Larry David sure seems like an “I told you so” kind of guy, so hopefully he'll appreciate the self-back-pat news that the big secret of the Curb Your Enthusiasm series finale was revealed here on this very website months ago by yours truly.

Having said that — to quote a pre-finale memorable Curb exchange between David and Jerry Seinfeld — the prescient prediction was sandwiched in a column about a much more outlandish prediction that proved false. Also, it should be noted that many other people predicted the Curb finale would reference the Seinfeld finale in some way as well.

But in truly narcissistic Larry David (the character) style, I'm going to toot my own horn and revisit my earlier Curb piece here, because it was a pret-ty, pret-ty good prediction.

On February 16, 2024, after the airing of the first episode of the 12th and final season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, I wrote an editorial entitled, “Is Larry David running for president in Curb Your Enthusiasm final season?” The answer to that proved a big fat “no,” even though there were many political storyline tie-ins (and priceless Donald Trump allusions) throughout the finale season and especially in the Sunday night finale.

But about two-thirds of the way into that column, I sarcastically threw it out there that “Curb undoubtedly has to end on a high note, and something tells me it's not going to be with a criminal trial featuring all the people Larry David has wronged over the course of the series reappearing in cameo roles to testify (we know how well that worked out for Seinfeld).”

Sure, that might sound like me singling out the very storyline from the finale as the one thing that definitely would NOT happen to conclude the series, but read on…

Because no sooner did I type the words than the scene described actually started to sound a bit more conceivable, so I went on to add: “Then again, Jerry Seinfeld did promise recently in a standup set that the subpar Seinfeld series finale would be readdressed soon in some way. That very well could mean on the final season of Curb Your Enthusiasm — though Larry David did already have some nice Seinfeld closure with the season 7 faux-reunion special heavily featuring the Seinfeld cast.”

Sure, I hedged my bets — which we already know David and Seinfeld would find fault with from the aforementioned “Having said that” exchange — but a prediction is a prediction, and in a series built around big, unexpected payoffs for elaborately set up comedic plot points, you heard the biggest one here. And, again it should be noted, many, many other outlets as well (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Curb Your Enthusiasm finale spoilers ahead…

For those who have yet to see the Curb Your Enthusiasm series finale, let this disclaimer serve as your “spoiler alert” (another phrase Larry David could surely find fault with if he hasn't already).

The series ended on a rather brilliant send-up of the much-maligned Seinfeld finale in which George, Jerry, Elaine and Kramer are arrested for being bad samaritans and sentenced to a year in jail.

In the Curb Your Enthusiasm version, poetically titled “No Lessons Learned,” Larry David himself is sentenced to a year in prison for violating a Georgia voting law after numerous of his frenemies he's had run-ins with over the course of the show come out to testify as character witnesses and speak out against him.

Then, as David starts rambling in his jail cell about the unfortunately phallic wrinkle on the front of his pants, “the pants tent,” the very same thing he fixated his neurotic attention on to start the series 24 years ago, the camera starts to pan out, and we're led to believe this series will be ending in the exact same way as Seinfeld.

But then, out of nowhere, Jerry Seinfeld himself shows up to inform David that he's free to go. Turns out Seinfeld recognizing a juror the night before at a Mexican restaurant breaking his jury sequester proved grounds for a mistrial, and Larry is free to go!

As Larry and Jerry reminisce and shrug that they should have ended the Seinfeld finale like this, the scene then moves to a memorable last plane scene where David and his friends end up yelling at each other (good-naturedly) over one last social contract faux-pas — whether to open, or not to open, the plane passenger window during peak sunlight hours.

The audience is led to believe Larry and company will go on bickering about their trivial first world problems for years to come.

The revised ending plays as a commentary on how far the state of morality has descended since the days of Seinfeld — maybe values have even dropped as low as a certain part of Larry's anatomy that his ex-girlfriend Irma Kostroski (played to perfection by Tracy Ullman) couldn't resist pointing out one more time during her testimony at the trial.

Larry David escaped punishment — for a law that was unjust to begin with — on a technicality.

But despite the shades of gray and morally ambiguous territory, seeing Larry David free to kvetch with his friends at the end felt like him giving Curb a happy ending (even though he insisted he didn't want one of those in the penultimate episode's “happy ending” massage storyline).

All in all, maybe accurately predicting the plot of the final Curb Your Enthusiasm wasn't such a grand fete after all.

Especially when the episode packed an even bigger emotional bombshell.

Maybe it was seeing one last funny storyline for Richard Lewis where his longtime friendship with David is repeatedly mentioned.

Or maybe it was seeing Seinfeld and David together again, and still looking out for each other after all these years.

Or possibly it was the final image on the plane of Larry bickering with his makeshift family.

Whatever did it, somehow Larry David and the episode as a whole actually managed to pull at the heartstrings a bit. And seeing a Curb Your Enthusiasm series finale that managed to weave in a schtickle of heart is one prediction that I don't think anyone saw coming.