Given the circumstances, this episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm opens with a tribute to Richard Lewis, a longstanding cast member and friend of Larry David in real life who passed away earlier this week. It’s a sad thing, and strangely, on Curb a few weeks ago.
Lewis introduced the topic of arguments between the TV characters David and Lewis about who would pass away first and leave the other behind to receive the amount left to them in their deceased friend’s will. (In this most recent episode, they also reinstate the will thing.)
Lewis’s actual departure changes the impact of the scene and creates a sense of gloom that will probably last for the remainder of season 12. Let’s not forget that there were some hilarious moments to enjoy.
Now that Freddy Funkhauser is dating, he’s got huge, fluffy feelings for a delightful girl who has wonderful taste in music and, he believes, a big position at Disney. When Larry first meets her, he asks if she will read the script that Irma’s sponsor’s daughter—who happens to be an aspiring writer—has written.
Recap
This shows how certain he is that she is someone higher up. This gal, meantime, works for The Disney Store—as a costumed greeter, of all things—rather than Disney, the distributor of adorable cartoons and Marvel/Star Wars merchandise.
Because Funkhauser’s ego can no longer handle it, he decides to let her leave with Larry’s support. It turns out that Larry knows Irma, a girl he would also prefer to be done with. However, as we are all aware by now, there is an issue there.
Unless L.D. is able to persuade her to leave him on her own initiative, her sponsor wants him to stay with Irma for another eight weeks. Lewis provides Larry with his first hint when it comes to formulating a plan. Having struggled with alcoholism, he has been going to Irma’s AA meetings and has been working on standup routines there as well.
Irma divulged her entire lurid past in this setting, detailing how she left her first husband because his medical needs—mostly changing his diapers—became intolerable. Fish serve as the second hint. The episode is called “Fish Stuck,” which alludes to an orange fish that seems to have its little lips lodged in the filter of a large fish tank at the Chinese restaurant Sun Wah Palace.
When Larry points out the fish’s plight to the server, the server maintains that the fish is ill and is merely attempting to recover by being so close to the filter. After Larry and the guys don’t buy it, Larry assumes the fish is dead when it seems to be gone from the tank. However, the server informs that it has simply moved to another tank.