Curb Your Enthusiasm: Season 6 - Episode 2, "The Anonymous Donor"

In “Meet the Blacks” I was irked at how pushy Ted Danson was with Larry, commanding him to come inside his house more than insisting, and now Danson is becoming overly friendly with Cheryl, calling her cell phone to chat, and playfully patting her shoulder in person. Larry theorizes on this behavior to Jeff: “That’s like, you know, sex for platonic friends. Because they can’t touch each other; it’s forbidden, so they…do the playful slap.”

And Cheryl eats it up too – she does the “flirtatious tap” right back to Ted when Larry and she arrive at an NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) function where Larry has had a wing credited to him for his donation. The other donated wing has been credited to ‘Anonymous’, which immediately sets Larry off because it makes his donation look less selfless and honorable. Cheryl informs him that Anonymous is actually Ted Danson.

Later when Larry is talking to Sen. Barbara Boxer at the function, Ted comes up behind him, grabs both his shoulders and says to the Senator, “Isn’t he great?” So not only is Ted Danson flirting with Cheryl, but he’s patronizing Larry. Also, he’s a Pharisee.

Meanwhile, Larry, Cheryl, and the Blacks have moved into a new house. An unexpected visitor shows up in the form of Leon (J.B. Smoove), an affable black guy who turns out to be Loretta’s brother. When he enters Larry’s house with his suitcases, Larry asks if he was in the Hurricane too. Loretta: “No he lives here in L.A.”

The next morning, Cheryl, looking troubled, asks to speak to Larry. She tells him she found a stain on Leon’s blanket that could be nothing other than evidence that Leon has been masturbating with impunity on their linen. When Larry confronts Leon about the stain in question, Leon denies it. Later, at the NRDC function, Jeff admits to Larry, while the two chat with Ted, that he is the culprit of the trespassing semen. On the drive home, Cheryl tells Larry she knows it was Jeff who masturbated on their blanket and that he is banned from their house. Larry correctly assumes Ted told her and is angered that he tattled to Cheryl while Cheryl is angered that Larry is angry about the tattling and not the masturbating. Ted Danson is effectively driving a wedge in Larry and Cheryl’s marriage on multiple fronts.

When Larry goes to Jeff’s house to let him know he’s banned, Susie comes in and wants to know why.

After a shitstorm of Susie Greene-style obscenities and rage, Susie bans Larry from her house.

Larry goes to the dry cleaners to drop off the soiled blanket and to pick up a Yankees jersey. When he can’t find his jersey, he is told by Gina Gershon’s character that when the wrong customer accidentally takes an item of clothing, there’s nothing to be done - somebody else now owns his Joe Pepitone N.Y. Yankees jersey. He is not consoled when she explains that it’s the Unwritten Law of Dry Cleaning.

When he is driving around with Leon later, he spots a man wearing his pilfered jersey, and after pointing the man out to Leon, Leon is quick to get out of the car and reclaim it. Later Larry spots another guy wearing a jersey that looks like his and after inspecting the first reclaimed jersey, realizes it’s not his, but that one is. Again, Leon is in the guy’s face, and before long, Larry and Leon are sitting in Larry’s house playing cards in matching Yankees jerseys.


Choice Lines

Cheryl: “I know who it is…It’s Ted, Ted is Anonymous...Isn’t that great? He donated the whole wing and didn’t want anybody to know.”
Larry: “He told you. So apparently he wanted somebody to know.”
Cheryl: “He told me…Okay?”
Larry: “Who else did he tell?! How do you know he just told you?!”
Cheryl: “I don’t know – the point is that he didn’t need all the fanfare…”
Larry: “Fanfare?! What fanfare?! I don’t like the fanfare! Are you saying I like fanfare?!”


Leon: “I wonder if cooking good is hereditary. You know what I mean?”
Auntie Ray: “Yeah, see, Loretta put her foot in it this time.”
Leon: “Loretta put her foot in it, turned it around, and kicked you in your own asshole!”


Larry: “I just spoke to my wife…and she found…a stain…on your blanket…”
Leon: “A stain on my blanket, huh? What, like, uh, juice, syrup, maybe syrup or something like that?”
Larry: “No”
Leon: “Gravies maybe…something in the gravy category?”
Larry: “Unh-uh. No.”
Leon: “What kind of stain was it?”
Larry: “……Ejaculate…”
Leon: “E-wha?”
Larry: “Ejaculate.”
Leon: “Ajackalit?”


Susie: “You what?! You jerked off in their house?!”
Jeff: “Yeah…”
Susie: “Oh, that is sick! You have wrought your semen outside our home, Jeff?!?!
Jeff: “Yeah.”
Susie: “You masturbate in this house and this house alone!! Maybe a hotel! Not at a friend’s house!!”
Larry: “I have to, I have to agree with her, really…”
Susie: “Alright, you know what Larry? I can handle this. He’s my husband. Shut the fuck up, okay?
Larry: “Okay.”
Susie: “It’s sick Jeff. You don’t jerk off in somebody else’s home!” (To Larry) “And Cheryl kicked him out?”
Larry: “Yeah, she’s banned him.”
Susie: “Who the fuck is she to tell my husband what to do?”


Stray Observations

- Cheryl Hines is hot.


- Larry tries the playful tap out on Susie. Does that mean he subconsciously wants to have sex with her? No. Can it?


- Leon adds much comic momentum and provides Larry with considerable to work with.


- I have long taken for granted how well Curb weaves the various story threads together in a single episode. I’d take issue with contrivance, only it’s a half hour comedy show.


- I can’t decide what is the bigger ethical quandary: Masturbating on a friend’s blankets or breaking the unspoken agreement of not squealing on a buddy’s transgression, especially when it has nothing to do with you. Both Larry and Cheryl have valid points. But seriously, Jeff: come on.


* Larry’s Biggest Act of Assholery: Allowing Leon to intimidate the Yankees Jersey off two different guys comes close, but Larry isn’t doing something he knows is wrong – he’s just retrieving his stolen property. Plus he really can’t be blamed for not being able to stop the loose cannon that is Leon. So, no assholery as far as I’m concerned, just standard Larry pettiness: “So you know not one person, not one thanked me for the donation.” If anything, Ted Danson is the biggest asshole of the episode, the smug chucklehead.