Curb Your Enthusiasm: Bill Buckner's Redemption

Warning: This post contains SPOILERS and videos that include very NSFW language.

Sunday’s episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm was excellent. I laughed harder and harder as the episode went on. It was a classic episode where one scene would build onto another scene and the punchlines would keep getting bigger and bigger, finally ending with Larry realizing things had yet again not worked out. Queue the music.

“Mister Softee” was all over the place in a great way. It was one of the funniest Curbs of the season and maybe of all time. I’ve watched the episode 4 times and by the end of each I had forgotten the first few scenes. The episode featured three great guest spots. First, Yari, the Steinbrenner Mechanic. Then, Dr. Thurgood, the therapist who is very serious about confidentiality, but also very bad at it. Finally, Bill Buckner as one of Curb’s standout athlete appearances.

Yari would have been a good to great one-off character for Curb, but he’s almost completely forgotten because of the incredible role played by Bill Buckner. He was a mechanic (classic ground for Larry) and he was insane. If Curb didn’t constantly infuse the show with insane people, I can’t imagine how we would look at Larry.

I thought Buck was very zen. Since the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, there have been a ton of articles published about how Buckner and Red Sox Nation had come to grips with 1986. This was the first time we’d seen him having such fun with his past though. Buckner even delivered the Michael Jordan Hitler mustache zing.

Buckner seemed down for anything.

Leon was prominently featured in the episode which on its own can take an episode of Curb to another level. He even got to say Joe Pepitone. When Leon spoke with the man at the door and then the therapist, it was almost funnier not knowing what he had said. Though, as usual, it was awesome when he did speak.

Leon in the car seat obviously set up this:

Susie in the car was so blatant and predictable. Having said that… Every time she got louder and Larry got more disgusted I laughed louder. The execution was awesome.

The episode finally climaxed with a woman throwing a baby out of a burning building. Again, predictable, but done so well. I’m afraid the bar may be set too high for the finale. How can you follow Bill Buckner saying that Mookie Wilson owes him one? This episode more than lived up to the previous sports episodes and should be considered an all-time Hall of Fame Pantheon episode.