Elaine throws a baby shower for a friend who embarrassed George on a date years before, so he schemes to get revenge on her. Kramer convinces Jerry to get an illegal cable hook-up.
Written by: Larry Charles
Directed by: Tom Cherones
The nice thing about television as a medium is watching a group of artists develop a specific set of ideas together; this episode has a bunch of different concepts we’ve explored before and that can be seen on a continuum with where the show will go. One of the big ones here is the Seinfeld Weirdo, specifically because it’s underplayed here compared to previous episodes. Neither the Russian cable installers nor Leslie the pregnant performance artist are even trying to seize the scenes they appear in; indeed, the latter is largely an object the protagonists work around, and their weirdness is largely flavour to the plot. From a technical writing standpoint, neither of these characters make decisions that advance the plot; it’s George, Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer who react to them.
From this, we get some hilarious exploration of George’s very particular kind of insecurity. Having a blowhard who is tougher in his imagination than in reality is an old and obvious observation, so I’m deeply impressed with how both Jason Alexander and the writers find the least obvious path to get there. I’ve always loved the way Alexander expresses George’s various insecurities; he plays George as desperately needing control over every second of his life, and sometimes that means defensive shouting, sometimes it means throwing up a wall of a smile, and sometimes it means meekly apologising. The writing really supports him when he’s talking to Leslie, where he quickly realises he’s out of his depth and, rather than completely shutting down, simply and inelegantly switches from “I’m the toughest guy in the room” to “I’m the most charming guy in the room”. It’s not dropping a wall of ego, it’s switching from one expression of ego to another.
There’s also a few things setting the stage for later here. One is the groundwork for Seinfeld absurdism, with the whole dream sequence of Jerry getting shot being a particularly iconic example of the show’s wackiness; my favourite part is the reveal of the Russian cable guy as an undercover cop. There’s this inherently childlike view of the world embedded in it – Jerry’s whole fear of illegal cable being that he’ll get arrested for it and this is then amplified into a ridiculous shootout. You could argue this extends into the ‘social anxiety’ of the series, where much of the character’s fears are about being a bad person.
Even better, though, is the denser plotting. One of Seinfeld‘s most iconic elements is how plots would suddenly collide with each other in unexpected ways, and Larry Charles has remarked that this is an early and very crude example of that. It only really collides at the end, and in a way that’s more annoying to the characters than really absurdist, but aside from flowing in a way that’s both logical and funny, it lays the groundwork for the later real absurdity.
TOPICS O’ THE WEEK
- Great, weird moment in blocking: George gets up from the conversation for a minute and Elaine steals his seat, so he takes hers without comment. There’s also Kramer lifting his shirt up slightly to scratch his belly at the baby shower, making everyone uncomfortable.
- Jerry’s freakout when he’s arrested in the dream is a great moment of bad acting from Seinfeld weirdly improving the scene.
- A moment of poignancy with George Costanza: “Every woman on the face of the Earth has complete control of my life.”
Biggest Laugh:
Next Week: “The Chinese Restaurant”