arranged date

It sounded, well, a bit like an arranged date.

“We were set up on a date, actually. It wasn’t a blind date because we knew each other, but it was an arranged date,” he said.

This episode’s title was “Telling Jokes/Set Up,” and I think C.K. must have intended the double meaning of the phrase “Set Up”—the arranged date with Laurie doubles as the long, awkward preamble to a grim punch line delivered in a dingy parking lot.

Desperate at the thought of missing the holiday, she cashed the order, bought and made her clothes in secret, and then, two days before the arranged date of departure told her father what she had done.