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      Jeff Schaffer and Susie Essman on the ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Finale

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      In an interview, Jeff Schaffer and Susie Essman discuss why Larry David revived the polarizing “Seinfeld” finale. “We know what you thought of that, and we don’t care,” Schaffer said.With a parade of callbacks and a twist a quarter-century in the making, “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” the HBO series starring Larry David as a heightened version of himself, ended its 20-plus-year run on Sunday.The final episode, which referenced the polarizing 1998 finale of “Seinfeld,” David’s previous show, was replete with the usual out-of-bounds commentary and cranky fixation on minutiae; David and his co-stars — Jeff Garlin, Susie Essman, J.B. Smoove, Richard Lewis — do not, by creative mandate, change. (“I’m 76 years old, and I have never learned a lesson in my entire life,” David tells a child in the episode, in the opposite of a teachable moment.) In real life, though, the cast are longtime friends, and have weathered much together, including the death of Lewis, who played himself, in February.On Monday, Jeff Schaffer, the longtime executive producer and director, and Essman — who portrayed Susie Greene, the scene-stealing, expletive-hurling wife of David’s manager (Garlin) — got together for a post-mortem video interview about the series that, they said, changed their lives. Essman was in her home in New York, and Schaffer, who got his start as a writer on “Seinfeld,” was in the “Curb” offices in Los Angeles, where a sign on the wall behind him, hanging askew, read: “No defecation please.” (It was a prop from Latte Larry’s, the “spite store” that David’s character opened to malign a neighboring coffee shop, Schaffer said. “And it’s a sentiment I feel is as true now as it was then.”)Essman and Schaffer spoke about filming their final moments with Lewis, how the characters could live on, and why the “Seinfeld” finale idea led to the end of the series. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.When did you conceive of the finale?JEFF SCHAFFER It was July of ’22. We were writing the season — we weren’t that far — and we knew that we were starting with Georgia. [In the season premiere, David’s character gets arrested for giving a woman water while she waits to vote in defiance of a local election law.] When you start with a crime, one of the possibilities is a trial. So that was floating around, one of the many paths that we could go down.And we were just talking about a little story, of Larry not wanting to be involved in a kid’s lesson. We talk out the scene and distill it down to a few lines. In character, he said, “I’m 75 years old, I’ve never learned a thing in my life.” And that was the moment for us where we said, “Hold on a second, what if we just blew that up and just told everybody: ‘Larry’s never learned his lesson,’ and just did the ‘Seinfeld’ trial again?” Just owned it. Like, we know what you thought of that, and we don’t care. We’ve learned nothing. We’re going right at it. We’re steering the Titanic right back at the iceberg.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Series Finale Wraps Up Like ‘Seinfeld’: Review

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      Larry David’s HBO comedy ended on Sunday after 12 seasons. Longtime fans might have noticed similarities with a certain earlier sitcom.After 12 seasons, spread across 25 years, the HBO comedy staple “Curb Your Enthusiasm” ends with an episode that sees Larry David put on trial. Witness after witness testifies to Larry’s lifetime of selfish and antisocial behavior. The jury finds him guilty, of course.Then he gets out of jail on a technicality and goes home. Because that’s the only kind of ending that makes sense in “Curb”-world.In fact, even former “Curb Your Enthusiasm” fans who hadn’t watched the show in years — but dropped back in for the finale — probably could have predicted how it was going to end. David (the creator, not the character) has never varied much from the formula he introduced on HBO back in 2000, when he first started telling darkly farcical, often cringe-inducing stories about the twists and turns of modern manners, featuring a fictionalized, exaggerated version of himself: a ridiculously rich crank, living off the fortune he made cocreating the sitcom “Seinfeld.”The final episode pays off a story line that had run through the final season since the premiere, when Larry (the character, not the creator), gave an old acquaintance named Auntie Rae Black (Ellia English) a bottle of water while she was waiting in line to vote in Atlanta, in violation of a Georgia election law.It also validated the popular theory that the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” finale would reflect or at least reference the polarizing final episode of “Seinfeld,” which David wrote. With its trial setting, callbacks to earlier episodes and cameos from memorable past guest stars, the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” finale mirrored the basic premise of the “Seinfeld” one, with a few key tweaks, and Jerry Seinfeld played a key role.In the “Seinfeld” finale, the main characters were put on trial for violating a Good Samaritan law by failing to help a person in need. In the “Curb” finale, Larry is on trial for being a Good Samaritan; the voting line incident had made him a folk hero to voting rights advocates. But in the world of the show, the words “hero” and “Larry David” couldn’t remain closely linked for long — it causes too much cognitive dissonance.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Grey Gardens’ and Billy Joel in Concert

