The most recent season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” hilariously revolved around Larry David trying to get out of putting a fence around his pool — and then being blackmailed when a burglar who’d robbed his house tripped and fell into the pool and drowned. The final moments of the season finale ended with Larry David following in the burglar’s footsteps and tripping and falling into the pool of a town councilman. It turns out, as David revealed in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, that scene originally ended with Larry David drowning. And the scene on the episode directed by Jeff Schaffer was fully shot and completed as if it were the series’ last one.
The reveal came up when David was asked if he always knows where a given season is heading, as events across the preceding episodes are almost always hurtling to an unexpected endpoint that ties the whole thing together. (The Season 3 chef with Tourette’s, anyone?)
“Sometimes it’s obvious. With the season before, we knew that spite store was going to meet its demise, somehow. But this one, it just felt right. I know I say this all the time, but every season is the last season. And I wanted to prepare as if it was the last one. So Larry kept falling into that pool without the fence and banging his head [for the scene]. We actually have a shot after he’d fallen in, of the still pool with just the envelope floating in the middle, and maybe adding one bubble,” David said.
“We shot as if it was going to be the last one ever. I had to at least prepare for it,” he added.
This season, David said, just lent itself too perfectly to his possibly dying. Last season also could’ve presented an out with the conflagration of David’s spite store.
“This one lent itself too perfectly,” David said of the Season 11 conclusion. “We just got high and wide on the pool, with one light shining on it and the envelope floating in the middle. And we said, ‘OK, if this is how we go, this is how we go!'”
As for the last-minute decision not to kill Larry after all, Schaffer added: “He said, ‘I’m not ready to die.'”
While Season 12 remains “incomplete,” in David’s words, he said he’s especially proud of this Season 11. “I think it had some super memorable moments, everything from amazing arguments between Vince Vaughn and Larry, to Larry stealing shoes from the Holocaust Museum — which I guarantee is one of the top five funniest things that was ever filmed there — to Woody Harrelson and Larry on the farm with the Klansman, to Larry and Alexander Vindman making a perfect call. There’s just a lot in there that sticks around, that I think people are going to remember. And that’s what you want,” David said.
The reveal came up when David was asked if he always knows where a given season is heading, as events across the preceding episodes are almost always hurtling to an unexpected endpoint that ties the whole thing together. (The Season 3 chef with Tourette’s, anyone?)
“Sometimes it’s obvious. With the season before, we knew that spite store was going to meet its demise, somehow. But this one, it just felt right. I know I say this all the time, but every season is the last season. And I wanted to prepare as if it was the last one. So Larry kept falling into that pool without the fence and banging his head [for the scene]. We actually have a shot after he’d fallen in, of the still pool with just the envelope floating in the middle, and maybe adding one bubble,” David said.
“We shot as if it was going to be the last one ever. I had to at least prepare for it,” he added.
This season, David said, just lent itself too perfectly to his possibly dying. Last season also could’ve presented an out with the conflagration of David’s spite store.
“This one lent itself too perfectly,” David said of the Season 11 conclusion. “We just got high and wide on the pool, with one light shining on it and the envelope floating in the middle. And we said, ‘OK, if this is how we go, this is how we go!'”
As for the last-minute decision not to kill Larry after all, Schaffer added: “He said, ‘I’m not ready to die.'”
While Season 12 remains “incomplete,” in David’s words, he said he’s especially proud of this Season 11. “I think it had some super memorable moments, everything from amazing arguments between Vince Vaughn and Larry, to Larry stealing shoes from the Holocaust Museum — which I guarantee is one of the top five funniest things that was ever filmed there — to Woody Harrelson and Larry on the farm with the Klansman, to Larry and Alexander Vindman making a perfect call. There’s just a lot in there that sticks around, that I think people are going to remember. And that’s what you want,” David said.