Curb Your Enthusiasm season 10 begins with Larry David attempting to address several etiquette issues. After a multiple-year hiatus ended with season 9 in 2017, Larry David's superb sitcom is back after two more years of downtime, and Larry is back to being the absolute worst. The first episode, "Happy New Year", starts the season with a bang, with Larry David sleeping (and potentially getting back together) with his ex-wife Cheryl, then accidentally groping a waitress as he reaches for a plate of appetizers.
Like Seinfeld, which was also created by Larry David, Curb Your Enthusiasm revels in mocking the minutae of everyday life, ripping on tiny details until they snowball into major conflicts within the episode. Whether it's the "no gifts" rule at a birthday party, the idea of "anonymous" donations, or the "stop and chat", no real or perceived social construct is safe from Larry's wrath.
In typical fashion, Larry spent the Curb Your Enthusiasm season 10 premiere episode crusading against a number of annoying aspects of his day-to-day life, resulting in one faux pas after another. Here are some of the topics covered in the season 10 premiere, and how a semi-fictionalized Larry handled them:
Selfie Sticks
One of the episodes' funniest moments occurs in the very first scene, less than a minute in. As Larry walks down the street with his friend and roommate Leon Black, a couple waves a selfie stick in his face, trying to take a picture of themselves. Without blinking, Larry takes the selfie stick out of the woman's hands, snaps it in half over his leg, then calmly hands it back to her as if nothing happened. "Here you go," he says, as he walks off into the distance, as the stunned couple looks on in shock. It's the only time selfie sticks are mentioned, but considering this occurs in the first moments of the episode, we can reasonably infer that selfie sticks are a product of 2020 that Larry can't stand in real life.
Happy New Year
The Curb Your Enthusiasm season 10 premiere title comes from Larry's annoyance that people still wish each other "Happy New Year" three weeks after January 1st. Larry runs into Randi, Susie Greene's pregnant friend, at the gym, who promptly wishes him a Happy New Year. Larry responds, "eh," then goes onto say that the "statute of limitations has kind of run out on the new year. Three days is plenty." This kicks off a feud with Randi that escalates when he calls her out for jogging on the treadmill when she is eight months pregnant.
"Happy New Year" then becomes a punch line throughout the rest of the episode, as it is used multiple times to cap off an argument. As he feuds with Mocha Joe, one of his new nemeses (more on him later), Joe caps off an explosive argument by angrily wishing Larry "Happy New Year!" as he storms out of his shop, to which Larry offers an extremely sarcastic "Happy New Year" of his own. Larry goes back into Mocha Joe's later on and gets banned for life, and the two again exchange angry New Years wishes as Joe tosses him out of the shop.
Coffee Shops
Speaking of Mocha Joe, the coffee shop owner looks like he will be one of the main villains of the season, and his conflict with Larry escalates from a series of frustrations that every coffee drinker has likely dealt with at one point. First, Larry wants a scone, but the pastry that he gets is "a little soft," more like a muffin. Scones are supposed to be hard, Larry says, and when Mocha Joe counters with them supposed to be fresh, Larry says they should be "fresh hard." (Leon also asks for a danish, and when Mocha Joe says he doesn't have any, Leon says, "You're f---in up.") Then, both Larry and Leon's coffee is too cold, and Mocha Joe refuses to give them new ones, saying, "it was hot when I gave it to you." Larry sticks his nose in the cup of coffee to prove how cold it is, but Joe does not budge, calling Larry a "cold, bald nut." "Larry might be one or two of those things, but not all three," Leon quips.
Rather than walking out and letting it go like a normal person, Larry vows to take revenge on Mocha Joe. He convinces his friend Richard Lewis to boycott the coffee shop, but then sees Richard dining in there days later – which is when he gets banned for life. At that moment, Larry declares to Mocha Joe, "I will bring you to the brink of extinction, or I will die trying." At the end of the episode, he sees that the storefront next to Mocha Joe's is empty, so he leases it, planning to open "Latte Larry's" where he will make the same coffee for lower prices and drive him out of business. All over a cold cup of coffee and a not-hard-enough scone. Larry has never been pettier.
Wobbly Tables
Another qualm Larry has with Mocha Joe's is the table he sits at is wobbly. "Nobody likes a wobbly table," Larry says. Mocha Joe tells Larry to "put your foot on it" to steady it, which irks him to no end. "I got an uncle with a wobbly leg. I can't stand that motherf--ker. Leaning on s--t all the time," Leon says. Later on, Larry is at Cheryl's house after they sleep together. Cheryl wants to address the awkwardness of the situation, considering she is dating Larry's friend Ted Danson, but Larry can't focus on anything other than her wobbly nightstand. "If we ever got back together, and somehow this table appeared on our bedside, it would be fixed immediately," Larry says. "I could not live with a wobbly table."
Tattoos
Larry's assistant Alice gets a new tattoo on her arm, which he asks her about. She responds by saying it's personal, which Larry of course cannot get past. "The whole world can see it, but it's personal?" Despite Alice trying to change the subject, Larry continues ribbing her. "If I walked in with a horn on my head, would you say, what are you doing with a horn on your head? I'd say, I can't tell you, it's personal." Alice says she got the tattoo because of an event in her life, and says it's "just for me." Being the a-hole that he is, Larry asks her, "Then why didn't you get it on your ass?" This backfires on him in a big way. When the waitress he accidentally gropes calls his office, Alice consoles her by saying he made inappropriate comments to her, to which they deduce his behavior is a pattern. This looks like it will spell trouble for Larry as the season goes along.
MAGA Hats
Larry starts out annoyed by Donald Trump MAGA hats, asking who on Earth would wear them in Los Angeles. He is then roped into a lunch with annoying TV producer Phil, and can't figure out a way to get out of it. But when Jeff refuses to play golf with a Trump supporter because he's always wearing the hat, Larry hatches an idea. When Phil shows up to meet him at lunch, Larry is wearing a MAGA hat, and Phil promptly leaves. Larry learns he can use the hat as a way to make his life easier: "It's a great people repellent." A couple tries to sit next to him at a sushi bar, but they see him wearing it and leave, to which Larry says in the Trump voice, "Sad. Very sad." Then, he cuts off a motorcyclist, who follows him and starts screaming at him. In a panic, Larry puts the hat on, and when the angry biker sees it, he immediately calms down. "Be more careful next time, okay?" he says, before driving off.