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Summary
- Larry David brilliantly integrates a fictional Seinfeld reunion into Curb Your Enthusiasm’s meta universe, pleasing fans.
- The Seinfeld reunion on Curb cannot be considered canon due to metafictional elements and fictional characters.
- Curb’s finale hilariously rectifies Seinfeld’s ending, with Larry and Jerry joking about how they could have ended it better.
After 12 seasons and 24 years on the air, HBO’s long-running sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm finally ended on April 7, 2024. Atoning for the poorly-received finale of Seinfeld in 1998, series creator Larry David gave fans plenty of amusing callbacks to Curb‘s funniest moments and most iconic characters. For instance, Jerry Seinfeld appears in the finale to help Larry get out of jail, and they joke that their legal maneuvering is how they should have ended Seinfeld three decades earlier.
Of course, Jerry’s appearance in the finale of Curb calls to mind the Season 7 finale, aptly titled “Seinfeld.” In the Season 7 finale, Larry tries to win over his estranged wife Cheryl (Cheryl Hines) by offering her a leading role in a fictional Seinfeld reunion episode. When the plan backfires, Larry is forced to rewrite the script and alter the plot of the metafictional reunion. Meanwhile, original Seinfeld actors Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, and Michael Richards play themselves and reprise their iconic characters Elaine Benes, George Costanza, and Cosmo Kramer. The whole episode is so wild and self-referential that it begs the question: is the Seinfeld reunion on Curb considered canon? It’s time to find out once and for all.
What Happens in The Seinfeld Reunion on Curb?
Written by Larry David, “Seinfeld” is the Season 7 finale and 70th overall episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Larry has rounded up the original cast of the hit ’90s sitcom, Seinfeld, to tape a live performance of a fictional reunion show. The fictional reunion takes place after the 1998 finale of Seinfeld, which was infamously panned by fans and critics. The Curb episode goes back and forth between the taped reunion and the backstage drama behind the scenes.
To win his wife Cheryl back, Larry promises her the leading female role in the Seinfeld reunion. Larry casts Cheryl as Amanda, George Costanza’s (Jason Alexander) ex-wife. George and his wife made a fortune by creating iToilet, an iPhone app that directs users to the cleanest public bathroom in any city worldwide. However, George lost his wealth by investing in Bernie Madoff’s illegal Ponzi scheme. Before he lost his fortune, Amanda left George and took half of his money in a divorce settlement. Most of the episode involves George trying to win Amanda back and ensuring that she didn’t marry him for money.
Elsewhere, the reunion episode reveals that, sometime after 1998, Jerry donated sperm that was used to impregnate Elaine. Their daughter is kept in the dark and refers to Jerry as “Uncle Jerry” until he learns the truth about her real father. At the end of the fictional reunion episode, the child refers to Jerry as “Daddy.” While George’s attempt to win back Amanda parallels Larry trying to win back Cheryl, the plot involving Jerry and Elaine’s parenthood is extremely far-fetched in any context.
What Happens Behind the Scenes of the Seinfeld Reunion on Curb?
Apart from the taped version of the Seinfeld reunion, the episode depicts the real actors playing themselves behind the scenes. Julia Louis-Dreyfus performs as herself and throws a gala for the release of Jason Alexander’s memoir, Acting Without Acting, which Larry and Jerry make fun of for being too brief. Meanwhile, when Larry witnesses how close Cheryl and Jason become during rehearsals, he becomes jealous and tries to drive them apart. To do so, Larry hastily rewrites the Seinfeld reunion script and makes it so George and Amanda do not get together at the end.
Jason storms off the set in a huff over the rewritten script, forcing Larry to take his place. While George Costanza has always been considered to be based on Larry David, Larry’s performance as George is so bad that he leaves the show as well. When Cheryl overhears Larry admitting that he only wrote the episode to win her back, she also pulls out of the show. Larry watches the episode’s premiere and is shocked to learn that Amanda is being played by an actress named Virginia (Elisabeth Shue) instead of Cheryl, a woman they met one episode earlier.
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Cheryl arrives at Larry’s door, and despite blaming her departure on the brevity of Jason’s book, she admits that it wasn’t the same after Larry left. Larry confesses that he prefers the original ending of the episode that he wrote, in which George and Amanda reunite, which is a thinly veiled reference to their own marriage. Larry and Cheryl kiss and make up at the end of the Season 7 finale, although Larry can’t help but be annoyed by the ring stain Cheryl caused on the coffee table.
Is the Reunion Episode of Seinfeld on Curb Canon?
While arguments can be made between both sides, the Seinfeld reunion on Curb is not considered official canon. There are too many metafictional moving parts to consider it such. For example, Cheryl David is the one who takes center stage in the Seinfeld reunion, not real-life actress Cheryl Hines. Casting a fictional character in a phony reunion episode hardly constitutes canon. Since Cheryl David does not exist within the parameters of Seinfeld‘s overarching universe, the episode can’t be considered a real extension of the world Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer inhabit.
Similarly, the character of Virginia (Shue) originated in Curb, only to appear as Cheryl’s replacement in the Seinfeld reunion episode. It’s nearly impossible for a character from one show who never appeared in Seinfeld to suddenly appear in the reunion and pretend she’s been a major part of the continuity for years. It’s easy to accept recurring characters like Newman (Wayne Knight) appearing in the reunion, but Virginia starring as Amanda after replacing Cheryl is a bridge too far.
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Moreover, Larry David has always insisted that he’s never been interested in making a real Seinfeld reunion. By making a quasi-reunion on Curb, he’s been able to find a middle ground and appease fans without officially extending Seinfeld‘s canon. It’s a kind of cake-and-eat-it-too hedge David makes to provide fan service while staying true to himself. In the episode, Jerry even jokes, “We already screwed up one finale” and insists on not repeating the mistake.
How Curb’s Finale Rectifies Seinfeld’s Finale
In the outstanding Curb finale, Larry is sent to jail in Georgia for illegally giving water to a voter in line on a hot day. After being jailed for the kind act, the finale appeared to take a similar course as the ill-fated Seinfeld finale. Alas, it’s quite the opposite. In the Seinfeld reunion, Jerry and his friends are sent to jail for avoiding good Samaritan law by laughing at an obese man being robbed at gunpoint. On the contrary, Larry was imprisoned in the Curb finale for doing a good deed deemed illegal in Georgia.
In the final moments of Curb, Jerry gets the judge to declare a mistrial and Larry is set free after spotting a sequestered juror breaking the law. As Larry and Jerry walk out of prison, they joke that this is how they should have ended the Seinfeld finale 26 years earlier, but claim they didn’t think of it back then. While it’s unclear if the Curb finale will be considered Seinfeld canon, in a roundabout way, Larry and Jerry rectified the poorly received ending of Seinfeld in a much more satisfying manner. Instead of conscripting the characters to a prolonged jail sentence, Larry walks away a free man thanks to the intelligence of his friend Jerry Seinfeld. All told, the Seinfeld reunion in Curb Your Enthusiasm is more meta than canon.
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