Rob Reiner is back onscreen in a way no one expected—as George Washington, taking a pointed jab at a future president in Larry David’s new HBO series. The late filmmaker and actor—killed alongside his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, in December in an alleged double murder for which his son Nick Reiner has been charged—appears posthumously in Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, executive-produced in part by Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground, per The Hollywood Reporter. In the episode that aired Friday, the day before the Fourth, Reiner’s Washington tells colonists he won’t seek a third term and declares that no president should serve more than two.
David, playing a fellow colonist, presses him on what happens if a future leader ignores that norm, then launches into an unmistakable—but unnamed—attack on President Trump, describing a narcissist who enriches his family, deploys troops against citizens, and is tied to a pedophile. Jimmy Kimmel, Trump’s “least favorite late-night comic,” turns up as another colonist, mocking a president thin-skinned enough to challenge his critics “as if he were a big baby,” per USA Today.
The improvised series revisits key moments in US history in tandem with the nation’s 250th birthday. Entertainment Weekly has behind-the-scenes photos from the episode provided by Reiner’s other son, Jake Reiner. The installment aired as Nick Reiner awaits a September preliminary hearing on two first-degree murder charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty.