On the latest Curb Your Enthusiasm episode, Larry David (the character) is accused of being the anonymous writer of a letter griping about his Los Angeles country club. The letter, which is posted to the locker room bulletin board, is signed “Disgruntled” and grabs the attention of the club’s owner, Mr. Takahashi (Dana Lee), who happens to have a long-standing feud with Larry.
It makes sense that Larry would be assumed to be the so-called Disgruntled member. In this episode — the fourth in the final season, titled “Disgruntled” — Larry, who is enjoying newfound fame as a political national hero after his premiere episode visit to Georgia, gets under the skin of several members of the club’s staff when he complains about breakfast not being served after 11 a.m., brings his own bread and his own eggs to the kitchen, and then accuses the chef of not using his home-brought eggs.
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As it turns out, that storyline is based in reality.
“Yes, real Larry has brought eggs, and even bread, to the club,” executive producer Jeff Schaffer tells The Hollywood Reporter. “When we were talking about things to do at the club, because we were going to have these breakfast and dinner scenes, he was like, ‘I’ll bring my eggs.’ And then on the day, I was like, ‘How do you want to carry the eggs?’ And he said, ‘Well, usually I just bring them in a hat.’ So yes, real Larry has gone to a restaurant with eggs in his hat.” (Laughs.)
This raises many questions. How do David’s eggs survive the speed bumps when pulling his car up to the country club? How do they make it all the way to the restaurant, without bumping into anyone who approaches him along the way?
“It is an odd thing to imagine,” says Schaffer with a laugh. “I can imagine someone saying, ‘Hey, let’s go out to breakfast’ and him grabbing his hat and saying, ‘I’ll get the eggs!'”
And David has brought his own bread, too. “He definitely has specific breads that he likes that may not be available at the places he goes to,” adds his longtime collaborator, confirming he does not have a gluten allergy.
In one departure from the storyline, however, Schaffer doesn’t believe David has ever had “egg misplacement” (referencing Larry in the show accusing the chef of not using his eggs; and later getting it confirmed that the chef has indeed been eating his eggs). But he does believe in standing up for all-day breakfast: “He doesn’t understand why you can’t order breakfast at any time. The eggs are still there, the bread is still there. Was there a regime change in the kitchen? It doesn’t make sense. So he got that out of his system, too.”
Throughout the episode, Larry is questioned about being “Disgruntled” by guest star Willie Geist of MSNBC’s Morning Joe fame, who is interviewing Larry for a TV sit-down about becoming a liberal darling (for obstructing the election process when he gave Auntie Rae a bottle of water in an Atlanta voting line and got arrested, evoking Donald Trump’s mugshot), and he’s flat-out accused by Takahashi. The latter leads to what Schaffer refers to as the show’s “Disgruntled Spartacus moment,” which saw his fellow golfers having his back as they each came forward to claim the “disgruntled” title — including Larry’s friend Jeff (played by Jeff Garlin), who was the actual writer of the letter. Due to a thin wall at a doctor’s office, Geist overhears that Jeff was the letter-sender, and Schaffer says that sets in motion events for episode five.
“Things that happen in this episode definitely have consequences in the next one,” says Schaffer, carefully choosing his words. “Some of the things that Larry does in episode four, those chickens come home to roost in episode five.”
There’s also a Seinfeld reference, when guest-stars Annie Mumolo and Rob Riggle, the latter playing a fictional Seinfeld writer, bring up the sensitive topic of the series finale and Larry shoots them a death stare. “We wanted to just have her needle Larry,” Schaffer says of Mumolo’s character, who was acting as a relationship therapist for Larry and girlfriend Irma (Tracey Ullman) in the episode. “I’ll just say this, Hobe Turner is not done with Larry,” teases Schaffer of Riggle’s character — who, in a callback to season 11, was the director of the fictional movie that was supposed to see Jon Hamm playing a Larry David-type character that never got made, because the test audience felt the character was too “repugnant.”
Circling back to this week, Schaffer leaves viewers on this note: “Sometimes the difference between real Larry and TV Larry is vast. And sometimes, there’s no difference at all.”
Curb Your Enthusiasm releases new episodes Sundays at 10 p.m. on HBO and Max. Read THR’s other season chats with Schaffer here.
