Curb Your Enthusiasm season 9 episode 4 review: Bryan Cranston arrives as Larry David's latest beleaguered therapist
JB Smoove is on stunning form as ever in an episode that otherwise falls a little flat
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Your support makes all the difference.Last week it was Salman Rushdie serving as Larry's wingman, this week it's Bryan Cranston going chair shopping with him. There's always a surreal yet quotidian aspect to Curb Your Enthusiasm to enjoy, though the new season's biggest cameo so far comes in its weakest episode.
Cranston of course does a consulate job with his role as Larry's new therapist, but is only really there for Larry to bounce off meaning he's somewhat wasted. With Cranston presumably eager to take part in Curb you can't help but think they could have had more fun getting him playing "himself", as Rushdie and Elizabeth Banks did in previous episodes. Still, at least there is the fun possibility of Cranston being a returning cast member this season.
The other key scenes and settings in 'Running with the Bulls' include the opening of Richard Lewis' art exhibition, which had the potential to be hilarious and be the basis for the whole episode but was swiftly moved past, an open house where Jeff is secretly sleeping with the realtor - which also didn't really get pushed for laughs far enough - and the funeral of Marty Funkhauser's nephew, where Larry's annoyance just feels forced as he tells off a crying mourner before initiating a 'boy who called fatwa' farce.
It's still a fun half hour and JB Smoove saves the day, Leon going off on a typically tangential, deadpan celebration of the size of his penis (I love how Larry is completely unable to keep a straight face with everything JB ad libs), but it isn't threaded together as neatly and hilariously as the first three episodes of the new season.
Curb is a sitcom, a bit of fun and there's no need to dissect it like an hour-long drama, but as it goes increasingly slapstick, it would be nice to see it return to the slower, more meandering pace of earlier seasons.
Curb Your Enthusiasm continues Sunday nights on HBO in the US and Monday nights on Sky Atlantic and through NOWTV in the UK.
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