How Curb Your Enthusiasm’s best episode surprised Sopranos fans Curb Your Enthusiasm is returning to our screens this Autumn for a brand new series, after six years away. Larry […]

Curb Your Enthusiasm is returning to our screens this Autumn for a brand new series, after six years away.

Larry David’s acerbic situational comedy has always been pretty, pretty good, but one classic episode in particular lives long in the memory – and had some surprising crossover with fellow HBO hit, The Sopranos.

The premise

Broadcast back in 2001 during the second season, ‘The Doll’ holds the show’s highest rating on IMDb, and regularly graces the upper echelons of “Best Episode” lists.

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As with the finest Curb instalments, it’s a patchwork of interlocking narrative beats that finally culminates in a gloriously cringe-inducing and hilarious crescendo.

It goes something like this.

As part of a deal for his new sitcom with Seinfeld star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Larry agrees to attend the screening of a new mini series.

At the after-party, he finds that the toilet doors have no locks, so ventures upstairs to find one that does. Here, he bumps into the network executive’s daughter, who asks him to cut the hair off her doll’s head.

The girl then tells her mother she didn’t want her doll’s hair cut, so Larry attempts to replace it with the doll belonging to the daughter of his friend Jeff.

He incurs the wrath of Susie – Jeff’s wife – who finds out long after the second doll has gone, and demands it back.

A dark punchline

Curb really comes into its own when it’s being driven by David’s smart and devilish mind. And that’s definitely the case here.

Every preceding moment plays into the episode’s conclusion; there’s no extraneous plot noise, nor anything inconsequential.

Each attempt at retrieving the doll is hilariously awkward. As always, Curb does that brilliant balancing act of making you feel for Larry’s plight, while also painting him as a fool.

Famously, Curb is largely improvised. And they’ve been known to skirt close to some pretty heavy subjects.

Here, the infamous conclusion hinges on accusations of child molestation. He hugs a young girl while the water bottle he’s attempting to sneak into a screening protrudes awkwardly from his trousers.

“That bald man’s in the bathroom, and there’s something hard in his pants!”

Cue Larry scrambling to escape through a window.

What you probably didn’t know

This would be enough to make the episode notorious. Yet ‘The Doll’ also crosses-over in bizarre fashion with an episode of The Sopranos.

In the fifth season of that hard-hitting crime drama, Uncle Junior’s dementia is gradually getting worse.

A once high-ranking member of the mafia now under house arrest, he flicks through channels and stumbles upon ‘The Doll’ episode.

He confuses himself with Larry David, and Bobby with Jeff, both of whom they physically resemble. He thinks it’s a broadcast of the trial he’s awaiting.

The scene is used to show how Junior’s mental health is deteriorating, and while the character confusing Larry David with himself might seem a humorous aside, it hints at his condition being more severe than previously thought.

Speaking in 2008, Uncle Junior actor Dominic Chianese said: “That was strictly the writers’ idea! It makes sense because we do look alike.”

It’s interesting to see David’s comedy utilised for a genuinely emotional moment of drama. And it works well, because both shows use a hint of the macabre to produce some dark laughter.

Sopranos creator David Chase has talked about David’s previous work with Seinfeld in the past, and is an obvious fan.

We’ll wait to see how season nine plumbs new depths of Larry David’s dark psyche.

Curb Your Enthusiasm season nine starts October 1. Seasons one – eight are available on NOW TV.

