When Elaine housesits for Jerry, his house gets robbed. He considers moving to a new apartment, causing resentments between Jerry, Elaine, and George.

Written by: Matt Goldman
Directed by: Tom Cherones

What a fun early episode! A lot of commentors were discussing the relatability of the cast, and there were a lot of great points – mainly it was to do with how the cast are genuinely neutral because, despite their reputation, they’re as apt to be selfless as selfish. That factors heavily here; the chaos happens here because nobody wants to be the selfish one and say “I will take this apartment”. Jerry lays it out perfectly well himself – he doesn’t want George to spend the rest of Jerry’s time stewing over his resentment at losing the apartment. It’s funny, actually – one specific thing I’ve learned in my adult years was to figure out when is the right time to be selfish, not only skipping over these kind of ridiculous games of politeness sumo wrestling, but because it does make other people feel good to be the selfless person in these situations. Although I think Jerry is correct in that George, specifically, would openly carry resentment at losing the apartment.

But another reason this cast is relatable is because they actually go through relatable situations. I live in Hobart, and the housing situation has been famously terrible my whole adult life – in terms of cost of living, I have frequently seen it considered one of the worst cities in Australia, and I personally have done a fair bit of house jumping, so I could see a lot of myself in Elaine happily admitting Jerry’s apparently terrible apartment is a step up for her. Sitcoms often work to make up absurd situations for their characters, which can undermine the ability to relate to what’s happening; Community is a sitcom I can think of that makes it work by pushing both the absurdity and the emotion to ridiculous levels (like getting us to care about a boat on land rescuing a fake-drowning man). Seinfeld manages to keep plausible while still being absurd.

If there is weakness, it’s in two places: the odds/evens scene, which falls a bit flat, and the fact that the end is more a fizzling out than a climax. I feel that the show in its prime would reach the same point much faster and then find what absurdity comes next. You can even hear the audience themselves laughing half-heartedly, as if they’re not quite sure what they’re seeing yet. The bright side is, we get a lot of good lines – interestingly, mainly from Jerry – and we already get the creative staging and blocking, with George inexplicably stealing an Oreo from Elaine as she speaks. We even have the first instance of an important part of Seinfeld iconography: Kramer sliding into the room!

TOPICS O’ THE WEEK

• Jerry being all smug about packing his case in front of Elaine is some classic ‘man annoying a woman intentionally’ comedy.
• I’ve never been robbed in my entire life. Partly it’s from being friends with the guys who would rob people, but also crime above petty vandalism is pretty uncommon where I’ve lived. The closest I’ve come is dropping a thousand dollars out of my pocket, and even then I found it again.
• We also have some of Jerry’s basic good acting: when he’s smug and when he’s upset.
• “What do you tip a wood guy?” Such an American line.

Biggest Laugh:

Next Week: “Male Unbonding”.