The Goldbergs – A Fish Story

By: Ariba Bhuvad

Back in the 80s Erica (Hayley Orrantia) loved music and her singing. However, when she found no success with it, she gave it up for good–until Geoff (Sam Lerner) brought it up again. He scored them tickets to see the Go-Go’s, but Erica isn’t too interested in going. Her lack of interest worries Geoff who tells Erica she hasn’t been the same since she turned her back on music. It used to bring her so much joy and now she’s just “frowny.” But she wasn’t hearing Geoff out with anything he had to say, until she heard an all-female a cappella group singing in the quad. 

The group’s name was “Molly Sing-Walds” and they were holding auditions according to their team leader, Lisa Levine (Anna Grace Barlow). Barry (Troy Gentile) was incredibly smitten over. So much so, that he fought Geoff for a flier and decided along with Erica, he would try out too. 

Back at the Goldbergs’ house Murray (Jeff Garlin) is fighting with the VCR to make it work and hitting it hoping that it would help. It was how he was with all technology and Adam (Sean Giambrone) and Murray would often get into fights over it. Well, they’d get into fights over everything but it got really bad when Murray couldn’t work the dot matrix printer. 

Beverly (Wendi McLendon-Covey) didn’t realize how bad Murray and Adam’s relationship was until the Kremps – Virginia (Jennifer Irwin), Chad (Jacob Hopkins) and Charles (Chad Kremp) – came over. Chad and Charles had gone on a fishing trip together and caught a giant fish that they wanted Beverly to cook. Beverly was shocked to hear that the boys went on a trip together and seeing how much Adam and Murray fought it gave her an idea. 

Erica is very nervous for her audition, but as always Geoff is her number one supporter. And with reason because Erica slayed the audition and was invited into the group. However, Geoff immediately reminds her that she couldn’t take things too seriously and needed to be nicer about it. She had a tendency to take too much control over things and make it not as fun as it was meant to be. And Erica does exactly that when she takes over and tries to boss the group around over a fundraising event. When it got to be too much, Lisa kicks her out of the group.

Out of spite Erica decides she will start her own a cappella group and holds auditions in her room. Unfortunately, the auditions go horribly and Erica finds herself trying to seek Barry’s help in recruiting the JTP – Andy (Matt Bush), Naked Rob (Noah Munck) and Matt (Shayne Topp). As it turns out, Barry was hoping to win Lisa’s affections so he had decided to start his own group. Instead of two different groups, they join together to make one big musical super group. 

Hoping to bring Murray and Adam together, Beverly tricks them and plans an entire camping trip for them to go on. She really wants them to bond and this is the only way she knows how to make them do that, while trying to look better than the Kremps. Instead of actually going on the trip, Murray and Adam go to a local store and pretend that they went camping. Adam films the whole thing and shows it to Beverly who believes every moment of it. Unfortunately, it all backfires when she invites the Kremps over for dinner and they immediately point out that the fish they brought home couldn’t have been from the lake. Adam comes clean about their lie, which makes Beverly incredibly sad because Adam and Murray don’t have a relationship. 

As expected the JTP are not a group of talented singers, which frustrates Erica to no end. She lashes out on Geoff for bringing her back to music and making her remember that she didn’t succeed at her biggest dream. She had gotten over it, but he brought it all up again.

To try and appease Beverly it seems Murray and Adam set up a camping site in the backyard with tents and sleeping bags. It’s not the best situation, but they end up enjoying it and making Beverly happy in the process. 

In the pursuit of reminding Erica the joy music brought in her life, Geoff shows her a picture of her younger self with braces and a mic singing. She doesn’t believe she is that girl anymore, but Geoff says she is and she should have some space for joy in her life. And with that, Erica apologizes to the a cappella group and joins them with the promise that she will just have fun. The all come together and sing at the fundraiser.