HBO Sunday Night - 10/4/09

Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Reunion
Season 7, Episode 3

Larry's ex-wife Cheryl has started acting again and to win her back, he agrees to arrange a Seinfeld reunion where she will star as George's ex-wife. The major Seinfeld players all showed up, but this was a Curb episode all the way with LD's misanthropy affecting everyone around him. The one-on-one scenes with the 4 Seinfeld cast members were terrific, especially Jason Alexander who seems none too pleased with the Seinfeld finale. Nor does he seem to realize that George Costanza was based on Larry David all along. Jerry threw all kinds of great improvised things at Larry and Michael Richards was beautifully aloof. The "waiter tipping" thing went on a bit long but the obsession with minutiae is one of the cornerstones of both Curb and Seinfeld. A-

By the way, LD was right, it's spelled "champing", but pronounced "chomping".

Favorite line: "I'm going to hate myself more than normally."

Entourage: Give a Little Bit
Season 6, Episode 12

Almost everyone gets what they want. Drama is offered his own TV series. Eric and Sloan get engaged. And Ari gets to buy his old boss's agency and fire lots of people. The best scene was easily Ari shooting newly fired people with a paint ball gun (including the guy who represents John and Kate + 8 - who totally deserved it). It's the kind of inspired craziness that much of the season was missing. The season was entertaining but toothless and played it way too safe to be very memorable. Matt Damon had a decent guest star appearance in this episode, playing against his nice-guy persona to shake Vince down for a big check to help a kids charity. A post-credits scene with Damon yelling at Vince (calling him a c-sucker, then crying) was followed by a black-screen dedication to a recently deceased relative of show creator Doug Ellin ("In loving memory"). The whiplash change in sentiment was unintentionally hilarious.

Paintball scene: A
Episode: B+
Season: B