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      TCM airs the cult classic 1975 documentary, and Joel airs his first broadcast concert at Madison Square Garden.For those who still haven’t cut the cord, here is a selection of cable and network TV shows, movies and specials that broadcast this week, April 8-14. Details and times are subject to change.MondayTHE GREEN MILE (1999) 7 p.m. on AMC. Based on the 1999 Stephen King novel of the same name, this three-hour-plus film tells a somber tale of the death row warden Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks) who meets an enigmatic inmate, John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan) — a gentle giant with healing powers that border on the supernatural.ELTON JOHN & BERNIE TAUPIN: THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS GERSHWIN PRIZE FOR POPULAR SONG TRIBUTE CONCERT 8 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). The songwriting duo of Elton John and Bernie Taupin are the recipients of the 2024 Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, awarded by the Library of Congress. To honor their achievements, a tribute concert held in Washington D.C. will be held with performances by Metallica, Garth Brooks, Annie Lennox, Joni Mitchell — last year’s honoree — and more.TuesdayFrom left, Ke Huy Quan, Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Corey Feldman and Jeff Cohen in “The Goonies.”Warner Bros.THE GOONIES (1985) 6 p.m. on E! When a band of misfit neighborhood kids finds a treasure map to the fabled treasure of an infamous pirate known as One-Eyed Willy, a zany adventure unfolds as they race to find gold to save their homes from foreclosure. Will the Goonies find what they’ve been searching for before the Fratellis, a crime family hot on their tail, get their grubby mitts on the priceless jewels? Will their coastal town be saved from destruction? Faced with treacherous traps, secret caves and no shortage of nail-biting moments, repeat after me: “Goonies never say die!”WednesdaySalvatore Corsitto, left, and Marlon Brando, in “The Godfather.”Paramount PicturesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Cole Brings Plenty, ’1923’ Actor, Is Found Dead

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      Mr. Brings Plenty, 27, was found dead in Kansas days after his family reported him missing. Officials did not provide a cause of death.Cole Brings Plenty, an actor in the television series “1923,” was found dead on Friday in Kansas after his family reported him missing earlier in the week, officials said.The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that its deputies had found Mr. Brings Plenty, 27, in a wooded area in Johnson County, which borders Missouri.The deputies had been responding to a report of an unoccupied vehicle and found him dead in an area away from it, the statement said. The office did not provide a cause of death.Mr. Brings Plenty, who identified himself as Mnicoujou Lakota on Instagram, played Pete Plenty Clouds, a Native American sheepherder, in the television show “1923,” a prequel to “Yellowstone.” The show depicts abuse toward Native American children in boarding schools established or supported by the government.In May 2023, Mr. Brings Plenty and his uncle Mo Brings Plenty visited the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in Washington to talk about the boarding schools and other issues affecting Native Americans.Mr. Brings Plenty’s acting credits also include the Western television shows “Into the Wild Frontier” and “The Tall Tales of Jim Bridger,” according to IMDb, the entertainment database. He was a student at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan.Mr. Brings Plenty’s father, Joe Brings Plenty Sr., confirmed his son’s death in a statement shared by a family spokeswoman, Michelle Shining Elk.“We would also like to thank everyone who came to walk beside us as we searched for my son and provided the resources we needed to expand our search areas,” Mr. Brings Plenty Sr. said in the statement.Mo Brings Plenty shared a missing person’s poster on social media that said his nephew went missing on March 31 and had missed an appointment with his agent, which was “uncharacteristic.”The poster said that Mr. Brings Plenty had last been seen in Lawrence, Kan.The Lawrence Police Department said in a statement that it had submitted an affidavit for the arrest of Mr. Brings Plenty after the police identified him as a suspect in a case of domestic violence that happened on the morning of March 31.The police said that officers had responded to a woman screaming for help in an apartment in Lawrence and that the suspect had fled before officers arrived.“This incident involves allegations of domestic violence, which limits the amount of information we can share to protect the victim,” the statement said.The police said that Mr. Brings Plenty’s family had contacted them, expressed concern and reported him as a missing person. Mr. Brings Plenty was found about 28 miles southeast of Lawrence. More

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      Kristen Wiig Hosts ‘SNL’ With Help From a Few Famous Friends

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      Matt Damon, Ryan Gosling, Paul Rudd, Jon Hamm, Martin Short, Paula Pell, Fred Armisen and Will Forte all turned out to help induct Wiig into the show’s Five-Timers Club.Despite her claim that her fifth time hosting “Saturday Night Live” would not be celebrated with a parade of celebrity guests and other “S.N.L.” alums wishing her well, Kristen Wiig turned her opening monologue into just that as she marked this milestone with help from Paul Rudd, Matt Damon, Ryan Gosling and other famous pals.Wiig, an “S.N.L.” cast member from 2005 to 2012 who was joined on this weekend’s broadcast by the musical guest Raye, began by saying hello to members of the house band. Before she could get much further, she was interrupted by Rudd, who sat in the audience wearing the jacket he received as a member of the show’s hallowed Five-Timers Club.Rudd told Wiig he had “heard a rumor that you might be doing one of those five-timers sketches featuring awesome celebrity cameos.”“So is there, like, a script or something I could look at for that?” he asked.Wiig replied, “I’m sorry, I don’t think we’re doing one of those.”But she was halted again by Paula Pell, the “Girls5eva” star and former “S.N.L.” writer. She told Wiig that the jackets were not all that special anymore, adding, “They basically hand those out to everybody like free maxi pads.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Finale Brings Memories of Divisive ‘Seinfeld’ Ending

