I missed episode 4.1 but I caught last night's show. Despite a couple of moments where I LOL'ed, it was painful to watch. Larry's inevitable stubbornness leading to predictable social faux pas is seriously played out. Treating social conventions as matters of principle has become simply stupid and annoying.
I still watch that show and try to figure out why Jason Alexander was so funny playing essentially the same character: Larry David. Why? I think about how hysterically funny he was when he was pretending to be a smoker in order to delay his marriage to Susan and LD could *never* pull off a moment like that! There were so many great George moments. I guess acting should be left to the pro's.