Curb Your Enthusiasm recap: 11/01/09

November 2, 8:25 AMKansas City TV ExaminerTimothy English

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Ep. 67:  The Black Swan

     Larry David is at his best when he is being a complete a**, yet doesn't understand what he is doing wrong until its too late for apologies.  "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is even better when he drags his friends down with him.

     Last night's episode of CYE, "The Black Swan", continued what has been a very strong season from David and company.  The episode is set up with a trip to Larry's mother's grave with his father and cousin Andy.  Larry is put off when he realizes his dad had "past away" engraved instead of "passed away" in order to save $100, so LD offers to pay to fix it.

     During a day of golf with Jeff, Marty and Cousin Andy, David begins to see that his behavior is starting to wear thin on his fellow Country Club members.  During breakfast, the group tries to eat quick in order to beat another four-some to the links, only to have Andy order a long cooking meal and then takes his time to eat it.  Larry's cell rings; a big no-no at the club.  He's confronted by the club's owner, who gives him his "final warning" after ranting that Larry is always breaking club  rules.  Larry, Jeff and Marty discuss the etiquette of tipping on top of an already included 18% gratuity.  LD refuses to add to the tip because he doesn't want to do the math.

     Beaten to the course by the other four-some, which Marty says contains the slowest player in the United States, Norm.  So the gang waits impatiently behind the group, before on one hole, Norm loses his ball and takes forever to find it.  Larry snaps, yelling at Norm to just "drop another ball or let us play through".  Obviously he makes a scene.  In the locker room following the round,  Larry is confronted by another member who rips Larry for yelling at a man with high blood pressure.  And oh  by the way, Norm had a heart attack and died, so Larry is to blame.  As Marty says, "It may have been an accident, but you're a murder."  LD also gets in touch with the stone mason to fix the tombstone, only to get into an argument about whether or not Derek Jeter sucks at baseball.

     The next day, again hitting the links, the group finds the course wide open.  Apparently everyone in the club is taking a day off in respects of the deceased Norm.  When Larry wanders off to retrieve a ball that landed near a pond, he is "attacked" by a black swan, the beloved pet of the club owner.  When the rare bird flies at Larry he obviously  has no choice to defend himself, so he clubs the bird to death.  Realizing they are all going to get kicked out if anyone finds out, Larry and his buddies decide to hide the corpse and act natural.  As they are eating an after round lunch, the grounds crew finds the body and they are all summoned to the club owner's office, where during a shakedown, they each deny any knowledge of what may or may not have happened to the bird.

     Larry spends the next couple of days trying to cover their involvement in the death of the swan but everyone is nervous and thinks they should confess.  When they go to Norm's memorial at the club Larry tries to convince everyone that maybe the swan scared Norm to death and maybe the  deaths are related.  When his cell rings again interrupting the memorial, LD ditches his phone and pawns off blame.  So Larry catches up with Marty and tells him about the "a**hole stone mason" talking smack on Jeter, only to realize the stone mason is standing right next to Marty.  The stone mason vows revenge.  The phone is later found by the waiter who he blew off the tip.  Convinced the waiter read an email about the swan death cover up conspiracy, Larry gives the waiter a $500 tip to keep him quiet, only to realize the waiter had no clue.

     After the funeral, the club owner confronts Larry about the $500 tip Larry and believes that no one that generous could ever kill his precious swan.  He follows LD out to his car apologizing for blaming Larry and begging his forgiveness.  Larry accepts the stops to check the changes on his mother's tombstone, which now reads "Mother of Larry, Swan Killer".

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