Larry David has returned to HBO with a new sketch comedy series, Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, and he is clearly not interested in playing nice regarding his former co-star’s husband. In a standout sketch centered on a trivial neighborhood laundry dispute, David faces off against a gravel-voiced, leather-skinned neighbor explicitly identified as “Bobby.” David’s character doesn’t hold back, eventually breathing fire on his antagonist and dismissing him with a pointed jab about the worms in his brain.
The series marks a significant shift in David’s professional and personal circle. Longtime director Jeff Schaffer confirmed on a podcast earlier this month that Cheryl Hines, who starred as David’s on-screen wife for over two decades on Curb Your Enthusiasm, does not appear in the new show. This exclusion is notable given the series’ reliance on a wide array of celebrity guest stars, highlighting the widening distance between David and the woman who is married to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in real life.
David’s public mockery comes after years of complicated personal history. Larry David famously introduced Hines to Kennedy years ago, but their relationship has since fractured amid Kennedy’s rapid ascent in Republican politics. Following Kennedy’s appointment as the Secretary of Health and Human Services in Donald Trump’s cabinet, Hines relocated to Washington, D.C. as a cabinet spouse. She recently told CBS News that the political transition has made it emotionally difficult for some of her Hollywood friends to maintain ties, and when directly asked about David’s opinion on the cabinet appointment, she admitted, “He can’t love it.”
Produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s company, Higher Ground, the show acts as a spiritual successor to David’s long-running sitcom. It adopts a similar satirical tone, dropping David’s familiar, abrasive persona into various historical and modern American settings to ridicule contemporary grievances. The series continues to air on HBO.