The fifth episode of this season of Curb Your Enthusiasm opens with a dedication to the late Richard Lewis, the great comedian and Larry David’s best frenemy, both on- and off-screen. Throughout his stand-up career, Lewis perfected the art of dark comedy, mining his own experience as a drug-and-alcohol addict for gems of comic insight. Richard’s grace, warmth, and sense of dark humor really shine in this episode when he catches Larry picking up Irma at a local AA meeting, where he managed to crack up the whole group. “You should’ve seen me today,†Richard tells Larry. “I got laughs bigger than I’ve ever gotten before at a meeting.†And it’s true; several people interrupt the conversation to congratulate Richard on his “performance,†during which he uses his signature “… from hell†bit with “bartender from hell.†(See season three, episode four, “The Nanny,†in which Richard gets credited in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations for coining the from hell construction. The story line is based on the real-life Lewis being included in The Yale Book of Quotations for it.)
When Larry accuses Richard of turning an AA meeting into a stand-up routine, he counters, “I can’t divorce my comic self. Part of me will always be a comedian and a drunk … I’m doing a service. I want people to laugh and enjoy.†The comedy world will remember Richard for making people laugh and enjoy life not despite its pain but because of it. He will be especially remembered by David, who paid tribute to his Curb co-star in a statement on Thursday: “Richard and I were born three days apart in the same hospital, and for most of my life he’s been like a brother to me … But today he made me sob and for that I’ll never forgive him.†Richard’s untimely passing has brought extra sentiment to the final season of Curb. While Larry has always been self-referential in the show, he’s amping up everything now, using this season as a collage strewn with tributes and callbacks to his career highlights.
The first comes with the introduction of Larry’s new lawyer, Christopher (played by Sean Hayes from Will & Grace), who shares a last name with Mickey Mantle (the favorite baseball player of both Larry and George Costanza). In a discussion about the water-bottle interference in Atlanta, Mantle promises Larry he won’t have to go to trial, insisting much too confidently they can get the charges dismissed on the grounds that the Georgia law is unconstitutional. Larry finds out Christopher is having a child by surrogate with his husband and, naturally, asks whose last name the kid will inherit. (On that note, whatever happened to the child for whom Leon served as a surrogate father?) Christopher tells Larry the kid will adopt his husband’s last name, which is Zekelman. Shocked that his lawyer isn’t going with the legendary Mantle, Larry pushes the matter, as he so often does. He brings it up yet again when he sees Christopher and his husband at the temple for a function he’s required to attend with Irma, and we see Larry go full Costanza.
Meanwhile, at the Chinese restaurant, Freddy tells Larry and Leon he has just started dating a woman who works for Disney. He thinks she’s an executive (thinks being the operative word); she’s funny, smart, and knows everything about the upcoming Disney movies, down to the princess costumes — “where they’re going and evolving.†Staring at the fish tank next to their table, Larry gets fixated on a fish that seems to be stuck in the filter. While the waiter insists, “Fish not stuck, fish sick,†Larry and Freddy assume the fish is clearly stuck. Struck by a rare bolt of empathy for the fish, Larry loses his appetite just as Leon gains it. Leon orders snapper off the menu, saying, “At least that motherfucker can’t drown.†As usual, Leon speaks the truth. His “I like it†gambit — â€all you gotta do is compliment people on what the fuck they’re wearing, and the next thing you know, they gonna give you one†— gets him Freddy’s suede jacket; when Larry tries it later at Cheryl’s, he gets Ted Danson’s fancy pen in an exchange that references the “Take the penâ€Â debacle in Seinfeld. Also in that scene, the “very charitable†Ted says he left his brick blank, in keeping with his ethos as the “Anonymous Donor†from season six.
At the AA meeting that gave Richard the idea to do a sobriety comedy special for HBO, Cyrus, Irma’s sponsor, asks him if he knows someone who might look at his daughter’s TV writing. Larry reluctantly agrees, and when he arrives at the temple function with Irma, seeing that Freddy has brought the “Disney exec†he’s dating, he immediately asks her to take a look at the script. The woman is confused but happily obliges. At the temple, Larry notices a new brick on the donation wall that has been inscribed with a special message from Hobie Turner, the Seinfeld writer from the previous episode whose wife counseled Larry and Irma in couples therapy. The brick reads, “Larry David is disrespectful to women.†Larry asks the rabbi if the “defamatory brick†can be taken down, arguing that it’s “hate speechâ€; the rabbi refuses and says it’s more like “strong dislike speech.†Also at the temple, Mantle’s husband (played by Dan Levy) confronts Larry. Larry starts doling out suggestions for the kid’s name — Ziggy Zekelman, Scooter Zekelman, Foots Zekelman, even Deegan, after the Major Deegan Expressway — and inadvertently starts a fight between Christopher Mantle and Zekelhusband. Here’s yet another example of Larry littering the script with references to earlier Seinfeld and Curb episodes as we hit the season midpoint. In the Seinfeld episode “The Seven,†George says he wants to name his future child Seven after the number of Mickey Mantle, his favorite baseball player; Jerry then offers up Mug, Maxwell House, and Ketchup — “pretty name for a girl.â€
Still at the temple function, Larry is approached by Sienna Miller, who says she’s in the process of converting to Judaism. Once again flirting with Larry, she makes an insane remark about why she likes Jewish men, complete with a “snip†motion with her fingers. (Side note: Has anyone ever met a British woman who objects so strongly to foreskin?) The whole thing echoes Tim Whatley on Seinfeld, George’s dentist who converted to Judaism so he could make Jewish jokes. Sienna invites Larry to a dinner party, but he remains tied to Irma. He realizes he must end things with her by whatever means necessary and also try to save his reputation from the defamatory brick.
