‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’: Cheryl Leaves!

In a season already marked by uncomfortable parallels to reality, last night’s episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm was the most painful so far, with Cheryl leaving Larry after seven years of TV marriage, echoing the real-life divorce between Larry David and his wife, Laurie, over the summer.

When Cheryl calls Larry from an airplane caught in an electrical storm, he tells her to call back because he’s having the TiVo fixed (it seemed perfectly reasonable to us). When she gets home, she packs up and leaves for her sister’s. Though we can’t say we didn’t see this coming, we’re frankly a little shocked at the speed at which the series is dealing with the split; for a show that’s devoted multi-episode story arcs to sandwiches and dry cleaning, it feels a little cold to dissolve a marriage in under six minutes. By episode’s end, Cheryl’s found someone new (Glenn, the non-bald owner of an underwear company) and Larry’s already dated and blown his chances with Lucy Lawless (TV’s Xena: Warrior Princess).

Interestingly, shooting for this season wrapped in April, and Laurie David filed for divorce on July 19. Is it possible that the fake Larry-Cheryl split caused the real Larry-Laurie split, and not the other way around?

Earlier: Assessing the Larry-Laurie David Split by the Sixth Season of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’