry once pretended to be an incest survivor named Todd,  that a woman —  the little girl from “The Doll” episode — has been in therapy for 21 years since running into Larry in a women’s bathroom.

And in another call-back to the “Seinfeld” finale — where a jailed Jerry and George’s conversation echoed back to the “Seinfeld” pilot —  Larry ends up complaining about his “pants tent” — exactly as he did in the “Curb” pilot.

Throughout the 12 seasons and 24 years of “Curb,” characters have joked about how Larry botched the finale. But this time, the two buddies walk out of jail after Jerry finds a (ridiculous, of course) way to get guilty Larry a mistrial. 

The episode may have been called “No Lessons Learned,” but apparently they learned at least one: “You don’t want to end up like this,” Jerry tells jailed Larry. “Nobody wants to see it. Trust me.”

“This is how we should’ve ended the finale!” Larry tells Jerry.

“Oh my gosh, you’re right,” Jerry says. “Why didn’t we think of that?” 

We Boston fans may have sensed it was coming, but the ending was still so sweet — and complete with a Red Sox dig.

Larry may have been raised to hate us Boston sports fans, as we were raised to hate his Yanks. But for that redemption story of an ending —  and for decades of laughter —  you gotta love LD.

Lauren Daley is a freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected]. She tweets @laurendaley1, and Instagrams at @laurendaley1.