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It’s pretty sad! HBO’s twelve-season run of Larry David’sCurb Your Enthusiasmhas officially ended after 120 fairly well-executed episodes. It has become difficult to distinguish between the real Larry David and the TV character because the co-creator ofSeinfeldhas made a career out of playing an exaggerated version of himself.
Curb Your Enthusiasm’s long-awaited, 53-minute series finale offers fans even more laughs, some well-timed cameos, and a hint at another finale that fans may have been predicting since the season’s opening episode.
So it’s no surprise that the show’s director, Jeff Schaffer, claimed that the final episode was a direct response to all theSeinfeldhaters out there.
Ending ofCurb Your Enthusiasm: A Defiant Nod toSeinfeldCritics
The heavier-handed and more intenseLarry David’s version ofCurb Your Enthusiasmsaid this at the end-of-season finale:
“I’m 76 years old, and I have never learned a lesson in my entire life!”
“Yeah, like I care”: Larry David Has No Interest in ‘Redeeming’ Controversial Seinfeld Finale That Still Haunts Jerry Seinfeld After 26 Years
Given thatSeinfeld’s finale featured the phrase “no hugging, no learning,” this fact should also have been very apparent to viewers of that show.Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld), Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), George (Jason Alexander), and Kramer (Michael Richards) received a year in prison for their inaction when they witnessed a man being carjacked in the highly criticized series finale.
Before the jury rendered its decision, the nine seasons of the show featured testimonies from people who had been wronged by the above four. Meanwhile,David was on trial onCurb Your Enthusiasmfor allegedly breaking Georgia’s ‘Election Integrity Act’ by giving Leon’s aunt a bottle of water while she was in line to cast her vote.This is similar to how theSeinfeldseries finale was structured.
Director, writer, and executive producer Jeff Schaffer discussed how the ending was“a big middle finger”toSeinfeldhaters (viaUSA Today):
“This whole thing came from (us) talking about a little story where Larry doesn’t want to get caught up in a kid’s lesson… We’re commenting not just on ‘Seinfeld’ or ‘Curb’, but on Larry. On Larry sticking a big middle finger at everyone who didn’t like the ‘Seinfeld’ finale going, ‘Hey, you know what? I’ve never learned a lesson in my life. I don’t care what you thought. I’m doing it again.’”
Well, was there anyone who felt remorseful about Seinfeld’s ending? For Schaffer, this was never the case. He never had aproblem with the ending,because
“I thought it was funny.”
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In other words, he’s not going to pander to theSeinfeldfans who were showing hatred toward the show’s ending.
Analyzing the Anger: What Made theSeinfeldFinale So Infuriating?
TheSeinfeldseries finale aired on July 28, 2025, and it has been more than 25 years since then. Some of the 76.3 million viewers were upset about it, as per a report byVariety.And even many of its detractors detestedthe controversial finale.
For making the main characters “pay for all their years of selfishness, self-absorption, immaturity, and greed”,Entertainment Weeklyrated the series’ finale a C-and called Larry David a“spiteful, unforgiving moralist”.
EvenJerry Seinfeldexpressed a little regret about the controversial ending. He shared (viaVulture):
“I sometimes think we really shouldn’t have even done it. There was a lot of pressure on us at that time to do one big last show, but big is always bad in comedy.”
It is even more brilliant that Larry David brought that ending back for a reshoot because he has hinted that the negative response to the Seinfeld finale may have relieved some of the pressure on him to finishCurb Your Enthusiasm.In 2014, he toldGrantland:
“I got so much grief from the ‘Seinfeld’ finale, which a lot of people intensely disliked, that I no longer feel a need to wrap things up.”
He added that he thought it was “clever” that every character would return for the final trial.Evidently, the ploy was more successful this time around. How? Because, as of this writing,No Lessons Learnedhas the highest rating of anyCurb Your Enthusiasmepisode onIMDb.
“I’ll never forgive him”: Larry David Breaks Down in Heartfelt Tribute to Curb Your Enthusiasm Co-Star Richard Lewis Passing Away at 76
You can streamCurb Your Enthusiasmon Max. Meanwhile,Seinfeldis available on Netflix.
Siddhika Prajapati
Senior Journalist & Content Head
Articles Published :3310
With over 3,300 articles carved into the digital walls of FandomWire, Siddhika Prajapati excels at creating, curating, and elevating engaging stories. She takes pride in giving these stories a home and, of course, she’s got a Google Knowledge Panel to prove it!Whether it’s reviewing the latest drop on Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Apple TV+, or analyzing the cultural echoes of a streaming hit on Paramount+ or Max, Siddhika is always writing three steps ahead of the discourse.
