Illusion and reality in Curb Your Enthusiasm

Finally the Seinfeld reunion story within the story of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," and the story of both revolves around the same theme: will George/Larry get back the girl (i.e., estranged or ex wife). I won't give it away. It's a good episode, though by this time in the series we're pretty used to the Seinfeld cast ten years down the road of life and we don't have the same frisson on seeing them for the first time in an earlier episode. In fact, by the time we see them on set and in character, they look pretty much the same as we remember. The Larry David insanity of this episode involves an extended debate/running gag about the contours of the word "favor": when does it require a tip, when must you return a favor, what's the difference between a favor and a chore, etc. That's the kind of riff he does so well, playing around with the nuances of language, culture, modern life. It must make it hell to be him or to be around hm, but like the best comedians he's always pushing you to think about things in new ways, to see the ordinary in a fresh light - artists do this, too. So much of the show, of this whole season of the show, is about illusion: we really see that the whole Seinfeld show is an illusion, filmed on a set, in Los Angeles, by actors who are by no means anything like the characters they portray, what a shock!, but the beautiful trick of this is we're seeing it within a frame of another comedy, which in its own right is filmed on a set, played by actors, etc. He creates the illusion that he, Larry, is real because the Seinfeld cast is "acting," when of course it's all acting, all illusion - Hollywood.