Curb Your Enthusiasm recap: The fish is a metaphor, you see
In "Fish Stuck," L.D. and Funkhauser work to extricate themselves from romantic entanglements
TV Reviews Curb Your Enthusiasm
Well, this episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm begins just as it should, considering the circumstances: with a dedication to Richard Lewis, longtime actor on the show and real life friend to Larry David, who passed away earlier this week. It’s a sad thing, and oddly, a couple of weeks ago on Curb, the TV versions of David and Lewis were bickering about who was going to die first and leave the other behind to collect whatever sum was left to them in their departed friend’s will—Lewis was the one to introduce the subject. (They bring the will thing back in this latest episode, too.) Now that Lewis is really gone, it makes that bit hit differently and casts a sort of pall over things, one that will likely linger throughout the rest of season 12. Still, there were funnies to be had here; let’s give them their due as well.
So Freddy Funkhauser is out there in the dating world, and he has great big, fluffy feelings for a fun girl with great taste in music—as well as (he thinks) a prestigious job at Disney. He’s so confident that she’s some higher-up that Larry, upon meeting her, asks if she’ll read Irma’s sponsor’s daughter’s script (turns out she’s an aspiring writer). Meanwhile, this girl doesn’t work for Disney, purveyor of cute cartoons and Marvel/Star Wars stuff: she works for The Disney Store—as a costumed greeter, of all things. Funkhauser’s ego can’t take it, and with Larry’s encouragement, he decides he has to cut her loose. Turns out Larry knows a gal he’d just as soon be done with, too: Irma.
There’s a problem there, though, as we all know by now. Her sponsor wants him to hang in there for 8 more weeks with Irma, unless L.D. can convince her to leave him of her own accord. Larry has to hatch a scheme, and Lewis gives him his first clue. An alcoholic himself, he has been attending Irma’s AA meetings (and workshopping standup bits while there). It was in this context that Irma revealed her whole sordid backstory about leaving her first husband when his medical needs—mostly the diapering—became too much for her to handle. The second clue is a fish.
Now, the name of the episode is “Fish Stuck,” a reference to an orange fish who appears to have its little lips stuck in the filter of a big fish tank at Sun Wah Palace, a Chinese restaurant. When Larry draws the server’s attention to the fishy’s predicament, the server insists that the fish is not stuck, but sick, and simply trying to heal itself with this close proximity to the filter. Larry and the guys don’t buy it, and later, when the fish appears to be gone from the tank, Larry presumes it’s dead, but the server explains that it has merely gone to a different tank. Larry meets with Funkhauser to reveal his fish-inspired idea to get them out of their relationships: they can feign an illness (Groat’s again, remember that?) and be rid of these women who don’t wish to be caregivers. “We just want to swim and enjoy our day,” Funkhauser says (you see, these two guys are that stuck fish). It works, and the women split, not knowing they’ve been duped. Larry basks in his victory, belting a celebratory rendition of that “JG Wentworth” song Irma kept singing (the best part of the episode). However, Irma heads to Jenna’s place of work to replace some Mickey Mouse oven gloves she left at Larry’s and they put the pieces together.
Another little plot thread not mentioned yet involves some illustrious guest stars: Shawn Hayes and Dan Levy, who play husbands having a baby by surrogate. Hayes’s character, a lawyer named Christopher Mantle (like Mickey Mantle, you know?) is newly working for Larry, and he is so close to filing a motion to ensure that the water bottle case won’t go to trial—until Larry ruins it all. He can’t let go of the fact that this baby these guys are going to be having won’t carry the Mantle name, but will instead have the last name Zeckelman. Larry pries too much, offers too many ridiculous names that piss off the couple (Ziggy, Scooter, and Foots among them), and essentially destroys their marriage, causing his poor lawyer to miss the filing deadline to dismiss the case, meaning L.D. will have to go to trial. Meanwhile he’s racking up haters, most of whom seem to be donating bricks to the temple he attends with some sort of disparaging remark about Larry engraved in each one. Anyone else getting the feeling he’ll have a lot more of those by the time this season wraps?
Stray observations
- Larry is such a child. When Mantle takes a call from the surrogate he and his husband have hired to carry their baby, Larry grabs a glass ball paperweight from his desk and shakes it around, forcing Mantle to divide his attention between the person carrying his unborn child, and this giant man-baby is his office waving around a shiny, fragile object. It even takes him a little while to listen to Mantle and stop.
- When Freddy Funkhauser is telling his buddies about the girl he is dating, who he thinks works for Disney, Leon starts going on and on about Tinkerbell and her “little booty.” “Tinkerbell fine as fuck,” he says, “I’ll put her in my motherfucking pocket… And she flies her little ass out there, give me a little kiss on the cheek and shit, and flies the fuck off.”
- “I hate asking for favors almost as much as I hate doing favors,” is a pretty Larry-ish thing to say.
- “We’re coming out with a new line of Little Mermaid sleepwear, so if you text me your sizes, I can hook you up.” Jenna says this to Irma’s sponsor’s daughter while giving her screenplay notes, and it really just proves that Jenna is a gem and Funkhauser was wrong to ditch her.
- As Larry’s on the phone with Irma’s sponsor, she calling out things like, “Larry, where are my sleep brassieres? Nevermind. They’re in the hamper. They’re not that dirty,” and “Larry, where are my bunion splints?” Irma’s the greatest. I hope she sticks around somehow.
- When Larry tells the rabbi at the temple that Hobie Turner’s message about him, engraved on a brick, is “hate speech,” Rabbi Adelman’s dismissive response is “I think it’s ‘strong dislike’ speech,” which I love.