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      As “Curb Your Enthusiasm” draws to a close, the “Seinfeld” co-creator gets another shot at ending a TV show.Larry David has long defended the “Seinfeld” finale. He’s often been its lone champion as critics, fans and the cast, including Jerry Seinfeld, have continued to lament the conclusion of one of television’s most successful, enduring sitcoms.On Sunday, David — the “Seinfeld” co-creator who left the show after its seventh season but returned to write the two-part finale, which aired on May 14, 1998 — will wrap up his other popular show: “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” the on-again, off-again 12-season HBO comedy that started in 2000. And, if the signs are to be believed, the final episode may pay homage to the much-maligned “Seinfeld” send-off.If you didn’t experience it, it’s a tall order to convey the hype that surrounded the end of “Seinfeld,” which took the gang out of New York City and landed them in a Massachusetts jail for violating a Good Samaritan Law. A trial included a parade of character witnesses, many of them wronged by the defendants over nine seasons, attesting to their unethical behavior. Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer were found guilty of, as the prosecutor put it, “selfishness, self-absorption, immaturity and greed.”“Seinfeld” was at the peak of its popularity, a cultural juggernaut and still making record profits for NBC at the end of its run — about $200 million a year, according to advertising industry estimates at that time. Nonetheless, Seinfeld was ready to close shop, turning down an offer from the network that would have been the most lucrative deal ever extended to a television star.“We’ve all seen a million athletes where you say, ‘I wish they didn’t do those last two years,’” Seinfeld said at the time. “I wanted the end to be from a point of strength. I wanted the end to be graceful.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why Are People Obsessed With TV Finales ‘Sticking the Landing’?

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      As “Curb Your Enthusiasm” gets ready to exit, it’s time to let go of the idea that a story’s ending determines its final score.Larry David is just fine with how “Seinfeld” ended. OK, I can’t read his mind — but “Larry David,” the version of himself he plays on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” is cool with that much-maligned finale. He insisted on it, vehemently, during a season of “Curb” that was almost entirely about a fictional do-over of the landmark sitcom he created with Jerry Seinfeld.“We didn’t screw up a finale!” he insisted. “That was a good finale!”The actual Larry David may be sanguine about repeating the experience of “Seinfeld.” The 12th and final season of “Curb” has even been steering toward a similar scenario, with TV Larry facing a trial, much as his earlier series ended.But the rest of the viewership is more likely to look at the final episode the way we have become conditioned to view a series finale: as a high-stakes, legacy-defining challenge. Will we laugh with it or at it? Will it cement the series’s place in history or tarnish it? Will it — say it with me now — stick the landing?Ugh. There are plenty of clichés in TV criticism, and I am not immune to using them. But “stick the landing” is one that awakens my cantankerous inner Larry David — not just because it is an overused phrase, but because of what it says about art and endings and what matters in both.The term, of course, comes from gymnastics, part of a creeping sportsification of pop-culture criticism that has also given us assorted TV power rankings and myriad March Madness-style brackets. (Didn’t arts nerds spend enough time getting stuffed into lockers by jocks without having to live inside their language, too?)Applied to TV, sticking the landing suggests that a finale is the equivalent of a vaulter’s dismount. The concentrated force of narrative momentum is channeled into a moment of impact, and the series either hits the mat firmly or shatters a leg. It’s the difference between the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Charity Lawson, a Former ‘Bachelorette’ Star, Attends NY Bridal Fashion Week

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      Charity Lawson earned a reputation of being a sweetheart after starring in the 20th season of “The Bachelorette,” which ended in August with her engagement to Dotun Olubeko, an integrative medicine specialist.Ms. Lawson, 28, seemingly always has a smile on her face. She knows what she likes and she does not put up with drama, a trait that was witnessed first hand this week amid the chaos that was New York Bridal Fashion Week — a chaos that this season was exacerbated by heavy rain and wind.The three-day event, from April 2 to 4, was an opportunity for bridal designers to show their latest collections to journalists, buyers and, in Ms. Lawson’s case, a bride-to-be who is starting to look for dresses for her 2025 wedding.She hopes to have a dress chosen by July for the wedding she is planning in California next fall, which will be followed by a traditional Nigerian celebration in Lagos, Nigeria, to honor her fiancé’s heritage.Before becoming a “Bachelorette,” Ms. Lawson, 28, was a contestant on the 27th season of “The Bachelor,” which premiered in January 2023. Later that year, she appeared on season 32 of “Dancing With the Stars,” finishing in fourth place with her dance partner Artem Chigvintsev.“It’s a lot,” Ms. Lawson, a former children’s therapist, said about appearing in back-to-back-to-back reality television shows broadcast last year. “I came into all of this quickly. I didn’t envision myself even being engaged.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More