Would Curb Your Enthusiasm's Larry David thrive in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic?

The Ringer

"In some ways, the days of social distancing seem like TV Larry’s time to shine," says Ben Lindbergh. "Earlier this month, a friend of mine who felt sick got tested for COVID-19, and his employer put him on mandatory sick leave while he awaited the results. 'I can’t say I’m too upset to be forced not to go to work,' he told me via text. (His results came back negative; it was nothing time and Imodium couldn’t cure.) That sounded like the makings of a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode: Larry feels fine but gets tested anyway so he can use the uncertainty as an excuse to stay home. Larry loves a cancellation, and nothing causes more cancellations than a pandemic that prohibits physical contact. It’s not as if TV Larry would be consumed by compassion for the infected. On the other hand, he’d miss sports. Shortly after my friend’s test, the pandemic picked up steam and the world changed. Being ordered not to go to work wasn’t so special: Almost everyone who wasn’t laid off was working from home. And after a few days of self-isolation, solitude didn’t seem so desirable. Larry might mine some material from the fear of contagion, the etiquette of remote gatherings via video, the dos and don’ts of face masks, the stringent rules for senior citizens, or the Covidiots who hoard supplies or keep partying while others dutifully flatten the curve. But so much of Curb’s comedy comes from social proximity, which generates the friction between TV Larry and the rule breakers or abiders who clash with his views. COVID-19 has the same effect as the MAGA hat Larry wears in Season 10 when he wants to protect his privacy: No one wants to go near anyone else."

ALSO:

• J.B. Smoove credits Larry David for keeping Curb Your Enthusiasm relevant: "Larry has a way of attaching himself to the heartbeat of whatever’s going on in the world," he says. "It just annoys him so much that he has to put it on Curb. Everything from the MAGA hat to the spite store to all the things we did this season, he mirrors what’s going on in the world. He finds a way to think of things that annoy him, that annoy people, and he finds a way to make it work in the show, and that’s great writing.”
• There are all kinds of crazy new norms and social codes in the coronavirus world -- Larry David should mine them in Season 11
• It took 10 episodes, but Season 10 of Curb Your Enthusiasm did reckon with personal accountability
• The most important "Larry Lessons" of Season 10
• Quiz: Are you Mocha Joe or Latte Larry?
• Every Curb Your Enthusiasm episode, ranked