It turns out the “Disney exec†Freddy is dating is confused because she actually works as a greeter at the Disney Store, meaning she has a repertoire of character voices and costumes. This reality is even worse than my prediction that she was going to be a mere Disney adult; she’s a professional cosplayer who carries around a Minnie Mouse backpack and stands outside in full Cinderella attire, blunt bangs and all. The only thing that would make it more perfect would be to see her as Tinkerbell, Leon’s animated crush. Larry tells Freddy he would dump her — “I’m not gonna date Minnie Mouse†— but while Freddy is nothing short of horrified, he believes he should try his best to get to know her. Unfortunately, the “ick†has long settled; the voices are simply too high-pitched, the conversation too Disney-centric. (In further Dávid-jà vu, this subplot echoes the episode with the Nanny From Hell who lost her mind after working at the Six Flags Magic Mountain Looney Tunes Lodge.)
Larry goes back to the Chinese restaurant, where the waiter tells him the fish is “Sick, gone.†Larry calls his bluff, saying the fish is “Stuck, dead,†and now it’s a war of “Sick!†versus “Stuck!†Larry bribes Richard into sharing what Irma said in AA by offering to include him in his will, and Richard reveals that Irma left her first husband because he was in diapers (“like a mummyâ€). The caretaking stressed her out so much she became an alcoholic. Larry finally knows how to get rid of her once and for all.
When Larry returns to his lawyer, he learns his whole Zekelman rant caused a fissure so big in the marriage that Mantle got kicked out of his house and has been forced to sleep on his office couch. In his exhaustion, he missed the deadline to file the motion to dismiss, forcing Larry to go to trial. Larry and Freddy reflect on their respective relationships, comparing themselves to the fish stuck in the filter. They decide to take a stand and get themselves unstuck by telling both Irma and Disney Princess that they’ve been afflicted with Groat’s Disease, the made-up syndrome from all the way back in season two’s “The Thong.†With a somewhat similar premise, that episode finds Larry and Richard plotting ways to get out of their relationship with a therapist after seeing him in a thong-style bathing suit on the beach. When Larry finally gets Irma to leave him — on her terms, as suggested by the sponsor — he pulls one more “I like it†gambit, and Irma gives him her heated neck wrap, which she promises will make him feel better, just as the fish-tank filter supposedly did for the “sick†fish. The parallels between Larry and the fish are subtle but brilliant; they’re both stuck until they’re sick, searching for their own private warmth in a world contained with others. But while the fish can’t drown, as Leon points out, will Larry? Or will he be moved to another tank “downtown,†one behind bars, like the Seinfeld gang?
It doesn’t take long for Irma to visit the Disney Store and for the dumped parties to connect the dots. (The sponsor’s daughter happens to be there too, revealing that she was dropped from her writers group because of Fairy Godmother’s awful advice.) All of this comes back to haunt Larry on the temple wall, which is now made up of several defamatory bricks: by Cyrus, the sponsor, who accuses Larry of being a “lying bastardâ€; by Zekelman (“homewreckerâ€); Irma (“a coward and a cheatâ€); and, lastly, the rabbi, who says he’s “a shonda for the goyim.†While Larry may be honoring the best of his shows with this season’s writing, he’s certainly not giving himself a more loving tribute than he knows he deserves.
RIP from hell, Richard Lewis.
Leonisms
• On “that fine-ass Tinkerbellâ€: “Tinkerbell flies her little ass in there, she put her little booty out with that little booty tooch. That little booty go out, and [uses chopsticks like a magic wand] bling! Tinkerbell fine as fuck, come on. I’ll put her in my motherfucking pocket. You hear me? And I’ll just walk around knowing she home. And she flies her little ass out there, gives me a little kiss on the cheek and shit, and flies the fuck off.â€
• On the “I like it†gambit: “All you gotta do is compliment people on what the fuck they’re wearing, and the next thing you know, they gonna give you one.â€
• On the stuck fish: “At least that motherfucker can’t drown.â€