‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ May Be Ending With Season 12

After 11 seasons, a small army of Emmy nominations, and dozens of classic episodes featuring the most side-splittingly uncomfortable social interactions you’ll ever see, it appears Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm is drawing to a close. On March 28, Curb producer Jon Hayman tweeted—and since deleted—a photo from production on the upcoming season, with a caption that indicated the show was coming to an end.

“Maybe you love the show. Maybe you hate the show. Maybe you don’t give a shit,” Hayman wrote. “In any event, shooting the last scene of the last episode of the final season.”

Of course, a great deal of people give a shit, as Curb has become one of the longest running scripted TV comedies ever. The HBO series debuted in October 2000, expanding on David’s 1999 one-off comedy special of the same name. Filled with cameos from comedy heavyweights (Richard Lewis, Mel Brooks) and A-listers alike (Shaquille O’Neal, Jon Hamm) Curb explored the absurd humor in life’s minute detail in a manner far more abrasive and acerbic than David’s previous hit TV series, Seinfeld. Over 20-plus years, Curb has become one of the most influential sitcoms in history, breathing fresh life into the tired concept of comedians playing fictionalized versions of themselves on TV.

Robert B. Weide, who directed and produced much of Curb’s first five seasons, also posted a message about the beloved show’s conclusion, including stills from the first day of production in March 1999, and one from the final, dated March 27. Eagle-eyed viewers have spotted that the monitor in Hayman’s post shows JB Smoove, who has played Larry’s friend Leon Black since the sixth season, seated on a plane. (That harkens back to some great Curb moments in the past, including when Larry is forced to sit in coach in the ninth season, or in the eighth season where he gets in an altercation with a fellow passenger over who can use the coach restroom and winds up becoming a hero when he tackles a drunk, rowdy patron.) If this is indeed the final scene, it may be a similar take on Season 8’s ending, which found Larry and Leon aimlessly gallivanting around Paris after wearing out their welcome in both Los Angeles and New York City, and was for a long time, an unofficial series finale—the show would then go on an undefined hiatus that ended up lasting six years.

In general, most Curb season finales have had an air of finality to them—a renewal has never been guaranteed, mostly because HBO upholds an unprecedented relationship with David allowing him to make the series on his own schedule or abandon it if he so chooses. But since returning with season 9 in 2017, David has resumed writing and producing new episodes with a pretty consistent regularity. In an August 2022 Hollywood Reporter story, executive producer Jeff Schaffer revealed that the team actually shot a death scene for Larry’s character as part of the conclusion of the 11th season. The capper would’ve had Larry hit his head and fall into a pool, floating limply in the water (a very Kendall Roy way for him to go).

“This one lent itself too perfectly [as a possible finale]. We just got high and wide on the pool, with one light shining on it and the envelope floating in the middle,” Schaffer said. “And we said, ‘OK, if this is how we go, this is how we go!’” According to Schaffer, David shot down the idea of that being the end in characteristically curt fashion. “He said, ‘I’m not ready to die,’” the producer recalled. 

The 12th season began shooting last fall, and while each season prior has had a loose story arc, details on this one are still being kept under wraps. Fans can surely expect regular supporting cast members like Cheryl Hines, Susie Essman, and Jeff Garlin to return. So far the only celebrity cameo that’s been announced is Coda star and Academy Award-winner Troy Kotsur. So far David himself nor HBO have confirmed if this is indeed the end—and he has been known to change his mind on a whim. Either way, cue the Frolic theme and strap in.