Summary
“Artificial Fruit” builds to farcical chaos as Larry’s credit card goes missing, and he continues to annoy everyone he meets — including survivors of sexual assault.
This recap of Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 10, Episode 3, “Artificial Fruit”, contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
With his new coffee shop ready to open, Larry means business. But it isn’t all about coffee — his game-changing “spite store” needs some exclusive pastries, so “Artificial Fruit” opens with Larry recruiting his old buddy Chulu (William Stanford Davis) to rustle up some scones in the war against their apparently mutual enemy, Mocha Joe.
Meanwhile in Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 10, Episode 3, Alice (Megan Ferguson) and her lawyers are out for blood after the side sitting debacle. Once again Larry’s lawyer recommends a settlement and once again Larry is aghast. Not only is he expected to make a ginormous donation to Survivors United, Alice’s charity of choice, but he’s also to make a speech at the event explaining how he has evolved from the experience. Larry also continues to infuriate his lawyer, this time by eating one of his decorative apples and then dropping the half-eaten fruit in the wastepaper basket — an “unlined receptacle” and thus obviously not a garbage can. This debate about real versus artificial fruit and exactly what constitutes a bin carries on throughout the episode with various hilarious payoffs.
Throughout much of the episode, Larry takes his new scones on tour. First, he visits Jeff (Jeff Garlin) and Susie (Susie Essman), where he discovers some actual artificial fruit of the kind his lawyer should be using as decoration, and also a picture of himself, Jeff, Susie and Cheryl (Cheryl Hines) from many years prior. He demands that Susie take it down since it’s like looking at “a Confederate war monument”, but she refuses to rewrite history — a convenient choice of simile considering that, as we learn in this episode, Larry’s arch-rival Ted Danson is starring in a new movie as Robert E. Lee.
Next on the taste-testing list is Andy (Richard Kind), who doesn’t like the scones. But his wife Cassie (Lisa Arch) is thrilled by Larry’s donation to Survivors United and also asks him to contribute a “doodle” that can be auctioned. It apparently doesn’t matter about its quality and thus he puts no effort into it whatsoever, which will come back to bite him later. When he throws the remains of the scone in their decorative kitchen bin, they both get annoyed with him — artificial fruit and now artificial bins. Whatever next?
Larry next visits Richard Lewis in Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 10, Episode 3, who refuses to try the scones, and comments on Larry’s sweater — it isn’t the first time someone has done so in “Artificial Fruit”, and Larry is so sick of the painful memories associated with it (Cheryl bought him it) that he gives the garment to Richard. They argue over who’s paying for dinner tomorrow, visibly stifling their laughter the whole time, so Larry goes to the restaurant to try and leave his credit card there, ensuring he can pay. Here begins the funniest running gag of the episode, about the accent of the staff, one of whom, Francisco (Esai Morales), Larry goes to visit at the visitation of his dead aunt when the host (Luis Fernandez-Gil) refuses to take his card.
Unfortunately, Richard has had the same idea, and the two start wrestling at the visitation. Richard ends up paying for dinner.
At the Survivors United fundraiser, Larry meets Laverne Cox, who is introducing him, and asks her a variety of painfully awkward questions about transitioning. Cassie and Andy turn up and Cassie is furious about his no-effort doodle, comparing it to Christine Lahti’s work of art. Larry later argues with Christine about this, justifying his advocacy of women as the enjoyment of pursuing them, and defending the idea that a doodle is supposed to have no effort put into it — that’s entirely the point of a doodle. Christine thinks this smacks of white male privilege, but he assures her she’ll be eating her words after his speech.
She won’t, obviously, since the speech becomes a catastrophe before Larry has the chance to say anything when he refuses to hug Laverne Cox, who earlier refused to hug him because she has a cold. But it’s enough to condemn Larry, who is pelted by the audience, which includes an astounded Alice. In the aftermath, she wants a personal donation on top of his charity one, and Larry’s suggestions to regain public face — which including making out with, dancing with and getting into bed with Laverne Cox — are shot down by his lawyer, who suggests one final meeting with Alice and her legal team. He also suggests Larry try another apple, at which point he chips his tooth on the artificial fruit. After attacking a cardboard Ten Danson cutout with a broom and accidentally hitting Jeff in the mouth with it, and after Leon (JB Smoove) chipped his tooth on a fake apple that Larry had placed in the house, all three characters sound suspiciously like the restaurant staff who have accidentally financed a wake with Larry’s credit card.
Naturally, chaos erupts in the wake when Larry, Jeff, and Leon arrive to confront Francisco. After being accused of mockery and disrespect they’re all thrown out and dumped in the garbage, calling back to the fake bin in Andy and Cassie’s kitchen. The scene even loops back around to Larry’s belief that eggs can’t be served without toast. for no reason other than it can.
Just when you think things can’t get any worse, Larry runs into Alice before their meeting. He tries to explain to her how good his speech at Survivors United would have been — he used to have a poster of Gloria Steinem on his wall because she was “very attractive” –and offers her a scone, which she reluctantly accepts. Unfortunately, just as everyone has been insisting throughout the episode, the scone is too dry, and she starts to choke. Larry, too nervous to touch her in order to perform the Heimlich Maneuver, allows her to collapse just as the elevator doors open.