- So if Larry and this fish are one and the same as Funkhauser suggests, where do you think old Larr will end up at season’s end: dead or “moved to another tank” (i.e. jail)? Discuss!
Curb Your Enthusiasm is available to stream now on Max.
22 Comments
I am now certain. MHC writes the worst reviews i’ve ever read. After the A+ rating shitshow on TD4, she now rates one of the best episodes only a B?
I would like to sponsor a templestone in her honor. What a shanda.
‘”Well, this episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm begins just as it should, considering the circumstances: with a dedication to Richard Lewis, longtime actor on the show and real life friend to Larry David, who passed away earlier this week. It’s a sad thing, and oddly, a couple of weeks ago on Curb, the TV versions of David and Lewis were bickering about who was going to die first and leave the other behind to collect whatever sum was left to them in their departed friend’s will—Lewis was the one to introduce the subject. (They bring the will thing back in this latest episode, too.) Now that Lewis is really gone, it makes that bit hit differently and casts a sort of pall over things, one that will likely linger throughout the rest of season 12.”’I’m not sure how true this is but I’ve heard it said that within comedy there is truth. Perhaps, Lewis knew he was dying and maybe he even expressed that concern to Larry and coaxed him into writing it into the episode.
That seemed obvious to me. Even said to my wife, “Lewis looks terrible and based on the dialogue, he’s saying goodbye.”
So it looks like Sienna Miller will be Curb’s Marisa Tomei—the dream gal our bald neurotic gets along smashingly with but whom he can’t have. I’ve never seen Miller look and act so alluring, and Ullman look and act so disgusting. Good job, writers and director. Since the Seinfeld echoes are particularly strong this final season, I wonder if Irma will soon not be long for this world.This was an A-grade episode for me. Terrific energy and pretty, pretty, pretty funny. Maybe why was seeing Carol Leifer’s name in the writing credit. I loved Freddie’s girlfriend, and was hoping she’d actually given good notes to the aspiring writer who then fired her anyway for the same reason Freddie broke up with her. The wall thing wasn’t exactly believable (I had no idea of these bricks but assume you just can’t use them to attack people), but a very funny and Coen-esque example of the cosmic forces aligned against Larry.
I was all in on Larry meddling with his lawyer’s, and the future kid’s, last name. It’s a terrible name and if the lawyer had reservations about it, that should have been discussed with his partner and a compromise found.
Fun episode. Jenna was great, I love all the impressions, especially the Mickey Mouse “Oh Boy!” kiss. I think Larry dies. Looked like he was going to croak when he was celebrating Irma’s departure. Murder may be too intense for Curb, but he’s had it coming for years.
You think Larry deserves to be murdered?! I’ve always seen his character as someone, to his own detriment. who would rather be right than happy. If you really, honestly, look at LD’s position in the shows, he’s usually technically correct. It’s just that normal people would let it go just to get along. Larry will die on every hill he finds himself on. He’s not an evil person, just brutally- antisocially – honest. “There’s a certain authenticity involved in caring about one’s self.” I appreciate that, generally speaking, you know exactly where you stand with him.
I was just being silly. Probably nothing bad will happen to him, beyond a mild inconvenience that he makes a big deal about.
Yeah, I didn’t think you actually wanted him to get clipped. But the humor for me comes from the viewpoint, that he’s actually not wrong but everyone blames him anyways. It doesn’t help his case that his history with many of the other characters already has worn any goodwill down to a nub.
I had forgotten than Vince Vaughn was a Funkhouser until his name was mentioned in this episode LOL.
This was, on a joke-by-joke basis, probably the funniest of the season so far. Especially the Tinkerbell bit and Larry arguing about the kid’s name at the synagogue.
They are totally setting up Larry to go to trial and/or jail and maybe undo the awful Seinfeld finale in some way.
Seinfeld finale was nearly perfect. How else do you end that show?
Yes! Seinfeld finale is hilarious. Larry is definitely setting up Curb to thumb his nose at the Seinfeld finale haters which is the pettiest (and funniest) thing imaginable.
That is not a view shared by basically anybody, including Larry David.
I don’t mind having an unpopular opinion and an appeal to the masses fallacy isn’t compelling. Again, I’ll ask. How would you have ended the show?
Maybe by writing a complete set of new situations and jokes??
Nuke them from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Best line was when LD was begging Susie to do a brick, with his third being that he paid for and went to the clinic with the woman for every abortion he has been involved with. Then shouting “that’s true!”
At this point, I would settle for AVC reviews to spell the actors’ names right at the bare minimum, but nope!Sean. Sean Hayes.
Larry belting out the twirling, celebratory JG Wentworth song should win him an Emmy. That should be the first thing that plays anytime anyone does highlight clips from this show.
I really thought the Tinkerbell thing was going to come back when Freddy’s girlfriend mentioned her co-worker was playing the character. I’m guessing they must have tried it and it just wasn’t that funny. Irma is so great. It’s hard for me to remember that Leon wasn’t always part of the show, and I feel like if it wasn’t ending Irma would quickly also reach that level.
“Meanwhile he’s racking up hat… er… strong dislikers”.
Great episode, but the recycling of plot lines continues — the whole “compliment an article of clothing and they’ll give it to you” was done in an earlier season with Ted Danson. The stacking of jokes on previous seasons is coming to a real crescendo here. Not really complaining, but it seems…weird
It’s Funkhouser.F-U-N-K-H-O-U-S-E-R.Like a house of fun. Like me. Until I died.