Eric Gould is an architect in Boston, the designer of this TV WORTH WATCHING website, and now is eyeing a new specialty side interest: he wants to be the Nostradamus of TV critics. Specifically, he has a bold -- and, I think, brilliant -- prediction about how this season's Curb Your Enthusiasm will end on HBO...
This season, of course, has featured as its continuing plot line the making of a Seinfeld reunion show, in which Larry David, who co-created that series with Jerry Seinfeld, agrees to mount a reunion special for NBC with Jerry and former costars Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander and Michael Richards.
The meta jokes behind this plot thread are delicious. Jerry and Larry have refused to do a "real" reunion show for NBC, the network that aired Seinfeld all those years. Yet here they are, essentially stealing the project from NBC and handing it to HBO, the cable home where Larry plays an exaggerated version of himself. On Curb, they're mounting the reunion on NBC. But in real life, it's not on NBC -- it's on HBO.
The other conceit is that the HBO Larry's motive for all this, after years of refusing to consider a reunion show, is to win back his ex-wife, Cheryl, played in the series by Cheryl Hines. Larry figures if he casts Cheryl as the new ex-wife of George, the Jason Alexander character who was Larry's alter ego on Seinfeld, Cheryl will be so grateful, and see Larry as such an admirable authority figure on the set, that she'll fall back in love with him. An early show this season even presented Larry's fantasy version of that scenario, with an adoring Sheryl hanging on his every word.
Episodes this season, when they've returned to the Seinfeld plot line, have dealt with the threat of other actresses vying for the same role as Cheryl, and with comic explorations of the relationships between Larry and his former Seinfeld stars.
The TV Jerry has as many social and verbal quirks as the TV Larry. The TV Michael is easily distracted, the TV Julia is easily offended, and the TV Jason has a lot of problems with the TV Larry, including his tipping policy, his overall attitude, and the NBC Seinfeld finale show.
All very funny. But Eric suspects more is going on, and with two episodes left in the season (Sunday nights at 9 ET on HBO), is convinced he's right.
"Cheryl David will be cast on the Seinfeld reunion..." he texted me in a prediction sent before, but confirmed by, Sunday's episode was televised on HBO. But his prediction didn't stop there:
"...And end up with Jason Alexander, the doppelganger of David's doppelganger -- Larry David's character's character."
This explains, Eric insists, why the TV versions of Larry and Jason have been at each other's throats all season, arguing over checks and such. When the reunion starts filming, Eric thinks, Jason -- playing Larry's comic alter ego of himself -- will win Cheryl's heart. By casting her in the reunion show, Larry will lose her to... himself, almost.
If this isn't the ending of Curb this season, it should be.
"Given that The Producer season," Eric argues, alluding to an earlier brilliant Curb season-long story, "was the meta-plot of the producers undoing a real production of the play using its own plot as the road map, why should this season miss similar meta-opportunities of the same kind?"
Why indeed? I think Eric is on the right scent. What do you think?