Larry was too aggressively confrontational in the later seasons. still a great run though & never completely fell off a cliff in quality, even if it felt like it was teetering on the precipice at times. i think losing Bob Einstein was a bigger blow to the series than i thought it would be, even though Funkhouser was my favorite character. his sometimes deadpan/sometimes oblivious adversarial friendship/interactions w/ Larry balanced out Larry’s 0-to-60 adversarial friendship/interactions w/ Susie. Larry vs Susie provided a lot of my favorite & most memorable moments in the earlier seasons, but it kinda lost its magic towards the end.
Einstein’s passing was definitely a blow to the show. He was absolutely hilarious on it and his interactions with Larry were always gold.
Still, I really do feel that Curb, impressively, was one of those shows that never jumped the shark. It remained funny through its final episode. But yes, the early seasons- maybe 1-6 are my favorites because many of the situations and faux pas felt more subtle and organic. In the later seasons, as you said, they leaned heavily into Larry seemingly looking for a fight. In the first half of the series, they did a great job of coming up with scenarios where Larry seemingly wanted to do the right thing but ended up running afoul of someone, regardless.
I thought the addition of JB Smoove in season 6 was great. His initial episode where he just shows up to meet his sister, aunt and niece and nephew at Larry’s and Cheryl’s house was just classic Curb awkwardness. Larry calling him out when he thinks he is responsible for the stain in the guest room is probably one of the funniest curb scenes to me. The dynamic between Larry and Leon, and the mere fact that Leon was still Larry’s housemate all those years later, remained a good source of humor throughout the latter half of the series.
Essman was always one of the best parts of the show. And while I do think that the frequent verbal sparring matches between the two did lose their luster toward the end of the series, I enjoyed how quickly they would have Susie go from seemingly hating the guy to being sympathetic toward him lol. It was like a fun reset on their relationship where she would inexplicably give him another chance and even wish him well.
Overall, the talent of the cast helped make the series a classic comedy. As funny as Larry is, the show benefits tremendously from the work of Garlin, Essman, Richard Lewis, Danson, Smoove, Einstein, etc. Have to give Hines credit, too. She was quite good in the more stable, straight role. Richard Kind, as Larry’s cousin, was also a personal favorite of mine. Spot on funny. Wish we’d gotten one more episode with him on the final season.